Friday, December 16, 2011

Off My Feed, But Also Puzzled

By the book PSK31 should have more carry than 63 or 125 given the same power. However this am, once again, 63 was making the hop on 15M better than 31. Could be the EU ops on 63/125 are running more power/gain antennas than the 31 crowd.  Not a lot of detail, mostly call, rst, tu es 73 variety.
Gives me something to ponder between trips to the head.  Got the parts for the Rockloop-all I really needed was the toroid but a cheap two section BCB variable cap is not to be passed up.   73 de Rob

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The YL Does It Again

Product Details

Buy her book-buy me a tower!
On Amazon-Huzzah!

Shameless flogging. 73 de Rob

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

QRPp or 8000 miles to the Watt

The new antenna must have something going for it, F5SYC confirms me at 0.5W on 20M

 (Merci Philippe!).

73 de Rob

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Big Bambu

My sojourn in SE Asia gave me an appreciation for the building qualities of bamboo so when I decided to try the top fed grounded vertical from the RSGB Practical Wire Antennas book, I found my support growing amuck in my neighbor's yard. A little wire and some lashing and it was up-it seems to work as good as the grounded sloper but may be a bit noisier, time will tell. In any case a $0 investment. No this was not the top band version but it was scaled to 40M and will tune 20, 15 and sorta 12 as well. Not bad for bell wire and bamboo.

73 de Rob

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

We Were Soldier Update

Various old grognards related relatively low power VHF AM/FM contacts in the 2300-4500 mile range. About 10,000 miles is needed for the hop in the story. And John had the gall to call me a geek http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2011/10/a_bleg_no_not_f.html#comments

73 de Rob

Sunday, October 30, 2011

We Were Soldiers RTO

Someone asked my opinion about a scene in the movie, We Were Soldiers, where the RTO ginned up a doublet antenna for an AN/PRC-25 and copied a firefight in Viet-Nam into the American south. Could it have been done? The PRC-25's were FM at about 5 watts and in the 6 Meter band IIRC. In 1964, about the time of the events, the solar cycle was bottomed out but Sporadic-E propagation is seasonal and not dependent so much, if at all, on the solar cycle. Sporadic-E is the most common  DX mode for 6 Meters. The best I've  done on 6 Meters was about 5K miles to Uruguay at about 8 watts into a dipole variant. This was single sideband mode-more efficient than the FM PRCs. I've heard claims for trans continental with 5Watt FM handhelds so maybe it's possible. Any old RTOs out there have similar stories?

Tis a puzzlement
73 de Rob

Now if I Only Got Iceland and Finland Confirmed


Of course I was QRO (5W)
73 de Rob

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

15 Meters Got me a New One

At 2.5 watts!   73 de Rob

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

I Have a Follower!

Chris, KQ2RP was foolish enough to append his call to this blog! While I question his sanity I say FB OM and welcome aboard. And a fly fisherman too-I guess this means expounding on Hillbilly Tenkara.  

73 de Rob

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Oh! Goodie Goodie!


A QSL with a zaggy prefix is good, Hawaii is good but a marine mobile is just icing on the cake! 40 and 20 have been nice. Now I've ordered the parts for a tuner to get down to 80 and 160 so the adventure continues.


73 de Rob

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Class Act

I took my grandson, age three, to his first ball game at the Tampa Bay farm team the Princeton Rays. He had a ball, in more ways than one. The Ray's staff, when learning it was his first ball game immediately gave him a logo ball, to get signed. Some how he also ended up with two game balls, one signed by the only home run hitter of the afternoon (OK the home club coulda done better). It was refreshing to see an organization that went out of its way to ensure that any fan, not just my grandson, had a good time.  In these days of any event having an army of people pressure selling almost anything this was pleasant exception. My wife, also her first minors game, was amazed  to find characters right out of Bull Durham-gotta love minor league ball!

Nuttin to do with radio,
                73 de Rob

Big Chat Room in the Sky

Believe it or not the above phrase finally got a glimmer of understanding from one of the unwashed.  Italy, Spain, France and the UK were in the room last night. 73 de Rob

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Intermezzo

Wading in the surf and slinging lead and squid at unappreciative Bluefish, it ain't fly fishing with a #20 Adams dry but it sure beats working.   73 de Rob

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Support Higher Education

Murray the Flinger is in a runoff for grant money for a pet project, go, vote early, vote often.  http://hittingmetalwithahammer.wordpress.com/

73 de Rob

Friday, May 20, 2011

PSK-31 and the QSL Rate-Tis a Puzzlement

PSK is a robust mode, no doubt about it-except over the pole. Its the replacement for CW us tin ear terminal no-codes have been waiting for; Narrow bandwidth and good distance for power-I'm at 2K+ miles per watt now (Bolshoi spasebo Fedor!) confirmed. Last night was up and down the east coast and into the UK on 2.5W-what now is a typical night (slow radioing these days as Joy and I are taking care of a second harmonic while his mother preps and takes her medical boards. My job is to make sure all my old fart friends don't send him home with a BB Gun, three pocket knives and a Coon Hound pup. And buy him chocolate!) And, BTW the YL has her first novel published, The 13th Victim (Renee Porter) on Amazon for Kindle-Remember buy the book-buy me a tower! HI! Anywho-what has surprised me is the QSL rate among PSKers (PSKees?), the first four months I was back on the air on SSB, and very active after a seven year drought,  I got a total of 15 cards E and snailmail. I got 14 the first month, and not too active because of other demands, on PSK-31. Also got a lot of over-the-air help getting my lash-up fine tuned. This seems like what the six meter band was like back in the 90's: helpful and not having a bad case of "QSY this is my frequency." Maybe the narrow bandwidth has something to do with it, maybe its what CW is like??? Tis a puzzlement.

73 es gud dx Rob

Monday, April 18, 2011

No Interface PSK 31 or Hillbilly Engineering

Got this new all mode, damn near all band, qrp transcever, a new laptop and some Digipan freeware and they want how much for an interface? Not gonna happen! First I tried ginning up the "Dirt Cheap" pot and resistor interface but the salvaged din-6 plug from an old mouse was too banged up so I was looking at spending some money. I had used the mike on the speaker bit for my first SWL taste of PSK when I noticed that the laptop was listening to the speaker, quite well, with its own mike. It slowly sunk thru my thick skull that this laptop was made for video/music types and its speaker, mike and soundcard had pretty good fidelity. So...set the mike near the speaker on the laptop and turn up the volume till the waterfall display looked good, turned on the vox and tried a CQ. KA0UEH replied and helped me clear up some splatter and then Brett, KE5EYQ/QRP/P and I had a 599/599 QSO 5 watts each way-WV to La. FB indeed! Now, on the Brag macro, I call it an "Homebrew Acoustical Interface," real hillbilly engineering-making something from nothing, See ya on the waterfall!

73 de Rob

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Doh!

Rewired the shack a bit, easier access to the tuner and all that. Then tried to tune up the antenna that had been re cut to compensate for the additional feed in the shack. SWR thru the roof, trimming not of benefit, tore the home brew tuner apart and back together; nothing, nichts, nada, nichivo! Then I check the only thing left- a coax pigtail that came with a name brand tuner ( No not MFJ, their stuff is like a Russian T34, simple, needs a hammer as a fine adjustment tool...) bum stuff-and I almost gave that tuner away. A Rat Shack pigtail, tunes right up and a 5W QSO with David in Magnolia TX. Why is it the solution to a problem is always the last place you look?

73 de Rob

Monday, March 21, 2011

GIRI

The Japanese talk of a sense of an obligation as a debt that can never be repaid. Among the acts of courage and selflessness seen over the last few days, such a debt has been owed to the power plant engineers, technicians and firefighters that have responded to the disaster at Dai-Ichi. Learning that these individuals have said there goodbyes with text messages or not at all before facing this invisible killer makes this writer hope for the human spirit.  Courage in the face of sudden danger is commendable but to face it with full knowledge and time for consideration is incredible. Some have compared these workers to the pilots that  climbed into their aircraft in one-way missions to try to save their homeland. Perhaps they too are deserving. But what do I know I'm just another gaijin.

73 de Rob

The Crud

Missed two days of work and had a new radio, barely got it hooked up-it's a pisser actually to be sick when you take  sick days!  Between bouts at the porcelain throne I got some contacts on 17 and 40, 20 stll the go to band, tuner is still cranky on 40 and depends on how I drape the counterpoise so a new build is in order-Lord how I hate winding coils!     
                                   73 de Rob

Sunday, March 13, 2011

It's Almost Like I know What I'm Doing

Preparing for a new multi-band radio-don't worry sport fans still low power- multiple half waves above 40M and a Hi and Lo Z tuner from junque for 10 to 80, works on 20M so far. What could go wrong? Still LL crap!
73 de Rob

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Toda & Laila Tov

Hits almost reached 1000 last month-999! What is interesting is the readership is 3:1 Israel vs. the rest of the world-Whats up with that? 73 de Rob

GIVE TO THE SALLY FOR THE KIWIS

Give till it hurts!
73 de Rob

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Tis a Puzzlement (Update)

It was my carbon footprint on the sun,click the link for audio. 73 de Rob

PS Set the Spaceweather archive for 2/13/11 for the audio.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Propagation, Tis a Puzzlement

Erratic propagation today, into N. Italy, New England, the Midwest, central Canada, Texas (of course!) and Florida with good signals, then, in the middle of a QSO with Bob, W1ARL, things went flat and the QRN was a steady S-5 to S-7 hiss and nobody was there. No doubt Al Gore would blame it on my carbon footprint. I mean, according to him it effects the sun's output-hence global warming, oops, no, my bad, climate change. So it must be why there are not enough sunspots. I'm sure there is nothing to the Maunder Minimum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum. Cold and no band openings guess I could build a LF rig. 73 de Rob

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Low Power Crummy Antenna-Sounds So Much Better Than Pissweaker

This looks like a crummy antenna, a few of you old RTOs may recognize it from the FM for the A/NPRC-25/77 series field radios, funny thing is its the same antenna at my QTH. Pushing it is a 70's era radio at 5 watts and twenty year old Rat Shack CB mike. It does sit inside but would work the way it looks. The tuner is a breadboarded mashup of odd parts and tuning is done by volume of noise on recieve (I've said before you can treat these MFJ rigs like tube gear!) copper knife switch for grounding and you could use this setup for a 1950's QST article. I could have gone prettier and more powerful but didn't want to bend the budget (If I ever take the plunge it'll be for a Morgan 41). Rob, KB7PWJ had an articlehttp://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/9812057.pdf where he referred to such lash ups as LPCA stations (low power crummy antenna), sounds so much better-Thanks OM, 73 de Rob

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Dark Winter Nights, Long Drives and AM Radio

Dark, wet two lane roads appearing in the headlights. Tuning the analog airwaves; WLS, WJR, KDKA, WCBS, WOWO, WSM and others fading in and out, faint Spanish and French in the mix. Remembering hearing rock and roll for the first time on late night AM radio-reliving the past. Is that the Wolfman spinning Buddy on XERF-must be my imagination.

73 de Rob

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Tucson

Everyone seems preoccupied with the mindset of the shooter in the Gifford tragedy. My question is what motivated the three civilians that brought a chair to a gunfight. Two were not spring chickens and one was not in proximity to the shooting-he ran to the sound of the guns. My SO opined that real heroes do not think themselves heroic. From what was said in the news interviews these people did not. All to many were concerned with the shooter's motivations and quick to assign blame, not necessarily to the shooter. But what shaped the behavior of those that put themselves in harm's way. The retired army officer I can understand, when I was younger I heard those shots in anger and the reflexes, albeit slowed by time, still stir. But the others? No benefit of training or experience and unarmed, did what had to be done-these are the people we should learn from.

73 de Rob

IT

After the weekend I checked up on a report due asap, went to the que on our electronic document server and 90% was gone and the history said repeated actions had been taken on the documents long after I had logged off. After my diatribe about clay tablets still being readable after 6,000 years the IT boss lady was able to recover most of the text of the report-in ASCII format, with a +between each letter, no pagination, transposed blocks of text and blank spots. I got my copies of Gaines and Kahn and went to work-it was like a Bolshevik transposition cypher. Either the insurer should continue to provide payment to services or I have to attack the Winter Palace on October 25. Nuttin to do with ham radio, or maybe so, like listening to numbers stations, or hearing voices in the static, listening to the randomness......

73 de Rob