AmateurRadio.com

Its finally arrived. My Lionel J-38 Morse key from the world war 2 era.

I found the key on Ebay at a fairly reasonable price but because the auction ended in the middle of the night I decided to set a stupidly high bidding amount so I cold hopefully win the auction.

In the end I really didn’t need to bother the price never increased at the end of the auction so I won the key for $61 and $42 for shipping. So not cheap, but the condition of the key really did warrant the price.

It had been stuck in customs for 3 weeks in the UK until I got the bill from UK Customs asking for yet more money due to a calculation error on the VAT oh and this letter will cost you £8. So another £20.41 was spent unlocking the key from the customs.

Anyway. Its here now.  After a very long and quite awful day of work I decided to break out the Brasso and have a go at cleaning the key. I did learn 1 thing about stripping these things down, and that is to keep the left / right parts of the key separate. That proved really useful advice and everything went back exactly in the same place with no fuss.

These keys are lovely to use. Thus far I haven’t plugged it into a radio (that happens this weekend) but just getting the gap spacing, feel and tension right really makes this key a true pleasure to get your hands on.

The first portable outing with this key will be with my newly constructed FOXX3 transceiver. I’m really looking forward to sitting outside and using the key to talk to the world. Albeit slowly and quite quietly. But that’s some of the joy or going out portable.

I did make a small video of the before and after the cleaning processes, I think you will agree the key looks a lot better.

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.

The fire crackers have been lit and the red envelopes handed out: Welcome to the year of the horse. Listen up for some extra activity from east Asia where we all celebrate the beginning of a new lunar year. Gongxi Facai to all of you.

73 de Hans

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

Hey, folks. It’s time for another episode of your favorite podcast about Linux and ham radio! In this episode, your fine feathered co-hosts kind of get their act together, report on news of interest, the new version of Shackbox and a bunch of other open source-y and ham radio-y topics. Hope you’re all having a great start to 2014, and we look forward to seeing you at Hamvention this year. Don’t forget about our Indiegogo campaign and our Raspberry Pi contest, ending soon!

73 de The LHS Guys

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

The annual Freeze Your Butt Off contest, which is sponsored by the Arizona ScQRPions is this Saturday.  QRPers are very familiar with this Wintertime outdoor QRP operating event.  The lower the temperature at your operating position, the higher your multiplier, and hence, the higher your score. Your reward for braving the outdoors during the coldness and enduring the misery.

For the last three weeks in New Jersey, I think it has gone above the freezing mark of 32F (0C), maybe once. We have been in the deep freeze for a while now. So what’s the forecast for FYBO day?  Rain and 45F (7C).  Compared to the last three weeks, it’s going to feel like Springtime!  Of course, there’s no multiplier given for enduring wet, sloppy conditions.  So if it’s pouring, I guess I’ll give it a go from indoors, and save my KX3 from making like a duck.

I guess I should keep my mouth shut and not complain, but couldn’t the thaw come the day AFTER the FYBO Sprint?  I’m just a giver of points, but it would be nice to have the bigger multiplier so I could at least halfway compete with the Big Boys!  😉

I took the plunge and ordered the Begali Simplex Mono tonight with the palladium base, and the gold contacts (30 Euros extra).  I did not get the key engraved with my callsign. I was tempted, but I wanted to keep the price down as much as I could.  I figured that going with the gold contacts was the better option for more reliable keying.  Function over form, I guess. I am really excited now and am looking forward to finally having a Begali key.  This is something I have wanted for a long time, but could never bring myself to actually purchase until now.

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].

So far this week I have learnt that aligning parts in Google Sketchup isn’t as easy as it is in something like Solidworks. Still for a freebie programme I’m not going to complain.

Progress on the rotator project is slow, mainly because of the usual lack of time. But at least the idea is cemented in my head and now its just a case of doing the mechanical design and then hooking everything up. Below is a rough draft of the proposed Az / El arrangement for the clankies amongst us. I’ll complete the design either myself in a huge amount of hours or, more likely ask one of the CAD jockeys at work to fix it in a matter of seconds.

With this arrangement it should not be complex to either fabricate, buy or 3D print parts to suit. The latter is a preference as then the model can then be used by anyone to get parts made either as laser cut solids or 3D prints.

The main parts will be 2 off nema 17 steppers, gears from actobotics (This may need to be adjusted to slow the steppers down sufficiently) and that nice radio artisan / K3NG chaps code with Anthony, M0UPU’s board.

Onwards and upwards

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

One fun thing about ham radio and propagation in particular is that no two days are exactly the same. One day a given path is open and signals are booming, the next day, nothing. Thus the challenge in working difficult paths. Amsterdam, FT5Z, is on the opposite side of the earth from where I live in Texas and is tough entity to work, especially when thousands of others are calling. So the challenge is on.

For those trying to work FT5ZM from the states it has been widely chronicled that the signals are coming in via multiple paths, even the indeterminate "skew" path. In other words just rotate your antenna until the signal peaks. I have heard them on such a path which is more east that the SSE short path heading from my QTH. Last evening they were spotted on 12m, 15m and 17m. I swung the beam SP and, as I would expect, nothing but noise. Skew path, same thing. Well, let me try long path and viola, there they were. A very nice signal on 15m, a fluttery signal on 17m and nothing on 12m. The better signal on 15m was also heard very well in JA as that was all the operator was working. So let me try the weaker signal on 17m. First find where he is listening....he is working a W7, good,  and I can hear both ends of the QSO, cool,.....I drop my call in figuring other west coasters will beat me out, but what do I hear? ....AD5A 599...jubilation...... and with that another band counter in the log.

They will be there for two weeks and working them should get easier, but don't give up, try some of the sneaky ways into the log, it's a lot more fun.

I must issue a disclaimer: This is not a QRP story, I was hitting on all cylinders on this one:-)
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Last night I attempted my first contest, the RSGB 50MHz UKAC

I am a complete novice at using HF, in fact I am a complete novice at transmitting anything!

My Chinese Baofeng handhelds have pretty much collected dust since getting my licence. However with the purchase of the FT-857D I must, despite my trepidation, step up to the microphone.

I had hit a snag when testing out the new radio, my antenna was showing high VSWR on 6m, even with the ATU I was struggling to get it to 2:1, therefore I decided to construct a simple dipole and sling it up with an ugly choke 'balun' I had constructed.

Due to some unexpected delays I was running out of time but eventually did manage to get something up, it was only around 2 meters off the ground and the VSWR still wasn't ideal, but I was ready.

At the appointed time, well nearly an hour late I started turning the dial and was met with a load of static, wasn't hearing anything! This continued for a quite a time then suddenly I started hearing "CQ Contest  CQ Contest" I listened in for a while to try to get the gist of the exchanges, wandering up and down the band.

Then I decided to have a go at a QSO, giving my callsign out, I waited nothing! "QRZ CQ Contest CQ Contest" another go.. still nothing.. and so on..

Changed frequency to another stations, tried again and I was heard, but they couldn't make out my call sign despite several attempts.. another change of frequency and the same results.

Now I know I had only got it set a 5W, the lowest I can till I get some confidence in my set up and am not going to damage anything! But I was a little disappointed, but I persevered until suddenly I was in the middle of my first contest QSO and my brain turned to jelly..

Thanks to M0MDY and his patience and prompting I successfully completed the QSO, details suitably written down. I carried on with no luck and called it a night just after 10pm, and went back in the house and manually entered the details of my solitary contact on the RSGB Contest website www.rsgbcc.org

Checking this morning and there I am at the bottom of the list, but not the very bottom, with a whopping 48 points.

http://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/claim.pl?Contest=50MHz%20UKAC&year=2014

Roll on next week, it is the 144MHz UKAC and I have a proper 2m YAGI... just got to work out how to mount it up on the poll and how to rotate it..

73s
Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].