AmateurRadio.com

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

As most know today is Superbowl Sunday and most if not all are watching the game and for sure the half time show. I wanted to include ham radio in my Superbowl Sunday, so I was able to have radio to my left and the football game straight on in front of me. I made three contacts all State side North Carolina, Michigan and Missouri. I did have another op deep in the noise floor trying to contact me after one on my contacts ended. After several tries it just was not going to happen so we both moved on. The bands I stayed with were 20m and 30m I am not sure what the condition were like on the bands but I was being heard in the U.S. according to the reverse beacon network.  No huge distances were made this evening but I was able to get a good morse code workout.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

There’s two ways I learn best – studying other people’s mistakes, or making my own mistakes. Today I was the subject of the mistake. My Astron power supply has two meters on the front…one for voltage and one for amperage. I noticed a few weeks ago that the ammeter was reading way too high. I rechecked the voltage, and all was fine. My loads hadn’t changed, and my other ammeter wasn’t showing anything amiss. I cracked open the case and found the simple pot to adjust. Since I needed to put a load on the supply to set the ammeter I left the AC plugged in. Just as I was connecting up the load, I dropped a lead. Well crud, that wasn’t a nice snap or crackle. I blew the AC fuse, which was quickly replaced. I went on with the procedure, buttoned everything back up, and went to check out the radios. Unfortunately it wasn’t just a fuse that gave up its magic smoke. My Elecraft KX3 refused to power on. Sitting back a few minutes and thinking through what had happened, I realized I had just exposed my beloved radio to 120V across its DC input. I opened up the KX3 but didn’t see anything obvious that I was up to servicing – but I did sniff the board and caught a whiff of magic smoke. A few google searches, a visit to the yahoo group, and the KX3 is packed in a box readied for a trip back to Elecraft. Another mistake, another learning opportunity. And did you know that magic smoke comes from $100 bills? It must, because that’s what it costs when I have to have other people put it back in my radios.

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

I'm not trying to brag here, or toot my own horn. But by virtue of living in New Jersey, I can't even count how many times I've worked into the Caribbean with 5 Watts or even QRPp power. Reaching that part of the world has NEVER been a problem for me.

Until, possibly, now.

K1N should be starting up very soon. Navassa Island is nestled  comfortably in territory that I have always reliably communicated with. But this little spit of land is so high on the DX wish list, that it rivals North Korea on some DX'ers most wanted list.

I expect nothing less than pandemonium in the near future. Expect mile wide pileups on the HF bands as everybody and their uncle try to work this DXpedition. So, while 5 Watts has never failed me up to now, I haven't decided my approach to K1N, yet. If I decide to jump into the fray very early, it will be with 100 Watts. However, I may also wait for the second half of the expedition, when a 5 Watt attempt may be more doable.

UPDATE: K1N is on the air! I am listening to them on 40 Meters on 7.023 MHz, Currently the pileup is going past 7.035 MHz.  I think there might be an issue for the 40 Meter QRP Fox hunt Tuesday night.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP  - When you care to send the very least!
Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

You might remember that before Christmas, I missed the opportunity to try receiving some SSTV pictures from the ISS. Although I missed it, I took the chance to get the SSTV program working with the FT-8900.

At the end of last week, I learned that there would be some more SSTV activity from the space station, so was keen to try it out.

It worked really well. Some images were better than others and others were better than I expected them to be. A real surprise was a surprisingly good decode from a pass when the ISS was a modest 1 degree over the horizon.

The best images were from high elevation passes though. As ever the gear was simple, V2000 vertical, FT-8900 and MMSSTV on the PC.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

You might remember that before Christmas, I missed the opportunity to try receiving some SSTV pictures from the ISS. Although I missed it, I took the chance to get the SSTV program working with the FT-8900.

At the end of last week, I learned that there would be some more SSTV activity from the space station, so was keen to try it out.

It worked really well. Some images were better than others and others were better than I expected them to be. A real surprise was a surprisingly good decode from a pass when the ISS was a modest 1 degree over the horizon.

The best images were from high elevation passes though. As ever the gear was simple, V2000 vertical, FT-8900 and MMSSTV on the PC.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].