The shack

I’m lusting (yes, there’s no other word for it) for the Icom IC-9100 but thought I’d take a pic of the current setup before I waived the magic credit card.

Victory, sweet victory

Woohoo! First satellite contact. Thank you, Allen (N5AFV). Sorry to be such a noob but… baby steps. I was so excited, I forgot to log the call until after the fact. Logging the satellite is a little different. I’ll get it.

73,
Chris AK4KZ

Sometimes I can be dense

Got up on YouTube today to look for satellite videos. Surely there must be something to gleen there to help me. I was specifically looking into tuning. I’m not acquiring the satellites. I can hear that I’m   not making it up there. The most logical thing is tuning. But I have my super-cool sat radio that tunes the Rx and tx at the same time. What could go wrong?

After a little digging and a few rabbit trails, I’ve got it. Tune in your Rx and then tune your tx independently. Perfect. Hey.. wait.  They’re running LSB on the transmit! Whoa.. gosh that would take me way away from the right freq. Perfect can’t wait to try. Next couple of passes were beautiful. Still couldn’t hear me. Huh. Next pass 

Couple more passes… well let’s try the FM bird. Tuning around to find the signal. You know? The receive sounds funny. Wait! There’s no UHF antenna hooked up. What a dope! Now.. it WAS hooked up so that hasn’t been my problem all along. But today? Yeah. That’d do it.

Tomorrow’s another day and more passes.

73
- Chris / AK4KZ

Hot radio room

Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. I haven’t been on the air much because my house lacks air conditioning. Of course, the radios make it the hottest room in the house. Hence, it’s kinda miserable to sit in there are listen or talk. But I’m still here.

I did manage to lose a swr/power meter after an electrical storm. Thought for sure I lost my finals but some fiddling around and I was tuning up fine with the meter out of the path. Replaced the meter and all is good again. Whew! That was close.

Oh… and I walked through this year’s 13 Colonies event with no problem. Even got one station on CW. I also got the bonus station. Epic fail on the satellites though. Just couldn’t get a signal up there in any useful fashion. Have to keep working on it. Talking on the birds seems to involve some artistry I’m not privvy to yet.

73s!

- Chris /AK4KZ

Whole lotta shakin’…

Lots going on. Significant? Maybe not. But lots of things.

I’ve been listening to a lot of code on the air. I’m getting better at decoding, which was much slower than my sending. It’s easy to send. You know what letters are coming up. Decoding? Sometimes. Not always. So I’ve been trying to get faster with that. Or at least lose my place fewer times.

I bought the Heil Proset-IC headset. Now.. I’m not much of a talker but when I do talk, I want it to sound decent. So, I’m rockin’ that. And I found out that the pedal to my wife’s Casio keyboards makes a GREAT transmit pedal. Pre-wired with a 1/4″ plug, baby! Oh yeah!

My DX-CC dipole, which has served me so well stapled to a wooden fence, is now up suspended 20′ or so in the air. If I can figure out how to move some branches, I can probably get another 5′ or so out of it. But right now, it’s a step up. The only problem is that I think the new altitude has changed my propagation. There’s a group I listen to (and sometimes join in) in the mornings and I have a tougher time hearing some of those guys until later.. usually right when it’s time for me to go to work. But, the upside is that I think I’m hearing farther better. Transmitting will be the real test. Oh.. I also replaced most of my RG-8X with LMR-400.

On the scanner front.. I bought ProScan for my Bearcat. I like the logging a little better than FreeScan and, being a signal hunter, that’s important to me. I just came in from taking my MFJ discone out of the bush I jammed it into and putting on top of a couple used 2x4s nailed together and leaned against the house. I took some old dipole wire I had and wired the 2×4 “tower” to the fence. It ain’t pretty but it’s up there. Eventually, my plan is to get a couple 10′ PVC sections and replace the 2x4s.

Haven’t been doing much digital lately. I haven’t forgotten it. But there are just so many hours.

As far as Worked All States.. I haven’t contacted MT at all and I have to confirm LA MI NV NJ OK SD and VT. I also have Hawaii, which I talked to but I have no expectation that it’ll be confirmed. There’s a QSO manager.. in another state.. not sure how LoTW knows that I talked to HI if my QSO is confirmed in Oshkosh… or where ever. That’s fine. We’ll just consider Hawaii untouched. I mean, it shouldn’t be hard to do it again, right? I’ve been slowing down on WAS though because I’d really like to get one using CW so I could qualify for the Triple Play. I think it’s more price money. (I’m kidding. I know there’s no prize money. It’s just a personal challenge.)

Satellites.. well, I’ve pretty much written off the idea of controlling my FT-736R by the computer. The support in HRD is nonexistent without a workaround that provides partial support. I have no memory management programs that know what to do with the 736. MacDoppler supports it but it didn’t really seem to act right. And.. perhaps the worse yet.. when I hook up the CAT cable, I get a low but definite hum from the receiver. Cheap cable? Maybe. That’s not so bad, I guess. Part of me wants to fully automate the satellite station but the other part of me wants radio without computer. So.. I’m not heart broken. It’s easy enough to tune manually. The part that’s concerning me now is that I’m not sure how to tune it for receiving UHF and transmitting VHF. I’m assuming you have to change VFO modes but it still seems wonky. And.. I haven’t been able to tune into an FM bird to check it. On the other hand, my UHF yagi is kludged into a bush right now so.. not quite time for disappointment yet. I simply don’t know.

I’ve got a cheap TV rotor in. Just waiting to get a ladder to get on the roof to install it (and my 2 mtr J-pole). I’ll fix the Yagi up to 20 degrees for now to at least get to the satellites. Later, this year, I’ll go for the Yaesu G5500. (hopefully before July)

But all in all.. slammin’ good time!

73,
Chris
AK4KZ 

Hamfest In 3

The Charleston Hamfest is in three days. That’s good.. in a way. I’m ready to start throwing down on my satellite station and I really need to hold off until the hamfest. I know I’ll buy something today and find a cheaper one on Saturday. So.. I have to exercise a little patience. I just don’t have time for that.

At last count, I had 39 states toward Worked All States. I’m getting there.

My Uniden BCT15x scanner is here. I’m digging it. Took me a while to figure out how the trunking systems got programmed in but I got it. This thing would be AMAZINGLY tedious to program without software. I downloaded a copy of FreeScan and it works fine for me. I do need to get a sideband antenna though. Maybe someone will have a discone at the hamfest.

I got my QSL cards in from K4JSG. As you can see, VERY nice. Great service. Heavy stock. Full color. What’s not to love? (Thanks, Jeff)

Closed on the new (used) house but no ham projects going on yet. Too busy with walls and floors. But soon.

Oh.. speaking of satellites.. I’m going to start posting.. well.. posts.. about the satellite project.

73 – Chris

RG-8X

Oh my gosh! I just realized that all my cable is RG8X. Bwwhahahaha!! Okay, it’s not the worst cable… but lots of loss. And being a non-amplifier kinda guy, loss is bad.