My Week in Radio
- Mobile APRS is proving to be really short-range
- Couldn’t even spot myself outside at Sam Lewis up on the hill
- Cycled with it, but no traffic
- Needs a real antenna
- Some POTA
- Sam Lewis, US-1418
- found the leading park activator, kn3a, in my spot. :)
- storms rolling in, so called it quits
- watched 20m slam shut: decoding 30 signals to 4
- Susquehanna River, US-4567
- Columbia Riverfront Park that’s open after sunset
- spanned into the next day…again, so had an incomplete and a complete activation.
- Sam Lewis, US-1418
- Got an FT8 contact to Israel with 5W from home: first Asia for me.
- Weekly RTTY Test and FT4 sprint
- Ham radio software may not be the most efficient
fldigileft running but disconnected from radio ran CPU at 95C doing nothing.- GridTracker likes to burn cpu too when left running.
- AB3AP, Mike, on EZ-Hang slingshot: I’ve given up the slingshot and just swing my throw line by hand.
- KB3ILS, Keith: there are scripts online for 3d-modeling any size knob you need.
Questions
- W3JAM, Jeff:
- Does anyone have experience using Drake TR4CW on AM?
- Can you add a noise blanker to this radio?
- Noise blanker would alleviate pulsing noise from electric fence.
- Jeff will be getting the entire manual library on CD, which will have information.
- KC3OOK, Bill:
- How do you connect a NanoVNA to an open wire feed line?
- WA3VEE: Would you need a balun to start getting close to impedance to match the expected 50 ohm?
- W3JAM: Doesn’t matter so much where it’s tuned, since you use it with a tuner anyway.
- NA3CW:
- You don’t want it to be resonant anyway, because being resonant will give you the largest extremes to tune when trying to move to other bands.
- NanoVNA may be limited on the impedance it can read.
- Dipole should be at least as long as half wave + a little
- He extended a wire to get it to tune where it wouldn’t.
- WA3VEE, Ron:
- SOCO connectors carry 208V. When rewiring those connectors,
what’s a good caulk-like sealant that could be used for “potting”
the inside of the plugs?
- Plain bathroom caulk can be conductive.
- Silicon may breakdown at lower voltage than needed too.
- SOCO connectors carry 208V. When rewiring those connectors,
what’s a good caulk-like sealant that could be used for “potting”
the inside of the plugs?