21

My Week in Radio

• I did field day with a group out toward Parkesburg
  • I saw a fancy satellite station for sideband, etc in action
• Attended the lunch on Thursday
• Had Direwolf monitoring a plain ol’ Quansheng to decode packet
• Btech UV-PRO
  • inexpensive
  • APRS location and messaging
  • KISS TNC over BT
  • WoAD on android
  • Winlink
  • Terminal to access BBS on KA3TKW
• Trying to build a tactical delta loop
  • 4:1 balun
  • 2 17 ft whips
  • 25 ft wire for the top
  • 3d-printed base

Others

• K3EA, Greg:
  • QSO parties
  • upcoming contests
  • Solar weather
  • DX
    • Wake Island on 10M
    • Gambia, 10-20m, FT8
      • our sunrise
    • Rowanda, 10-30m, FT8, CW
  • New DXCC programs
  • Cards from bureau
  • Will talk at march lunch about Hamcation in Orlando
• WB3LNY, George:
  • headed to Hamcation in Orlando
• KB9AWS, Bern:
  • New batteries
  • Appreciate the group you have, use the repeater
• VE3HOH, Pete:
  • Working on a combo nvis dipole for 40 meters
    • 20 ft above ground
    • Inverted V
    • Combo it with a vertial for 10M
  • Looking at military antennas for manpack
    • 30MHz-512MHz rubber duck on eBay
  • Looking at some low-power, remote receivers
• K3SWZ, Glenn:
  • Worked 20M helping test a new DX station in Kenya
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • 145.825MHz ISS packet digipeater
• KB3MIJ, Tray:
  • Repairing some repeater hardware
  • Got a replacement generator for a site
• K3DMM, Denny:
  • Lunch on Thursday
  • HT with Arrow to make ISS contacts and SO-50
  • Try Arrow from inside
• KC3ZBI, Ron:
  • Lunch on Thursday
  • Starting figuring out LoTW
• N3LJP, Bill:
  • Looking for charger for AA, AAA lithium batteries that runs off 120V.
  • KC3BOB, Bob:
    • Hobby King is a good mail-order shop for battery needs
  • KC3WWC, John:
    • I like my EBL chargers off Amazon
    • Inexpensive
• KC3VZU, Bob:
  • Ham lunch, liked the presentation
  • Going to get HF rig up and running

Swap and shop

• WB3LNY, George:
  • Looking for a teletype
• VE3HOH, Pete:
  • Some yagis for weak signal work
  • Drake TR7
  • Kenwood 830
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • 25W Motorola mobile rigs
  • RadioShack SW receivers
  • Panasonic SW portable
• KB3MIJ, Tray:
  • Jet turbine generator

My Week in Radio

• My favorite way to learn things: experiments
  • diagnose and repair a bad coax cable
    • no continuity on center conductor
    • plugged it into the nano vna, switched to smith chart
      • saw a big spiral around the outside
      • no change in the graph on the other side
      • compared to a working cable
      • it should have spiraled
      • maybe alonger spiral for a longer cable
  • 71 foot random wire with 5W is not needing the tuner
    • disconnected lots of different places and checked lots of SWR without those connections
• Tossed a wire into a tree at Swatara State Park today for some POTA contacts
• Operated the last 2 hours of the RTTY contest on 10m, 15m, and 20m.

My Week in Radio

• ISS on scan, so caught part of an image
  • passes are a bit early right now, and low
• POTA yesterday:
  • 2 CW + 28 FT4 contacts on 20m
  • pretty rusty on throwing the line into the trees
  • bad section of coax
• some antenna maintenance on a nice day

Others

• K3EA, Greg:
  • Special event station with local station:
    • W2T, Battle of Trenton
    • W2P, Battle of Princeton
  • Contests
    • Canadian Winter Contest
    • next weekend
      • ARRL kids
      • ARRL RTTY Round Up
    • NA QSO party
    • https://contestcalendar.com/
  • Propagation report and DX
    • Dominica
    • Fiji: 3D2GE, CW only
    • watch the DX clusters
  • after DXCC award, go for every country on every band.
• WB3LNY, George
  • built a new pc with chirp, and synced up all his HTs
• VE3HOH, Pete
  • cleanup, indoors.
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • ISS on night shift: good passes aren’t during the day.
    • there’s a packet digipeater
    • SSTV is active
    • it was only doing telemetry over the weekend
  • good passes for SO-50
  • https://n2yo.com/
  • ham lunch had about 32 people
  • thanks Glen for talking about DXCC
  • zbitx
    • 5 watt QRP SDR TRX
    • will be buying one
    • shipping in February
    • 44 bit ADC
• K3DMM, Denny
  • caught SO-51 with a Baofeng 701
• KC3VZU, Bob:
  • setup a new TYT 9000D with a slim jim outside
• KK4KKW, Steve:
  • new end fed antenna strung into the trees, inverted L, trying it on 10M
• KC3ZBI, Ron:
  • new antenna that’s not on the car now,

Swap and Shop

• WB3LNY, George
  • dummy loads
• VE3HOH, Pete
  • paddles, bugs
    • vibroplex
    • brown brothers
  • oscilliscopes
  • a couple Drake TR7s
  • tower sections
  • a couple Kenwood 130s
  • email is good on http://qrz.com/
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • 2 shortwave receivers: RadioShack DX440
    • 0-30MHz all mode
  • UHF motorola repeaters, 25W
  • Yaesu FT1XD, dual band, APRS
• K3MIJ, Troy
  • looking for a commercial propane generator

My Week in Radio

• ARRL 10m contest:
  • 13 CW contacts logged on paper
  • Iambic keyer set to 20 WPM somewhat confidently
  • Still relying on radio to decode for me
• Hunting some CW POTA activators through the week
• Practicing copying CW
• Latest beta of Meshtastic app on Android is reconnecting automatically
• ISS SSTV 25 Dec - 4 Jan

Others

• K3EA, Greg:
  • FT8 whack-a-mole
  • Saw some RTTY contests
  • Canadian contest next weekend
  • https://contestcalendar.com/
  • Jan 4-5 is RTTY Roundup
  • Kids day
  • Good space weather, peak of solar cycle
  • DX
    • Phillipines
    • French Guyana
• WB3LNY, George:
  • Diagnosing heating connections on large electrical panel
• NE3H, Joe:
  • Spoke at length with a bunch of old acquaintances from Taiwan
• KC3VZU, Bob:
  • Installing some coax and a 220MHz rig
• KD3AGU, Richard:
  • Licensed 3 weeks ago
  • Setting up DMR
  • Listening to a net in Ephrata
• K3DMM, Denny:
  • 16F outside, so no fun standing outside for satellite work
  • Tuned some mobile antennas
  • Worked a couple ISS passes
  • Good SO-50 pass
  • Looking forward to lunch on Thursday
• WA3WIJ, Ron:
  • Rebuilding Halicrafters radio with caps and tubes
  • Preparing for straight key night
• KC3ZBI, Ron:
  • Working on an outside antenna
  • Trying for 12 days of Christmas Event
• N7JMS, Jon:
  • Got some new countries on FT8/FT4
  • Building a 10M loop antenna
  • Is there any C4FM or Fusion available in the Harrisburg area?
    • K3DMM, Denny: 447.925

I overheard some tips from Tom, KA3TKW, on the 21 repeater: Check out the AMSAT manuals for contacting satellite repeaters, and operate full duplex, so you can hear while transmitting.

My Week in Radio

• I used N3KZ 440 repeater in York from Lancaster
  • always surprised on their range.
  • thought UHF didn’t go far.
• I built an Allstar node from a PI 4 and a USB-C radio dongle to reach a fringe repeater.
• I’m looking forward to FT challenge
• I stumbled into and recognized some Olivia-8/250 on 20M, and some SSTV
• I’ve been hearing lots of ISS repeater traffic at convenient times on my good ol’ 1/4 wave antenna in the tree.
• I got the radio blog up-to-date with all my adventures.

Others

• 145.010 packet repeater
• K3EA, Greg:
  • No contests this past weekend
  • Next weekend:
    • ARRL 160m CW at night
    • FT challenge - normal exchanges
  • December 14-15
    • 10m contest, phone/CW, 48 hrs, should be great.
  • https://contestcalendar.com
  • Propagation should be normal and above normal
• WB3LNY, George:
  • Working on ISS access.
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • ARISS mission 1622UTC, 145.800
  • New satellite on Nov 4, AO-123, ASRTU, FM, 4-day pass
  • Easy satellites
    • ISS: 145.800FM, 145.825 packet, 437.800FM downlink
    • AO-123, 435.400FM down
    • SO-50, 437.795FM down
• K3DMM, Denny:
  • Travel and simplex contacts
• K3AQ, Kenny:
  • New laptop from Best Buy to run fldigi, etc.
• KB3MIJ:
  • Some fldigi on HF
  • Some repeater work at reesers.
• W3MW, Don:
  • Most bands on a vertical antenna.
  • Mounting some antennas on the roof with a contractor.
  • Built some more receive pre-amps.

Swap and Shop

• VE3HOH, Pete
  • Rohn 25 sections + brackets
  • 8 yagis for 432.
  • Kushcraft yagi for 2 meters
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • Cheap UHF radios
  • CMD-1550
  • Shortwave receivers

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

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
  • Upcoming ARRL Sweepstakes for CW
  • Munsters had a Ham Radio episode
• 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

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