My musings on Ham Radio … and stuff!
Finally! We’ve got some serious action going on for our two repeaters – W4MT VHF and UHF (145.23.& 442.9 MHz). We have secured permission to use the site of old Fire Station 3. There is a 140-foot free-standing tower there, and an equipment room with power and environmental control.
We’ve been searching for a few years now (ever since we lost our last site), and all other prospects have fallen through. This one is a firm offer, though. Antennas should be going up soon!
73 de Dick N4BC
I had my IC-7300 reset again in the middle of a QSO. Irritating, to say the least. I thought I had the problem solved, but evidently not.
The Samlex power supply output terminals require that you insert the power wires into them and then tighten setscrews to secure the wires and make good electrical contact. A wiggle of the wires showed that there was nothing secure about the connection, even though the screws were tight.
I did some reading, and found that the power supply manual stated that the wires inserted into the terminals should be soldered. If not, the individual strands could distort and present a reduced cross-section and thus, a reduced current-carrying capacity.
I applied solder to the power cable ends, bonding all the wires together, and then reconnected them to the power supply. I put the system through the ringer … key down, max current draw, and no reset was noted. Problem solved … I hope!
73 de N4BC Dick
I’ll have to admit … I haven’t been very active lately. Not sure really why … band conditions, dreary weather, just didn’t feel like it … whatever. I was off work today and fired up the radio to mediocre propagation and not much going on. I did manage to snag a KL7 station on 20 meters FT4.
I’ve had a big change in my life, too. My hearing has been declining for years. I’ve really been having difficulty in understanding speech, and decided to finally do something about it. A trip to Costco, and now I’m the proud owner and user of hearing aids.
What a difference! I’m still acclimatizing to them, but the improvement is spectacular. I’m hearing things that I haven’t heard for years. I never realized how noisy my shack was! Clicks, squeals, fans … all audible now, but not that hard to ignore. I need to find over-the-ear headphones that can accommodate my RIC hearing aids. They need to cover the part behind the ears.
73 de Dick N4BC
Not the red condiment … just a few notes about what I’ve been up to.
I just did a quick calculation of confirmations. Confirmations are running at 80.3% on QRZ and at 71.2% on on LOTW. I must admit, I NEVER saw rates that high, even when I was at a DX location years ago. Electronic confirmation has revolutionized QSLing. As a practical matter, I really don’t care as much as I did when I first started out fifty-three years ago. I still really appreciate the occasional physical card in the mail … very few and far between nowadays.
I haven’t been active much lately. I’ve had other things to compete for my time. One BIG life-changing thing I’ve done is get my first hearing aids. Truthfully, after the first week, I could kick myself for not doing this years ago. Meetings had become a real ordeal. I could hear fine, but understanding what was said was the problem. My problem is high-frequency loss … moderately severe. That’s where all the speech intelligibility lies. Too many years working around aircraft and in a shipyard, back before hearing protection was a big thing. It’s been a real eye-opener … or should I say ear-opener? 😀 😀
I’ll try to work a bit harder to get back into the radio groove and catch you all later.
73 de Dick N4BC
Saturday, I attended FrostFest, which was held at the Richmond (VA) International Raceway. The 60 some-odd mile drive was quite foggy that morning, but nothing dangerous. I arrived later than usual. I normally get there around 8:30 in the morning, but just couldn’t seem to get moving this year. I arrived around 9:30 and did a quick spin around all the booths.
There was lots of good stuff there. Lots of junk, too, but some really nice examples of older technology. It was like a trip down nostalgia lane. Lots of the stuff, I had either owned or worked on. Charlie (WB4PVT) was there, trying to sell accumulated estate merchandise. Many other familiar faces were seen, too.
I attended a couple of great Forums. There were two featured speakers this year, both by video link. Rich Moseson, W2VU, the Editor of CQ magazine, talked about the history of CQ magazine, which is celebrating its 75th year in 2020, Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, the Space Weather Woman (find her on YouTube), gave a great talk on sunspots, solar cycles, and space weather, all put into terms that her audience could grasp. For me, this was the highlight of the event. Well done!
This year, the license testing was free, and it looked to me like the testing room was packed. Hopefully, they all did well!
All in all, it was a great event this year. Every year, it gets better. I’m already looking forward to next year!
73 de Dick N4BC