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Not strictly Ham Radio but worthy of a mention, I dropped into the BEC Fab Lab today to talk to them about laser cutting some cases for our clubs summer build. We’ll be doing something simple this year ( the Hans Summers, GoUPL Ultimate QRSS kit v3 – mine is on order) and I’m keen to tie in what we do with them as we could use their services and they could potentially open up amateur radio to a wider audience.

I was really impressed and can’t wait to get my hands on their 3d printer, I just don’t know what I ought to print…perhaps a callsign badge

BEC Fab Lab

1) Worked a few more DX stations today during lunch. The bands were decent again.Had QSOs with TI8/AA1M in Costa Rica, LZ2HR in Bulgaria and F6ALQ in France.  The QSO with Bernard in Soissons, France was a bit more than just your typical “599 TU” DX QSO. We actually conversed a bit! Wow …. Amateur Radio is actually well suited for conversation, don’t ya know?!?  Next few days look like rain, so I probably won’t take the gear with me to work tomorrow.

2) Got skunked in the 80 Meter Fox Hunt tonight. I almost worked Ray K9XE in Illinois as he had three out of the four characters of my call sign several times.  But he stated more than a few times throughout the hunt that he had S9 noise on his end. Oh well, he tried and I tried – no fault in that.

3) The date and time are set for the 2014 NJQRP Skeeter Hunt – Sunday, August 10th. You can check either  http://www.qsl.net/w2lj/, or the Skeeter Hunt page of this blog.  The exchange is a bit different this year. Instead of RST, I decided to go with the op’s first name instead. Just trying to be a little different this year. Oh, and Skeeter numbers will be given out starting on June 21st, the First Day of Summer – so please, don’t try to sweet talk a number out of me before then, OK?

Oh, and I had a Skeeter professionally drawn for this year’s logo. Here he is:

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

As you can see, I have 3 confirmation requests waiting. Though I like QRZ logbook, but when I want to confirm I have to fill out the QSO again. Before I had to check, and ready. Now I have to look up QSO data... etc Oh no... too much work. Or do I something wrong?

Most of the embarrassment has faded away, so I can write about it now. Having my Cubieboard up and running I went for the next step, connecting my TNC for APRS operation. The Cubieboard has a UART port, but the supplied cable was for a USB connection. I still had my serial converter from my Raspberry Pi and tried to hook it up to the Cubieboard. Either I made a short or some Volts went where they shouldn’t have gone, but all of a sudden there was smoke and that is usually not a good sign.

So now I have two empty cases on my shelf: one for the Raspberry Pi, one for the Cubieboard. Ah well, that’s life. Luckily these mini-PCs are not expensive, but to me also not cheap, so I will wait a while before ordering another.

A very big “Thank You” and a tip o’ the old callsign cap to Will NQ2W who sent me an e-mail letting me know that he had worked TX6G from his home near Albany, NY with 5 Watts on 10 Meters.

I just ran down the basement, and after figuring out the pattern, also snagged them with 5 Watts.

Thanks again, Will!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!