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Series Seven Episode Ten of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, Martin (M1MRB) and Colin (M6BOY) discuss AllStarNet Infrastructure and Martin (M1MRB) dicusses Mobile Hands Free.

• Radio Hams keep 'Queen Mary' wireless on the Air
• Ofcom RF spectrum map
• Taking Amateur Radio to near the world's roof top
• AMSAT-India VO-52 completes 9 years in orbit
• Ten-Tec Merges with RF Concepts/Alpha Amplifiers
• New technique to manufacture super-capacitors cheaply
• New 472-479khz spectrum allocation for Amateur Radio in Canada
• How to reinstate a lapsed UK Amateur Radio licence

This electronic keyer is the only one I had in years. The ETM-2b is ready for the ham radio museum and is 38 years old and still doing its job very well. I made a lot of qso’s over the years with this keyer. I can’t say good bye to this keyer. It will be companion until the end.

In the late afternoon I started WSPR on 6 meter. I was spotted by PA3MET 13 times. You can see the doppler effect or air plane reflection because between our QTH's is Amsterdam airport Schiphol with a lot of air traffic.

No radio today because it's my birthday and a lot of family and friends are coming to visit me.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve managed to steal away to the machine shop and continue to work on mounting the Schurr Einbau mechanism. I found a piece of polycarbonate in my scrap bin to make the interface between the Einbau and the base. It turned out that the mounting holes are tapped M3-0.5 so I had to make trip to Ace. While I was there, I picked up some brass screws also. Total cost of the project is 52.99 USD. I bored the holes in the base today with the milling machine and tapped them when I got home. Couldn’t resist putting it all together even though I haven’t finished polishing the base or the polycarbonate plate…

I have had a couple of comments regarding the 80m coil for the homebrew Buddistick.  I had a few minutes today to set it up and try to get it tuned into 3.897.5 which is the frequency for the Arkansas Razorback Net. I think the 80m band might be difficult for this antenna. I was able to get it tuned to the right frequency with a SWR of about 1.4. But the low SWR “width” is not very wide. It won’t cover the entire 80m band without having to adjust the radial in or out.  So I think this would be a very narrow bandwidth antenna on this low of a frequency.

This is the note I got from Budd when I asked about 80m to begin with:

The homebrew Buddistick works well on 80 Meters. Use PVC couplers to allow yourself to go to one inch OD for the coil. The coil length I used Is 11″.  Use the same wire suggested for the other coils….insulated wire. Same gauge. If you wind 110 turns on that one inch form, that coil will be about 9 inches long.  The single elevated radial will be about 66′ long and the wire should be stored on a kite line winder.  This coil, with a Long Whip (9′) on top, should resonate on the bottom end of 80 Meters.  Try that info and tell us where it resonates. Your final adjustments will be on the radial. If you want to go up to say 3900 MHZ, take some turns off the coil after you make your initial measurements.
Budd

So the narrowness of the SWR curve was expected. I did turn on my radio to see what I could hear,  but tuning through the 80m band, I couldn’t hear anything.  Not being familiar with 80m, I don’t know what kind of activity to expected at 4:3o in the afternoon.  I won’t give up. I’ll work on it again but it’ll be a few days.

I am still happy with the homemade Buddistick antenna and my homemade Buddipole. I have also made the homemade Buddipole. I will write a post about that in the near future.

K5UNX

Join W5KUB for live coverage of Hamvention 2014 beginning at 1300 UTC today. Astronaut Douglas Wheelock, KF5BOC, will be the guest and co-host on both Friday and Saturday morning. Should be a lot of fun, and definitely entertaining!

Live stream @ http://www.amateurradio.com/live

If you enjoy the live webcast, don’t forget to drop a small donation to support W5KUB’s efforts.

I tried SIM31 again, and it sounds familiar like PSK31 and it is a way. But it uses FEC (Forward Error Correction) and it copied signals very well. Much better than PSK31. Good for QRP work. You also can run the software in automatic mode. First I thought, why should I make a contact with a computer. But I did. Today I worked RA3AL/QRP (see photo of his shack) running 1 watt and I was using 5 Watts on 20 meter. Perfect qso. Also worked RN9AZ Asiatic Russia 3500 km. I wonder what the mode will do on 2 or 6 meters. So, when you are in for something new, try SIM31.