It's a brand new episode of Linux in the Ham Shack! We know you're excited. We have a shiny new co-host in this episode and we talk about a whole bunch-a stuff: 100-year-old ham, high-power amplifiers, people who make more money than we do, SDR, broadcasting software, Ubuntu, DMR and so so so so much more. Thanks for listening. Qapla'!

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].

The batch of bureau cards last week included several cards from Europe and were probably the last I'll get for my Cycle 24 10m fun, using the homebrew Tri-Tet-Ten.


As mentioned previously, this rig was the culmination of wondering, for many many years, if I could get a single 6L6 to work well enough on 10m CW, using a 40m crystal ... quadrupling to 10m ... and still have enough useful output to work Europe! As well, the note would have to be 'acceptable' as I realized that any crystal chirping would be multiplied four times, during the quadrupling process.



The evolution of my eventual transmitter, is described in more detail here, where you can also hear what the tone sounds like. Suffice to say, the results were much more than I had ever hoped for and during the peak years of this past cycle, many enjoyable hours were spent on 10m CW with my one tube tri-tet crystal oscillator.

I guess I could always move down to 20m CW but, for me, this just doesn't have the same appeal or sense of satisfaction as using it on 10m or what I like to call, "the other magic band". Who knows what Cycle 25 will bring to 10m? I may get another chance yet, if the solar prognosticators are all wrong!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Not much to report from me lately. The weather was not suitable for portable operations, otherwise too busy or too tired to do anything “radio”. We decided to spend our last money on a trip to Europe this summer (necessary family visits, long overdue) and I am one to prepare way in advance.

“What radio shall I bring along?” was of course the first question I asked myself. But being wise I quickly changed it into: “What antenna shall I use?” Since I never worked with end-fed antennas I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn about them and try them out.

Let’s start with buying stuff: a seven meter fishing rod that fit in my suitcase cost US$20. A length of 30 meter strong light Teflon coated copper wire was about the same. Cut in two lengths of 20 and 10 meter it would cover 20 and 40 meters, hence End Fed Half Wave. For the impedance coupler I turned to M0UKD’s excellent website . End fed antennas are no rocket science: the high impedance of a half wave length of wire has to be turned into a low impedance that matches the radio. A tank circuit is used to optimize the power transfer of the transformer used for this. So I build a tank circuit with a 1:8 air core transformer and a 9-50 pF variable capacitor.

After another hard days work at school I went to the parking lot to do some initial tests before going home. I shot this impromptu video with my phone to show you the result.

So I built myself a Full Wave End Fed! It’s not supposed to be like this! With the 10 meter wire I got the same result: on 20 meters I got a dip, but the SWR wouldn’t get below 2.2:1. I didn’t check the performance on 10 meters, but I guess I will get a near perfect SWR there, too. Of course, on my workbench, using a 3300 ohm resistor as dummy load, I had no problem matching 40 and 20 meters.

I’m a bit baffled and unsure what to do next. I already tried some transformers using ferrite cores from my junk box, but non were giving me a tuned tank circuit (inductance too high). I want coverage from 40-20 meters and my capacitor has a range of 9-50 pF. The inductor should be 11 uH then and with a 1:8 ratio the transformer should make 3300 ohm into 51 ohm. The only thing I can think of right now is that my wire is not suitable, but why? As I said in the video, any suggestions are welcome. In the mean time….I’ll keep studying about EFHW antennas.

Hans "Fong" van den Boogert, BX2ABT, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Taiwan. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.

Listen more than you send

Web SDR station

Listen to machine generated CW

Morse Trainer app for Android

Sights and sounds

Richard Carpenter, AA4OO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from North Carolina, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

1. Why even bother with a backup, it’s not a business computer, I have no crucial financial documents, I don’t store any pictures on my PC………let me stop here and say “have you EVER had to re-install you amateur radio software?” I just did and have done in the past, all I can say is “it can be a real pain in the ass”. You find a new respect for….

• Getting your software to seamlessly work with your rig again.
• Hoping your Eqsl, LOTW or Clublog is up to date so you don’t lose contacts.
• Sending out emails to get passwords so downloaded programs I paid for will work again.
• All your software’s niffy macros you worked so hard to tweak are now gone.
• Revisiting the virtual comport software program that worked well and now you have to figure it out again….the problem being you forgot how you got it to work great last time.

2. So answering a loud and clear “YES” to the above question it’s time to check out the backup programs out there. I found lots of them and as stated earlier I wanted to avoid at all costs complicated ones. I chose Acronis 2016 and there are lots out there that I imagine are better or just as good but this is the one I chose. For me Acronis was easy to understand, walked you through your backup in detail and it worked!
3. Where was I going to back up too……….my new hard drive is partitioned but it makes no sense to back up on the same drive that could end up failing? I have a second drive in my PC (Seagate 1TB) and that was my choice.
4. Step 3 just seemed too easy and the more reading I did the more it was driven home……backup to more than one place and preferably 3 places! I ended up choosing my network Western digital 3TB external drive and a Western Digital passport USB drive. Oh and just for the record I have no connection to Western Digital…..:) From my readings one choice should be a “cloud” type storage. For me it was just too pricey and I have these drives at home and ready to use.

1. I did a full backup of the drive including system reserve portion. This backup will always be kept as is, this way I have a copy of the drive just after a clean install of the OS and all programs.
2. I have scheduled an incremental backup for once per month as I don’t change too much on my PC over the course of a month so I felt this length of time should be fine. I use Log40m and configured it to auto upload my QSO’s to club log, Eqsl and LOTW so I will not have uto be concerned with updating my log file it will be store in 3 places online.
3. Each time a back is done the program will perform a “validation” of the backup. Having said this I have found when a failed validation has happened and I run it again the backup will then pass? Not too sure what’s up with that and may need more investigation.
4. The PC is set to shut down once the backup is completed, this way I can leave and go to work.
5. I receive an email once the backup is done along with a report.
6. I did have the software set to repeat the backup if the validation fails but I found the software can get into a “loop” of backing up all day if a continued failed validation persists.

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

The postwoman was very kind to me last week, leaving five QSL's in two days, as well as a package of cards from the QSL bureau. It rather evoked memories of anxiously watching for the Saturday morning postman (do you remember when they actually delivered mail to your door on Saturday's!) as an 11 year old SWL, hoping that there might be another QSL for my attic radio shack wall.

Four of the cards were for recent 2m EME contacts ...








 ... and one was for 160m, confirming a winter CW QSO with Haiti, bringing my 160m DXCC total to 158 confirmed.



I have always loved QSL's, and looking back, the whole concept of collecting these small treasures was one of the things that initially attracted me to the radio world, when reading a magazine article about shortwave listening and collecting QSL's. I'm not so sure I love the QSL bureau though, but that's a whole other topic ...
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].