Posts Tagged ‘Elecraft K3’
The numbers are down.
Not really this bad |
Slow time on the bands.
I took an extra few days off over the Easter weekend with the intention of getting some solid radio time in. As it turned out the only day I had was yesterday afternoon most likely because I knew my vacation was coming to an end and the plan was to get on the rig! I was planning on doing some JT-65 as with the solar conditions not so great and my 5 watts signal to boot it seemed to be the logical move. Before getting on the radio I looked up a website called Band conditions. This is a very nice site that gives you up to date band conditions via nice easy to read bar type graphs. Each HF band is displayed and is update automatically every 30 seconds. There is an arrow for each band graph that is either in the Red, Yellow or green portion of the bar graph……you can guess what color means what. Seeing that 20m and 30m seemed to be the go to bands I booted up WSJT-X and ended up finding 30m not so great but 20m was booming with lots of European stations. Unfortunately my calling CQ was not being answered. I did check with PSK reporter and my signal was being spotted all over the U.S as well as some places in Europe. I then closed down WSJT-X and opened Fldigi and now the plan was to give PSK 31 a whirl on 20m. I was not disappointed as there was lots of signals in the waterfall. After spending about 45 min’s on the band I only was able to get the attention of one Spanish station to hear my QRP signal……BUT conditions seemed to change and we never completed the QSO. One thing I took away from the time on the radio is that I have to review what PSK-31 macro’s and simplify some and rename some of the buttons to make them more user friendly to me.
Can this be done??
I have been using a PC program called Morse runner and going to the LCWO website to increase my contest cw receiving speed and keyboard skill. I wanted to take it up a notch to what I consider a must have contest skill. The skill I am referring to is the ability to exchange contest info with my Iambic key ( Begali Contour) and not only the keyboard. Both Morse Runner and the tools from the LCWO site have been a great help with improving my keyboard and receiving speed and moving it forward. What I'm looking for and asking my blog readers input on is......a PC program similar to Morse Runner were I can use my key to interact with the program. Morse Runner sends you a call, you enter the call in the program (it checks you have enter proper call) then a contest report comes your way you enter it and the program sends your report. If all the info checks out as correct you are able to move on the the next contact. Does anyone know of a PC program out there were I can use my key and not keyboard to brush up on my key proficiency within a contest environment.
Oh and by the way of a radio report..... I was on the rig yesterday not much going on the CW portion of 20m and 30m during the early part of the afternoon. I ventured back around 22:00 UTC and 20m was sending some DX my way. Some of the stations heard but I was unable to contact were LZ300MSP (that call is a key full), T77CS, EA3AIZ from Spain struggled to hear my QRP signal but there was just to much QSB at his end. All was not lost DL3DXX heard me in Germany and gave me a 559 report.
Oh and by the way of a radio report..... I was on the rig yesterday not much going on the CW portion of 20m and 30m during the early part of the afternoon. I ventured back around 22:00 UTC and 20m was sending some DX my way. Some of the stations heard but I was unable to contact were LZ300MSP (that call is a key full), T77CS, EA3AIZ from Spain struggled to hear my QRP signal but there was just to much QSB at his end. All was not lost DL3DXX heard me in Germany and gave me a 559 report.
One step closer to being a ham techie!
Now that I can use one Signalink USB unit on either my Elecraft K3 or KX3 I thought it was now due time to investigate operating my rigs remote from my laptop using my router. I have read many ham who do this so it’s not anything new…BUT….for me this is cutting edge and can be “kinda fun” to get it up and running. I can across software called Teamviewerwhich allows you to remotely access your PC from another PC. Once logged on and a connection is made you have (on your remote PC) a mirror image of your home PC. You have the same control over your home PC as if you were sitting in front of it. The software allows you to access your Windows PC via a Mac and so on. This Windows/Mac cross over was great for me as my home PC is Windows and the laptop is a Macbook Pro. I set out to download and install the software on my Windows PC. It went very smooth and error free, I then installed it on my Macbook pro laptop and all went well until I started the program. The program just
would not start it just got hung up and I had to do a force shutdown. I tried a few things but just could not get the program to run. I then installed it on my wife’s Macbook pro laptop and it operated withouta hitch! The only thing I can figure is my Macbook is a bit older and may not be up to the task. I was on the internet to see if I could see what the issue might be but could not find anything. I am going to email the company and see what their input is. On the weekend I was not interested in troubleshooting or emailing for an answer I just wanted to get the program up and running. With the program installed on both PC’s and it was time to make the link. It is very straight forward to do, you open the program on each PC. You are given a 9 digit ID number on each PC and since I want to use my laptop to control my main PC on my laptop I enter the 9 digit ID number from my main PC and press “connect to partner”. I then enter a password (setup during program install) and in no time I have full control ofMy remote PC operation |
Win4K3suite added to shack.
Win4kSuite up and running |
P3 on the monitor |
It’s been just too long since my last post!
New Elecraft synthesizer |
Old synthesizer board |
The board installed in the K3 |
Elecraft surgery part 3 of 3
Back to life again |
Soldering end pins |
Imports of checking both sides of board |
Flossing tool used to clean board |
New header lines up with front board. |