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I had a slow radio weekend. After spending most of the week trying to get my weather station back up I finally succeeded and decided to spend time on an unfinished project instead of time behind the radio. We had our first thunderstorm of the year last week so the 1-wire lightning detector has be be done before the season really kicks off. The “radio” part was already done, but the 1-wire counter/memory part not. Maxim put everything in one IC, the DS2423P, which has a 6 pin TSOC package. I haven’t worked with SMD components a lot and never build a one-off circuit. Traditionally I would use the Manhattan style of building, but after a lot of thinking I decided to do the following: draw a lay-out of the circuit, put some copper tape on the back side of a PCB and cut out the lay-out. With solder paste the components can then be put into place and soldered on. The first step you can see on the photo below.
Now the only thing I am still not sure of is if it is wise to put the 100 nF capacitor across one of the tracks (after I coat it with conformal coating, of course). It would save me a bridge if I do it this way. I only have one DS2423P and they are US$10 a piece, so I can’t mess it up.

On Sunday night I still got my dose of radio fun. Just before heading for bed I tuned to 6 meters and heard AH2G/B with a lot of chirp, but coming in quite well. So far I have not heard anything on six this year, apart from some local hams, so this was a welcome change. I tuned around and 9M2TO came in very strong, so working him was easy. I also heard and worked 9M6ZAE. Some traces of VK8 stations and FK8CP, but he was calling SEA/ME and didn’t answer any calls from me or other Taiwanese hams. A pity, but at least I did work my good friend BX2AB, who was also calling CQ on six in CW. It made for a funny exchange: “BX2AB de BX2ABT BT GE OM Lee, 599 in Longtan BK”

http://youtu.be/uBlxRFszKRA

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

We had another cold snap hit us here with a wind chill in around -20C  it was time for some indoor radio activities. For some reason I settled in on 17m not a band that I frequent all that often, not sure why but never seem to stay long on this band. When looking at the P3 band scope the band did not look very active but as I slowly scanned across the band I came across some stations calling CQ. The first station was ZB2FK on Gibralter. There was not much of a pileup at the time when I made contact and I did receive a 559 from him and with 5 watts from an MFJ 1788 loop antenna I was very pleased with that contact. I then came across IW1DFU calling CQ again on 17m and I gave him a call he did come back to me but I had to repeat my call but again he gave me a pleasing 559 report. I then came across KH2L in Guam and he was in and out with the noise floor but I was very happy the loop was even picking him up! It was time to put the filtering of the K3 to use. I dropped the filter to 250 hz and added the Audio Peak filtering feature and that

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was all it took to bring him off the noise floor and into plan old CW. There really was no pileup to speak of but some where in line before me and I wanted to wait my turn. The propagation was such that his signal was up around S5 and then just at the noise floor. This is the exciting type of DX I like to try to work, it's a challenge and it could be hit or miss. It is very unusual for me to even hear signals from this part of the world but today at times he is S5. When given the opportunity I dropped my call and hoped for the best. Have you ever had this happen.......I for sure thought he was coming back to me and it happen to be the one time he was in the noise floor but maybe I was not at his end but at a possible S5. So I came back to him..........but it was not to be it was if the static was playing head games with me and coding VE3WDMmmmmm. To make a long
story short one of his contacts had spotted him on a cluster and then all hell broke loose!! My time was up as a HUGE pile started. I'm not saying QRP stations have not busted pileups but time was moving on and dinner was soon going to be on the table. KH2L maybe next time, I am not at all disappointed as these types of events help sharpen your skills and really allows you to become familiar with your radio. 
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Hi, AmateurRadio.com subscribers!

I’m Gary Pearce KN4AQ, and I produce videos for and about Amateur Radio at www.HamRadioNow.tv. I’ve just released Episode 137, with a pair of DXpedition talks from the Charlotte Hamfest: the 2013 Wake Atoll K9W operation, and last month’s FT5ZM Amsterdam Island mega-DXpedition. Maybe you worked these guys? Check out what’s behind the signals you heard.

Episode 136 (embedded above) is a talk I had with CQ Editor Rich Moseson W2VU on what’s happening up there. If you’re a CQ subscriber, you know it isn’t good. Print editions have been late, with the December issue being the last one most of us have received (January is “in the mail”). CQ-VHF, Popular Communications and WorldRadioOnline are being discontinued, with some of their content being absorbed in an expanded ONLINE ONLY section of the main CQ magazine called CQ-Plus. CQ will still be a print magazine, but only the online version will have the CQ-Plus content. These were painful but necessary steps to keep CQ afloat financially.

HamRadioNow is a tv show with sort of an identity crisis. Sometimes we’re a talk show, with interviews either on Skype or at hamfests. Sometimes we’re a “documentary unit” with field-produced programs about almost anything in ham radio. And sometimes we shoot forums and seminars, like the two DXpedition talks in Episode 137, and all of last years TAPR Digital Communications Conference.

We’re really a shoestring operation – just me and a few friends helping out. But even shoestrings cost money, so you’ll see me begging for contributions from viewers who like the show. Watch first, and if you like it, send a few bucks. In those 137 episodes are really about 170 programs (some of the episodes have two or more full-length programs that just seemed to go together). The programs are hosted on YouTube (www.Youtube.com/HamRadioNow) and Blip.tv (www.blip.tv/HamRadioNow). Blip used to port us to iTunes, but they just stopped, so we’re looking for a new route there. Until then, downloads are only by whatever software you can jeep to lift stuff from YouTube (against their wishes, but it’s fine with me). Our official web site is:

http://HamRadioNow.tv

We’ve been doing this for just over two years, so that’s more than one show a week. More to come, and we’ll try to announce each new one here on AmateurRadio.com.

73, Gary KN4AQ

Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, is the host of HamRadioNow.tv. If you enjoy this and other HamRadioNow programs, help keep them 'on the air' with a contribution. Contact him at [email protected].

WSPR today on 10 meter, 5 watts, end fed antenna.

Paul Stam, PC4T, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from the Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].

Good afternoon fellow bloggers between work, getting over a nasty flue bug and running around doing none ham stuff it sure has been a long time since my last post. I have been able to get on the internet and check out the blog posting of fellow bloggers.......BUT as for on air time is has just gotten away from me. I have had some opportunities to get on the rig and for some reason all hell with my PC would break loose. I like to run a PC to both operate my K3 and to log contacts. Since we have moved and I have setup the PC at our new location hoping all would be well.  It seems all the USB ports were not matching what the software was setup even though all was setup the same……PLUS my VSP manager program which provides me with virtual com ports it just for some reason went A.W.L from my PC! There has been more screw ups but the most recent and I hope the last was a request for a video card up date. I said yes and as it was loading it told me that most if not all of the updates would not apply to my PC. Well that would be a waste of hard drive space I  chose to not install the up date. I was then to restart the PC....sounds simple....WELL....the PC started in safe mode and to make a long story short I had to reload the the drivers for the video card, setup the two monitor option (which reminded me of how much a pain in the ass it was) finally setup the resolution as well.
So things are up and running and on Friday I was able to make a fast contact with LY10NATO. This as you guessed it is a special activity call pertaining to NATO.  The contact was made with 5 watts and my MFJ 1788 antenna. The weather here is still a winter wonderland with 15cm of snow on Wednesday, then it was temps of plus 9C on Friday and now this evening a cold weather alert has been issued! Anytime this winter wants to exit…… all the better.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

I hadn’t put the receiver on 145.825 and monitored the packet transmissions from the ISS digipeater for a while. Nice to do so over the last couple of days and see plenty of stations plotted on the map.

I haven’t been in shack at the right time to press the transmit button – but it’s just interesting to see what’s been heard

Gear is the FT8900 / V2000 vertical – UZ7HO soundcard modem software/UISS software

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

We have started another intermediate class both in class and distance learning. This course is primarily run on Edmodo. We have run a couple of classes on Edmodo and we think we have the concept correct now. So we have our weekly quizzes set and our 3 week homework assignments all loaded and ready to go.

In class students are also welcomed to join the distance learning students so missing a lesson is no longer such an issue.

Over the coming weeks I will be creating some companion videos showcasing the practical elements of our in lesson activities.

So far we have 5 in class and around 30 distance learning joining us for the next 10 weeks.

Dan Trudgian, MØTGN, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Wiltshire, England. He's a radio nut, IT guru, general good guy and an all round good egg. Contact him him here.