AmateurRadio.com

X108 for Shortwave or AM listening

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

It was a nice fall day, so Joyce K0JJW and I decided to go for an easy hike up Kaufman Ridge HP (W0C/SP-081) and do some SOTA operating. Well, maybe the hike was her idea and the Summits On The Air thing was my contribution to the plan. The hike is less than a mile and has about 900 feet in elevation gain, depending on where you start the hike.

This definitely a slacker operation: easy access, easy hike, great weather and 2m FM activation via a handheld radio and the 1/2-wave whip.

Note that there are two SOTA peaks with the “Kaufman Ridge” name: Kaufman Ridge North (W0C/SP-085) and Kaufman Ridge HP (W0C/SP-081), located near Trout Creek Pass in Colorado. Today we headed to SP-081 which we reached by following County Road 318 from Trout Creek Pass, which is also called Buckrake Drive and then Windmill Drive. These roads pass through private property to reach the San Isabel National Forest, where there is a gate that closed from December to April (see map). At this point, the road is easy 4WD, most 2WD high clearance vehicles will do fine. You can also approach from the south on FS 308 through Mushroom Gulch. 

We turned left onto FS 308 and then took a short side road FS 308B toward the summit. There are several over turn offs but 308B seems the best (shown in black on map). The road is blocked for vehicular traffic at 38.858659° N / 105.933921°W. You can continue walking on the road a ways or just head straight for the summit. While the hike is short and not that steep, there are plenty of downed logs to give you a challenge.

You never know who is going to show up on 146.52 MHz in the mountains but I had put the word out via email to some of the local hams to let them know I was doing a SOTA activation. When I got to the summit, I had a few stations already calling me and I quickly worked Ron N0MQJ, Fred N0VXE, Dave K0HTX, Jim KD0MRC, Bob W0BV and Don K0DRJ. Don was my “best DX”, about 60 miles away in Woodland Park with a few mountains in the way. Thanks to everyone that came on frequency and contacted me.

Side note: if you want to activate SP-085, go north on a forest service road (not shown on map) near where 318 and 308 intersect. Just drive a short ways north, find a parking spot and bushwack your way up the summit. You could easily activate both summits in one day.

73, Bob K0NR

The post SOTA Activation: Kaufman Ridge HP (W0C/SP-081) appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

During the past few projects I'd noticed a serious diminishing of my 1/4 watt resistor stock and decided to see what was available from e-Bay.

Many of the dealers in China were offering various packages at reasonable prices and it is hard to resist 'free shipping'.

After narrowing things down I decided on one particular dealer, electronics-salon, who had only five minor complaints in over 17,000 transactions during the past 12 month period. As well, he seemed to be selling only high-quality components, unlike many of the sellers from China.

The offering was for:

0 to 10M ohm 1/4 Watts Axial Lead Carbon Film Resistors Assorted Kit.
E-12 Series 86 Values, Total 860 Pieces (Each 10).
Resistance Tolerance : +-5%.
Rated Power : 1/4 Watt.
100% New, Never Used.
RoHS Compliant.

With free-shipping, the cost was just over one-cent per resistor and would nicely re-stock my 1/4W trays as well as provide me with many more values to choose from than at present...hard to resist!

So...what happened?

Courtesy: http://www.ebay.ca/

The resistors arrived, packaged as shown, at the normal 'free-shipping' (slow) rate, which I don't mind. I selected three values to test and three samples of each value...120K, 68K and 8.2 ohms.
All resistors were within their 5% tolerance rating except for one of the 8.2's which measured 7.6 ohms... 2% out of tolerance.


I next smoke-tested a 680 ohm resistor for five minutes at slightly more than 1/4 watt dissipation. Measuring the resistor immediately after revealed that there had been no change in resistance.

Overall I am pleased with this purchase and would buy from this particular e-Bay seller in the future.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

My drive to get our snows on....just in time!

Relaxing at the radio with some tea

Have to go into work on Sunday so I wanted to spend some relaxing time at the radio this afternoon and see what was up on the bands. I started out on 17m and it did have some DX on there but it faded very fast. I then received a call from our veterinary that our cats food was in for pickup so it was off to get that. When I returned it seemed that 17m things were just not happening. I jumped down to 20m and came across KB3RUN/QRP calling CQ I came back to him and he did hear me BUT this nasty QRN came over the radio and wiped out his signal all together. It seems to be a plasma TV that is in the area somewhere and by the time I filtered it out KB3RUN/QRP was gone. I did send an email just to let him know I did not forget about him. Most times on my contacts and almost contacts I send an email to thank the op for the contact.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

As with the spirit of QRP and doing “more with less”; I decided to take W2LJ’s advice and downsize my radio camping gear. The process started soon after the return trip from Elkins WV and the 4,000 ft mountain top. My 15 year old tent was showing a lot of wear and tear. I was afraid a really cold rain might leave me very uncomfortable and possibly even in danger of hypothermia during the upcoming winter months. We both decided to downsize and use simple tarpaulins and bivy sacks for our dwellings.

Our fellow NAQCC club member Steve Ashcraft (KC4URI) and I decided to return to Grantsville WV once again before the snow started to fly. After all, this site is one, if not the best, places in the state to view the Milky Way from horizon to horizon.

We both arrived at about the same time and soon realized our former campsite, on the top of a 360 degree hill, would be too cold with temperatures predicted to drop near freezing. There was stiff cold wind blowing from the West  too. We were forced to pitch our tarps and bivy sacks on the side of a small hill to protect us from the cold wind.

That’s Steve in the background checking the wind direction to maximize our warmth as the temperatures continued to drop towards the 30’s.

I’m glad to write we stayed quite comfortable with this gear. Modern day fabrics and insulation kept us warm as toast as we arose the next morning to a light frost (only because of the wind). If you look closely, the ice covered much more than just the windshields of the cars. There was a coating of ice from the roof to the tires.

This month is the anniversary of the West Virginia Chapter of the NAQCC Club. It’s been a very busy time with two different camping trips in October. As usual, Steve’s Elecraft K-1 did a fantastic job with the contacts on the this trip. Of the 15  contacts we made on this trip, 13 were NAQCC club members.

The highlight of the trip was having a long talk with a bow hunter in Wisconsin. Ken (WA9JTU) was at his cabin at the time. It had a nice metal roof which he loaded up for the antenna. Many of the QSO’s were about deer, which we saw very little of because of howling coyotes and barking farm dogs in the countryside. A good dog is the best burglar alarm money can buy in the country. It was especially rewarding to work two members of our “core group” who were back in Charleston. Both AC8LJ and W8GDP had 599 signals.

As usual, Steve fixed a great breakfast before breaking camp the next morning. Biscuits and gravy really hit the spot on this cold morning.

The West Virginia Chapter is having our slow CW net on 40 meters again during the winter months. If you’re just kicking around and trying to stay warm, tune to 7.117 MHz at 9:00 PM (local time) and we’ll chat about the weather and radio. The net will be repeated each Wednesday night until the temperatures start to rise again.

John Smithson, Jr., N8ZYA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from West Virginia, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Just updated my licence by Notice of Variation to extend the band coverage 146MHz to 147MHz..




It was done in a flash! Or quicker than you can make instant coffee.. You can download a copy of the NOV straight away in PDF format, and there is an email sent back to you with a link to a copy, once you have completed the online application.

*Note Geographic restrictions, and upper band limit apply in some parts of the UK, see link below.

25W Max erp. Digital modes only. Available to Full licencsees only! NOV is for 12 months and expires on 31/10/15


Step down to the RSGB link below, armed with your licence number:


 
Steve, G1KQH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from England. Contact him at [email protected].

First off I want to thank Ed (Import Communications) for his patience and time with the arrival, shipment and many questions he has been asked about the X108.
Mine arrived yesterday and was packed well. The radio requires no building at all and came assembled with handles attached, power cable and USB cable and microphone.
The power connector is very small, short wires and no fuse, this would be first thing that I would change out. The other problem I have is the antenna connector, i wish all radio makers would use the BNC to prevent cross threading, cheap ends etc..

The radio display looks good, but for some of the display I need my magnifying cheaters on, but for the better part very nice.
The microphone has multifunction’s like band select, last frequency, and a whole lot more.

I made a contact on SSB on 18 megs with my windom and 10 watts into TX last night, I got a 5×4 and peaked a 5×6, audio report was good as per the chap on the other end.
This morning a made a SKCC qso on 40 meters at 1204z with a member down in Alabama, I was running 5 watts and got a 579 with Bill.

I find one does not need or require the PREAMP, I find the radio is sensitive enough and picks up stations and then some that my VX1700 does not hear, receive is fairly quiet. I need to play a bit more with the ATT as well, I can hear some slight ghosting of the very strong stations from time to time when tuning.

Have used HRD and FLDIGI/FLRIG using the IC718 settings and been able to copy psk using just the audio out jack on the back of the radio and using microphone in on netbook. Need a cable now for PTT and transmit for digital modes. CAT control seems to work well and fast.

Power output is stable on this radio, measured into a digital meter and attached a dummy load I get the following:(using cw to key rig)
160 meters 10 w
80 meter 15 w
40,30,20,17,15,12,10 18 w

Have not checked current draw yet, but I can tell you that in a dead keydown on 80 meters I popped a 5 a fuse in my power bar.

I also have yet to check out the keyer portion of the rig to see how that works, for now just trying to get to know the rig.

Looking forward to hearing from others who have received their X108’s and what their thoughts are.

Fred VE3FAL

 

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