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It was an exciting morning in the Jones household!  This morning my 16 year old son, Nick, passed his Technician test!  He is pumped!  

My Son Nick

Big news!  Tomorrow I will be testing for my Extra ticket…..but the bigger news is that my 16 year old son – Nick – will be testing for his Technician!

66′ Dipole ready for the attic!

Over the 3 day weekend I finally squeezed in some time to get my 66 foot ladder fed dipole up in the attic.  One leg of the antenna is basically straight, but the other leg had to do a bit of zig-zagging through the trusses – it gets a bit crazy up there!

The ladder line drops down into my garage and then down to the basement where my shack is located.

Last night I built the BL2 1:1 or 4:1 balun from Elecraft.  The ladder line terminates at the balun and a 3′ piece of coax goes from the balun to my KX3.

Wrapped this all up last night about midnight – and then started doing some testing.  The internal tuner on the KX3 tunes ALL bands 40-10 meters almost down to 1:1 SWR.  Very nice.

I tuned around 40 meters and only heard a couple stations that time of night.  The noise level last night was between S4 and S5 – not sure if this is the normal noise level or not, but I suspect it is.

I did a bit of testing using the RBN – I called CQ on 40 meters for a few minutes and ended up with spots North, South and East of Kansas – good sign.  Then I switched antennas back to my 9:1 UNUN 30′ wire in the attic and did the same thing – so reports.  So good news is that my performance on 40 meters is GREATLY improved.  The reports on my 66′ Dipole were from 10-18 DB SNR on the RBN – all with 5 watts out of the KX3.

At 1:00 am local time I heard  K0GPA calling CQ – he was 559 here.  So I threw out my call and he came back to me with a 559 as well.  Turns out he was running a KX3 also – he was at 10 watts, and I was at 5 watts.  The QSB got him a bit, but I think he was using some type of loop – just missed what type.  It was a nice QSO with Bob – and it proved I was getting out!

So now I am looking forward to putting it through the paces a bit more and see just how much my reception will improve with more wire in the air!  I hope to at least have time to look at the waterfall tonight on 20 meters PSK31 to see what it looks like compared to my old antenna.

I will keep you posted!

I have been playing around with PSK31, WSPR and JT65 since I got my 30′ long wire with UNUN installed in the attic.

I have noticed something that is bugging me a bit.

It appears that I am being heard much better than I am hearing other stations.

When I call CQ on PSK31 – the PSK REPORTER site shows my signal being heard from coast to coast and beyond.  Most time I get a return call, but many times I can just barely see them on the waterfall.

I have noticed the same thing with WSPR – heard all over the place, but hardly hearing anyone.

So it has me thinking about the antenna.  Could it be that it is a better radiator than it is a receiver?

I am going to be putting a 66′ ladder fed dipole up there sometime in the next month – so that might tell me more.

You guys with more experience – what do you think might be going on here?

So yesterday I celebrated my 47th birthday.  I had a great time eating a nice dinner with my Wife and children.  Perfect night!

My 14 year old son, Ryan, has discovered a graphics program called Blender – he is teaching himself how to use it and has really done some cool stuff.

Well, for my birthday present he made a graphic of my Elecraft KX3!  He apparently had been making clandestine trips to my newly implement shack to see what the rig looked like and then model it up in Blender.

Here is how it turned out….very cool….I just had to share it with you guys.

What a great birthday present from him – I am gong to make it into my wallpaper on my shack computer.

Thanks Ryan – you did a great job!

Since I put the 30′ EF long wire in the attic I have been playing around with digital modes – PSK31 & WSPR.

I fired up WSPR on 20 meters remotely this morning using Team Viewer and much to my surprise I was heard by WA2YUN on Wake Island.

Pretty cool to for my 3 watts to be heard on a location with such historical significance!

Several months ago I built an UNUN, like the one I use for my portable ops antenna, but this one was going in my attic.

I finally had time this weekend to get this thing installed in my attic.  I cut a piece of wire 30′ long for the radiator.  My shack is in the basement, and one wall is the garage wall.  So I drilled a hole at the bottom of the garage wall, and in the ceiling of the garage.

I then ran my coax from the basement up into the attic – very easy.

Then came the fun part, walking on roof trusses to get the wire installed.  Pretty easy, and luckily it is still cool outside.

Once installed I went down to the shack and hooked up the KX3 to the antenna.  It tuned up nicely on 40 thru 10 meters with the internal tuner.  So I put a quick CQ on 20 meters and was spotted coast to coast on the RBN – success!

About 11:30 pm on Sunday night I had time to get down to the shack again and see what was going on.

As soon as I turned the radio on I heard W1AW/5 (NM) calling CQ with no takers.  So I threw my call out and he came right back with one repeat on my call.  We exchanged 599 and it was fun.

I then spent about another hour messing around with FLDIGI and WSPR – with no success.  More to report on this later….these modes are all new to me, so there is a pretty big learning curve.

So now I can actually have some ham radio fun from home!