Ka3tkw

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.

My Week in Radio

• I Wish I had paid attention to the contest calendar for WW digital contest.
• I’m awaiting a confirmation on QRZ for my last of 50 states: Hawaii.
• Lots of new open updates for the Xiegu X6100.
• Started compiling firmware for Quansheng.
• Playing with a couple heltec v3 meshtastic nodes
  • marveling at the range, better than APRS?
• I did my first POTA activation by only voice, no digital.
  • lots of qso parties
  • heard Hawaii really easily
  • Wasted someone’s time trying CW

My Week in Radio

• outside wire broke and rehung a couple times
  • avoiding tension on it
  • cheap throwing weight from big sockets from Habitat Restore
• my first summer of HF: May not be as exciting as past Winter/Spring
• tape measure yagi for direction-finding/tx
  • Quansheng shows dB and S-level of the signal, so going to work nicely for direction-finding
  • found a direction-finding map application for my phone to help with triangulation: SigTrax
  • may go chasing a curious source noises in my area
  • local club is gearing up for a tx hunt
• POTA / Field Day on the National Mall in DC
  • GRA-1900t whip with coil with jumper
    • noted resonant frequencies at each jumper fully extended, so lookup, jumper, then shorten to tune.
  • ran out all the batteries, but got the park activated
• POTA around York/Lancaster
  • oops, tick bite and lyme disease
• sorting all the gear for radio, electronics, other hobbies.

Other Info

• packet radio
  • 145.010 FM 12db digipacket
  • 28.105 USB 300bd digipacket
• 13 colonies activity this week
• Firecracker Hamfest this weekend
  • Triangle Communication will have lots of gear to unload
• satellites
  • ISS
    • 145.800mhz
    • 145.825 digipeater packet
    • 437.800 fm repeater
    • Monday morning
    • Tuesday morning
    • Wednesday morning
  • AO-91
    • Monday
    • Wed
    • Thurs
  • SO-50
    • Tues 7pm
    • etc

My Week in Amateur Radio

• Overload on UV-K5 with better antennas
  • UV-K5 & UV-K6 for comparison - not broken
  • Balance antenna location good enough but not too good
  • FM bandstop filter helps a whole lot
• Modifying params database on Xiegu X6100
  • Now shows me accurate bands and privileges, so I won’t accidentally wander beyond my privileges.
• Picked up an Evolve 3 laptop that runs on 12v
  • Linux is being challenging: wifi and sound.
• Packing camera and radio gear or eclipse trip tomorrow

I think I was having antenna trouble, so I couldn’t check in. I only listened.

• KA3TKW has digipeaters
  • 145.010 FM digipeater
  • 28.105 USB digipeater
  • packet radio is free
• FM satellites that are easy to use
  • ISS
    • packet digipeater
    • voice
    • 10:35pm good pass
  • SO-50
• Look into digi-pi

This Week in Ham Radio

• Tried a couple RTTY sprints
  • tough to get configured in 30 minutes
  • had to fix up logs
• BARTG (British Amateur) RTTY Contest
  • I’m getting more advanced on my fldigi setup
  • 27 contacts
  • 5W to qualify QRP class
• The Quansheng charging on its base causes a mess of interference for 40m on my X6100
• I chatted with Tom (KA3TKW) the other day and added a few satellites to scan on my Quansheng for random repeater traffic
• egzumer firmware scans very fast
• I’m looking forward to some POTA now that weather’s getting better.
• I’ve been using the same antenna for too long.

ARRL/FCC/ARCC in Harrisburg

KA3TKW and the 21 repeater group hosted a lunch with representatives from the ARRL, the FCC, and the ARCC.

POTA

I stopped at State Game Land 246 near Middletown to activate on 10m FT8/FT4.

I used 2 different antennas: - initially used Grabil whip fully extended, shorted coil, w/ tuner - 12.5m EFRW thrown into a tree Both antennas seemed to perform similarly. I was skipping far: lots of contacts came from Oregon, Washington, and I even got Alaska.

Clipperton DX

Later that day, I also contacted the Clipperton DX station, TX5S, on 40m via FT8

• ARRL/FCC meeting
  • setup at 10:30
  • lunch at 11:00
  • meeting at 11:00
• ka3tkw - tom
  • ft8 on 10m on quansheng
• kc3wry
• kc3den
• kc3wwc
  • there for the meeting
  • rehabilitated project j-pole
    • 450 ohm ladder line
    • tuned it with the nanovna
    • resoldered it
    • west to harrisburg
    • east to parkesburg
    • Quansheng uvk5
  • had uvk5 randomly pick up ISS repeater at 2am or so
  • xlr mic cable, untested, available for ARRL meeting
  • always repacking and organizing my bags for optimal carry
• k3ea
  • DX opportunities
    • good propagation for 10m/12m
    • Clipperton / fox and hound
    • Saint Helena
• winter field day
  • Harrisburg people are hitting some parks
  • 97 repeater in York