Category: Equipment

Repeater work

I made a couple of trips to the repeater site this weekend. The club’s repeater committee has been working on the VHF repeater, trying to get the new controller interfaced with the ancient Motorola repeater. We got the repeater and controller to the site and in setting it up found that the CTCSS decoder was not working. Further investigation revealed a wire to the PL board had come loose during the truck ride. An attempt at attaching the wire to its proper place produced a BIG spark and a blown 500ma fuse. (NOTE: turn off power before connecting wires!) The fuse was replaced, but still no PL action. Had a good input to the board, but no output. Looks like the board didn’t survive the ZAP!

Luckily, we had a spare. The next day we went back to the site and replaced the board, and that fixed the problem! The W4MT VHF repeater is back in full operation, and the backup repeater was switched off, just waiting for the next failure :-).

73 de Dick N4BC

Catchup

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Just a little over a year since I was on the air and more than six months since I posted here. There’ve just been so many other things demanding my time … life gets in the way.

Anyhow, I just received a QRP Labs QMX midrange (60-40-30-20-17-15 meter) transceiver kit in the mail, and am looking forward to building and operating portable with it. It’s a high performance, six-band CW and digital modes transceiver with CAT control and a built-in sound card. There is also a plan to add SSB capability in the near future by a firmware update. The hardware will support it.

QMX Transceiver

I went down to our repeater site with several hams from the city EOC team to temporarily install a GMRS repeater for testing. The city is looking to reorganize (revitalize?) the CERT teams and use GMRS for communications. The CERT program has slowly drifted into disuse, but the new Emergency Operations Manager wants to start the program up again.

Next month, the annual Smart Smiles 5K, sponsored by the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Virginia Peninsula, takes place at the Mariners Museum. The course is different this year due to road and bridge construction issues. Several radio clubs get together and provide communications for this event every year. It’s a fun event, with participants of all ages and abilities participating.

73 de Dick N4BC

How’s it going?

Things are going pretty well since my computer died, with a few exceptions. The replacement computer is great, and I’m back to multi-mode operating and logging. I’m experiencing difficulties with loading a new LOTW certificate, and waiting for direction fom the LOTW staff. I’ve also had issues with the new Windows 11 security enhancements and getting some software to work, but have pretty much resolved those issues. I still cannot get the latest version of Com0Com (3.0.0.0) to work, but the previous version (2.2.2.0) works just fine.

The bands have been “interesting” lately 🙂 . FT4 and FT8 continue to be the most productive modes, with some nice openings on the higher bands. CW is still my preferred mode of operation, but when conditions are “iffy”, digital is definitely the most prolific mode. Last night 80 meters, 60 meters, and 40 meters were the producers. Gotta go where the contacts are 😀 .

73 de Dick N4BC

The 7 Beeps of Death

I got home from work yesterday evening, sat down at my desk, and pressed the button to power up my Dell Latitude computer.

Nothing happened, until I heard …

The Dreaded 7 Beeps of Death!

This is the indication of a motherboard or processor failure, and was not welcome. Admittedly, the laptop in question is six, going on seven years old, so it had lived a good life, but … it’s always sad to lose an old friend. 🙁

It was not upgradable to Windows 11, so it’s days were numbered eventually, but it did advance my replacement schedule by a year or so. I just wanted a more controlled move to the new laptop.

Now, I have a formidable task ahead of me … reloading and configuring all of the software onto the new laptop. I could restore a backup image, but there’s an advantage to a clean install, and getting rid of all the clutter. Still, it’s a tedious job.

I ordered the new laptop last night from Dell, it’s being shipped today and arrives tomorrow. Then the fun begins …

73 de Dick N4BC

Easier CW

I recently purchased an addition to my portable gear that makes CW much easier. The item is a Ultra Picokeyer kit from HamGadgets.

Ultra Picokeyer - Available Colors
Ultra Picokeyer – Available colors

My favorite portable transceiver is the Yaesu FT-817ND. One of my not-so-favorite things about it is that it has no CW memories. If you’re contesting or working a POTA pileup, it can wear your hand out!

The Ultra Picokeyer solves that problem. It has CW memories, and a continuously variable speed control, in addition to lots of other features. In addition, it’s a pretty simple kit to build … I didn’t time myself, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or so. It went very fast, and the only tools required were soldering gear and some flush-cutting wire cutters. Easy-peasy!

73 de Dick N4BC