Putting the "Ek" in "Geek"
Ham Radio
Field Day: Doing Handsprings Into the Past
Jun 9th
The hams among you know that ARRL Field Day, held the last full weekend in June, is fast approaching. A few of my ham buddies and I usually try to pack up our QRP gear and head into the forest or to the top of a local peak for a weekend of sleeping on the ground and seeing how many contacts we can scare up with just a few watts of power and a wire thrown into a tree. This year I’m trying to get a head start on preparations. I’m planning to take my four-band Elecraft K1 with internal battery pack and run off lithium AA’s for the entire weekend. My antenna’s going to be an old stand-by, a half-size G5RV hung from the highest tree I can find. My K1 has the internal ATU and it’ll tune up the G5RV with no trouble, so I’ll be able to work 40, 20, and 15 meters. I even decided to dust off my old mouse paddle–a computer mouse modified so that the left and right mouse buttons act as the dit and dah paddles (you laugh, but it works great because it’s easily managed with one hand–no need to hold it with the other hand or anchor it to something).
“Put the Mad Scientist Back Into Ham Radio”
Dec 24th
I just read this op-ed piece in the Jan 2011 QST Magazine (p. 82). Hilarious–and so true! KL7AJ begins with:
I have, at last, identified the one glaring difference between my generation of Amateur Radio experimenters and the current batch of 2 meter obsessed appliance operators.
In our day, it was our job to create emergencies. The new EmComm oriented hams are intent on “fixing” emergencies.
Although I didn’t become a ham until I was in my late thirties, I was an experimenter by the time I was ten. My parents detected the “mad scientist” gene in me at an early age, and foolishly nurtured my tendencies by giving me a chemistry set. Remember, this was back in the 60′s, when chemistry sets hadn’t yet had all the fun extracted from them by product liability lawyers. Mine had an alcohol lamp, glass test tubes, and plastic bottles of a variety of chemicals whose names I couldn’t even pronounce–the potential for both fun and disaster was thrillingly high.
The G5RV Returns
Jul 5th
If you’ve read my past posts here about my antenna projects, you know that I live in a covenant-restricted neighborhood that supposedly doesn’t allow outdoor ham antennas (at least none visible from the street). Thankfully, there is no homeowners association or dues that support covenant enforcement, and none of my neighbors had thus far even mentioned the short vertical antenna I built and installed in my back yard.
Up until now, I hadn’t really given that antenna a good workout. But last weekend was Field Day, and this year I had to settle for working Field Day from the shack. Sadly, I was disappointed by my antenna’s performance. Although I managed to work 50 QSOs in four or five hours, I struggled to hear and contact other stations, even when running 100W. The noise level was very high, and signal levels were underwhelming. I worked only two SSB stations, the rest being CW contacts. It was time to rethink my antenna situation.
Doin’ the Lindy
Feb 15th
The parasitic Lindenblad, that is. I wrote in a previous post about how I was gathering the parts to build the parasitic Lindenblad antenna for 70 cm that appeared in an article in the February 2010 QST magazine. Since then, I’ve actually managed to build one of these beasts, and for what it’s worth, it even looks like the one in the picture in the article. My first trial with it on a good pass of AO-51 was less than impressive, though. For this trial, I used my Kenwood TH-F6A connected directly to the antenna with a three-foot section of RG-8X coax (to minimize the effect of feedline losses, which can be appreciable at 70 cm). There were moments when I had good copy on the satellite, but they were few and far between. I was a little disappointed, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. Knowing that the antenna, being more-or-less omnidirectional, didn’t have much gain (especially compared the the handheld Arrow Antenna yagi I’d been using), I wondered if a preamp might be necessary.
As if “Parasitic Lindenblad” Isn’t Funny Enough
Jan 30th
A few weeks ago I posted about a new Chinese ham radio satellite, and mentioned a couple of satellite antennas I was considering building. Just a few days later I found the latest QST magazine in my mailbox, complete with an article about (you guessed it) another ham radio satellite antenna project! This one, by AA2TX, describes an antenna he calls a parasitic Lindenblad (here’s a link to an AMSAT article). The antenna, for 70 cm, is right-hand-circularly polarized with an omnidirectional radiation pattern. This makes it well-suited to amateur satellite applications. I liked this design better than some of the others I was considering, so I decided to give it a whirl.
New Ride, New Radio?
Jan 10th
When shopping for a new car, a ham isn’t thinking about performance, color, or gas mileage. Instead, he’s asking himself, “Where can I put the ham radio?” It’s not that a ham will necessarily disqualify a car from consideration based on the ease with which a 2-meter rig can be installed. Rather, he looks at it more as an interesting engineering challenge–the more interesting, the better. After all, if it were easy, it wouldn’t be interesting, would it?
I certainly made things interesting for myself last week when I purchased a 2007 Pontiac G6 GT hardtop convertible. It’s quite a car–200-hp 3.5L V6 (not overwhelming, but adequate), power everything, heated leather seats, awesome Monsoon sound system with XM radio and a 6-CD changer–it’ll be nice and comfy for my half-hour-each-way daily commute.
New Chinese Amateur Radio Satellite HO-68
Jan 6th
On 15 Dec 2009, AMSAT China launched a new amateur radio satellite, now designated as Hope Oscar (HO) 68. This satellite not only has a V/U FM repeater but also a V/U linear transponder for SSB and CW as well as a packet BBS system. This one should be great fun to work. Here’s a Youtube video giving the details:
Now I really need to get crackin’ on that backyard satellite antenna–maybe W4RNL‘s turnstile antenna (from the Aug 2000 QST), or W6NBC‘s quadrifilar helix antenna (from the Oct 2009 QST). Or maybe it’s time to concoct that servo-driven crossed yagi for auto-tracking the satellite…
Old Goats Rule! Get the T-Shirt!
Dec 11th
If you’re a regular visitor here on my blog, you’ve no doubt read about some of my ham radio backpacking adventures with Steve wGØAT and his goats Rooster and Peanut. It’s always fun to hoof it up the mountain with Steve and the boys–especially when Rooster carries the refreshments!
So, a few days ago I received a note from Steve announcing the opening of his new GoatWare shop on Cafe Press. Now you, too, can have your own “Old Goats Rule!” t-shirt, water bottle, or coffee mug! And if you’ve never seen the goats before, check them out on Steve’s Youtube channel.
A Contester’s Coffee Roast
Dec 11th
I was getting ready to order a batch of coffee beans from my favorite coffee roaster, The Unseen Bean up the road from me in Boulder, Colorado. The owner and roaster is a visually-impaired man named Gerry Leary, whom I met a year or two ago when he came to visit with students at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind (I’m on the board there). Really an impressive guy.
So I’m perusing his web site, deciding what to order, and I stumbled upon a roast called Contester’s Blend. The logo on the bag shows a dog wearing a radio headset! He also offers a blend called Kilowatt Dark Roast. I came to find out that Gerry’s a ham (WB6IVF) and he’s sold his coffees at Dayton.
Now, I’m no Starbucks snob, but the coffee I’ve gotten from the Unseen Bean has been pretty tasty stuff. If you enjoy fine coffee and you’re inclined to support a visually-impaired small business owner who’s friendly to hams, check out his web site.
Field Day 2009: NKØE, wGØAT, Rooster, and Peanut Head for the Hills
Jun 30th
Update (20 Sept 2009): Here’s wGØAT’s YouTube video of the whole excursion!
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Field Day 2009 was a total blast for me this year! After missing the last few years for various reasons, I finally managed to get out of the house and on the trail with Steve wGØAT and his QRP goats Rooster and Peanut (well-known characters here in the list). As usual, we chose Mt. Herman (just west of Monument, Colorado) as our Field Day site, due to its close proximity, elevation, and abundance of excellent campsites.
I met Steve at his place on Friday afternoon, and he promptly provided me with my own official QRPgoat expedition t-shirt–a picture of Rooster with the caption, “Old Goats Rule–QRP Adventures.” For me, this was like getting my Gold Card–I knew I’d *arrived*!
