With Varying Frequency - Amateur Radio Ponderings

CQ Field Day this is VA3CSA

k9zw — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:47:07 +0000

“CQ Field Day this is VA3CSA aboard the International Space Station” was the call Marty KC9JGE heard. As the “Mr Satellite” for the Mancorad W9DK Field Day effort, he had personally built the antennas & programed the equipment. When VA3CSA came back to W9DK … well read Marty’s account in his PDF write up! PDF FILE [...]

Original 13 Colonies Independence Day Special Event

k9zw — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:45:02 +0000

Original 13 Colonies Independence Day Special Event NY-NJ-RI-GA- PA-NH-SC- VA-CT-DE- MD-MA-NC July 1st to July 4th 2009, all thirteen 1776 original colonies will be on the air. One S.E. station per Colony state. A full color certificate printed on heavy card stock or parchment paper, with a map and the state flags of all the 1776 colony [...]

W9DK Field Day 09 Progress

k9zw — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:26:59 +0000

Field Day is going VERY well for Mancorad W9DK We’ve logged more than all of last year in our first 10 hours, learned much and are having a lot of fun! The GOTA Station is a hit, and seems to have a fine performing antenna – better than the permanent ones! More after the event! 73 Steve K9ZW [...]

Club Cooperation & Other Agendas

k9zw — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:17:19 +0000

It always seems a Radio Club meeting hardly goes by where one member or another brings in an Item of New Business, often with pejorative intent, as a “surprise” basically intended to derail the meeting. Often they can be found first huddling in the back of the club room, with clip boards or rafts of papers they have [...]

Gains in Numbers of Radio Amateurs – Never say Die

k9zw — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:51:04 +0000

Was somewhat surprised and encouraged to have recently read the USA FCC Licensing analysis from George K3UD: Overall we had a 12 month increase of 12,877 or an average of 1,000+ per month. I was not that long ago when we were averaging about 2,000 a month. Recap We Gained: 9,092 – Tech/+ 4,427 – General 3,090 – Extra 16,609 – Total We [...]

W9DK Mancorad 2009 Field Day Poster

k9zw — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:51:29 +0000

We’ve worked the ARRL’s wonderful artwork in a couple simple Field Day posters. 73 Steve K9ZW

Flexing the Flex-Radio Flex-5000a

k9zw — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:57:03 +0000

Using the radio for everything from Catching Openings on 6m to DX on 20m to Rag Chewing on 160m! PowerSDR 1.18.0 seems very able and very stable. PowerSDR SVN Alpha Software quite interesting, but as Alpha versions really experimenter’s realm and not ready for prime time. As my operating time is limited I’ve reverted back to the [...]

NEWS RELEASE – “Radio Hams” from Manitowoc County join in national deployment – Public Demo of Emergency Communications June 27 – 28, 2009

k9zw — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:04:54 +0000

NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release For additional information contact: Steve Weinert , K9ZW, Mancorad Board Member “Radio Hams” from Manitowoc County join in national deployment Public Demo of Emergency Communications June 27 – 28 Manitowoc, WI June 18, 2009 – Manitowoc County W9DK Mancorad Radio Club’s “hams” will join with thousands of Amateur Radio operators who will be showing [...]

2009 Field Day Plans for Mancorad W9DK

k9zw — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:17:35 +0000

Only a brief 1-1/2 weeks to Field Day, where I will participate in the Mancorad W9DK effort. This year Mancorad is activating a rare Training & Reserve EOC owned by Lakeshore technical College (LTC) in Cleveland Wisconsin. We will be signing as W9DK 2F WI working with the in place station gear. The college has a [...]

Extra Shack Items For Sale

k9zw — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:02:52 +0000

The Excess Antenna Tuners Here is the skinny on the extra antenna tuners I’m clearing from my shack: • Dentron MT-2000A – Excellent Condition – $250 plus shipping • LDG AT-1000 (Not the newer AT-1000Pro) – New as purchased direct from LDG, unboxed and sat on-top of the Palstar AT4K briefly. Firmware Upgrades Available from LDG. $350 plus shipping Rigs [...]

Last Couple Hundred QSOs – A Breakdown

k9zw — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:29:46 +0000

Was having a look at the last several hundred QSOs in my log, and the various breakdowns: Bands 15M – 39 17M – 4 20M – 200 40M – 17 80M- 76 160M – 18 Modes PSK31 – 19 RTTY – 1 SSB – 334 Countries (Only includes cards to members of eQSL.cc) ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA ARGENTINA AUSTRIA AZORES BAHAMAS BALEARIC ISL. BELGIUM BERMUDA BONAIRE/CURACAO NETH. ANTILLES BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA BRAZIL BULGARIA CANADA CANARY ISL. CAPE VERDE COSTA RICA CROATIA CYPRUS CZECH REP. DOMINICA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC ENGLAND FRANCE GERMANY GUATEMALA GUINEA-BISSAU HONDURAS ISLE OF MAN ITALY JAMAICA JAPAN KAZAKHSTAN MADEIRA ISL. MEXICO MOROCCO NETHERLANDS NORTHERN IRELAND PORTUGAL PUERTO [...]

BPL Notching for the Few

k9zw — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:38:06 +0000

Recently the radio amateurs most affected by the Washington Island BPL project were visited by representatives of IBEC. It appears that the Washington Island Electrical Co-op was making a good faith effort to arrange for notching of their BPL system of the Amateur Radio Bands for these amateurs directly in proximity of their shacks. Several [...]

Will our Coax Tools & other Knives get us in trouble?

k9zw — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:43:42 +0000

<<< NOTE on Use of Partisan Sources – I’ve had a couple people mention that sources like World Net Daily offend them. Daily I skim & read a huge variety of world wide on-line news services, ranging from the UK Guardian Newspaper to the Wall Street Journal. Every end of the political [...]

BPL – Yesterday’s technology with Tomorrow’s dollars

k9zw — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:57:38 +0000

“Yesterday’s technology with Tomorrow’s dollars” The debacle of Washington Island’s new BPL system is outlined in a the comments of a recent article “New broadband technologies can connect even the most remote places” http://wistechnology.com/articles/5991/ I’ve included some of the comments as quotes below. The article, while not accurate or well researched, does highlight the technical and economic [...]

A Bunch of Flex or Flexible Few?

k9zw — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:47:02 +0000

Interesting that other manufacturers have found their full scale and heavier rigs light on sales. At Dayton a number were pointing to Flex as having great product, but not shipping much. They were claiming not many $3,000 & up rigs are being sold, as an excuse for why their pricy offerings were not getting Dayton [...]

Post Dayton Hamvention 2009 Thoughts – Part 9

k9zw — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:13:21 +0000

“Dayton Yesterday – Dayton Tomorrow?” I’ve posed seven points about Dayton that I had been reflecting on. “Living in the Past” “Keeping to Comparative Standards” “Where be Tomorrow?” “Having a field day at Field Day!” “Parallel Universes” “Would you go out like that?” “Secret Handshakes, nah, lets go Whole Hog!” Each of those thoughts are part of a personal evaluation on “Dayton Yesterday – [...]

Soldered up my Anti-Slug Strips

k9zw — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:53:14 +0000

As it appeared the Anti-Slug Strips on my new raised beds under my 160m 1/2 Sloper were doing something unexpected, I have soldered all corners & joints, and then soldered a jumper to my grounding halo. I’ve also grounded the new junction box. Testing this weekend. 73 Steve K9ZW

GPS System Issues to Make ARPS Unreliable by 2010?

k9zw — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:20:18 +0000

A recent article on the UK Guardian Newspaper’s website is an alarm to our technological dependencies on GPS. “It is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption,” said the report, presented to Congress. “If not, some military operations and some civilian users [...]

Post Dayton Hamvention 2009 Thoughts – Part 8

k9zw — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:45:10 +0000

“Secret Handshakes, nah, lets go Whole Hog!” and talk in layered jargon. Not really so much of a Hamvention comment, but noticing that at the Hamvention the usual Ham tendency to used jargon does make many presentations “indulgences for the initiated” while being indecipherable to those new to our hobby. Just week or so before Dayton I [...]

Copper Anti-Slug Strips Heard on 160 meters!

k9zw — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:26:50 +0000

Very interesting phenomena, the new raised beds having copper rims appear to have some effect on my half-sloper. Reports of 160m RF feedback for the first time were received after the strips went in. I’ll be soldering them together and connecting them into my ground halo to see if I can eliminate the feedback. Interesting! 73 Steve K9ZW [...]

New Tower Electrical Junction Box

k9zw — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:00:34 +0000

Installed a new junction box at the base of my tower today. Custom fabricated of 24 ga. G-90 Galvanized steel, with secondary stand-off inner walls 1 inch inwards of the same. The inner walls allow me to attach to the box without running fasteners through to the outside. I have to fabricate the panels I will [...]

Post Dayton Hamvention 2009 Thoughts – Part 7

k9zw — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:08:00 +0000

When a person not an Amateur sees photos of Hamfest Attendees, much less the real people, they simply have to ask themselves, about you their ham friend, “Would you go out like that?” Dr Suess hats to leather “Big Boy” 75m net “colors” to what looks like gardening clothes to impersonations of the homeless to characters [...]

Planting Around a Tower

k9zw — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:58:32 +0000

The Tower here is a TriEx LM-354 55 Ft Crank Down unit (it picks up the extra foot from the Tip-Over assembly) on an oversized base. I sized the base for the newer LM-470 (now by Tashjian Towers) to provide for an upgrade option down the road. Though we have a large lot, there were [...]

Post Dayton Hamvention 2009 Thoughts – Part 6

k9zw — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:57:27 +0000

“Parallel Universes” is a cheesy way to point out that many of us have other interests which also have major convocations. Over the last several years I’ve attended the NRA National Show, The Shot Show, the International Saxophone Congress, the EAA Fly-In at Oshkosh and several smaller events. You may have attended a [...]

Post Dayton Hamvention 2009 Thoughts – Part 5

k9zw — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:32:35 +0000

In the midst of forums, show booths and the flea market “treasure hunt” so hams were using the Hamvention to prepare for “Having a field day at Field Day!” At one of the dinners I sat with a group who took field day seriously, and despite the dinner’s theme being about the competitive Contesting part of [...]

Post Dayton Hamvention 2009 Thoughts – Part 4

k9zw — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:26:56 +0000

“Where be Tomorrow?” Yeah, if Dayton was not to be the location of the “big one” of annual Amateur Radio convocations, where would it be? Several things would need to come together: Location Location Location Ok, so I borrowed the classic real estate valuation guideline, but really “location” is likely to be the primary factor. A decent location would have: Interstate access Near or [...]

In Remembrance

k9zw — Mon, 25 May 2009 12:33:21 +0000

In Remembrance this morning, Memorial Day, let us keep every Soldier, Airman, Marine, & Sailor – every person who served our country & its Freedom and paid the ultimate price. As a solider I was privileged to visit & on some occasions attend ceremony at several of our National Cemeteries in Europe. This is the [...]

Post Dayton Hamvention 2009 Thoughts – Part 3

k9zw — Sat, 23 May 2009 20:56:05 +0000

So what is the idea of “Keeping to Comparative Standards” that I have set to comment about? “Keeping to Comparative Standards” is the idea that everyone has to weigh the opportunity costs whether they attend Dayton, or whether they do something else – and that in that calculation the Hamvention needs to equal certain standards to [...]

Post Dayton Hamvention 2009 Thoughts – Part 2

k9zw — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:11:14 +0000

“Living in the Past” is often a derogatory term, but really has some good sides to it in many cases. Amateur Radio is old enough to be tradition and history ladened, with the interest for each of us ranging from indifference to encompassing focus. Dayton seems to cover this whole gamut – with fans of the very [...]

Low Low Low Frequency (not Radio)

k9zw — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:34:19 +0000

Not on my usual radio topics, but have started writing up my acquisition of a vintage EEB Contrabass Sarrusophone! This very rare and unusual instrument is related to the Saxophone & Bassoon. Pitch is an octave below a Baritone Saxophone. It joins my other uncommon instruments – Bass Saxophone, Straight Tenor Saxophone, C-Tenor Saxophone, & Straight Alto [...]

Post Dayton Hamvention 2009 Thoughts – Part 1

k9zw — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:44:20 +0000

Over the next two weeks I’ll be posting some of my Dayton Hamvention 2009 reflections & thoughts over a series of posts. Some of the topics I’ll cover are: “Living in the Past” “Keeping to Comparative Standards” “Where be Tomorrow?” “Having a field day at Field Day!” “Parallel Universes” “Would you go out like that?” “Secret Handshakes, nah, lets go Whole Hog!” “Dayton Yesterday [...]

Hamvention Sunday – Home Again – Dayton 2009 post 9

k9zw — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:12:18 +0000

Home again, without incident! When one plans travels one simply must allow extra time for roads. After speaking with several folk our route reverted to through Chicago again, but on the old Tollway & Skyway. We had been promised that construction was brief, perhaps 10 miles. That was true, but what was unforeseen was the [...]

Hamvention Sunday -The Long Road Home – Dayton 2009 post 8

k9zw — Sun, 17 May 2009 11:08:20 +0000

Finishing packing up and reading for the trip home. Spent some time on Google Map and the wide swing around Chicago idea looks to add more miles than we can possibly make up on just trading better roads for shorter miles. Thinking we will do it anyway, as hours of looking at 10 ft high [...]

Hamvention Saturday Contest Dinner – Dayton 2009 post 7

k9zw — Sun, 17 May 2009 01:10:18 +0000

Well with the end of this evening’s Contest Dinner my 2009 Dayton planned functions are completed. Tim K3LR spoke in place of John Kanzius, K3TUP who unfortunately became an SK back in February. Would have very much liked to have heard K3TUP speak about his Cancer research, but it was not to be. It was a [...]

Hamvention Saturday – Dayton 2009 post 6

k9zw — Sat, 16 May 2009 20:35:58 +0000

Started the day quite early with coffee with Harry W9BR discussing the techniques he has worked out for doing remote HF operations while he travels. VERY much appreciated Harry!! Back in the hotel a bit early. Feet are tired and I’d arrived at a point where I needed a break from the crowds. Picked up [...]

Hamvention Friday DX Dinner – Dayton 2009 post 5

k9zw — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:06:44 +0000

The SWODXA Dinner was fun this year! A nice crowd at table 43, where heated discussions on world events proved very interesting! Speakers were John K4ERO and Ruth WB4LUA who first presented an excellent humorous explanation what a DXer was, and followed with an engaging 40 year travelogue of how Amateur Radio fit [...]

Hamvention Friday – Dayton 2009 post 4

k9zw — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:05:21 +0000

Covered a few miles walking and saw lots of folk I had wanted to see. Looked over some amazing new products – the Japanese Tower was awesome! Spent some time talking to Scott W3TX about an 80m Beam Design he is doing a custom work proposal on, and had a quick glance at a few [...]

Contest University Day – Dayton 2009 post 3

k9zw — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:20:34 +0000

Well my Third Contest University at Dayton has completed and for a great part it was another excellent experience! As mentioned in my prior post, I feel very up-to-speed with ideas on how to get involved with RTTY Contesting. The 1/2 hour mini Q&A sessions were slightly mixed in reward for time spent. Enjoyable freeform sessions [...]

Contest University Day – Dayton 2009 post 2

k9zw — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:10:29 +0000

Half way through Contest University. A very good day to be inside, windy, storms and just plain not nice at the start. Fantastic that I could spend this time learning more about contesting. Saw some familiar faces and some old friends. Great to be here! Opening session on Ethics was well received, and from [...]

Contest University in the Morning – Dayton 2009 post 1

k9zw — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:10:30 +0000

Long drive through much rain and road construction. Was very nice to have another driver to spell me for a while. Quick check in at the Crown Plaza and we checked in at teh Contest University registration desk before heading out for a quick bite to eat. CU is more organized each time. We were [...]