AmateurRadio.com

Grrrrrrrr! and then more Grrrrrrrr’s! FOBB 2013 was a gud one! Grrrrrr!

Anticipated rain and thunderstorms and was not disappointed. Accordingly, I took up my backpack and walked about 1/2 mile to set up under a small pavilion in our housing development’s lakeside park. So far, so good. Originally I planned to have an EFHW for 40m and another one for 20m. Upon unpacking, realized my 40m wire was in my other pack at home. SHUCKS. I had already put a shot over a 40′ high branch and pulled up a paracord to hook to the wire which was not available. Oh well… it happens even to the best of us, eh?

Grrrrr! So I tried to set up the 20m EFHW and after another great shot with my 1 1/2 oz sinker and pulling up a line realized the tree wasn’t going to give me a good shot as it was too close and not very high. Grrrrrrr=ed a bit more!

Rethinking mode kicked in and was glad I got out early so all the wasted time did not mess me up. Pulled out my handy 20 ft Jackite and a 17 ft crappie pole and decided to give up on a typical K4UPG “hang ‘em high” antenna and do a very Lazy L. I tried to orient it for a bit of slope towards 330 degrees which shoots from FL to Iowa and provides decent coverage of most of the US. Turned out that low antenna worked great but I think the band was pretty doggone decent for a change too.

So about 15 min before FOBB start time fired off a CQ and made a contact and shot the breeze for a bit to warm up. Nice QRP to QRP contact but not counted for contest. Just for grins. I did notice a few “early out of the blocks ops” were calling CQ BB about 10 min before the clock struck go! Grrrrrrrrr! Sync those watches gentlemen!

Contest Started:

First station heard was Cam out in California N6GA but no joy when I responded to his CQ as there was a mini-pileup on him. Grrrrr… Heard a few more 6′s during the day but no peep from Rem Bear or any others I recognized. I did end up with eight PB’s for the day though and a great TU and Grrrrr to my fellow PB’s: AF40 Chuck- PB 153 TN my last contact of the day (more later); Snowbird FL Bear Don K3RLL PB 187 in PA with his new KX3; Jeff K9JP PB 175 in MI was the loudest signal of the day and blew my ears out till I got the RF and AF turned down Grrrrr! didn’t recognize you as a PB… sri bout dat; N1EU Barry in NY PB 336 got a Grrrrr!; N3AAZ John in MD PB 276 sri 2 ya… missed a Grrrrr!; W1PNS Pete in MA PB 348 got a Grrrrrr!; W5ESE Scotty beam me up Bear PB 287 missed a Grrrr too; WA8REI a perennial PB contact for me gave me a PB 21 style Grrrrrrr! I was closing a contact and Blackjack Bear called me on the guy’s freq so kept it REAL short and sweet as I felt like if we tried to QSY there was too much traffic and we’d not make the connex. Sri Ken Bear was a messy QSO cuz of that. Missed hearing Larry W2LJ this time and listened fur some of you udder PB’s but no connex. Grrrrrr!

All in all worked 25 QSO’s in 17 states and all of them were BB’s! Lightning came up as I was finishing my QSO with AF4O and it was TOO CLOSE. Almost blew me out of my seat but I held onto the key and finished up. Sitting there holding the wire and I started singing, “Antenna on the ground, antenna on the ground, when da lightning is around get your antenna on da ground” to the tune of the famous “Pants on the Ground” song by “General” Larry Platt.

Thus ended a nice outing after 2 hrs and 45 minutes but I truly enjoyed this one. Great number of participants and bet I could have almost doubled the numbers if the lightning did not end the day. Was hearing a lot of new calls just prior to shutting down. At least I got to give the serious contesters some points this year. Maybe next year will be my turn fur sum extra Q’s ? Grrrrrrr!

72 from Orlando, Kelly K4UPG PB 173

Kelly McClelland, K4UPG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Florida, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

One of the things I’ve been up to the last few weeks is testing a new Bluetooth TNC made by Rob WX9O who is selling them as Mobilinkd. I had to put testing on hold while my Motorola smartphone went away to be repaired (by BuzzBox whom I can recommend highly.) In the meantime word got round and Rob sold out of these gadgets before I could write about it.

The price was around $49.95 which I thought at the time was amazingly cheap and probably explains why they are all sold out at the time of writing. The module is a small PCB slightly smaller than a Baofeng UV-3R and if you remove the belt clip it can easily be fixed to the back of it. My picture shows it strapped to the back of one of the Baofeng’s predecessors, where it makes a nice inexpensive and compact APRS tracker. The board and it’s battery (which can be charged using a USB cable as shown in the photo) are shrink-wrapped in a tough translucent plastic casing.

Ready-made cables are available. Rob sent me a Kenwood-format two-pin connector which fits the later model Baofengs and the two worked together perfectly. The audio levels were just right on both transmit and receive.

Yes, receive. This is no mere tracker. It’s a full KISS TNC and decoded all the packets received by the Baofeng. The software used was the latest APRSDroid running on my Motorola Milestone (a.k.a. Droid) smartphone.  Droid and TNC paired easily and made an effective APRS mobile station.

I did try to pair up the TNC with APRSISCE on an HTC Touch Pro running Windows Mobile 6.1. The two devices paired but could not connect as the Bluetooth software did not recognize the TNC as a valid device type. I think that is a limitation of the Windows Mobile Bluetooth software rather than the TNC module.

If you are interested in APRS and would prefer to do it over the radio rather than a cellular data connection (real hams use RF, right?) then this is a nice toy to play with.

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

The AmateurLogic.TV Voice of America Museum Special is now available for download.

Tommy and George visit the National Voice of America Museum for a first class tour. Learn about the history of VOA, why and how it got started. What type of antenna switching was required for a world class shortwave station. Transmitter, tubes, audio routing, network feeds and much more.

45:08 Worldwide shortwave adventure.

Download

View in web browser: YouTube

George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].

This afternoon I rode my bicycle to Old Hill Village and worked Cuba, Ukraine, Spain, Belgium and Denmark. It was a fantastic afternoon.

I took the trail south from Needle Shop Brook. It was glorious. The road winds through fields and old farm land. One section close to the river is lined with helianthus flowers.

Hill Village lies on the opposite side of the Pemigewasset River from Sanbornton. The old road runs along the river from Franklin, through Hill Village to Bristol. The road has been closed since the 1940s when the area was abandoned to create a flood control area for the Franklin Falls Dam. It’s a perfect spot for a bike ride.

Today was crystal clear with a good breeze. It was nearly 75F… one of those summer days when kids swing from ropes and do somersaults into the river. After peddling more than two miles, I set up under an old butternut tree across from a field of goldenrod.

I tossed a line 40 feet into the tree and pulled up 30 feet of wire. I sat down in the grass and tuned the Elecraft KX3 on 17 meters. I used a 9:1 unun from the Emergency ARC in Honolulu. I was running five watts.

I only operated for a half an hour. But there were plenty of strong stations
on 17M that heard my weak signal. I had no trouble working into Europe.
Rather than detailing each QSO, here’s a copy of my log:

30 Jul-13 1934 18.078 CO8LY CW 599 599 Cuba
30 Jul-13 1936 18.077 UT7UJ CW 599 599 Ukraine
30 Jul-13 1940 18.085 EA7AJR CW 559 599 Spain
30 Jul-13 1942 18.087 ON7PQ CW 339 579 Belgium
30 Jul-13 1955 18.090 OO8ZL CW 599 599 Belgium
30 Jul-13 2000 18.074 OZ2TF CW 559 599 Denmark

The view from my operating position was refreshing. Ironically, I had more trouble taking down the antenna than I had putting it up. In fact, I left a spool of wire stuck fast in a branch high in the tree. A knot in my line got stuck in a tight spot and wouldn’t come loose. When I tugged hard on the line, it snapped and left the spool of wire high above the road.

Returning to Needle Shop Brook was a treat. I didn’t just ride the bike back, I soared, seemingly several feet above the road. The fragrance of the summer air caressed my whole being and my eyes absorbed the richness of the wild growth along the riverside. I thoroughly enjoy these outings.

Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Sad news......

VP6TC/VR6TC, Tom Christian, longtime famous ham from Pitcairn Island, who probably gave most of us that "new one," has passed away, peacefully, on July 7th.  Tom was diagnosed with possible Parkinson's and early signs of Alzheimer's/dementia in December, 2009, while on a family visit in New Zealand.

His wife, VP6YL/VR6YL, Betty Christian, says his health "deteriorated all too quickly," and the last few months were "cruel ones to watch such a strong, vibrant man reduced to where he was not really aware of his surroundings and then was unable to walk and swallow food or liquid."

Tom was buried July 8th in the cemetery on Pitcairn.  Lack of available transportation prevented most of Tom and Betty's children making it back for the funeral.  Tom was known as the "Voice of Pitcairn," was an M.B.E., Member of the British Empire, and served on the Pitcairn Island Council as the Governor's Representative for 40 years.
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Radio legend Art Bell, W6OBB, has announced that he will be returning to the air via satellite and Internet streaming starting Monday, September 16, 2013. His new show will be carried by SirusXM Channel 104 Monday through Thursday from 10pm to 1am Eastern time. The new show will be called “Art Bell’s Dark Matter” and will explore the paranormal and unexplained, according to a SiriusXM press release and his website.

At his peak in the late 1990s, Bell’s show Coast To Coast AM had nearly 15 million listeners and was syndicated on 500 AM/FM stations. Since his surprise retirement in October, 1998, he has left and returned to the air a number of times. His most recent hiatus from broadcasting, over 6 years beginning in July, 2007, was the longest break Bell has had from regular broadcasting. Coast To Coast AM did continue after Bell’s retirement, but I honestly never found the new hosts to be as enjoyable — probably because Bell is so talented.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSm-eYaQJa8

Working overnight shifts in the 1990s, I would enjoy listening to Bell’s show. I enjoyed the sometimes bizarre and almost always intriguing topics he would cover. Listening to the show in the car at 2am had a bit of a spookiness to it. It’s hard to explain.  Maybe someone else can comment on why Bell was so successful.  I can’t be the only one here who listened to his show on a regular basis.

If you’ve never had the chance to listen, you can hear random shows from Bell’s career on a show called Somewhere In Time which features a random show from Bell’s broadcasting career.

I don’t have SiriusXM service, but I may just have to take advantage of their 30-day free trial to hear if Bell still has the radio magic he had 20 years ago.

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

Just a little piccy from Hannah moor. My contest station for an hour or so. Biggest dx was EA3EVL about 1500 miles on 5w.

I’m really enjoying the UKAC contests and had to cut this trip short because of thunder but the 2 element Nuxcom lightweight antenna on a decorating pole did the business.

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