W0RW
Around 1920Z on 2005 Jan 30 I talked to W0RW Paul in Colorado Springs, CO. Paul was operating from his shack and I was using my K2 at the local school, with an SD-20.
- posted by Leigh @ 05:53 z 0 comments

 
60m Activity
Around 6:00J I talked to W3FF and K6ACJ on 5371.5. Budd was hard to hear but Bill was 589.
- posted by Leigh @ 05:53 z 0 comments

 
W4DEC
I heard W4DEC Larry from Theodore, Alabama, near Mobile. Larry was running 25-40W on a Kenwood TS 2000 from a 25ft high 40m inverted vee and was 589 here. He couldn't copy me at what my meter said was 50W but could at what my meter said was 100W. I was uncomfortable with the 100w from the HFpacker amp so we said 73.
- posted by Leigh @ 05:46 z 0 comments

 
Alan's Balun

Pleather case for the WB6ZQZ Alan's Balun.
- posted by Leigh @ 03:01 z 0 comments

 
HW-16 Electrolytic Capacitors
Here's an article on rebuilding electrolytic capacitors. Maybe a good plan for my HW-16. K9MRK recommends cutting the caps off in place. Sounds like a better idea.
- posted by Leigh @ 21:02 z 0 comments

 
FD 2005
I may be helping PAARA 2005 field day, or I might operate 1B1B. Last year I operated 1B1B and placed second in entire Pacific Division in the 1B1B category.
- posted by Leigh @ 18:11 z 0 comments

 
NH7D

I took my KX1 and Hamstick to the SF Baylands and heard a nice QSO between KH6AP 599 and DW7YE 449A on 14.054. I switched from the short Hamstick to the long one, and they came up a bit. When they signed off a few OM tried to call but they had such a long QSO I doubt either wanted another right away, so I waitied a minute and called QRL then CQ DE WA5ZNU/QRPM.

NH7D Ben in Hilo, HI answered me rigtht away on 14.054. Ben was 559 in the QRN-free zone and we had a nice QSO on his TenTec Argo at 15W into an inverted vee. Ben gave me a 559 (probably 459 as he missed some) but later said I was up to 569. Ben asked for a QSL so when I get my new ones I will send one.

- posted by Leigh @ 18:20 z 0 comments

 
SSTV Gallery 14.230
I have started doing SSTV reception and have a short script that thumbnails the ones I receive. See RX for the list.
- posted by Leigh @ 01:52 z 0 comments

 
Olivia HF MFSK Speed and Performance
Mark N5RFX put together an analysis of Olivia parameters and has sorted all the ones that are under the 300 baud US legal limit by speed. Here it is reproduced:

tones	BW	baud	sec/block	chars/sec	mult	?
8	2000	250	0.3	10	3	750
16	2000	125	0.5	8	4	500
4	1000	250	0.3	6.7	2	500
8	1000	125	0.5	6	3	375
32	2000	62.5	1	5	5	312.5
16	1000	62.5	1	4	4	250
2	500	250	0.3	3.3	1	250
64	2000	31.25	2	3	6	187.5
32	1000	31.25	2	2.5	5	156.25
16	500	31.25	2	2	4	125
128	2000	15.625	4.1	1.7	7	109.375
64	1000	15.625	4.1	1.5	6	93.75
32	500	15.625	4.1	1.2	5	78.125
256	2000	7.8125	8.2	1	8	62.5
128	1000	7.8125	8.2	0.9	7	54.6875
64	500	7.8125	8.2	0.7	6	46.875
32	250	7.8125	8.2	0.6	5	39.0625
256	1000	3.90625	16.4	0.5	8	31.25
128	500	3.90625	16.4	0.4	7	27.34375
32	125	3.90625	16.4	0.3	5	19.53125
256	500	1.953125	32.8	0.2	8	15.625
256	250	0.976563	65.5	0.1	8	7.8125

- posted by Leigh @ 19:58 z 0 comments

 

It arrived
- posted by Leigh @ 02:14 z 0 comments

 

I am pleased with my Irwin Unibit -- it took about 1 minute to make a perfect hole for a BNC connector. I also used it to make the starter hole for the SO-239 that I enlarged to 5/8" with my Greenlee chassis punch.
- posted by Leigh @ 06:09 z 0 comments

 
PSK VCQ

I hacked up a visual CQ preamble for PSK that fits in 31Hz. There's a sample WAV.gz.

I think that to do it for real you could populate the 512 element FFT with a windowed bitmap representation and then convolve it to put it back in the time domain. This example was generated with a hack program called Coagula which does pretty much that. I'm not sure about the bad sidebands though...

- posted by Leigh @ 02:15 z 0 comments

 
More Duet Progress
Whirlpool has kindly offered to send a new motor and control unit to install and see if the problem is particular to my unit. They also informally said that the control panel is unshielded plastic.
- posted by Leigh @ 18:07 z 0 comments

 
Duet Update

Whirlpool's service people were scheduled to come out yesterday between 1 and 5pm but called at 3:30 to say they weren't qualified. I had a hint of that when the caller ID said "SEARS."

So I called today and waited on hold about 45 minutes. I explained the problem again and they said "Our technical support people say that the control panel and washer will just do that and even changing a new control board and motor won't help." So I asked for the FCC ID number for its Part 15B unintentional radiator and in response I got "Mike," a supervisor. Mike and I talked for a while and he said he would go back to the engineering group with the data I have and try to find out what's up. I told him I thought that their control panel was unshielded and perhaps they had overlooked Part 15(b) compliance. I sent him the images and told him that I would like their help in finding out whether their design or my unit is meeting the regulations or not. He said that they have only three products with electronic controls and that this unit is designed in "North America" but manufactured in Germany. "This particular SKU is not sold in Germany" he said, when I asked if perhaps it was supposed to be CE compliant as well as FCC compliant and they'd removed CE required filtering.

- posted by Leigh @ 17:37 z 0 comments

 
I am at home after lunch waiting for the washing machine service and I heard VA7CRH calling CQ 599 on 18.075 and answered him with my K2 barefoot at 14 watts. Stuart is in Surry, BC running an Icom-817 to an 80ft antenna up 25ft and has had snow on the ground and is expecting more tomorrow. Quick QSO and then Stuart went QRT.
- posted by Leigh @ 21:31 z 0 comments

 
CO3VK Jose
I worked CO3VK Jose in Bejucal, Habana Cuba, EL82tw. Jose was using an old "Spilsbury" rig with a home-made VFO and 35 watts. 7070. QSO end 08 Jan 05 05:18:22 UTC QSL via IZ8EBI
- posted by Leigh @ 05:21 z 0 comments

 

My newly-repaired Radio Shack 0-15 counter, made of 4 flip flops. All but one grain-of-wheat bulb was gone, and the glass-encased photoresistor broke in transit, but Radio Shack had more! Not glass, but plastic coated, and the bulbs were colored. I got tired of stripping the leads on them though and put in LEDs after a while. It works great! I built it when I was about 10...it had a couple of lifted foils but worked once I replaced the components. I remember replacing the photoresistor with a switch and learning what debouncing was...
- posted by Leigh @ 06:51 z 0 comments

 

10x1 AA battery tray and KX1.
- posted by Leigh @ 06:48 z 0 comments

 
K2 charging jack

I am putting in a seperate charging jack for my K2 KBT2 that bypasses the diode and resistor and provides direct access to the battery through a mini-blade fuse and a DPDT switch, which itself will replace the SPST battery off/on switch.

To enlarge the old XVTR Out hole, I used an Irwin #1 Unibit, 1/8" to 1/2". I used the 13/32" to 7/16" size, which is lucky as that was about as far as the bit would go into the K2 top without touching the KBT2.

I had to use rotate the Ext Speaker jack so that its switched tab would point in towards the KAT2 rather than towards the XVTR OUT hole as it bumped into the Radio Shack 273-1563 DC panel mount coaxial power jack.

The next task is to figure out how to attach a second positive lead to the battery with minimum fuss, and then proper wire dressing to the new DPDT switch and then back around to the new jack. Routing straight along the back would be shortest, but that runs under the KAT2 and might not be such a good idea.

- posted by Leigh @ 05:31 z 0 comments

 
Olivia HF MFSK Mode with Walsh FEC

There is a new digital mode based on MFSK with FEC using Walsh functions, and a selectable bandwidth from 125Hz to 2KHZ.

There is a mailing list, digitalradio with Yahoo Groups, for discussing it, but you need a password to read the archives.

Tbe designer of the mode, Pawel Jalocha SP9VRC, has published a specification, and so US hams are now in compliance with FCC order DA 95-2106, which the ARRL says reads:

"This Order amends Section 97.309(a) of the Commission's Rules...to clarify that amateur stations may use any digital code that has its technical characteristics publicly documented. This action was initiated by a letter from the American Radio Relay League, Inc. (ARRL)."

Updates: See performance figures for the various configurations done by Mark N5RFX. See N1US's Olivia MFSK HowTo for Windows users. For Linux, the curses-based interface is available by contacting SP9VRC by email. Hopefully, GPL source will be available soon.

- posted by Leigh @ 01:23 z 0 comments

 
I have been having terrible trouble with my Whirlpool Duet washer producing RFI (EMC problems). We've had it since July 2003, but I've been unable to quiet it. Finally I sought advice from the RFI mailing list at contesting.com and got the following responses:

• Do call the service center. I did and they are coming out on Monday.
• Try making the station ground wire instead of braid and eliminate a long bonding wire outside. Unfortunately, this doesn't help, and I get the noise in an AM radio in the house as well.
• Try a Radio Shack brute-force line filter. I did, no help.
• Whirlpool service says to make sure that the 3-prong outlet is grounded. II measure a 0.02 volt AC ripple between the ground pin and the cold water pipe, so I ran a wire from the ground to the cold water pipe for testing. No change.
• An EMC engineer suggests that I use a small antenna and see if the noise is from the power line or from the body of the unit, and to find out if the motor is frequency-controlled AC or stepper/PWM DC. No luck finding out, but bingo on the radio test: with my KX1 and 1ft wire antenna, I pick up the biggest noise from the control panel, and the least noise from the bottom of the washer and the washer cavity.

Finally, I produced spectrum plots of noise with gMFSK and my K2 and FT-817. With these I learned that the majority of the noise is concentrated in repeating frequencies, every 15-17Khz. Sadly, one of these falls on 14.070 Mhz. see the spectrum plots.

- posted by Leigh @ 06:55 z 0 comments

 

KH6BB and ZL6FF
- posted by Leigh @ 01:24 z 0 comments

 

This is me at age 6 on my father N5LK (at the time WA5UBQ)'s TR-4C.
- posted by Leigh @ 20:14 z 0 comments

 
Kid's Radio Day
We worked Carl (10) and Joe (11) at K1LGQ in Brookline, NH on 14.270. They persevered and heard us at 25W or so.
- posted by Leigh @ 18:35 z 0 comments

 
At 2249Z I heard K0RDW calling CQ on 14.032.71 and answered him with my K2 at full power and the J-38 from my first-grade science project. I unhooked the International Crystal OX-1 oscillator from one side of the key and answered Ron with 15W or so from the K2. Ron is in St. Paul, MN where it was 22F and sleeting. He was running 25W from an Icom 756 Pro to a 3 el up 45 feet! His signal was great here, about 579; Ron gave me a 559.
- posted by Leigh @ 22:02 z 0 comments