W3RRR Ham Fest

I passed the test for Amateur Extra: 40/50 correct. I needed 37 correct.

US-4567, Captain John Smith Trail

• POTA with Matthew, KC3WRY, at the boat launch under train tracks south of Marietta.
• FT8 on 20M
• 1 CW P2P contact on 20M. I didn’t fumble so much.
• I used the newly-printed and rebuilt EFHW winder and throw line. The velcro strap remains a problem for snagging the line.

My Week in Radio

• I moved the tape-measure yagi to the top of a 25-foot flagpole in the backyard.
  • 10 W, but not quite doing it.
  • There’s still too much of a hill.
• I upgraded the X6100 baseband, stock firmware, and 3rd-party firmware.
• Some CW
  • barely got 2 CW contacts hunting POTA, but I got into their logs
  • heard AF3Z on 40m out on his trip
  • morsle app to practice copying CW words and call signs
• I redesigned and printed a new antenna winder.
• I heard some AM and some RTTY during contests.
• I cleaned up and organized all the radio stuff from the move instead of contesting.
• I’m going to try for my extra ticket at the next Ham Fest.

Others’ News

• KB3RFG, Jim: all the bands open today in lots of directions
• NA3CW, Chuck: lot’s of AM fun
• AF3Z, Jim
  • spectated some RTTY contesting
  • 10m CW conversations
• WA3VEE, Ron: LMR400 (KMR400) coax is lowest loss practical

Questions

• KN3I, John: How does one make an AM rig sound good? Carrier power, modulation, etc.

10 meter started opening today. With 5 watts, I got to Hawaii and Greenland.

Xiegu released another updated firmware for the X6100: APP 1.1.9 & BASE 1.1.8, dated 2024-09-23.

1. I downloaded it from Radioddity, and wrote it to an SD card:

$ sudo dd if=sdcard.img of=/dev/sda bs=1M status=progress

2. I booted the new card for the app upgrade to 1.1.9,
3. I applied baseband 1.1.8 from the menu in the UI.
4. I tried the CW key in the stock firmware, and it transmitted (unlike last time).
5. I booted back to R1CBU, and it looked good there as well.

I did a little FT8, decoded some CW, and listened to some SSB on 40m. I found I could to turn the RF Gain closer to 100 instead of below 63. It may be reading slightly lower power on the display before ALC kicks in: up to but not over the 5W, where it used to often push a little past.

It’ll stay.

Week in Radio

• Last weekend was POTA weekend: 4 setups and 5 activations in 2 days around Michaux State Forest area
• Morsle to practice copying CW
• My first 2 CW contacts hunting POTA
  • 40m
  • X6100
  • 71-foot EFRW
  • 3D-printed Iambic paddles
  • Fell apart pretty quickly, but got into their logs.
• Testing the footprint of the KA3TKW VHF/UHF repeaters to high on a hill. near Wrightsville with my trusty Quansheng at the SPARC picnic
• New house
  • Extending my meshtastic network with a minimal external antenna
  • Strong enough into 21 at 5 watts
  • Flagpole mast with a tape measure yagi to try to get back east to Parkesburg.
• I was up way too late redesigning an antenna winder for the smaller balun I like.
  • I need to get the 3d printer and software going again since the move
• Xiegu x6100 has another dangerous firmware update that I’ll try in the near future.
  • The last firmware stopped all TX, so we’ll see what happens this time.

Other News

• A RTTY contest coming up this weekend
• AO-91: Monday, 10:15pm EDT
• SO-50: 437.795FM
• The 6m 53.21 repeater is up.

I got in W1JMA’s log when they were activating US-7545. on 7047.5kHz. They looked me up in QRZ, so knew my name and location. I sent 599 and received 599. It was a super-minimal exchange, because I fumbled a lot.

I had to read a bit about how to correct errors, and I soon stumbled into AF3Z on 7036kHz, and I saw a funny series of attempted corrections: “a littr eee a littr eee a bit”

Later, I Got a second contact, KV4UD.

My Week in Radio

• Tried some new firmware for X6100, but no good
• Moved Houses
  • installed some antennas
    • 71ft random wire
    • 1/4 wave ground plane
• POTA weekend
  • Michaux State Forest
  • Caledonia State Park
  • King’s Gap Environmental Education Center
  • Pine Grove Furnace
  • Used an EFHW for everything
  • Ran out of battery on Pine Grove Furnace on the second day, so did the whole thing with 1W FT8.
  • Tried calling CQ on CW to see if RBN would pick me up.

Questions

• Charles, KC3SWC: What books about operating do you recommand?
  • Ron, WA3VEE
    • ARRL Operating Guide
    • ARRL: Basic Electronics for Radio
    • Electronics for Hobbyists
  • John, KC3WWC
    • Spend lots of time listening to others
    • Youtube
  • Chuck, NA3CW
    • Lots of people are listening
    • Keep it civil
    • Keep it technical
    • Don’t bore people with aches and pains
    • ARRL Operating Manualy
    • ARRL Handbook
    • ARRL Antenna Book
    • Be helpful
    • Be interesting
• Wayne, KC3SQI: How do you tone squelch for receiving and filtering away QRM from another repeater on the same frequency?
  • Ron, WA3VEE: tone squelch or “split tone”
  • CR, W8CRW: T-SQL = tone squelch
  • Chuck, NA3CW: would be useful when the band opened and a distant DMR is overtaking 985.
• Ron, WA3VEE: Yaesu HTs can only do one of the other, not both.

I used the EFHW for everything. I activated 4 park entities:

• Caledonia State Park after riding the Michaux GRVL ride.
• Michaux State Forest from the ATV trail parking on the ridge.
• Kings Gap Environmental Education Center late in the day, so I raced a little.
  • antenna up in about 8 minutes
  • 10 contacts within 26 minutes
  • on the road again 14 minutes later
• Pine Grove Furnace the next morning, where I ran out of battery, so I did the whole thing with 1W FT8. I practiced a bit and started putting out my call on CW to see if RBN would pick me up, but kept it to a shy 1W. It didn’t pick me up.

Radioddity had the new firmware for the X6100. I downloaded it, wrote it, installed it, and rebooted it to see the stock APP 1.1.8 and BASE 1.1.7. That mostly-useless audio spectrum is gone. The strange jump at 63 in RF GAIN is fixed.

BUT transmitting gave NO POWER. R1CBU also exhibited the problem. When I downgraded to BASE 1.1.6, it transmitted again. Others had seen this problem as well, while others had it work. It must have depended upon variations in the hardware.

I’ve started installing antennas at the new house. I have a 71-foot EFRW out the backyard. Noise was a bit low, S2 or so. We’ll see how it looks when computers get here. That wire seems good for 80m.

I strung a 2m/70cm dipole into a tree in the front yard. I’m on the wrong side of a hill, so I’m missing W3GMS, but K3IR, KA3TKW, AA3RG, W3UU are coming in strong.