AmateurRadio.com

Never Quite Good Enough, Yet!

A few days ago I had a CW chat with a guy in Illinois; nothing note worthy about this, yet! W9XS, Ron is a VFB CW operator as evidenced by his perfect code even though he was mobile at the time of our QSO. I complimented him on his fist and he replied that he has been doing code ever since his novice days, so fast code was no problem for him. I said I was not that good a code operator to be able to drive a car and do CW at the same time, to which he replied, “I’m on a bicycle, not in a car”!

My mouth literally dropped open. /M on a bicycle and churning out perfect code. He uses an Icom 706M2G for his bicycle/m work and there is a photo of him on his bike at his QRZ web site. Look him up. I greatly admire this man! We ended our chat just as he pulled into his drive way, he said over the air.

I have been trying to become a good code operator ever since I became a ham. I’m better than I was, but no at good as I want to be. My problem is that I get distracted with other things, modes, ham radio building projects and CW takes a back seat. Once again, I determine to reach my goal of becoming a good code operator. I’ve done this before, only to become distracted yet again.

This time for sure!

de AA1IK

Geezer on the porch in Steinhatchee, Florida

ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! That is what you will probably hear a lot of when the Zombies attack. And with Zombie attacks on the rise, Scouts are preparing for the worst this Halloween season. They’ll be working with First Responders as well as public safety communications professionals and Amateur Radio operators to earn their radio merit badges as part of scouting’s world-wide Jamboree on the Air.

Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia

During the weekend of October 15th, Troop 7, from Coral Gables, Florida, will be learning about wireless communications equipment learning about all aspects starting with some of the basics and working into professional broadcasting, and also public safety. This is all for the annual Jamboree on The Air, sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America and The ARRL.

From the article at Southgate’s website:

The troop has invited local First Defenders to participate. “If there are Zombies around, we definitely think that the police and fire departments should be involved,” said Dan Deveson, an assistant scoutmaster with the troop. “We wanted to find a way that the boys could learn how the pros use their radios, and few things are so important to a 12-year-old as thwarting Zombie attacks.”

The troop will be broadcasting Zombie Action Reports around the world using amateur radio equipment provided by licensed radio operator volunteers. “In case of hurricanes, or Zombies, amateur radio operators often work with public safety professionals to provide community support. That’s exactly the sort of activity that modern scouting is all about,” said Deveson.

I gotta say, this is a pretty fun way to get the kids involved and to also have it educational. And plus, you can never tell when a freak Zombie attack could take us by surprise. So to Troop 7, I say “Well done!!” To to prepare more, I suggest watching Shaun of the Dead. There are some well thought out plans of actions in that movie should you find yourself in the middle of a group of brain hungry zombies.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

I just came across this fascinating post on Roger G3XBM’s blog.

The openings from Europe to Japan – and perhaps Europe to West Coast USA on 50MHz sound candidates for this. Many years ago when I was part of the Square Bashers Expedition Group that activated squares around the UK mostly for 144MHz meteor scatter, we found that we could work well equipped Scandinavian stations such as SM2CKR pretty much any time we wanted. At the time we thought it was ionoscatter, but perhaps not.

I’ve got some reading to do now. Thanks Roger!

I never did get the Spectrum Communications Off-Air Frequency Standard kit working. Now it is looking as though it would be a waste of time anyway as the BBC will be closing down the Radio 4 long wave transmitter that is used as a frequency standard.

An article published yesterday in the Guardian Online explains that the Radio 4 long wave transmitter uses valves (tubes) that are no longer obtainable. The BBC has the only ones still in existence. The transmitter uses a pair and they can last as little as one year. When the last valve blows, Radio 4 on long wave will become a thing of the past.

Building a new long wave  transmitter using up to date technology would cost millions which the BBC can no longer afford due to the need to cut costs as a result of the government’s decision to freeze the licence fee.

There are many other ways to receive the Radio 4 programming if the long wave transmitter closes down. But none of them involve a powerful 500kW transmitter whose frequency is maintained accurately enough to be used as a frequency standard.

Combined result RTX Saturday

I left WSPR running at 10m this weekend. Although there was a huge difference between propagation at Saturday and Sunday. Since my computer chrashed a couple of months ago this was the first time that I installed WSPR again and Saturday around 10:00 UTC I was finally on air with my usual 1W. A little late as I already heard several Japanese stations with big signals on both 10m and 12m. Anyway, my WSPR signal was heard from Australia to Africa and North and South America. I could note several new DXCC and I count 18 till now on 10m WSPR that received met 1W signal. As always I received a lot more, and there was something that was conspicuous. There were stations that transmit with 50W and stations that transmit with only 0,1W. I did remember what Paul PC4T wrote about the QRO stations that appear on JT65A as well. Then I thought why? Why is someone using that much power on QRP modes like WSPR and JT65 or even PSK? I think it is a matter of confidence. Confidence in your station and in your antenna system or even the propagation. Probabely someone that has no confidence in it will use more power so he is certain to be heard. It could also be something else, like a wall of QRM/QRN in very populated or industrial areas. Imagine you always have to struggle with S7-9 QRM on all bands and you occasionally spot something on WSPR or JT65? Using QRO could be a scream for others to do the same so it’s finally possible to QSO or spot a WSPR signal. I don’t know, I hope someone that use more then 5W on WSPR or JT65 can tell his story why? Most confident station this weekend on 10m was N4AU with 0,1W over 7337km (4559mls) my report -6dB. No confidence at all had DF4PV who was transmitting 50W and had a signal of +2dB. Later he switched to 10-1 and 5W, probabely gained some confidence after all.

After about six years of sporadic effort, I finally finished the W3NQN filter set by building the 10- and 15-meter filters over the past two weekends.  Now I can operate SO2R with impunity on all bands.  Several band combinations are still problematic, but those are problems that filters can’t solve.

Because the geometry of our home does not permit me to have a walk-behind station desk, I had to attach the filters to the mounting board by laying on my back with a right-angle drill.  That sort of thing is always a bit exciting!

Ever since I replaced my primary station computer (a decision that may be reversed soon—details in a later post), I desired to replace the remaining 19-inch Dell Trinitron CRT monitor with something lighter and smaller.  Mom and Dad were in town a few weeks ago on a much-needed vacation and we went to the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy facility near Dulles Airport.  This is only a few miles from one of the best used computer shops in the DC area—CedarPC.

CedarPC is nice because they’ll sell you “damaged” stuff at a discount if you don’t care about the damage.  I inquired about a 24-inch flat panel I had seen on the web site, but they could not find it.  They did find me a nice 20-inch flat panel that was just missing the stand and the price was right.  The missing stand was no big deal because I wanted to mount the monitor on an arm so I could bring it closer to the HF end of the station desk, tuck it in at the VHF end, or even swivel it out over the couch to watch a DVD.  Sold.

Monitor arms are generally expensive…at least 2-3 times what I paid for the monitor itself, often more.  So, I went to trusty eBay and found something designed for mounting televisions for $15 including shipping.  This did require some modification of the monitor housing and liberal application of wide washers to reinforce the plastic in the housing.  But, it was done with all junkbox screws and washers.