21 Tech Net: 2024-11-24

My Weeks in Radio

  • QRP on a couple hawaiian islands
  • not much 2m activity
    • added some repeaters and scanned
  • POTA
    • Xiegu x6100 mostly turned up to 8W
    • mostly 10m-30m and everything in between
    • challenging to be on an island where you have to go thousands of miles or you reach no one.
    • antennas:
      • 40M EFHW where I had room,
      • 41ft long EFRW with less room
      • vertical whip and coil attached to a fishing pole for a less conspicuous setup on some beaches
    • 6 parks and 2 trails on 2 islands:
      • sandy beaches
      • rocky lava fields
      • inside diamondhead caldera
      • atop steaming kilauea
    • reached:
      • west: Australia, New zealand, Fiji, Japan, Russia, China, South Cook Islands, Samoa
      • east: North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Dominican Republic, Argentina
    • practiced some CW on the beach when I didn’t get out the computer
  • back to a home park yesterday, but the weather was not as nice.
  • took down my home-made 2m antennas and straightened them up.
  • trying F4HWN 3.7 firmware for Quansheng radios
    • from a scanner-centered AUBSUK firmware that was skipping some channels
  • looking forward to that FT Challenge contest

Other News

  • contests
    • CQ WW CW this weekend
    • no contests for the Thanksgiving weekend
    • following weekend
      • 160m CW arrl contest
      • FT challenge contest
  • KA3TKW: R&L electronics: TYT MD-9600, GD-77 open firmware
  • digipeat through the ISS
  • high pass of ISS tonight at 9:10pm.
  • 224.220 repeater is up and running, but not linked yet.
  • KC3NNO: mini dxpedition to canada
21  ka3tkw  net  tech 

21 Tech Net: 2024-10-20

My Week in Radio

  • I received a couple images from ISS, but it ended quicker than I realized.
  • JARTS RTTY contest coming this weekend
  • I did a little CW for POTA.
  • Trying to reach a little further over a hill and to the East
    • building a yagi on a flag pole from a calculator using ARRL spacing
    • 50W TYT radio
  • This Week in Ham Radio Podcast Ham Radio History:
    • 1916, amateurs exploring propagation
    • 1917 first, faster trans-continental relays with ARRL

Others

  • K3EA
  • KA3TKW
    • W3UU Harrisburg Ham Fest this Saturday
    • ARRIS mission on 24 Oct, 11:15AM, 145.800MHz
    • Tri-repeater is up: 224.210 PL 123.0, 449.925, 53.21
  • KK4KKW
    • Sudden SWR reading on 40M antenna
21  ka3tkw  tech  net 

21 Tech Net: 2024-08-25

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
21  tech  net  ka3tkw 

21 Tech Net - 2024-04-07

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
tech  net  21  ka3tkw 

21 Tech Net - 2024-03-24

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
ka3tkw  21  tech  net 

21 Tech Net - 2024-03-17

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.
net  ka3tkw  21  tech  rtty  bartg