AmateurRadio.com

I received an e-mail from John AE5X this morning. John is one of the best Ham Radio/QRP bloggers out there, IMHO, and it was great to hear from him.  He informed me that he has undertaken authoring a specialized niche blog - about off road motorcycling and QRP.

My initial reactions were thus:

1) Wow! It's great to hear from John.
2) John's writing again - fantastic!
3) I know diddly squat about motorcycling.
4) This ties into QRP, so how can this be a bad thing?
5) Even though #3 is true, #4 is also true, so maybe I can learn something here.
6) Boy, it's good to have John back again.

So even if you're like me (and don't know squat about motorcycling), you do know about QRP and you do like the way John writes - it's still a win/win situation. AND if you DO know about motorcycling, then you've really hit pay dirt! (Win/win/win).

I have added John's new blog to the blog roll on the right, and the hyperlink above will take you right there.  Please take the time to read his work, and if you like what you're reading - let him know. We bloggers appreciate the feedback and love hearing from you, good, bad or indifferent. Just do ME a favor and tell him W2LJ sent you.

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

E-mails are starting to roll in - so I wanted to make an early announcement.



Yes! There will be a Skeeter Hunt in 2015.  It will be held on Sunday, August 9th. Skeeter numbers will be issued starting on the "First Day of Summer", which will be Sunday June 21st - the weekend before Field Day.

There is one major rule change for this year - there will be no extra bonus points for working DX stations this year.  As many of you know, the Skeeter Hunt seems to always coincide with the "Work All Germany" contest, and in years past, working a DX station was worth 3 points.  Several Skeeters in the Mid-West and on the West coast pointed out that this is an unfair advantage to East coast Skeeters. After considering it, I have come to agree with this, and have eliminated that extra DX bonus.  The playing field will be much more equal this year.

The Bonus word for this year is "CULICIDAE", which is the Latin word for the family of insects that mosquitoes belong to.  Work enough call signs that include those letters and you can garner yourself another 100 points. There's an "L" in there and I will be happy to be the official "L" provider for the Hunt. Hi! (I think Don K3RLL among others, will also be happy to give away "L"s, too.)

I am having a bit of trouble with the QSL.NET webpage, so for all the details of this year's Skeeter Hunt, you can go to my Skeeter Hunt page of this blog - http://w2lj.blogspot.com/p/njqrp-skeeter-hunt.html.

I am hoping to have the QSL.NET problems ironed away by this weekend, but then again, you never know.

72 de Larry w2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Great job by the South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club Rookies who activated NJ2SP - and an equally great job by Marv K2VHW who mentored the event.

Can't wait 'til Field Day!

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

After kind of causing the problem, in the first place.

http://kdvr.com/2015/05/17/littleton-snowshoer-rescued-after-falling-off-icy-ledge/

Thanks to Drew W2OU for pointing this one out.

But in all seriousness folks, portable ops can seem harmless, but they come with their own hazards and some can be life threatening.

Just a few basic things to keep in mind:

Don't go hiking alone if you're unfamiliar with the trail. It's too easy to get lost. I speak of this one from personal experience. Once I was out on a hike in the Adirondacks on an unfamiliar trail for the first time, and I took a turn I shouldn't have and found myself off the trail. Fortunately, I kept calm, retraced my steps and found my way back quickly and easily. However, if you panic, all bets may be off. Moral of the story - two or more sets of eyes are better than one when looking for trail markers.

Always take along extra water, food and appropriate clothing. While it may be hot and sunny when you start out, weather can and often does change in a heart beat, so keep weather conditions in mind. For good measure, always bring along your VHF/UHF handheld, it could literally save your life.

Let someone know where you're going and approximately how long you'll be gone.

This is an obvious one, but people sometimes forget. If you can hear thunder, shut the station down! A storm does not have to be right on top of you to be a lightning threat. Lightning bolts can touch down more than 10 miles away from a thunderstorm's leading edge.

Portable operating is about the most fun you can have in Amateur Radio, but you have to approach it in a common sense fashion.

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

So Elecraft came to FDIM today, to announce the new K3S.

The new product is an enhanced K3 with many new features - here's a link to a .pdf which explains them all in detail. And here's a link to a FAQ.

It appears the new K3S will be approximately $500 more than the old version, and the original K3 has been "discontinued" or "replaced" - whichever you prefer. In addition, it appears most, but not all the enhancements will be retro-fittable to make a K3 a K3S. The new bezel and the attenuator, for instance, will not.



I wonder - how does the guy feel who took delivery on a brandy new K3, in the very recent past?  Are they happy because  they squeaked under the wire and got their K3 at the lower price?  Or are they feeling a bit miffed because they ordered and received something that is no longer "the latest and the greatest"?  Except for the cosmetics, it appears that you can pretty much turn your existing K3 almost into a K3S - and you do have a "system" that is continually upgradable. So if you're an Elecraft owner, you can take comfort in the fact that when you buy something, the company does its best to stand behind their product and you.

I for one, am quite happy with my KX3's. They're all the radio I need, and should Elecraft come out with a KX3S tomorrow, I would not be bothered in the least.

The morning UStream feed from FDIM was disappointing. If you attempted to watch it, you saw that only a portion of the video picture appeared and none of the audio. Basically, you missed the entire Elecraft K3S presentation. Things got straightened out during Rev. Dobb's presentation and we were able to hear that the good Reverend was inaugurated as QRP-ARCI's very first Lifetime Member.

The silver lining is that hopefully the feed will be up and running normally for the remaining sessions.

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

Will Elecraft be introducing something new at Hamvention tomorrow? Seems like it to me. Eric and Wayne posted the following on Facebook:


Notice the use of tomorrow's date in the display. Also - the current black chassis radios in the Elecraft line are the K3 and the KX3.  Both use black screws on the bezel - not silver. AND the last character before the word "Transceiver" on both radios is a "3" ...... not an "s". Lastly, there's no current radio in the Elecraft line (that I'm aware of) that has that little "down arrow" above the VFO knob.

Seems to me that a major announcement is in the offing for tomorrow. I guess time will tell!

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

As much as I hate to do it, I need to look for a new laptop for the shack. A few months ago, when the family computer gave up the ghost, I pressed my shack desktop into service in that role.  To fill the void in the shack, I resurrected my old Acer Inspire One netbook. It's a small machine with a very small screen, with hardly any processor power. It was performing duties way beyond its pay grade. This is the kind of computer that was designed for looking at e-mails and Facebook, and that's about it. Needing something better, I tried recruiting my even older HP laptop (the one with the broken top lid hinges - thanks, kids!) into service. Alas, it's better than the Acer, but only by the breadth of a hair.  It has a bigger screen, more RAM and a bigger hard drive, but it's still an old XP machine that has grown long in the tooth.

To explain what I mean ..... I went down to the shack last night to add some entries to my main logging program from the HamLog app I use when operating portable. I flipped the on switch at 9:30 PM and by the time it had booted up and the logging program had loaded it was about 9:47 PM.  17 minutes is not good. I wanted to start pulling out my hair by then. I think watching paint dry, or grass grow would have been less stressful and more entertaining.

That exercise in frustration drove me to start searching the Web. At work, IBM issued me a Lenovo T410.  I still use this model every day. Yes, they are slowly being refreshed out with the newer T440 model, but mine has served me decently well at the job over the last few years. I have found a couple places where I can pick up a refurbed T410 with 4G of RAM, a 250 GB hard drive and Windows 7 Professional in the $150 neighborhood.


This model has everything I would need. It can hook up to the Internet wirelessly, it has 3 USB ports (need one for the KX3, one for a mouse, and one for an external keyboard), provisions for adding a second VGA monitor and the standard audio ports, so I can do the digital modes, should I ever be inclined to go down that road. Not planning to go there, but you never know. I'll have to dip into savings to acquire one, but having a computer in the shack has almost become a necessity.

Of course, I could always go native and log strictly with paper and pencil, but I don't think the ARRL would accept mailed in Xerox copies of my log for LoTW.  Also, I like to keep my eye on QRPSPOTS as well as SOTAWatcher.  Can't do that without some kind of computer, although I guess I could always just use my cell phone for those. And having a Telnet DX Cluster at my disposal for confirming that I correctly copied the call of that DX station who was sending at a blistering 45 WPM is a nice thing to have, too. (Was that an "H", or a "5" ? - 37 years of Hamming and my ears still wig out on those two, at times.)

This is another occasion where I'll just have to bite the bullet and take the plunge.  Good thing I wasn't planning on going to Dayton.

Oh, and by the way, as long as I mentioned Dayton .... best wishes to all those heading to Ohio for FDIM and Hamvention. May the weather be good, the traffic light and travelling conditions safe - there and back!

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