AmateurRadio.com

Yesterday I sold all of my HF radios. At this moment, I have zero radios capable of transmitting below 2 meters.

It started off because of an advertisement in QST, and then a visit to AC9S to see his Flex 6700. I became obsessed with SDR, reading everything I could and watching youtube videos of hams around the world. I had to have a panadapter…wait, I need 4 panadapters!

I settled down a bit and got busy with other hobbies for a couple of weeks. A few contacts on PSK31 and CW, and I was back to being hot and heavy on a new radio – and one with all the whiz bang features. So on Friday I emailed Flex Radio with a list of my current HF rigs. Matt got back with me Monday morning with a quote for trading them in that wasn’t too far off the used market value. Well rats…time to get serious or drop this fantasy.

A little back and forth, and then a search of the online swapmeets led me to list my radios for sale online Monday night. By Tuesday morning they all were sold! Yikes! I ended up getting 25% more than the trade-in offer by selling myself, even when I took shipping and PayPal fees into account. So Tuesday afternoon while at the gym I took a break and called up Matt at Flex. I placed my order, and a new rig will be headed my way in the coming days. My old radios went out by UPS this afternoon. I’m currently a VHF/UHF only ham!

I’m hearing of hams that are giving up on HF, or even ham radio entirely due to the band conditions. Not me…I’m doubling down on this hobby by consolidating my HF capabilities into a Flex. I’ll let you know how that works out!

Michael Brown, KG9DW, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Illinois, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Yesterday I sold all of my HF radios. At this moment, I have zero radios capable of transmitting below 2 meters.

It started off because of an advertisement in QST, and then a visit to AC9S to see his Flex 6700. I became obsessed with SDR, reading everything I could and watching youtube videos of hams around the world. I had to have a panadapter…wait, I need 4 panadapters!

I settled down a bit and got busy with other hobbies for a couple of weeks. A few contacts on PSK31 and CW, and I was back to being hot and heavy on a new radio – and one with all the whiz bang features. So on Friday I emailed Flex Radio with a list of my current HF rigs. Matt got back with me Monday morning with a quote for trading them in that wasn’t too far off the used market value. Well rats…time to get serious or drop this fantasy.

A little back and forth, and then a search of the online swapmeets led me to list my radios for sale online Monday night. By Tuesday morning they all were sold! Yikes! I ended up getting 25% more than the trade-in offer by selling myself, even when I took shipping and PayPal fees into account. So Tuesday afternoon while at the gym I took a break and called up Matt at Flex. I placed my order, and a new rig will be headed my way in the coming days. My old radios went out by UPS this afternoon. I’m currently a VHF/UHF only ham!

I’m hearing of hams that are giving up on HF, or even ham radio entirely due to the band conditions. Not me…I’m doubling down on this hobby by consolidating my HF capabilities into a Flex. I’ll let you know how that works out!

Michael Brown, KG9DW, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Illinois, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Tied up with other radio happenings, I missed getting on EME during the moon's last two orbits of the planet. I was able to get back at it last week, with three days of unobstructed ocean moonrises as the moon travelled through its northern declination peak.

Conditions seemed unusually good and I was able to complete several contacts with my small station ... a single 9el m2 Yagi and an older 2m 140W brick amplifier. The Yagi is nestled atop my 50' tower's mast, between my triband Yagi, and Yagis for 6m and 70cm. The tower is located about 100' from the ocean and on these favorable moonrises, looks towards the moon directly over saltwater. The antenna appears to develop the full 'theoretical' 6db of seagain and performance seems fairly similar to what I would expect from a box of four similar Yagis.

Stations worked last week (all on JT65B) where: I3MEK, K9MRI, PA0JMV, WA3QPX, G4DML, EA5SR, and SP8NR. The first three stations had been previously worked but answered my CQ while the remainder where all new, representing 'initials' #84 - #87 using this simple system.

WA3QPX 4 X 28 el Yagi array

EA8SR's 4 X 9el Yagi array

G4DML's 4 X 8el Yagi array

K9MRI's monster array - 8 x 28el Yagis

K9MRI provided the best signal report I had ever received on moonbounce, a -15db and indicated that my signal was audible during our QSO!

WA3QPX represented a new 2m state, which made me wonder what my confirmed state totals had reached ... 26 now, including EME and terrestrial contacts. Interestingly, my 2m DXCC total also stands at this same number ... 26 confirmed.

With such a low ERP, I often think that I will eventually run out of stations that I can work on EME, yet I continue to see many new stations every time I get on the air ... likely enough to keep me challenged for some time yet.

I often hear stations better than they are hearing me so if I do run out of stations, the next logical step would be a modest 3db increase in my power by building a simple 300W amplifier. An extra 3db would probably open up a large number of new challenging target stations to work with.

I have a box of NIB 4CX250Bs and sockets that have been looking at me longingly for some time!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Tied up with other radio happenings, I missed getting on EME during the moon's last two orbits of the planet. I was able to get back at it last week, with three days of unobstructed ocean moonrises as the moon travelled through its northern declination peak.

Conditions seemed unusually good and I was able to complete several contacts with my small station ... a single 9el m2 Yagi and an older 2m 140W brick amplifier. The Yagi is nestled atop my 50' tower's mast, between my triband Yagi, and Yagis for 6m and 70cm. The tower is located about 100' from the ocean and on these favorable moonrises, looks towards the moon directly over saltwater. The antenna appears to develop the full 'theoretical' 6db of seagain and performance seems fairly similar to what I would expect from a box of four similar Yagis.

Stations worked last week (all on JT65B) where: I3MEK, WA3QPX, G4DML, EA5SR, SP8NR, PA0JMV and K9MRI. The first three stations had been previously worked but answered my CQ while the remainder where all new, representing 'initials' #84 - #87 using this simple system.

WA3QPX 4 X 28 el Yagi array

EA8SR's 4 X 9el Yagi array

G4DML's 4 X 8el Yagi array

K9MRI's monster array - 8 x 28el Yagis

K9MRI provided the best signal report I had ever received on moonbounce, a -15db and indicated that my signal was audible during our QSO!

WA3QPX represented a new 2m state, which made me wonder what my confirmed state totals had reached ... 26 now, including EME and terrestrial contacts. Interestingly, my 2m DXCC total also stands at this same number ... 26 confirmed.

With such a low ERP, I often think that I will eventually run out of stations that I can work on EME, yet I continue to see many new stations every time I get on the air ... likely enough to keep me challenged for some time yet.

I often hear stations better than they are hearing me so if I do run out of stations, the next logical step would be a modest 3db increase in my power by building a simple 300W amplifier. An extra 3db would probably open up a large number of new challenging target stations to work with.

I have a box of NIB 4CX250Bs and sockets that have been looking at me longingly for some time!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

In the latest episode of Linux in the Ham Shack, which is in fact better than the title would suggest, we tackle a bunch of different and interesting topics. There's information on driving while hamming, openness at the FCC, Belarussian nanosats, open-source documentation, Firefox returning to Debian, Chinese Linux distributions, things Linux doesn't have that it should, CW clocks and more. Thank you for listening and please donate and share our Hamvention 2017 funding campaign. Thank you!

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Has it been this long since I was on the radio??

My last blog post was over a month ago! What's the reason for this over due lapse........I have really not been on the radio or for that mater doing any thing radio what so ever. I have not fallen off the Ham radio wagon but have been busy with my other budding hobby... photography. My wife Julie is into photography big time has taken me under her wing. I have using my time to learn the in's and outs of our camera's (Nikon D800, D810 and a Lumix mirrorless) along with editing software such as Adobe Lightroom.  I'm begging to understand that "point and shoot" is the past and for me understanding the camera and the shot is my new learning curve. As you can see from the above picture ( Done with my iPhone and an instant fail in my dear wife's eyes) the roll top desk was  long overdue in opening. Today it was time to get down to some radio time. I setup the MFJ 1788 loop antenna on the balcony and flipped the K3 switch. I found myself on 20m and the band was in decent shape. I came across F6HKA calling CQ and I called him and he came back to me (with a few repeats  of my call) we had a nice QSO with the standard exchange. My mode of choice was CW, my report was 229 and  he was 559. The code speed was about 15 WPM and I must say even with the time away from the radio I found this speed very comfortable.  Before I knew it was time for Bert to move on as he had others waiting to make contact. I was thrilled to had made this contact and I soon after sent him an email of thanks. It's not news that the solar cycle is in the  down swing BUT I read some very encouraging blog posts over this past month...On March 7th John N8ZYA posted that he had contacted Australia VK3CWB with 5 watts and using an indoor antenna!!!
John also quoted VK3CWB regarding a great attitude to have:

"Its not the QRP which is important, it's the enthusiasm, endeavor, application and belief that things can be done simply which I really admire. And of course, if you run QRP there must be a persistence and a "never say die' attitude which is also most admirable".

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Has it been this long since I was on the radio??

My last blog post was over a month ago! What's the reason for this over due lapse........I have really not been on the radio or for that mater doing any thing radio what so ever. I have not fallen off the Ham radio wagon but have been busy with my other budding hobby... photography. My wife Julie is into photography big time has taken me under her wing. I have using my time to learn the in's and outs of our camera's (Nikon D800, D810 and a Lumix mirrorless) along with editing software such as Adobe Lightroom.  I'm begging to understand that "point and shoot" is the past and for me understanding the camera and the shot is my new learning curve. As you can see from the above picture ( Done with my iPhone and an instant fail in my dear wife's eyes) the roll top desk was  long overdue in opening. Today it was time to get down to some radio time. I setup the MFJ 1788 loop antenna on the balcony and flipped the K3 switch. I found myself on 20m and the band was in decent shape. I came across F6HKA calling CQ and I called him and he came back to me (with a few repeats  of my call) we had a nice QSO with the standard exchange. My mode of choice was CW, my report was 229 and  he was 559. The code speed was about 15 WPM and I must say even with the time away from the radio I found this speed very comfortable.  Before I knew it was time for Bert to move on as he had others waiting to make contact. I was thrilled to had made this contact and I soon after sent him an email of thanks. It's not news that the solar cycle is in the  down swing BUT I read some very encouraging blog posts over this past month...On March 7th John N8ZYA posted that he had contacted Australia VK3CWB with 5 watts and using an indoor antenna!!!
John also quoted VK3CWB regarding a great attitude to have:

"Its not the QRP which is important, it's the enthusiasm, endeavor, application and belief that things can be done simply which I really admire. And of course, if you run QRP there must be a persistence and a "never say die' attitude which is also most admirable".

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].