AmateurRadio.com

There were a lot of things to get done before playing in FYBO, and (channelling Yoda) get them done I did. Believe it or not, my FYBO operation was from the street in front of our house. I live on a relatively quiet side street, so there was no danger of being hit by a car or something like that. I opened up the hatch of the Jeep, just like I do at work, and set up my nylon camping chair and used the "trunk" of my Jeep as an operating table. My antenna was the Buddistick/magmount combo on the roof . I'm sure the neighbors were staring - wondering, "What the heck is he doing now? And what is that tall stick poking up from his car roof?" "And why is our dishwasher going crazy - I'll bet it's him!"

As I set up it was flurrying slightly and the temp was 35F (1C). And then it happened. I tried tuning up the KX3 and couldn't get a decent match. Of course these things always happen at the worst time! Calmly, I took the Buddistick off the roof and inspected it - no problems there. Then the magmount - AHA!  Where the coax meets magmount, the dielectric foam surrounding the center conductor wire cracked open (from the cold, I guess, because I keep it in the trunk when not in use). The shield was ever so slightly touching the center conductor and was making for a bad situation. A quick trip to the basement shack was in order. I cut the coax back, soldered on two new ring terminals and put everything back together. The KX3 was a happy camper with a 1:1 match.

In about two hours of operating, here's my summary:

W2LJ
Team Polar Bear
Field - Yes
Category - Single Op
Alternative Power - No (Batteries- Mains charged)
Lowest Temperature - 35
QRPp - No
Final Score - 7780 points

BAND  QSOs  SPCs  NQ7RP Stns
------------------------------------
    20      15       12          0
    14      10         8         1
------------------------------------
TOTAL:  24       20        1

Score - (24X20) (X4 Temp multiplier) (X4 Field Multiplier) +100 =7780

15 Meters was pleasantly active, affording me 10 of my 24 QSOs. 20 Meters was also busy but noisier, with some TN QSO Party stations and some SOTA stations thrown into the mix. I also was contacted by an SKCC station - I guess they have something going on this weekend, as well as one DX station - G4OBC. I tuned around 40 Meters at the end of my operating time, but heard no FYBOers.

There was no wind to speak of, so it actually didn't feel that bad outside.  I think the temperature reached a max of 38F (3C) while I was out. I was comfortable, except that my hands were cold, as I really couldn't send Morse while wearing heavy Winter gloves. And another discovery - the older you get, the more bathroom breaks you need when it's cold!  Too much information? Sorry!

Now, if that wasn't enough - my FYBO day was made even better by finally working K1N with 5 Watts. YES!!! I came down to the shack this evening to enter my FYBO log into my Master Log. While doing that, I heard K1N on 20 Meters (haven't worked them there yet) and they were truly 599 loud.  I double checked my power setting to make sure I was at 5 Watts and I jumped into the pileup. In about somewhere between 5 to 10 calls, I finally heard my call come back to me. Sweet! My personal goal is now complete. I got K1N in the log for an ATNO, and I also got them in the log using QRP power.

It was a good QRP day. A VERY good QRP day!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

My plans today were to get out to my Winter Survival shelter and operate in FYBO and the RaDAR event. But snow and a very low windchill changed my mind on the outdoor adventure, but with about 45 minutes in the RaDAR event left I decided to saddle up my PRC-104 with Chameleon whip and give 15 meters go. With luck I was able to work a few RaDAR stations. Even in -15c (-21c with blowing snow) a warming smile was brought upon my face.

Thanks to those who pulled me out and gave me the opportunity to play late in the game.

http://youtu.be/lQO2CmgP7cQ

Other videos of my hobbies can be seen on my YouTube channel at :

https://www.youtube.com/user/VE3FAL1/videos

I could not feel my fingers when I got back into the house but it was a great experience none the less.

Fred

VE3FAL

Fred Lesnick, VE3FAL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Thunder Bay Ontario, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

The Raspberry Pi2 was delivered very quickly – thank you CPC! However, owing to a bit of silliness on my part I didn’t get it running until today. I’d assumed – always a dangerous thing – that the Pi2 used an SD card for its storage, like the Pi. Oh no it doesn’t! It uses a micro SD card. I didn’t discover this until I went to plug the SD card in!

Ah well. A quick Amazon order later and a micro SD card and an adapter was on the way. Those arrived here this morning, so I quickly prepared the micro SD card.

I had a bit of fun getting decent video on my rather old monitor in the shack and was starting to think I wasn’t going to find something better than VGA! However, a setting of hdmi_group=2 and hdmi_mode=16 gave me a reasonable compromise between getting a decent amount on the screen and being able to read it without green and yellow flashing in the background.!

The first bit of software I installed was the Gpredict satellite prediction program. It’s nice to have the map running in the shack. That went well and only seemed to be taking a very small percentage of CPU.

Then I installed RTLSDR and tested it, without any problems. I installed DUMP1090 – the ADS-B decoder as well as the Piaware software which uploads the ADS-B spots to Flightaware. Those programs run quite happily at the same time as Gpredict and use around 7% of CPU.

I fired up the Epiphany web browser and went to Twitter – again, the CPU was quite happy.

This looks very useful. I think I’d better order it a case!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

The Raspberry Pi2 was delivered very quickly – thank you CPC! However, owing to a bit of silliness on my part I didn’t get it running until today. I’d assumed – always a dangerous thing – that the Pi2 used an SD card for its storage, like the Pi. Oh no it doesn’t! It uses a micro SD card. I didn’t discover this until I went to plug the SD card in!

Ah well. A quick Amazon order later and a micro SD card and an adapter was on the way. Those arrived here this morning, so I quickly prepared the micro SD card.

I had a bit of fun getting decent video on my rather old monitor in the shack and was starting to think I wasn’t going to find something better than VGA! However, a setting of hdmi_group=2 and hdmi_mode=16 gave me a reasonable compromise between getting a decent amount on the screen and being able to read it without green and yellow flashing in the background.!

The first bit of software I installed was the Gpredict satellite prediction program. It’s nice to have the map running in the shack. That went well and only seemed to be taking a very small percentage of CPU.

Then I installed RTLSDR and tested it, without any problems. I installed DUMP1090 – the ADS-B decoder as well as the Piaware software which uploads the ADS-B spots to Flightaware. Those programs run quite happily at the same time as Gpredict and use around 7% of CPU.

I fired up the Epiphany web browser and went to Twitter – again, the CPU was quite happy.

This looks very useful. I think I’d better order it a case!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Earlier last week I posted about how my solar banner seemed to stop updating and not showing the current day's condition. I emailed Paul N0NBH about the issue and he responded very fast asking for more information. We exchanged several emails and he was very helpful and wanted to get to the bottom of the problem that I was having with his solar banner. Paul explained to me that Chrome and Safari browsers seem to have issues with his banner. He went on to explain that on his site there are some other links one being  Marv (W4ZD) that may work better for me. For you Mac Safari users (like me) he also provided a great link to an article that deal with clearing Safari's cache using some simple short cuts. It would seem with Paul's solar banner when using Safari or Chrome the cache has to be cleared and the your page reloaded for the banner to update. On my desktop that runs Win7 I have not had this issue.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

 

• Radio Shack Inc. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
• The K-One-N, Nevassa Island DXpedition takes to the airwaves
• The ARRL makes public its legislative agenda for 2015
• The Raspberry Pi Foundation announces its latest system on a chip
• A popular ham radio-based radio program of the 1990's is coming back via an Internet archive.

      THIS WEEK'S NEWSCAST

      Script

      Audio

From my bank statement I see my 40m Pixie kit from China, that has shipped, cost a little over £7. This includes all parts including crystal and PCB. At this price it would be hard to buy the individual parts. I very much want to build this as it will be the first amateur radio construction here in a very long time.   It is sufficiently simple and low cost that I should manage it, even if I am a little clumsy still with the soldering iron.

 No doubt Andrew G6ALB (3km) will help with a first test.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.