Trying to snow...

The weather's cold enough, but there isn't quite enough moisture in the air to sustain a real lot of snow just yet. Not sure what to call this stuff; sleet, snow - the weather man knows for sure! This is the top of my car, in close-up.

Apologies for the odd layout - I'm tinkering with new Blogger features and haven't quite got the hang of it yet.

24GHz progress

Some time ago, I bought a Verticom MTS1500-151-01 oscillator from the fine Southern California hams.  I never got round to getting it going; too much to do elsewhere.  Finally, I managed to order the pieces/parts from Digikey that I needed for WW2R's Verticom driver board.  Spent a couple days putting that together and getting it on the power meter and spectrum analyser.

Couple of things to note:

• The 78L05 is a small TO-92 device, not a TO-3.
• The power supply has 2 off-board regulators; an LT1086 and a 7808.  Bollt those guys onto a very decent heat sink.  I used a small aluminum square scavenged from something or other and it wasn't big enough at 2-1/2 inches by 2-1/4 inches.  It got too hot to hold after about 15 minutes, but a small 12v fan made all the difference.
• My HP 432A measures +15dBm
• My HP 141T measures about +12dBm
• Use a 20dB pad!
• Spectrum looks very clean, but I need to cal my HP 141T...

 

11880MHz (approx)

0dBm reference

10KHz / division

23dB of attenuation in line

Softrock V8.3

From this:


To this:


I finished up the basic kit last night and wound the 40/80m band filter board toroids. Much gratitude for Robby WB5RVZ and his excellent builder's page. Wow, that was easy! Next stop, the 10m filter board, some connectors and a hook-up to Rocky software!!

Softrock on order

I ordered a Softrock Lite v8.3 yesterday. Now I'm getting all excited, waiting for it to arrive! Looking to make a 28MHz IF panadapter.

June ARRL VHF QSO party

Had a mixed bag up at Mt Greylock. Broke more stuff than I'm worth. Better luck next time I guess. Didn't get rained on too much, and several folks stepped up to make hot meals. Thanks!

Preparing to contest

Getting ready to go contesting again. First blog in a while, oh well. My watch battery died (odd segué, what?) so I went to Wal-Mart (ugh) to get a new CR2016. Of course they only come in 2 packs. Anyway, while there I got a devilish idea on how to pack radios for the trip.

Meandered over to the craft aisles, looking for foam. My wife is an evil crafting genius, but I, not so much. And so I pushed and prodded and squeezed packages of foam and batting and filling trying to figure out what I could use as an ersatz Pelican case with pluck 'n' place. I'm a ham. I'm cheap. :-)

Settled on a 4-pack of Morning Glory Foam Seat Cushions; 16 inches square by 1 inch thick. 100% premium urethane foam. Under $8.


With that in hand I wandered over to the kitchen/household goods aisle where I started looking for containers. Found a couple of candidates that looked large enough to hold my goodies but small enough so the gear wouldn't rattle about in transit. Found that a Rubbermaid Handi-Box size S (14x10.5x4 inch, or 7.2 qt) snap case box is a very good fit for an Icom IC-706MKIIG, microphone, power cable and some coaxial adapters. Used one of those electronic labellers to mark the outside with the contents (an instant inventory) and cut the foam with normal scissors as padding and it looks great!


I cut a single block for the bottom, with strips for the sides. A small pad goes over the top of the mic and a larger one over the radio. The lid closes and slightly compresses the foam. The radio doesn't rattle a bit. I made up 3 cases all told for various gear... the FT-290RII with battery pack, the 30A power supply, Bencher BY-1 paddle, K1EL Winkey 2 keyer, cables, headphones, etc. Very nice and the total cost was about $20!

Catch-up

Grr. Trying to catch up on blogging. Been having issues with the PC, suspect my new PSU, imagine that. Ah well. I did a bunch of work to document the KJ1K/R effort this past January 2008, but it got lost in the bit bucket and I'm too lazy to do it again. :- ) We went, had a good time. Need to work out a better way to coordinate multiple stations moving up the bands. I suspect the easiest thing is to work 'em all low, then ask the middle strength station to move up the bands. The thought being that conditions might improve for the weakest station. If condx decline, we'll get the QSO with the two stronger stations.

Stuff on my plate:

1. MSP 430 - work on tutorials
2. 10G - start contacting other 10G stations to set up skeds for June
3. 24G - get the filter tuned up
4. Build an assembly out of Sigurd's DDS-60 / Softrock