AmateurRadio.com

Several people have commented over the years that I should “write more” on the blog.  I usually respond that I could spend my free time tinkering/hamming or blogging, but not both.  Here are a month’s worth of blog posts as freestyle poetry:

• A section on my workshop has been added to k8gu.com under Engineering.
• Discovered that although the SoftRock VHF Ensemble II won’t fit (barely) into the Bud CU-473 diecast box I bought for it, it will fit into an extruded enclosure that housed an ancient X-band radar detector I picked up at Dayton in 2002 in hopes of stripping the Gunn diode assembly and getting on 10 GHz.  Bonus points for thriftiness.  Photos will follow once I finish the project.
• Did not observe Quadrantid meteor pings with the SoftRock VHF Ensemble II, but did notice something interesting about the W3APL beacon.  Need to investigate.
• Have more CE/K8GU QSL cards again, finally.  Tonight, I might finish the bureau (and, ashamedly one direct) cards languishing.  Some K8GU (and AA8UP, no kidding) bureau cards are sitting here staring at me, too.  Not a big project, though.
• Operated the NAQP CW on Saturday (8 January 2011) for four hours and twenty minutes and made 318 QSOs x 128 multipliers for 40,740 points before log-checking discounts.  This total is pleasing to me especially considering that it was almost all leap-frogging SO2R search-and-pounce, which can be very fatiguing.  It’s fun to see the rate meter stay over 100 when you’re S&Ping.  Good Sprint practice.
• Still the best 30 minutes on the radio every week:  I operated the NS Ladder on Thursday (6 January) night and made my customary 30 QSOs x 24 multipliers for 720 points.  Hopefully, adding 160 will give me some momentum to increase this score back over 1000.
• We had a spell of 50F (10C) weather on New Years’ Eve.  So, I put the 2-meter beam back up on the chimney.  It was formerly mounted on a steel mast that was ratchet-strapped to the chimney.  A strong wind (>50 mph gusts) before Christmas bent the mast (actually a fence top-rail) and I had removed it.  I cut the bent lower portion of the mast off and attached the remaining top portion with rotator to a “girder” constructed from two pieces of treated 2″ x 4″ x 10′ lumber joined with a half-dozen lag screws.  Again, I ratchet-strapped the entire assembly to the chimney.  The present configuration is much stronger and less prone to damage.  The 3-element 50-MHz Yagi is still on the ground until I actually get the transverter finished, which should be soon (as it has been for 12 months now).
• Repaired a SoftRock v6.2 downconverter for WF1L and learned that you can solder leads back onto SOIC packages if you’re careful.
• Have had delightful exchanges with KN6X and ZL1CDP about repairing the TS-930S.  Some of these discussions (and their fruits) may make it onto the site at some point.
• Back in December, I started integrating the W1GHZ transverters using UT-141 semirigid jumpers with pre-installed SMA connectors obtained on attractive terms from Max-Gain Systems.  Mitsubishi RA18H1213G (1296 MHz) and RA30H0608M (50 MHz) modules arrived from RF Parts.  May have a lead on something less expensive with more gain for 903 MHz via HA1AG.  The big remaining tasks in all three transverter projects are the sequencer and IF interfacing.
• Also in December, I had dinner with NS Ladder father Bill, N6ZFO, in San Francisco at the Hyde Street Seafood House & Raw Bar, which is a favorite of NA Sprint father, Rusty, W6OAT.  Yes, I did feel that I was in the presence of greatness.  (I had their excellent pork chops since I’m not into seafood, especially raw seafood.)  Like most contesters, Bill’s a super, fascinating guy apart from his radio contesting interests.

I rolled over another year on the odometer of life last week and as is the custom around here, I received some gifts, several of which were radio-related.  The shirt is from my wife.  The Yamaha CM500 headset is from my parents.

Both of these came in good time since my “CW is the Real Thing” shirt is getting threadbare and my ProSet developed a bad spot in the cable in the past week.  I got to try them both out for a brief period at the W8AV multi-two operation in the CQ WW contest over the weekend.

The CM500 (the manufacturer page for these is gone, but you can get them from the usual places) came as highly recommended by the denizens of the Elecraft reflector via the PVRC reflector.  They’re pretty good headphones.  The sound is good and they have plenty of volume when driven by a TS-930.  The ear pads are a little thicker than those on the ProSet, which is good because after a few hours, my ears feel pinched by it.  The big downfall of the CM500 is that it feels a little bit like my head is in a vise when I wear them.  There may be an adjustment for that.

I was originally thinking that I should send the ProSet back to Heil to be refurbished.  But, the price is much higher than I remembered.  Fortunately, they stock parts for the old models.  So, I will be doing the refurbishing myself.

In WW news, I only operated for about two hours on Sunday afternoon at W8AV.  Goose replaced his big tower with a new one and the lower 40-meter antenna was not back up yet.  But, with a single 2-element Yagi at 140ish-feet and 1.5 kW from a homebrew 8877, I easily carved out a spot around 7064 kHz at 2000 UT and ran off a nice string of Europeans just as the band was opening.