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The renovation of the G4ILO shack is about half completed. The wood for the new shelf module needs another coat of paint, then it can be built and everything put back in again. Unfortunately old age is catching up with me and I am just sooooo tired and have so many aches and pains from all the work so far that progress is (literally) painfully slow. I missed the talk on SOTA at the radio club on Monday evening because I would probably have just fallen asleep!

After the flying hiatus some items I ordered from China and Hong Kong are starting to filter through including the programming interface for the Motorola GP300 radio. It is a Maxton RPC-M300, pictured on the right, and it came with a CD containing the necessary programming software. (The software can also be found on the hampedia website, so please don’t ask me for a copy.)

The software runs under real MS-DOS, not a DOS window. My researches had already established that it doesn’t run properly on newer, faster computers, so I installed it on the oldest PC I had available, a 2002 vintage Toshiba Satellite 1800, which happens to have both a floppy drive and a serial port. It doesn’t have network access, so getting anything on and off it is a bit of a headache, but I still have a copy of a Windows 98SE install CD and the required boot disk, so I was able to use that to provide the MS-DOS access.

No instructions came with the interface. It’s obvious that it clips on the back of the radio, and the red and black wires are used to provide power, but there is no indication of what voltage to use. Some DIY interfaces that have been published use a 9V battery so I set the variable power supply to 9V. The other two plugs – one like a telephone plug and the other a 3.5mm stereo jack – are presumably for other radios that the interface can be used with, so I left them dangling free.

I applied power and the red light on the interface came on. I then tested communication between the software and the radio, and the green light flashed for a few seconds, then I got an error #2 “No acknowledgement.” I tried again, this time after switching the radio on with the volume control, but then I got an error #7 “Invalid opcode.”

I had read that the programming software may not run properly on any Pentium computer at all, due to its use of timing loops. One of the suggestions to slow a faster computer down is to disable the CPU cache, so I went into the Bios and did this. This didn’t make any difference to my inability to program the radio, but it did make Windows 98 take 20 minutes to load and be unusable once it has done so. Unfortunately I discovered this morning that I had somehow managed to set a password on the Bios which of course I don’t know, so now I can’t get back in to the Bios to re-enable the cache. 🙁

It seems as if I will have to give up on the idea of programming this radio myself. My only hope now is that someone at my radio club is able to help with this. Unless anyone has any other suggestions?

Today’s bad news is that the toothache that I’d had for about a week hadn’t gone away this morning, and after my dentist took a look yesterday and tried one thing to fix it that didn’t work, this morning I made an appointment with an endodontist to see if I needed to have a root canal on that tooth. The folks in his office were nice and managed to get me a late-morning appointment, which meant that I’d work from home in the morning (the endodontist’s office is only about 10 minutes from home, so going all the way to work in Secaucus and coming back made no sense) then head to the appointment. (The other bad news is that I did indeed have the root canal procedure done. The procedure itself wasn’t so bad, but now that the anesthetic has worn off it’s pretty uncomfortable.)


As usual,  when I work from home I usually leave that packet cluster up and running, and this morning was no exception. I saw a spot for Charlie, VR2XMT in Hong Kong on 20m, which is another entity that I still needed to work. I’ve heard Charlie before and even tried working him but hadn’t had any success. While working on some emails for work on my laptop, I tuned to the spot frequency and heard Charlie’s very strong signal. I called him several times but wasn’t able to get through, so I turned down the volume a bit and kept listening while working. After a while it seemed that there weren’t as many callers, and in fact it got to the point where there seemed to be nobody calling at all, so I gave my callsign a few times in response to Charlie’s “CQ”, and he responded to “the station ending in Echo Bravo Kilo”. I figured that he might have been calling me so I called phonetically a few more times and sure enough, he was calling me. We exchanged 5×5 signal reports, I thanked him, and I had a new one in the log!


Unfortunately, Charlie doesn’t participate in Logbook of the World, but since this is an all-time new entity I would have been sending for a paper QSL card anyway, which I will get in the mail very soon. It’s always great to work a new DXCC entity, and it was especially great to have worked my 2nd new one this year within less than a week of working the previous one.

The season of Linux fests is now under way. The Texas Linux Fest took place a couple of weeks ago. By all accounts, the turnout was excellent, the educational opportunities were plentiful and fun was had by all.

Oggcamp in the UK is next on the list. Then there will be ham fests and Linux fests all over the country and the rest of the world for the rest of the spring, summer and early fall. Linux in the Ham Shack will be represented at the Dayton Hamvention in May and at the Southeast Linux Fest in June. I’m also trying to start a new Linux fest called the Mid-America Linux Fest which will be held in early November. It’s possible that could be November of 2010, but it’s more likely to be November 2011. If you want more information about the Mid-America Linux Fest or are willing to volunteer your time or services, please check out the Web site at http://midamericalinuxfest.org.

And yes, I know this episode of Linux in the Ham Shack is late. Life has been very busy of late and I think all of our listeners for your eternal patience. We hope to see you at the live recording of Episode #037 on April 27th at 8:00pm.

73

Atlantic Single Operator.

• NO3M | 53 Qs | 39 Mults | 2,067 Points [NCC].
• N4AF | 49 Qs | 35 Mults | 1,712 Points [PVRC].
• W4OC | 49 Qs | 34 Mults | 1,666 Points [SECC].

n = 10 scores submitted in this division.

East Central Single Operator.

• N4OGW | 53 Qs | 36 Mults | 1,908 Points [ACG].
• K9BGL | 51 Qs | 36 Mults | 1,836 Points [SMC].
• W9RE | 51 Qs | 35 Mults | 1,785 Points [SMC].

n = 16 scores submitted in this division.

West Central Single Operator.

• WD0T (@KD0S) | 52 Qs | 37 Mults | 1,924 Points.
• K0AD | 48 Qs | 35 Mults | 1,680 Points [MWA].
• N3BB | 48 Qs | 35 Mults | 1,680 Points [CTDXCC].

n = 10 scores submitted in this division.

West Single Operator.

• KQ7W | 49 Qs | 35 Mults | 1,715 Points [Kaunas Univ of Technology].
• K0UK | 37 Qs | 25 Mults | 925 Points [Grand Mesa].
• KI7Y | 21 Qs | 14 Mults | 294 Points [WVDXC].
• K7SS | 1 Q | 1 Mult | 1 Point [WWDXC].

n = 4 scores submitted in this division.

NCCC in CA/NV Single Operator.

• K6VVA | 56 Qs | 37 Mults | 2,072 Points.
• N6RO | 51 Qs | 36 Mults | 1,836 Points.
• N6ZFO | 48 Qs | 33 Mults | 1,584 Points.

n = 7 scores submitted in this division.

Three more Qs in the log is enough and congratulations Ric, K6VVA on a stunning victory for his remote station while propelling the North California Contest Club into this week’s banner position!

His commitment to the fastest 30 minutes in RadioSport paid significant dividends. I’d call this a 12th round, gone the distance competition between Ric, K6VVA affectionately known as “The Locust” and Eric, NO3M.

Contest on!

On the road again… happy feet dance! K4UPG is loaded and ready for a good day by the lake operating the QRP To The Field event for 2010.

K4UPG ready to roll to QRP TTF site

Loaded with ALL the options!

Then came the wind knots in the antenna launching rig! I wanted to get a doublet up as high as possible. Took nearly 2 hours to get my antennas up in the air. LESSON LEARNED: It is really helpful to have another person along to help untangle all the knots that wire and string seem to make all by themselves.  Getting  the antenna up quickly is a key to portable ops. Grrrrr!

One of several tangled messes that delayed the antenna deployment

LESSON TWO: After a delayed start, I spent a lot of time moving my portable table to keep out of the direct sun! With temperatures in the upper 80′s it was HOT and direct sun causes my Sierra to drift a bit which makes qso’s more difficult. Need to get a sun shade setup and not waste time moving my position.

The band conditions were pretty poor and I did not hear as many stations as I had hoped. The ones I did work were tough going and seemed like others could not hear me responding to their CQ’s.  I didn’t even hear a lot of Florida QSO party ops, but sounds like others that were farther away did. In 5 hrs I managed three whole qso’s with TTF stations. I did hear one Polar Bear– Martin operating as VA3OVQ but he could not hear me when I replied to his CQ.

Warning sign about 30 feet from my operating site!

It was fun to be outdoors and playing radio! I did not get eaten by our neighborhood gator either! Maybe next time out will be better contact-wise.

Series Three Episode Eight of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast. News Stories include:-

• Rescue at Sea
• Belgium to New Zealand with ROS
• The Secrets Of Radar 
• Ham foxhunting season begins 
• AO-51 CTCSS experiment
• Ham helps victims of heavy Brazilian rains
• 3400 MHz allocation for Estonia
• GB3VHF antenna rigging completed
• Solar powered D-STAR repeater
• MB7PI increase APRS coverage
• Iran’s rejects jamming claim
• Scotish repeater problems solved
• WIA Centenary Award 
• Changes to licence application procedures
• Entry level Amateur Radio licence for NZ?
• World DX Club introduces e-membership
• New test version of PC-ALE released
• Beta of SDR-RADIO

Your feedback, upcoming events and Martin (M1MRB) tells us about his day at the RSGB AGM.

Diana Eng at the QRP Ham Radio Convention from make magazine on Vimeo.

How-To: Set up an HF portable radio while hiking from make magazine on Vimeo.

Diana Eng, KC2UHB is gifted talent. I have watched a zillion ham radio related videos and, like SQ8X, Diana is well spoken in addition to an editing team who crafts a crossover message that is a credit to ham radio.

Sometimes, serious talent is found outside the box of conventional thought and, Diana is not industry standard. In fact, because she is not inside the box, her passion for ham radio exceeds that of the tired formula. Her biography speaks to a highly motivated individual who has taken on the establishment and wins.

If CQ and QST have not then Women’s Wear Daily, Wired, and Craft magazine have.

73 from the shack relaxation zone.

See Also.
Diana Eng | Fashion Nerd.