DX-expeditions love their K3s. And I love my K3. But look closely at the MENU button and you will find the marks of someone who literally have put the K3 on their menu as well.

Neither has the BAND button escaped this. Judging from the size of the teeth marks it is perhaps not so hard to guess who did this.

This is our club station’s K3 and off weekends the only inhabitants there are mice, who seem to have taken their fancy on the soft buttons of the K3. They let every other piece of equipment alone, such as the Yaesu FT-1000MP, so there is definitely something special about the K3. I would guess that this was not part of the original Elecraft design specifications for these buttons.
The remedy is shown here: A custom-designed acrylic cover that is fitted on the K3 whenever it is not in use.

This article originally appeared on the LA3ZA Radio & Electronics blog.

Sverre Holm, LA3ZA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Norway. Contact him at [email protected].

Life is too short, that’s why in my opinion you should try to work QRP, hi!

This Friday afternoon me and my friend Stan UA3LMR (also RD2A) gave it a try again from Moscow park named “Fili,” a very nice and quiet place. This time my catch on the 20-meter-band wasn’t big at all in comparison with the previous outing which you can see in the video below.

Only two Russian stations from the Krasnodar region answered me during an hour and they were put in my log and then sent to the yearlong QRP marathon “Field Flowers.” An Italian ham didn’t make out my call, and New Caledonian’s didn’t ever hear my signal. Propagation and ultra low power are not only to blame. Probably during the work week is not the best time to find a lot operators working on the bands, on one hand. On another hand, the weekend’s bands are usually filled with contesters. What to do? To try whenever you can, of course.

In my point of view, the results of working QRP may sometimes be unlucky, but you will be always happy with the process!

73 and see you on the bands!
Peter R2ABT

Peter Dabizha, R2ABT, is a special contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Moscow, Russia. Contact him [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.

Every fall, I take the deep-discharge marine battery out of the pop-up camper and put it safely in the basement for winter storage. I’ve never used it for ham radio purposes, mostly because I’ve never needed it and it’s tied up for most of the summer.

Recently we had a “long-ish” power outage (not uncommon during snowy, windy Maine winters). While we had plenty of heat from the fireplace, it didn’t take long for the batteries in our various phones and tablets to kick the bucket.

Luckily, Verizon’s data network is very robust and almost never goes down — even during extended power outages. Other than listening to the local ham radio repeaters and public safety scanner traffic, we rely on Internet access to check on power restoration and keep track of the weather.

I figured it was time to put that unused high-capacity battery to some good use in the off-season.

I decided to order a 12-volt plug socket with eyelet terminals. There were quite a few choices on Amazon but the reviews of the NOCO GC018 struck me as particularly good and I didn’t have to wait for it to arrive from China. The price was right at just under $7 shipped (with Prime) and 232 great reviews didn’t hurt, either.

I wasn’t familiar with the NOCO brand, but what immediately impressed me was how well made it was. It feels like it will last awhile and the connections are very solid. The 3/8″ eyelets aren’t flimsy and they’re low-set to minimize bending. Unlike other options, it has an in-line 15A blade-type automotive fuse which I usually keep on hand. The fuse is well-protected from moisture and the socket has a durable end cap.

I wouldn’t plug a 100w HF rig into the socket, but a 25w mobile radio should’t draw more than 10 amps. A small “pocket-sized” 175-watt inverter would work great with this setup.

To create my charging hub, I used a little Bestek splitter with two 12v sockets and two 5v USB outlets (one 1.0A, the other 2.1A). I would’t use it to power anything with a substantial current draw, but it works great for charging multiple low-power devices. While a 12-volt cigarette lighter socket isn’t the best connector around, it’s the defacto standard for 12-volt consumer devices. Just don’t charge the deep-discharge battery indoors!

My rough math says the battery should be good for well over 150 hours of continuous phone charging. That should last us for most any power-free scenario short of complete and utter societal breakdown — and if that’s the case, I probably won’t be needing my cell phone!

What does your household emergency power setup look like?

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

The long-awaited tenth episode is finally here.

txfactor.co.uk

Mike Marsh returns to his old school in Ottery St Mary, Devon to learn how science lessons have changed since he was a lad.

Bob keeps his feet firmly on the ground in his native Cornwall to see why the letter ‘K’ has been making its presence felt. While he’s there, he visits Goonhilly Earth Station to meet Arthur, the satellite dish that made history in the early 1960s and its modern-day equivalent.

Steve Venner G0TAN shows us the ins and outs of the Yeasu FT-991 all-band transceiver.

And the folks at TX Factor make a plea for help.

Hope you enjoy it!

73

TX Factor Team

Nick Bennett 2EØFGQ co-hosts TX Factor with Bob McCreadie GØFGX and Mike Marsh G1IAR. Contact the team at [email protected]

Back in 2007, when I first experimented with single-yagi 2m moonbounce, I constructed an interface that would allow my aging laptop to communicate with my equally aging Icom 821 transceiver.





Back then, the shack's old Toshiba laptop (running Win98SE) had a serial (RS-232) communications port and my homebrew interface would let the WSJT software key the PTT line, as well as handle the required 'in' and 'out' audio.

My Homebrew Radio-Computer Interface

Courtesy:  KK7UQ

Fast forward to 2016, when the monthly sight of a full moon rising over the ocean, once again refuelled my interest in trying some possible EME with my 9 el yagi ... but, like the dodo bird, serial ports have long vanished from most new computers and a new way of keying the 2m radio would need to be found. I would also need some method of keying the PTT line of my HF transceiver, should I wish to build a 630m transmitting converter for modes such as JT9 or WSPR.

The 2m Icom has no audio VOX , so to key the radio via the WSJT audio tones, I would need to build a simple VOX system that would key the PTT-line. All things being equal, I didn't really like this idea since it would likely result in 'hot-switching' of the changeover relays and eventually lead to problems.

I investigated the alternative method of hard keying the PTT via the USB port, using a USB-to-serial port adapter, but these were not entirely without problems either. It seems that certain chipsets were worse than others but the FTDI style were less prone to compatibility problems.

I also considered purchasing a Signalink USB interface which would take care of the PTT keying as well as the audio. After researching the Signalink, I found some disturbing reviews that indicated the onboard sound card could create some significant signal-to-noise degradation when used for weak-signal work ... such as EME. The generated noise would likely never be noticed when used on the noisy HF bands, which probably accounts for most Signalink applications, but on weak-signal moonbounce, every db is precious and an elevated noise floor from the sound card would definitely not be helpful.

Further research indicated a really nice line of interfaces being built by Johnny, G3LIV. He offers several models to suit various needs and none seem to include a sound card, which would eliminate the possibility of unwanted noise being introduced ... but before making a decision, I made one final attempt at finding a cheaper solution.

An E-Bay search for an FTDI USB serial port adapter brought up several offerings worldwide, with the majority being in the far east. I found one promising looking low-volume dealer in China, that not only offered the device for $11.99 with free-shipping, but also had a 100% feedback rating and no complaints, ever! What the heck. It was the right chipset, assuming it wasn't counterfeit, the price was right and the dealer looked to be doing his best to offer a good product ... I placed the order and three weeks later the adapter arrived.


The adapter was well packaged and included a small CD containing the necessary USB drivers for several different operating systems, including my newer laptop's Windows 7.


I plugged the adapter into an empty USB2 port and sent the device manager to search the CD for the needed files, which it quickly found and installed. The software created a virtual serial port, assigning the adapter to COM port 3. I then set the WSJT switching tasks to COM3 and connected my homebrew interface to the adapter via its DB9 serial connector. To see if the new adapter would really work, I instructed WSJT's JT65B software to turn on the transmitter before sending a test tone, which hopefully would key the PTT line ... and it did! It seemed that my $11.99 investment was doing the job perfectly. Thankfully, none of the online horror stories that I had encountered regarding USB serial port adapters, had been encountered.

If you need something of this sort, I can recommend this particular product as well as the E-Bay seller. If you are starting from scratch, the entire interface could be easily built, using new parts, including the USB adapter, for just a few dollars and I may, in fact, re-package everything into one compact box, USB adapter and all.

But hold on ... I think I see a big bright moon rising at the moment ... (cont'd)
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Ham Talk LIVE! Episode 2
w/ Don Wilbanks, AE5DW
Amateur Radio Newsline and Ham Nation

Thursday, 25 February 2016
9:00 PM Eastern Time (02:00 UTC)

Listen to this episode LIVE (and to all previous episodes) in the player below:
[spreaker type=standard width=620px autoplay=false show_id=1607081]

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].