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Another CQWPX CW contest has come and gone and this year for me it was a parttime effort as the weather was great here and many outdoor "Stuffs" had to be done. I was shocked to see 10m open and I was able to bag 7 contacts there. During my first leg of the contest on Saturday, I found it very hard to contact any Europian stations. I did make one into Ireland and that was it. The second leg of the contest was Sunday and it seemed that Europe had opened up just fine and I was making DX contacts. The only issue during the short time I was taking part in the contest was the XIT issue which I posted about a few days ago. The other issue was right at the get-go of the contest, I was not able to get the N1MM CW macros to key up the Icom 7610. I have been working QSO parties Win4Icom rig control software looks after N1MM+ as 3rd party software. I do this because I can control the 7610 via my mouse using Win4Icom software. So things like band changes, fine filter adjustments, APF on and off and so on. I did not want to play with the issue for too long as I was not really going to be in the contest for all that long. I ended up going back to old school operating.....well almost old school no paper and pencil yet. I shut down Win4Icom and configured the N1MM+ com port to talk directly to the 7610. In minutes I was up and running again.
without issue and not an issue! Most of the time I get on the radio the day before a contest and test out the rig, software and keyer to make sure all is well.....guess what I failed to do the day before this time? My setup is as follows, I use
Below is the contest breakdown:
20m          73 contacts
15m          20 contacts
10m            7 contacts
Total      100
Score 18,778
WPX        83

I had some spare time today  and was able to get on the radio! Over the past month or so it has been lots of work and no time to play radio. Today while on 20m CW  I was able to snag HA7GN from Hungary, IQ0PG from Italy I was given special report number of UN90ARI1.  According to their site this qualifies me for there ARI 90 years award. The last contact of the day was IO0MDC again from Italy and this call was in celebration of 20 years for the Mediterraneo DX club. I was thrilled with
these short contacts and I really was only on for about 20 min's. On a side note.........I have posted in the past that I am the proud owner of an Elecraft K-pod. This thing works great and is a great asset to the shack. It has 8 programmable push buttons, at my age I loose track of what is on what button! I came up with an idea of adding some magnetic strips with the naming of each of the buttons. Since they are magnetic I can remove them when the button macro has been changed or rearrange them if need be.

I had some spare time today  and was able to get on the radio! Over the past month or so it has been lots of work and no time to play radio. Today while on 20m CW  I was able to snag HA7GN from Hungary, IQ0PG from Italy I was given special report number of UN90ARI1.  According to their site this qualifies me for there ARI 90 years award. The last contact of the day was IO0MDC again from Italy and this call was in celebration of 20 years for the Mediterraneo DX club. I was thrilled with
these short contacts and I really was only on for about 20 min's. On a side note.........I have posted in the past that I am the proud owner of an Elecraft K-pod. This thing works great and is a great asset to the shack. It has 8 programmable push buttons, at my age I loose track of what is on what button! I came up with an idea of adding some magnetic strips with the naming of each of the buttons. Since they are magnetic I can remove them when the button macro has been changed or rearrange them if need be.

The 2 resistor through hole and SMT

 Once I received my K-Pod I wanted to get it up and operating to see how it worked. One of the things that had to be done was to power up the K-Pod. This can be done one of two ways either via a separate power cable or with a small mod to the Elecraft K3 you can power the K-pod with the RJ12 inter connecting cable. The fasted way at the time was to power it via my power supply. In time I would do the mode so only one small cable would run between the Elecraft  K3 and the K-pod.......Well that time had come and the mod was to be done.  Elecraft gave you a choice of resistors

Front panel removed

for the mod, an SMT as mentioned already or a through hole resistor. I chose the SMT as the leads from the though hole resistor had to be maneuvered around other SMT resistors. This method seemed to be asking for a short to a neighbouring SMT. It was time to replace a small (and I mean small) SMT resistor in my Elecraft K3. The resistor is supplied by Elecraft along with very detailed

Now that is small!!

instructions. The first step was to remove the front control board from the K3, this would get me access to the area the SMT  resistor was to be installed. With the front panel off and in front of me my next step was to identify R82 in the lower left corner. I located the resistor and the job on a scale of 1-10  was about a 7 for me. So It was now time to heat up the Weller soldering station and get to work. Now having said that I do want to make it clear that I am never really thrilled about placing a soldering iron anywhere close to my rig! Elecraft does offer there services for this if you want to ship them your radio......BUT.....I have done other modes to the Elecraft K3 in the past and without issue. Fortunately the old SMT resistor did not have to be removed, the new one could be mounted on top of it. After some very deep breaths the deed was done and it was time for the smoke test! With the K-pod connected to the K3 I powered up the radio and low and behold the K-pod was alive and well. 

The deed was done not pretty but it works fine.

The 2 resistor through hole and SMT

 Once I received my K-Pod I wanted to get it up and operating to see how it worked. One of the things that had to be done was to power up the K-Pod. This can be done one of two ways either via a separate power cable or with a small mod to the Elecraft K3 you can power the K-pod with the RJ12 inter connecting cable. The fasted way at the time was to power it via my power supply. In time I would do the mode so only one small cable would run between the Elecraft  K3 and the K-pod.......Well that time had come and the mod was to be done.  Elecraft gave you a choice of resistors

Front panel removed

for the mod, an SMT as mentioned already or a through hole resistor. I chose the SMT as the leads from the though hole resistor had to be maneuvered around other SMT resistors. This method seemed to be asking for a short to a neighbouring SMT. It was time to replace a small (and I mean small) SMT resistor in my Elecraft K3. The resistor is supplied by Elecraft along with very detailed

Now that is small!!

instructions. The first step was to remove the front control board from the K3, this would get me access to the area the SMT  resistor was to be installed. With the front panel off and in front of me my next step was to identify R82 in the lower left corner. I located the resistor and the job on a scale of 1-10  was about a 7 for me. So It was now time to heat up the Weller soldering station and get to work. Now having said that I do want to make it clear that I am never really thrilled about placing a soldering iron anywhere close to my rig! Elecraft does offer there services for this if you want to ship them your radio......BUT.....I have done other modes to the Elecraft K3 in the past and without issue. Fortunately the old SMT resistor did not have to be removed, the new one could be mounted on top of it. After some very deep breaths the deed was done and it was time for the smoke test! With the K-pod connected to the K3 I powered up the radio and low and behold the K-pod was alive and well. 

The deed was done not pretty but it works fine.

When I first opened the box I noticed it was packed very well and as I held the K-Pod for the first time I noticed it had some weight to it. The K-Pod is built very solid and would not move around on the radio desk as you used it. There is a tilt stand that places the K-Pod at a very nice operating angle, this stand can be removed if you would rather have the K-Pod sit flat on your desk. The VFO is very smooth and the user is able to adjust the drag if need be but I was very happy with the VFO right out of the box. There are 8 buttons on the K-Pod that can be programmed with macros, each button has a tap and hold function you therefore have 16 macros. Macros are a great way to have a one button push (or hold) to control a commonly used button on the K3. Also Macros can be used to preform a multi task function. For example I have programmed a CW Split macro that puts the K3 in CW mode, sets VFO A and B to the same frequency, moves VFO B up 2 kHz, sets the filter to 400 Hz, clear both the RIT and XIT and locks VFO A on frequency. All this is done with the push of one button. The instruction manual gives you many Macros to choose from. You can program your own and try them out using the K3 utility program on your PC. On Elecraft's website you can download free of charge their programers reference to learn more about macros and programming them.
There is a rocker switch that will allow you to smoothly switch from VFO A (LED D1 lights up) to B (LED D2 lights up) and then to RIT/RXT (LED D3 lights up) adjustments. The manual says that LED4 is user programable and you can actually control the on/off function of D1, D2 and D3 as well.
On the top of the K-Pod there are 4 connection ports:

1.  Auxiliary outputs that the manual says can be used for an external antenna switch, amplifier and so on.
2. DATA connector is used to connect an RJ12 cable (supplied) to the K3. 
3. USB connector (USB cable is supplied) is used to interface the K-Pod with your PC for firmware updates and for what Elecraft calls "future" PC control. 
4. Power connector (cable supplies) can be used to supply the needed DC to the K-Pod and I say "can be used" because via a simple mod
   (parts supplied) to the K3 and K3S  you can power the K-Pod via the DATA cable.
   

When I first opened the box I noticed it was packed very well and as I held the K-Pod for the first time I noticed it had some weight to it. The K-Pod is built very solid and would not move around on the radio desk as you used it. There is a tilt stand that places the K-Pod at a very nice operating angle, this stand can be removed if you would rather have the K-Pod sit flat on your desk. The VFO is very smooth and the user is able to adjust the drag if need be but I was very happy with the VFO right out of the box. There are 8 buttons on the K-Pod that can be programmed with macros, each button has a tap and hold function you therefore have 16 macros. Macros are a great way to have a one button push (or hold) to control a commonly used button on the K3. Also Macros can be used to preform a multi task function. For example I have programmed a CW Split macro that puts the K3 in CW mode, sets VFO A and B to the same frequency, moves VFO B up 2 kHz, sets the filter to 400 Hz, clear both the RIT and XIT and locks VFO A on frequency. All this is done with the push of one button. The instruction manual gives you many Macros to choose from. You can program your own and try them out using the K3 utility program on your PC. On Elecraft's website you can download free of charge their programers reference to learn more about macros and programming them.
There is a rocker switch that will allow you to smoothly switch from VFO A (LED D1 lights up) to B (LED D2 lights up) and then to RIT/RXT (LED D3 lights up) adjustments. The manual says that LED4 is user programable and you can actually control the on/off function of D1, D2 and D3 as well.
On the top of the K-Pod there are 4 connection ports:

1.  Auxiliary outputs that the manual says can be used for an external antenna switch, amplifier and so on.
2. DATA connector is used to connect an RJ12 cable (supplied) to the K3. 
3. USB connector (USB cable is supplied) is used to interface the K-Pod with your PC for firmware updates and for what Elecraft calls "future" PC control. 
4. Power connector (cable supplies) can be used to supply the needed DC to the K-Pod and I say "can be used" because via a simple mod
   (parts supplied) to the K3 and K3S  you can power the K-Pod via the DATA cable.