AmateurRadio.com

The Biggest Bird in the Pond

On my morning walk yesterday, I had quite a treat. Sure wish I had taken the camera along. On the shore of the flood control pond that flows out into the golf course, were 4 fine Florida water birds. It is not common to see them bunched together like this. A Great Blue Heron, a Little Blue Heron, a Great Egret and a Comorant were lined up in a space of about 8-10 feet. There was a good bit of shoving and jockeying for position and they were working down the bank fishing in the same small spot.

Cormorant is like a living submarine or scuba diver

Made me think of the pileups a DX station creates…      The comorant had a distinct advantage as the only real swimmer and diver of the bunch. It ranged up and down the bank picking off small fingerlings and bullying the other birds by swimming right up to their skinny legs and surfacing. Reminded me of some of the pileup busters I’ve observed from time to time.

At the same time, the little guy, the Little Blue Heron, and the regal looking, very white and tall Great Heron      were left to glean around the edges and pick off the fish that were panic striken and confused by the other birds fishing in the midst. This reminded me of all the contests where I have to dodge the big birds and pick off what I can around the edges.

Funny thing is there are tens of thousands of fish all along the bank, not just where these birds were bunched up. What is it about us that piles us up and forces such fierce competition? Hmmm?

Yep, I am a devoted CPG (Contest Point Giver), who had a nice morning walk and got to see a great outdoors show for free. That is why I love operating QRP portable. Being outside and enjoying the free shows only adds to the enjoyment of the hobby and the friendships made on the air.

72,

Kelly K4UPG PB #173

Tall White Bird is really quite skittish

This little Blue Heron really gets around fast

Wow! Great way to bring together a lot of ham radio ops on a Saturday using all sorts of technology!  Way to go! QRPSPOTS.COM is normally used by QRP ops to spot each other when we are out operating portable or to alert others of band openings. It was ALIVE with reports and updates from all over the USA and even a few DX ops adding input too! In addition, several QRP reflectors were buzzing with updates and info. What a great community effort this turned out! Congrats to all and thanks to QRP ARCI for helping get the word out.

Iowa High Altitude Balloon Project

One of the 4 States QRP bunch, Terry WA0ITP, provided the 20m beacon again and has some great info on his informative website.

But for me, the coolest thing was listening in on the streaming webcast of  VE3EN and his wonderful IC-7700. Sure wish I had thought of recording a bit or doing a screenshot to share here. But what a treat to listen in and hear the beacon’s signal right up until touchdown. Thanks Kevin for a fun way to eavesdrop on this event since the lawn mowing crew took over my condo’s yard and didn’t allow me to put an antenna out today. There is a ton of info and creative website construction on Kevin’s website and it is worth spending some time looking at the solar cycle data.

Congrats to the team for a successful event today and for bringing so many hams together for a good learning experience and something out of the ordinary. Well done W0OTM, well done indeed!

Here’s my dilemma:

I am a rookie homebrewer. My kit experience is good, but I have struggled to build direct from schematics. Part of it is my lack of ability to conceptualize the physical layout and part of my challenge is lack of building experience and mentoring.

What should I use?

Several of my antenna tuner projects seem to have a TON of hand capacitance effect. They are built in plastic cases, some from the Shack and some from the local surplus shops and hamfests. Most commercial tuners are built in metal cases and I wonder if that would eliminate the sensitivity to the tuning hand?

I have a couple metal enclosures I can use and a great ham friend sent me some thin copper with adhesive tape on the back.  I am thinking of slapping some copper tape inside the plastic cases and see how it works.

So, I am putting it to the vote:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

And for the record, the vote in the poll  for best ham radio QTH in the US was won by West Virgina. Here is the top 5:

• West Virginia (17%, 11 Votes)
• Kansas (14%, 9 Votes)
• Texas (8%, 5 Votes)
• Hawaii (6%, 4 Votes)
• New Hampshire (5%, 3 Votes)

Thanks and 72,

Kelly K4UPG

Recent posts on this blog mentioning the Chinese DIY scene and the explosion of offerings have prompted a very interesting exchange of views and reflections on how best to nurture this business and make it accessible to the global ham market.

Most recently Sivan Toledo has posted thoughtful comments drawing possible inspiration for the emergent Chinese DIY industry from successful amateur kit operations like Tony Parks’ Softrock. And the secret appears to be finding the right balance between the great product and crowdsourcing the support and handholding that is as much part of the product and building experience as the device itself.

Elecraft clearly enjoy the best in solid detailed step-by-step documentation (reminiscent of Heathkit) and they have the added advantage of an amazing online community dedicated to solving any problems, assisted by the designers and principals of the company. Part of the success of their online presence is a well moderated space and volunteer heroes like Don Wilhelm W3FPR who don’t appear to need sleep!

Doug Hendricks’ QRP Kits shows you can fill a niche and still keep your day job. While many of Doug’s star attractions are designed by Steve Weber KD1JV, Steve has his own website which I visit frequently to see whether a new batch of ATS-4 Miniature 5 band CW / digital mode HF transceivers are available or not, knowing they’ll probably sell out in a matter of hours. Users of this and its predecessors rave about them. Steve WG0AT took an ATS3 on his latest adventure with Rooster and Peanut.

Dave Benson, K1SWL’s Small Wonder Labs also offers quality kits at really good prices and a very efficient service. (My SW-40+ arrived in Sydney in record time.) Hunt around his site for a minute and you’ll discover how how the SWLabs fit into his lifestyle on 4+ acres near Newport “(we get a lot of winter here)” NH.

K1SWL’s approach to support includes email – “If you run into trouble during alignment and test, I’ll guide you through the troubleshoot process as far as we can get by e-mail. If that doesn’t do the trick, my repair person offers prompt and reasonably-priced service- he’ll troubleshoot and repair the unit and let you know what he found.” And you have a fair sense of what Dave means by ‘reasonable’.

It’s not unlike the successful formula for a restaurant or café – to offer the number of dishes it can do consistently well rather than attempt to cater to everyone’s tastes.

Tony Parks KB9YIG seems to have achieved production numbers of SoftRock kits that would appeal to any business backer, even if they are only made available in batches of 20 or so depending on availability of components and time. The very reasonable prices charged – including international shipping – play a part in this success by attracting a broad base of committed supporters keen to share experiences and grow the platform and everyone’s skills.

And today I noticed Julian G4ILO wrote about a range of kits from Fox Delta Amateur Radio Projects and Kits in India. They have the advantage over Chinese offerings of the English language and they accept PayPal. The range of kits on offer is impressive. Julian had ordered a APRS Tracker Module.

And of course Australia has its own GenesisRadio with its amazing line of SDR Kits such as the G59.

What an amazingly exciting time to be involved in ham radio!

Speaking of global reach, a prominent link currently on eHam.net has helped boost traffic to this site as well! (Welcome to all new visitors to the blog! I hope you find something interesting here.)

Now that I have my K2 connected again for computer control I have found that a few things in KComm that worked with the K3 don’t work with the K2 because the control commands, though they may look the same, don’t all work the same way on both radios. So I spent yesterday evening fixing the problems.

One of the things that didn’t work was the auto-repeat option for CQ calling. I was testing it by sending a CQ on 30m with just 1W output into the magnetic loop in the attic. I didn’t expect anyone to come back to me, and no-one did, but I was surprised that my signal was spotted in Northern Spain by EA1GFY. The effectiveness of that magnetic loop antenna never fails to amaze me.

I don’t think many people use as little as 1W on PSK31 but it would be interesting to see what you could work with such low power. It seems to me that 1000 miles per watt should be perfectly achievable. I’ve made a few contacts using the K2 and 4 or 5 watts over similar distances to what I’d expect using the K3 and 40 watts. I think conditions, more than power, determine how far you can work. More power just makes it easier.

The QRP-L reflector has been buzzin’ with the news and chatter (positive and some negative btw) about a new project to design and build a new transceiver for QRP HF use. YAHOO!

K8IQY Style Test Setup

What I love the most about this is that the QRP community is able to contribute ideas, resources and participate much like the Open Source software community operates. This could really be a fun project for our Central Florida QRP group. After all, we are not that far from Diz W8DIZ who is facilitating and coordinating this project.

If you like to build, experiment and try some QRP operation with a new rig… you should tune in and join the fun.

This is the last week to vote in the poll on my blog for the best US QTH for ham radio… Here’s the standings as of Sunday at 2100 EDT:

• West Virginia (17%, 10 Votes)
• Kansas (16%, 9 Votes)
• Hawaii (7%, 4 Votes)
• Texas (7%, 4 Votes)
• New Hampshire (5%, 3 Votes)

You can cast your vote by following this link!

72,

Kelly K4UPG PB #173

News via the NUE-PSK email list that over the weekend George N2APB presented and demonstrated a prototype of the SDR Cube project at the TAPR Digital Communications Conference in Vancouver, WA near Portland, Oregon.

The SRD Cube’s formal title is “A Portable Software Defined Radio Utilizing An Embedded DSP Engine for Quadrature Sampling Transceivers” and it was devised by George Heron, N2APB and Juha Niinikoski, OH2NLT.

N2APB's SDR Cube

A companion to his NUE-PSK modem, it’s designed to provide “a standalone SDR transceiver (no PC required) that is quite portable and trail friendly”.

“So far the most attention has come from the SDR Cube’s “live bandscope” showing a +/- 4 kHz spectrograph of band activity along the top of the graphic display.  Some preliminary pics are on the start of the website … http://www.sdr-cube.com“.

From his earlier 11 September email where the SDR Cube was first announced:

“a totally self-contained embedded SDR transceiver using a Softrock for the RF front end and a pc board implementation of an HF modem that couples tightly with the NUE-PSK Digital Modem.  The Cube is designed to fit into a 4” x 4” x 4” pre-cut black powder-coated aluminum enclosure containing all controls, blue graphic display showing the familiar band scope of spectrum signals, and the popular Softrock RXTX v6.3 board.”

The latest update this morning from George is that the pricing “is not yet established … but soon will be.  I think the cost of the parts and pcbs is around $100, so you can guess what the corresponding price might be.”

They’re aiming for the range of offerings (bare PCB, kit, assembled & tested etc) to be available in about six weeks. As well the plan is for there to be a direct digital connection between the SDR Cube and the NUE-PSK by the shipping date. In the meantime check out the pics at http://www.sdr-cube.com. Also brief mention on WETNET.

UPDATE: George N2APB has posted some videos of the SDR Cube in action. There’s a 25′ overview and five shorter clips.

The sdr-cube.com website now (30 Sept 10) has much more information about the rig including hardware and software architecture diagrams, a photo gallery, a very detailed 26 page pdf of the TAPR DCC conference presentation (7.5MB) and this feature list.

• Standalone SDR transceiver … no PC, portable, compact
• Self-contained single band … based on the I/Q RF front end
• Softrock-compatible … designed to interface with SR v6.3 RXTX, etc.
• Low Power … 90ma (Cube), plus 100 ma (Softrock Rx) or 300 ma (Software Tx
• Add-on RF Amp & Attenuator … good control of incoming RF, optimize some SR features.
• Quadrature Sampling Clocking options … DDS, Si570, or I2C to target Softrock
• Built-in Keyer … 1-50 wpm, Iambic A, B, or straight key
• Popular HF modes … SSB, CW, AM, Digital (with special interface to NUE-PSK)
• Special interface to NUE-PSK Modem … digital interface provides best quality
• Graphic LCD Display … Provides clear indications of the many status and options
• Bandscope … provides +/- 4 kHz spectrum visibility for Rx, signal monitor for Tx
• Audio filtering … low corner 200Hz, high corners 700, 1500, 2400 or 3600Hz
• Audio Output … Headphones or amplified speaker, Binaural Audio
• Beeper … User interface clicks, code practice oscillator, and more
• Frequency agility … Fast/Med/Slo tune, dual VFOs, memories, RIT/XIT
• Menus … Calibration, all settings, system gain, sidetone frequency, etc
• Software Upgradeable … Bootloader enables user to load new software versions
• Open Source & Hardware

A new Yahoo Group has also been set up and info can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sdr-cube/.

LATER UPDATE: 14 Oct 2010 – Tobias DH1TW has posted a 75 minute interview with George N2APB on his website – complete with comprehensive ‘shownotes’.