I checked into the Morning Grind on K3IR today. The questions was: plans for solar eclipse? I transmitted successfully through the FM bandstop filter from rtl-sdr.com. The filter has helped immensely to hold 2m signals with sensitive external antenna.

I took the Amtrak from Lancaster to Pittsburgh to visit Marie. In down times, I scanned with the spectrum analyzer on my UV-K5.

Rail

On the train, I scanned the rail frequencies, 159MHz-162MHz. I could hear some chatter about the Norfolk Southern freight trains in our way, and I heard the automated messages reporting clear track conditions.

CMU Buggy Net

Scanning the entire 2m band on Saturday morning, I heard the radio club kids running their regular net that supports buggy practices.

I attended the SPARC member meeting tonight and heard about lots of interesting plans. They have some fun events coming up, like a fox hunt, some antenna building to prepare for the fox hunt, and even some POTA outings. They’ll also start planning for field day.

The main presentation was about the recent Dry Tortugas DXpedition.

I went home and sent my member application right away.

I failed to check-in do to RF issues, but my summary is still good.

My Week in Amateur Radio

• Antenna movement
  • Trying my dipole antennas in new places
    • hanging dipole in back yard
    • still getting debilitating interference over 985
    • 21 and k3ir coming in pretty good
  • Restrung the EFRW antenna for HF
    • a little higher, straighter in the tree
  • It’s great fun to throw wires and strings in trees
• Overload on UV-K5 with better antennas
  • UV-K5 & UV-K6 for comparison - not broken
  • Balance antenna location good enough but not too good
  • Going to try a bandstop filter, but not sure about transmitting through it
  • Love the firmware options on Quansheng radios, but do I need a better radio?
  • It kills me that I’m so marginal for accessing my favorite repeaters.
• Modifying params database on xiegu x6100
  • Now shows me accurate bands and privileges, so i won’t accidentally wander beyond my privileges.
  • Modified the source code and rebuilt the database from my source
• I picked up an Evolve 3 laptop that runs on 12v
  • Getting linux installed on it
• Still learning CW
  • 20wpm
  • It’s so difficult to stay focused copying at 20wpm even for 1 minute

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

I updated the bands on my X6100 running R1CBU to follow the US band plan/privileges:

• Clone source: https://github.com/strijar/x6100_gui
• Update sql/bands_ham.csv to break bands by plan and privileges for US
• Update sql/params.sql to not import band_params.csv, but to instead build it from the bands table
• Rebuild the db: sqlite3 params.db < params.sql
• Copy the new params.db to the DATA partition of the SD card

Rebuilding the database loses all your settings on the radio, so you have to put those back, but I can now see where the general privileges start and end on each band.

I updated my X6100 to R1CBU 0.20.1. Oleg provided a tgz with only the updated files, so I dropped the file into /DATA partition, started up the radio, and it unpacked the update. The tgz contained the x6100_ui binary and params.db.

This can be an interesting way to make my own updates without needing to know how to rebuild the entire image. I see the changes applied to his x6100_gui github repo, so I know that’s a good base for making future changes.

Learning to do make updates is interesting, because the original maintainer, Oleg, is likely done updating this firmware in favor of building his own radio in the image of the X6100. He’s frustrated trying to get help and documentation from Xiegu. I run the R1CBU firmware full-time.

Reception Problems

During 985 net on Monday night, which is VHF on my UV-K5 running egzumer 0.22.0, I’d get periodic static in reception. It got bad enough to completely cut-out. I was using my simple wire dipole hanging in the tree outside.

K3IR had been frustratingly quiet as well, so I checked the antenna with the NanoVNA as it hung outside. There were no fluctuations in SWR, so it’s not connections or proximity.

I tried the Explorer QRZ-1 HT, and it sounded great on the same antenna on the same net. Is my UV-K5 broken?

To test a bit further, I ordered a new UV-K6 to compare. I also downgraded to egzumer 0.21.0 for further testing.

The next day, Tuesday morning, K3IR was sounding better, but I was getting the same periodic noises. The outside antenna doesn’t completely cut out, but shows terrible doubling/overload as if from FM station.

Inside, the magmount antenna on the 3d printer is better. Is the dipole outside too sensitive and bringing in more signal than the frontend of the UV-K5 can handle?

This Week in Ham Radio

• I keep tweaking the outside 2m dipole
  • I got it a little higher
  • It tests different day to night
  • Signal is good then gone every so many seconds
  • Checked it for loose connections in the wind. It seems fine.
• I’ve been learning to configure fldigi more
• BARTG RTTY contest over the weekend
  • I finally successfully ran the frequency for a bit calling cq and getting responses
  • I stuck to the 5W QRP class
• I’m scanning more frequencies for satellite repeaters
• Weather is nicer, so I got out on my bicycle. It’s time to activate some parks (on the bike?). The Tram mirror mount for vertical antenna might clamp nicely to the bag rack.

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.