The last 8 weeks have seen me focus heavily on my CW with the CW Ops Academy. Around Christmas time I thought about signing up and then got off my back side and applied in early spring. The expectation was that I would be able to join in later on in the year as I’d understood it to be a busy course. Fortunately that was not the case.

So, with 8 weeks of CW laying ahead of me I’ve rather neglected many other things. But it has been worth every bit of effort. The course was run by Keith, G0HKC and had 3 other students. 2 from the UK and the other from Italy. The recommended 30 minutes of daily practice eluded me with all the usual distractions at work and home and I reckon I managed about 20 minutes on average. But even that saw my accuracy in receiving increase as well as the speed I could both receive and send. Additionally I can now head copy reasonably well up to around 20wpm which was impossible beforehand and we’ll above my expectations.

The ‘lessons’ were conducted over Skype twice a week for the full 8 weeks and gave us a chance to talk and compare notes as well as practice together. Keith was an excellent advisor and I will miss the lessons with him and my new CW friends. I have even dabbled in the CWT contests but the speeds are still a little daunting still.

Next up will be the level 3 after some more airtime. Look forward to sharing some slightly better CW from IO84. If you are looking to improve your CW then I can recommend the course entirely.

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 105 is now available for download.

George & Tommy’s Excellent Adventure v2.0. Dayton Hamvention 2017 from a new location. We catch up with longtime ALTV friend and new ham, Jeri Ellsworth. Plus visits with many old and new friends, and interesting new products.

2:11:59

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In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Dan Romanchik KB6NU, Chris Howard M0TCH and Martin Rothwell M0SGL to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episode’s feature is Yaesu FT-450D review.

We would like to thank Grant Porter, KG4SDR, John Boyer KF5FEI, Peter Caffrey, Chris Hayes 2E0XCH, Anonymous from UK and John Baggott K2BAG and our monthly and annual donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

• Morse code - The First Social Media

• Review of UHF spectrum at 410-470 MHz

• Radio Ham Saved Guns n' Roses Gig

• Fire Department Installs Shortwave Antenna

• 10-year-old UK Radio Ham

• Buildout of Nationwide First Responder Broadband Network Could Drive ARES Changes

• Portable RF Hacking Tool with a Sub 1GHz RF Transceiver, BLE and USB

• New 122GHz and 241GHz UK Distance Records

• CubeSat Workshop Presentations Available

In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Dan Romanchik KB6NU, Chris Howard M0TCH and Martin Rothwell M0SGL to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episode’s feature is Yaesu FT-450D review.

We would like to thank Grant Porter, KG4SDR, John Boyer KF5FEI, Peter Caffrey, Chris Hayes 2E0XCH, Anonymous from UK and John Baggott K2BAG and our monthly and annual donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

• Morse code - The First Social Media

• Review of UHF spectrum at 410-470 MHz

• Radio Ham Saved Guns n' Roses Gig

• Fire Department Installs Shortwave Antenna

• 10-year-old UK Radio Ham

• Buildout of Nationwide First Responder Broadband Network Could Drive ARES Changes

• Portable RF Hacking Tool with a Sub 1GHz RF Transceiver, BLE and USB

• New 122GHz and 241GHz UK Distance Records

• CubeSat Workshop Presentations Available

The Chinese Pixie transceiver operating at 7023 kHz has become very popular. It often costs less than 5 USD on Ebay. Like most Pixies it is susceptible to broadcast breakthrough and intermodulation. Much of this is caused by the keying circuit of the audio amplifier, the LM386. The cure is to move the muting diode from the power supply pin (no. 6) to the bypass pin (no. 7). I have described this in another blog post with title: “Using pin 7 of the LM386 to reduce BCI and add side tone to Pixie 2“.

Here are two pictures that show how this can be done for the Chinese Pixie. One needs an additional resistor in the range 10 – 51 ohms. If you can fit it, then use the large 51 ohms resistor that come with some of the kits (I think it is meant for a dummy load). I have used 10 ohms in the picture. It replaces the old R3 of 1 k. The diode D3 is not mounted in the holes provided, and instead it is mounted under the PCB with the minus (denoted by the ring) connected to where D3’s minus was, and the plus side connected to pin 7 of the LM386.

R3 is indicated by the lower left arrow, and the old placement of D3 is shown with the upper arrow

Arrow showing where D3 instead should be soldered. The minus, indicated by the ring, is to the left in the image

The post “Simple interference fix for the Chinese Pixie” first appeared on the “LA3ZA Radio & Electronics Blog.”

The Chinese Pixie transceiver operating at 7023 kHz has become very popular. It often costs less than 5 USD on Ebay. Like most Pixies it is susceptible to broadcast breakthrough and intermodulation. Much of this is caused by the keying circuit of the audio amplifier, the LM386. The cure is to move the muting diode from the power supply pin (no. 6) to the bypass pin (no. 7). I have described this in another blog post with title: “Using pin 7 of the LM386 to reduce BCI and add side tone to Pixie 2“.

Here are two pictures that show how this can be done for the Chinese Pixie. One needs an additional resistor in the range 10 – 47 ohms. I have used 10 ohms in the picture. It replaces the old R3 of 1 k. The diode D3 is not mounted, and instead it is mounted under the PCB with the minus (denoted by the ring) connected to where D3’s minus was, and the plus side connected to pin 7 of the LM386.

R3 is indicated by the lower left arrow, and the old placement of D3 is shown with the upper arrow

Arrow showing where D3 instead should be soldered. The minus, indicated by the ring, is to the left in the image