AmateurRadio.com

After the appalling weather of the last few weeks – the storm on Friday/Saturday was probably the worst windstorm I can remember here – today dawned sunny and still. And mild!

I decided to take advantage and see if I could make some garden portable satellite QSOs. The first useful pass was from FO-29. I decided to try it half duplex rather than dragging everything out for the full duplex kit. Perhaps I should have done! I called CQ but no QSOs. I did hear EA6VQ and a DL5 on CW (whose call I’ve forgotten!) quite nicely. Had I had the full duplex kit going, I could have hopefully tuned around and make the contacts. Never mind!

Next pass was SO-50. I’m not usually so optimistic about SO-50 passes at weekends as they can be quite busy and chaotic, but I thought I would listen anyway. CT2GOY was the first station heard, working a Frenchman. The QSO finished and I dropped my call in and worked him for the first time. Next station heard was EA6VQ – obviously having a satellite morning too! He had a couple of QSOs before I was able to work him, which I was delighted about – my first Balearic Islands QSO on satellite.

I missed the the next FO-29 pass somehow – doing a little work in the garden – and what a pleasure it was to be outside again! My last SO-50 pass of the morning and my window for activity was quite a low one up to the North – maxing at around 15 degrees. Those can sometimes be a bit of a challenge with my 5W and handheld gear but anyway, I heard a couple of SP stations that I missed and then worked OH2FQV – always a nice QSO.

We have to pop out this afternoon, so no more opportunity to be outside with the gear – but feels nice to have been out there!

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

The K3 doing it's work

I was able to get in a few hours in the ARRL CW contest this afternoon and  operated only on 15m. My output power was QRP 5 watts into my balcony mounted MFJ 1788 iso-loop. I was pleasantly surprised with the results I was able to make 40 DX contacts in 23 different countries. I was not able to make any 1,000 mile per watt contacts but I did come close at 4500 miles (using 5 watts). I found the noise floor to be just great and the EU stations were just booming in. There were some stations that did have trouble with my signal but over all exchanges were made first time.
My SWR was in around 1.4 to 1 and it was very simple to adjust the SWR as I went up and down the band. You just have to get the hang of tuning the loop and it is a simple push of the fine adjustment button and your all set to go. This evening I tried 40m and there was lots of EU stations but for some reason I was not able to make any contacts so after a short time I shut things down for the evening.
Tomorrow I am going to try to make some contacts with less than 5 watts and hopefully get some 1,000 miles per watt contacts.
Some of the highlights were:
Tunisia
Balearic Island
Finland
Alaska
Nicaragua



Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Today, after completing a few chores, I finally got a chance to assemble my KXPA100. For the record, I did not pre-download the assembly or instruction manuals. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. I decided to just wing it and go with the flow after opening the box.

A few guys on the KX3 e-mail reflector claimed an assembly time of two hours. I completed mine in just a little over one hour. Basically, all you’re doing is securing the autotuner board to the amplifier, and then putting the housing on. Not much work, easy as pie to do, and you end up saving a couple hundred dollars.

I learned a few things the hard way:

1) Don’t assume you have the latest firmware in your KX3 just because you normally upgrade often.  I thought I had the latest version, only to discover I didn’t. When I couldn’t get my KX3 to go above the 12 Watt level, I knew something was wrong. A firmware update took care of that.

2) Keep the KXPA tuned “off”. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? There is an “On/Off” switch on the KXPA100, but it is meant for when you are using the amp with a radio other than a KX3.  If you use a KX3, it totally controls the amp.  Turning on the KX3 turns on the KXPA100. Turning off the KX3 turns off the KXPA100. If you have the “On/Off” switch turned on while using the KXPA100 with a KX3, the LED indicators don’t work properly. You may set the KX3 for, say 75 Watts – but the LED indicators won’t light up properly. Turnng the switch off remedies that.

Item 1 was prominently mentioned in the manual. I had assumed something, and you know what happens when you assume.  I didn’t see anything about the “On/Off” switch in the manual, but admittedly, I glossed through it and did not read it as carefully as I should have – again, my fault.

It is working properly, and I did give it a trial run my making some ARRL DX Contest QSOs at higher power just because I could – not because I needed to. I think in most cases, QRP would have worked. Tomorrow, however, I want to take the amp on a “shake down cruise” and really give it a go – just to see how these boots feel and break them in a bit.

Not that I am abandoning QRP – by no means. For 95 to 99% of the time, my KX3 will continue to purr along at the 5 Watt or less level.  But having this amp sure would have been handy a week ago for adding FT5ZM to my log. I’m enough of a DXer to regret having missed that opportunity.

73 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].

Many hams don’t have the financial resources to buy some of the more exotic equipment you see in the full-page QST ads. Don’t worry, you don’t have to feel left out! What almost every ham DOES have is a dual-band HT. Clint Bradford, K6LCS, has created an excellent THE go-to resource to show you how you can easily work the FM birds with minimal equipment — most of which you probably already have! His site is truly a wealth of information.

He shared this with me:

It has been my mission in life the past 8+ years to show those who have never worked an amateur satellite that they CAN do it – with equipment they probably already own. I mean, when I first saw an AMSAT table at a hamfest several years ago, I just walked on by, wrongly believing that I needed 100W of TX power, multiple Yagis on the roof (which has led to divorces in my state), and that expensive Yaesu rotator.

Clint lays it out step-by-step:

• Radio options
  
  Clint uses a Yaesu FT-60R with a speaker mic, but you can use most dual-band HTs that feature the ability to program “split frequencies.” Ideally, you could use a second radio (or scanner) and work in full-duplex mode. According to Clint, there are discontinued HTs which support full-duplex including the Kenwood TH-D7/TH-D79, Icom IC-W32a, and the Yaesu FT-470/FT-51/FT-530.

• Antenna options
  
  Clint recommends the Arrow Antenna Model 146/437-10WBP or Elk Log Periodic Model 2M/440L5, but these very nice (but expensive) antennas aren’t your only option. He suggests that you could build a simple and inexpensive tape measure beam with very acceptable results. Just want to listen?  Well, Clint shares that although it takes more patience and finesse to work satellites with “lesser” antennas, one of the first 2-meter reception reports from the ARISSat-1 was from someone using the stock antenna on his Yaesu VX-9 HT!

• Find an “easy” satellite
  
  Clint recommends starting off with SO-50  or even the ISS (International Space Station). He has a great satellite schedule page on his site which lists the current status/availability of each bird and the necessary frequencies and CTCSS. Of note, some birds may require the transmission of a certain tone to activate a timer. After that, a different subaudible tone is used for the duration of the QSO. He does note that SO-50 can be a little “finicky” — for best results, work it full-duplex.

• Track the satellite
  
  You have to know both when the satellite will be “visible” to you, and where you’ll need to point your antenna. Clint has a tracking page on his site which lists some of the programs and apps he recommends. While there are a variety of commercial options, he offers some good free options including AMSAT’s Online Satellite Tracking and Heavens-Above.

• That’s it! Have fun!

If you haven’t already done so, download and print his 4-page PDF guide called Work FM Satellites with your HT! to use as a reference. Thanks for the hard work, Clint. We appreciate it!

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

I’ve not updated the VOAProp file ssn.txt for a while as some irritating health issues kept on getting in the way. I thought I would have a try today butit seems the NOAA data file Iused to update it from  has moved to a new address. Does anyone know where it has gone to?

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

The WARC bands are nice to explore. This afternoon I worked on 12 meter A92GE from Bahrain. I did heard several stations from Bahrain. Also worked TF3JB from Reykjavik, Iceland. On 15 meter I had a nice QSO with VA2PW Peter (Pierre) from Quebec, Canada.

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

BCD436HP Sentinel Software won’t read SD Card

 

Like many, I was excited to know that Uniden was coming out with a new line of scanners. As someone that owns many of their products as well as their HomePatrol I have really liked the direction they have been going with easy of programming (like GRE has done for some time) and the ability to use GPS to automatically update locations is another great option.

 

Well, you have read enough about the scanner and I will do my own review at some point, but this post is about the fact that there has been a nagging issue that I have seen others have and unfortunately, I ran into the same issue.

 

For some reason Uniden did not format their SD Cards in the same format so there has been some of us with both the UNIDEN BCD536HP as well as the BCD436HP that have had SD Card unreadable or not recognized by the Sentinel software.  I have read many posts out there about people getting frustrated and sending theirs back as defective units which I was concerned about when I read this, but alas after trying several cables, different computers with Windows 7, Windows 8 and even Windows 8.1 I found a very simple solution.

http://nicktoday.com/bcd436hp-sentinel-software-wont-read-sd-card/

 

 

Nick Palomba, N1IC, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Florida, USA. Contact him at [email protected].