Posts Tagged ‘amateurradio.com’
Hamfest HAB – Pre Launch Update
September 22nd, 2015 | 
Author: Not long now! Just three days left till the National Hamfest and hopefully the launch of my second high altitude balloon.
Balloon, parachute and helium have all been purchased and payloads have under gone final testing and have been put to one side ready for the flight which should hopefully be around 12pm on Friday 25th September.
The SSDV payload callsign PINKY will transmit on 434.575MHz USB RTTY 300 baud 880Hz shift ASCII-8 no parity 2 stop bits.
the backup telemetry tracker callsign PIGLET will transmit 434.150MHz USB RTTY 50 baud 380Hz shift ASCII-7 no parity 2 stop bits
They will transmit using the UKHAS telemetry protocol and can be tracked on tracker.habhub.org for information on how to receive and upload data to the tracking system visit the UKHAS wiki some information and useful links have been collated on the AMSAT-UK website
I was hoping to also transmit using the LoRa system, using the callsign PERKY. The transmitter had been successfully tested but a last minute gremlin has struck and it stopped working this weekend, I have been unable to locate the fault and suspect it is the actual module and with time being short have all but given up getting it working. If I do get it working it will be on 434.450MHz in Mode 1
I have already detailed the PIGLET payload in an earlier post. The PINKY/PERKY payload is constructed on strip board and was originally meant to to be a prototype, hence the rubbish layout. I had planned to build a better laid out version but the tight time scale, stresses and demands of work, commitments with the radio club not to mention nursing the wife as she recovers from a major operation scuppered that plan. Being pragmatic I decided it didn't need to be work of art to work! I have secured all the connections with hot glue and it has been drop tested several times.
"Pinky" pig will be the passenger on the day, donning his fetching headset. Getting him in the right position for the camera was tricky.
I am still waiting for the CAA approval, should hopefully get it soon. I have put in a request for both days of the Hamfest just in case, the latest prediction at predict.habhub.org shows if I get the fill right I might just escape a watery landing on Friday, however Saturday looks more promising at the moment - also the forecast for Friday at the moment also has strong gusty surface winds, which could make the launch problematic. I am still planning for Friday since conditions and predictions do change.
I and other members of South Kesteven ARS will be in attendance with a tracker station on the day, so please introduce yourself and perhaps join the club?
Please don't mention anything to do with other pigs in the news..
Balloon, parachute and helium have all been purchased and payloads have under gone final testing and have been put to one side ready for the flight which should hopefully be around 12pm on Friday 25th September.
The SSDV payload callsign PINKY will transmit on 434.575MHz USB RTTY 300 baud 880Hz shift ASCII-8 no parity 2 stop bits.
 |
| SSDV Test image |
They will transmit using the UKHAS telemetry protocol and can be tracked on tracker.habhub.org for information on how to receive and upload data to the tracking system visit the UKHAS wiki some information and useful links have been collated on the AMSAT-UK website
I was hoping to also transmit using the LoRa system, using the callsign PERKY. The transmitter had been successfully tested but a last minute gremlin has struck and it stopped working this weekend, I have been unable to locate the fault and suspect it is the actual module and with time being short have all but given up getting it working. If I do get it working it will be on 434.450MHz in Mode 1
 |
| PERKY seen working on SDR |
 |
| PINKY & PERKY tracker |
"Pinky" pig will be the passenger on the day, donning his fetching headset. Getting him in the right position for the camera was tricky.
I am still waiting for the CAA approval, should hopefully get it soon. I have put in a request for both days of the Hamfest just in case, the latest prediction at predict.habhub.org shows if I get the fill right I might just escape a watery landing on Friday, however Saturday looks more promising at the moment - also the forecast for Friday at the moment also has strong gusty surface winds, which could make the launch problematic. I am still planning for Friday since conditions and predictions do change.
 |
| Friday prediction as of 22/09/2015 |
 |
| Saturday prediction as of 22/09/2015 |
Please don't mention anything to do with other pigs in the news..
The Magic Word
"FREE" !
How can you pass up something for free?
You can't.
In case you are not aware, you can pick up Bill Meara's book, "Solder Smoke" for free from Amazon.com. The actual "in your hands" paperback book is $19.99 (from Amazon), but the kindle edition is free.
You don't need to own a kindle to read this, which is the beauty of it. The kindle app is also free, and you can load it onto any Windows PC or Android device. Sorry, I'm not up on Apple devices, but something tells me that the kindle app is probably available for them, too.
So how can you pass this up?
You can't.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
How can you pass up something for free?
You can't.
In case you are not aware, you can pick up Bill Meara's book, "Solder Smoke" for free from Amazon.com. The actual "in your hands" paperback book is $19.99 (from Amazon), but the kindle edition is free.
You don't need to own a kindle to read this, which is the beauty of it. The kindle app is also free, and you can load it onto any Windows PC or Android device. Sorry, I'm not up on Apple devices, but something tells me that the kindle app is probably available for them, too.
So how can you pass this up?
You can't.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Hamfest HAB – "Pigs In Space" Preparations
Already a week into September and not long now till the National Hamfest where I and the South Kesteven ARS are launching a high altitude balloon launch subject to CAA approval. The documents have been submitted so just waiting for the nod.
The balloon and parachute have been purchased from Steve Randall (G8KHW) at Random Engineering, using the same size as I did for the Eggsplorer-1
I had joked about sending some "Ham into space" on this flight but following the smelly end to Eggsplorer-1 have opted to play it safe and avoid food! Instead will be sending up a toy pig (well a small squeaky dog toy)
Similar to the Eggsplorer-1 the main tracker will be a Raspberry Pi fitted with a camera and two transmitters.
The tracker is based on the "Pi In The Sky" code base/design by Dave Akerman (M0RPI) and Anthony Stirk (M0UPU) with some modifications since I am building on simple strip board using a different GPS module/interface and omitting any power supply monitoring.
On the Eggsplorer I used an old Pi Model B but was forced to butcher it to reduce the power demand by desoldering the network/usb chip. This time I am using a Model A+ which is smaller/lighter and has a much reduced power demand and with the locking micro-SD card socket will hopefully prevent a repeat of Eggsplorer-1's failure mode.
PINKY & PERKY are progressing well, just waiting delivery of some strip board and they should be completed in the next day or so.
PINKY will be 300-Baud RTTY, sending telemetry along with SSDV image packets using the UKHAS format.
PERKY will be using one of the LoRa modules again sending telemetry and SSDV but with greater resolution and speed, but will require a LoRa receiver/gateway (see Dave Akerman's website).
While the SSDV is attractive to tracker enthusiasts the high speed RTTY is more difficult to receive, so I will be flying a secondary 'backup' tracker. The use of a backup proved invaluable on the Eggsplorer when the main tracker failed.
PIGLET will be a 50-baud RTTY transmission with telemetry and should prove easier to receive.
I finished PIGLET at the weekend
Again built on strip board it is based around the ATMEL ATMega128 micro-controller using the Arduino system with a number of off the shelf modules connected to it.
It has one of the GY-GPS6MV2 GPS modules I blogged about last year feeding into the UART. The NTX-2B transmitter (frequency agile version from Hab Supplies) and a I2C BMP180 pressure/sensor module (not visible as mounted to measure external conditions) It also has a small boost converter to supply 5V and extract all the available power it can from the 3-AA lithium battery pack.
One change compared to the EGG1 tracker is to use a PWM output from the Arduino to generate the RTTY tones rather than a register voltage divider (guide here) which seems to give a cleaner signal.
The antenna is simply copper wire making a 1/4 wave ground plane. The 'box' are some layers of styrofoam glued together with UHU-Por with duct tape, some straws and beads for safety. Just needs the batteries fitting and the lid fixing with more duct tape and PIGLET is ready to fly.
Full details of frequencies will be posted nearer the time.
The balloon and parachute have been purchased from Steve Randall (G8KHW) at Random Engineering, using the same size as I did for the Eggsplorer-1
I had joked about sending some "Ham into space" on this flight but following the smelly end to Eggsplorer-1 have opted to play it safe and avoid food! Instead will be sending up a toy pig (well a small squeaky dog toy)
Similar to the Eggsplorer-1 the main tracker will be a Raspberry Pi fitted with a camera and two transmitters.
The tracker is based on the "Pi In The Sky" code base/design by Dave Akerman (M0RPI) and Anthony Stirk (M0UPU) with some modifications since I am building on simple strip board using a different GPS module/interface and omitting any power supply monitoring.
On the Eggsplorer I used an old Pi Model B but was forced to butcher it to reduce the power demand by desoldering the network/usb chip. This time I am using a Model A+ which is smaller/lighter and has a much reduced power demand and with the locking micro-SD card socket will hopefully prevent a repeat of Eggsplorer-1's failure mode.
PINKY & PERKY are progressing well, just waiting delivery of some strip board and they should be completed in the next day or so.
PINKY will be 300-Baud RTTY, sending telemetry along with SSDV image packets using the UKHAS format.
PERKY will be using one of the LoRa modules again sending telemetry and SSDV but with greater resolution and speed, but will require a LoRa receiver/gateway (see Dave Akerman's website).
While the SSDV is attractive to tracker enthusiasts the high speed RTTY is more difficult to receive, so I will be flying a secondary 'backup' tracker. The use of a backup proved invaluable on the Eggsplorer when the main tracker failed.
PIGLET will be a 50-baud RTTY transmission with telemetry and should prove easier to receive.
I finished PIGLET at the weekend
Again built on strip board it is based around the ATMEL ATMega128 micro-controller using the Arduino system with a number of off the shelf modules connected to it.
It has one of the GY-GPS6MV2 GPS modules I blogged about last year feeding into the UART. The NTX-2B transmitter (frequency agile version from Hab Supplies) and a I2C BMP180 pressure/sensor module (not visible as mounted to measure external conditions) It also has a small boost converter to supply 5V and extract all the available power it can from the 3-AA lithium battery pack.
One change compared to the EGG1 tracker is to use a PWM output from the Arduino to generate the RTTY tones rather than a register voltage divider (guide here) which seems to give a cleaner signal.
The antenna is simply copper wire making a 1/4 wave ground plane. The 'box' are some layers of styrofoam glued together with UHU-Por with duct tape, some straws and beads for safety. Just needs the batteries fitting and the lid fixing with more duct tape and PIGLET is ready to fly.
Full details of frequencies will be posted nearer the time.
Hamfest HAB – "Pigs In Space" Preparations
Already a week into September and not long now till the National Hamfest where I and the South Kesteven ARS are launching a high altitude balloon launch subject to CAA approval. The documents have been submitted so just waiting for the nod.
The balloon and parachute have been purchased from Steve Randall (G8KHW) at Random Engineering, using the same size as I did for the Eggsplorer-1
I had joked about sending some "Ham into space" on this flight but following the smelly end to Eggsplorer-1 have opted to play it safe and avoid food! Instead will be sending up a toy pig (well a small squeaky dog toy)
Similar to the Eggsplorer-1 the main tracker will be a Raspberry Pi fitted with a camera and two transmitters.
The tracker is based on the "Pi In The Sky" code base/design by Dave Akerman (M0RPI) and Anthony Stirk (M0UPU) with some modifications since I am building on simple strip board using a different GPS module/interface and omitting any power supply monitoring.
On the Eggsplorer I used an old Pi Model B but was forced to butcher it to reduce the power demand by desoldering the network/usb chip. This time I am using a Model A+ which is smaller/lighter and has a much reduced power demand and with the locking micro-SD card socket will hopefully prevent a repeat of Eggsplorer-1's failure mode.
PINKY & PERKY are progressing well, just waiting delivery of some strip board and they should be completed in the next day or so.
PINKY will be 300-Baud RTTY, sending telemetry along with SSDV image packets using the UKHAS format.
PERKY will be using one of the LoRa modules again sending telemetry and SSDV but with greater resolution and speed, but will require a LoRa receiver/gateway (see Dave Akerman's website).
While the SSDV is attractive to tracker enthusiasts the high speed RTTY is more difficult to receive, so I will be flying a secondary 'backup' tracker. The use of a backup proved invaluable on the Eggsplorer when the main tracker failed.
PIGLET will be a 50-baud RTTY transmission with telemetry and should prove easier to receive.
I finished PIGLET at the weekend
Again built on strip board it is based around the ATMEL ATMega128 micro-controller using the Arduino system with a number of off the shelf modules connected to it.
It has one of the GY-GPS6MV2 GPS modules I blogged about last year feeding into the UART. The NTX-2B transmitter (frequency agile version from Hab Supplies) and a I2C BMP180 pressure/sensor module (not visible as mounted to measure external conditions) It also has a small boost converter to supply 5V and extract all the available power it can from the 3-AA lithium battery pack.
One change compared to the EGG1 tracker is to use a PWM output from the Arduino to generate the RTTY tones rather than a register voltage divider (guide here) which seems to give a cleaner signal.
The antenna is simply copper wire making a 1/4 wave ground plane. The 'box' are some layers of styrofoam glued together with UHU-Por with duct tape, some straws and beads for safety. Just needs the batteries fitting and the lid fixing with more duct tape and PIGLET is ready to fly.
Full details of frequencies will be posted nearer the time.
The balloon and parachute have been purchased from Steve Randall (G8KHW) at Random Engineering, using the same size as I did for the Eggsplorer-1
I had joked about sending some "Ham into space" on this flight but following the smelly end to Eggsplorer-1 have opted to play it safe and avoid food! Instead will be sending up a toy pig (well a small squeaky dog toy)
Similar to the Eggsplorer-1 the main tracker will be a Raspberry Pi fitted with a camera and two transmitters.
The tracker is based on the "Pi In The Sky" code base/design by Dave Akerman (M0RPI) and Anthony Stirk (M0UPU) with some modifications since I am building on simple strip board using a different GPS module/interface and omitting any power supply monitoring.
On the Eggsplorer I used an old Pi Model B but was forced to butcher it to reduce the power demand by desoldering the network/usb chip. This time I am using a Model A+ which is smaller/lighter and has a much reduced power demand and with the locking micro-SD card socket will hopefully prevent a repeat of Eggsplorer-1's failure mode.
PINKY & PERKY are progressing well, just waiting delivery of some strip board and they should be completed in the next day or so.
PINKY will be 300-Baud RTTY, sending telemetry along with SSDV image packets using the UKHAS format.
PERKY will be using one of the LoRa modules again sending telemetry and SSDV but with greater resolution and speed, but will require a LoRa receiver/gateway (see Dave Akerman's website).
While the SSDV is attractive to tracker enthusiasts the high speed RTTY is more difficult to receive, so I will be flying a secondary 'backup' tracker. The use of a backup proved invaluable on the Eggsplorer when the main tracker failed.
PIGLET will be a 50-baud RTTY transmission with telemetry and should prove easier to receive.
I finished PIGLET at the weekend
Again built on strip board it is based around the ATMEL ATMega128 micro-controller using the Arduino system with a number of off the shelf modules connected to it.
It has one of the GY-GPS6MV2 GPS modules I blogged about last year feeding into the UART. The NTX-2B transmitter (frequency agile version from Hab Supplies) and a I2C BMP180 pressure/sensor module (not visible as mounted to measure external conditions) It also has a small boost converter to supply 5V and extract all the available power it can from the 3-AA lithium battery pack.
One change compared to the EGG1 tracker is to use a PWM output from the Arduino to generate the RTTY tones rather than a register voltage divider (guide here) which seems to give a cleaner signal.
The antenna is simply copper wire making a 1/4 wave ground plane. The 'box' are some layers of styrofoam glued together with UHU-Por with duct tape, some straws and beads for safety. Just needs the batteries fitting and the lid fixing with more duct tape and PIGLET is ready to fly.
Full details of frequencies will be posted nearer the time.
Web designers of the world
you can sleep soundly tonight!
You have no competition from W2LJ - whatsoever. I have finished the 2015 Skeeter Hunt Soapbox and have posted it to the Web. A bona fide Web designer probably could have done in an hour what took me a lot longer to accomplish. And I bet it would look a lot better, too. Mr. Originality or Mr. Creativity, I am not!
In all their non-glory, they are there for your perusal. Just click and go!
2015 Scoreboard
2015 Soapbox
72 de Larry WLJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
You have no competition from W2LJ - whatsoever. I have finished the 2015 Skeeter Hunt Soapbox and have posted it to the Web. A bona fide Web designer probably could have done in an hour what took me a lot longer to accomplish. And I bet it would look a lot better, too. Mr. Originality or Mr. Creativity, I am not!
In all their non-glory, they are there for your perusal. Just click and go!
2015 Scoreboard
2015 Soapbox
72 de Larry WLJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
156th Anniversary
It was this time of year, from August 28th to September 2nd, 1859 that the Earth experienced what was to be known as The Carrington Event. On September 1st, a solar flare was observed by two British amateur astronomers, Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson.
This was a coronal mass ejection that occurred during Cycle 10. It was a solar storm of such great intensity that reportedly, people as far south in Florida and Cuba were able to see aurora. In the Rockies, gold miners woke up in the middle of the night and started preparing breakfast because they thought it was daybreak. The aurora was so bright here in the northeast, that people outside were able to read newspapers by the aurora's glow.
Telegraph stations (our forerunners) were hit particularly hard. It was reported that some telegraph poles threw sparks into the air. Telegraph operators reported that not only did they receive shocks when they tried to operate, but that they were also able to continue to operate their telegraph apparatus after disconnecting it from the power supply.
I can only imagine the damage that would occur today if we suffered a direct blast from the sun as we did in 1859. I'm pretty sure that not only would the power grid be very badly affected, but that telephone and radio communications of all types would probably be non-existent, and much, much more.
Here are some interesting links:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/
http://www.history.com/news/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
This was a coronal mass ejection that occurred during Cycle 10. It was a solar storm of such great intensity that reportedly, people as far south in Florida and Cuba were able to see aurora. In the Rockies, gold miners woke up in the middle of the night and started preparing breakfast because they thought it was daybreak. The aurora was so bright here in the northeast, that people outside were able to read newspapers by the aurora's glow.
Telegraph stations (our forerunners) were hit particularly hard. It was reported that some telegraph poles threw sparks into the air. Telegraph operators reported that not only did they receive shocks when they tried to operate, but that they were also able to continue to operate their telegraph apparatus after disconnecting it from the power supply.
I can only imagine the damage that would occur today if we suffered a direct blast from the sun as we did in 1859. I'm pretty sure that not only would the power grid be very badly affected, but that telephone and radio communications of all types would probably be non-existent, and much, much more.
Here are some interesting links:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/
http://www.history.com/news/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Nasty OT Ham – Reality or Myth?
Every now and then I wander over to eHam. net. And sometimes I wonder why I bother to wander.
It's not uncommon for me to read the articles, and then inevitably, come across some comment by a self-proclaimed "newbie" wherein he or she begins to bemoan the treatment they've received from some "old fart", nasty, mean ol' Ham.
The common scenario seems to be:
"I'm new, bright-eyed, bushy tailed, full of exuberance and spit and vinegar - but yet somewhat lacking in knowledge and experience. I've gone to WB#XYZ repeater or to the Amateur Radio Club of Greater Podunk, where my inquiries were met with laughter, ridicule, sarcasm and down right meanness from Joe Ham. I am now going to sell all my Amateur Radio equipment because I'm traumatized and I never even want to hear the words "Amateur Radio" again."
I've seen this retold several times, in several different instances. I hate to question the veracity of the people making these claims - but can they be true? This has become a pet peeve of mine.
I've mentioned many times now, that I've been licensed for over 35 years. In all that time, I have never, ever, not even once come across treatment like that from an older Ham. Don't get me wrong, I've had to withstand my share of newbie ribbing, and have received my share of friendly and gentle reprimanding when doing something wrong - but nothing like these guys are describing.
A case in point. Shortly after upgrading to General in 1979, I joined the Old Bridge Amateur Radio Association. They owned and operated the KB2TX repeater at the time (well actually, it became the KB2TX repeater after Walt, the owner, changed his callsign to KB2TX - I forget what it was before that). Anyway, I had installed a used non-Icom microphone with a DTMF pad on my Icom 2 Meter mobile, so that I could make phone patches if the need came up. Back in those days, (am I dating myself?) it was rare for a mobile microphone to come with a keypad pre-installed. Unbeknownst to me, the microphone's element wasn't working. The DTMF tones were making it through, but my voice wasn't. So Walt got on the air and in his usual gruff and no-nosense manner announced, "Hey! Whoever's sending the tones - you've got no audio. Stop it and identify yourself". I was saying "KA2DOH (my call at the time) testing.", but it wasn't coming through. I had Walt's phone number and gave him a call, explaining the problem. After listening to my profuse apology, he got quiet and thought for a few seconds. Instead of giving me a tongue lashing, as technically I was breaking the rules, he suggested that the impedance of the microphone element might not be the proper valuthat the rig was looking for - a mismatch. Sure enough, that's what it turned out to be.
I listened and I learned something (that had never occurred to me) and was able to remedy the situation by going to Radio Shack, where I purchased and soldered into my microphone an element with the proper impedance. Walt could have dressed me down, and read me the riot act, but he didn't. He was that way to everybody. In fact, in dealing with all the Old Timers throughout my Amateur Radio career (there were many) - they were all like that. I can't ever remember a time where I received a snotty, snarky or sarcastic reply to a question. In fact, in my dealing with experienced Hams, they have always been helpful, accommodating and educational. And I live in New Jersey, too - supposedly the home of unfriendly, sarcastic, snarky and just plain mean ol' human beings in general!
So where does this curmudgeon live? DOES this curmudgeon live? Or have we become so hyper-sensitive to any kind of criticism that even helpful criticism is taken as an incidence of ego-shattering reprimand?
Maybe they do exist, and maybe I'm lucky that I've never come across one. Maybe I just need to go down on bended knee and be grateful that I've never run across the "No kids, no lids, no space cadets" type of Ham. I can tell you that I have become dear friends with several "Old Timer" Hams who did have very rough and gruff reputations, only to find out after spending some time talking with and listening to them, that they had hearts of pure gold. Sometimes that's all it takes, just listening for a bit instead of always chattering and insisting that we know everything, and that we're always right - when maybe, just perhaps, we're not.
Food for thought.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
It's not uncommon for me to read the articles, and then inevitably, come across some comment by a self-proclaimed "newbie" wherein he or she begins to bemoan the treatment they've received from some "old fart", nasty, mean ol' Ham.
The common scenario seems to be:
"I'm new, bright-eyed, bushy tailed, full of exuberance and spit and vinegar - but yet somewhat lacking in knowledge and experience. I've gone to WB#XYZ repeater or to the Amateur Radio Club of Greater Podunk, where my inquiries were met with laughter, ridicule, sarcasm and down right meanness from Joe Ham. I am now going to sell all my Amateur Radio equipment because I'm traumatized and I never even want to hear the words "Amateur Radio" again."
I've seen this retold several times, in several different instances. I hate to question the veracity of the people making these claims - but can they be true? This has become a pet peeve of mine.
I've mentioned many times now, that I've been licensed for over 35 years. In all that time, I have never, ever, not even once come across treatment like that from an older Ham. Don't get me wrong, I've had to withstand my share of newbie ribbing, and have received my share of friendly and gentle reprimanding when doing something wrong - but nothing like these guys are describing.
A case in point. Shortly after upgrading to General in 1979, I joined the Old Bridge Amateur Radio Association. They owned and operated the KB2TX repeater at the time (well actually, it became the KB2TX repeater after Walt, the owner, changed his callsign to KB2TX - I forget what it was before that). Anyway, I had installed a used non-Icom microphone with a DTMF pad on my Icom 2 Meter mobile, so that I could make phone patches if the need came up. Back in those days, (am I dating myself?) it was rare for a mobile microphone to come with a keypad pre-installed. Unbeknownst to me, the microphone's element wasn't working. The DTMF tones were making it through, but my voice wasn't. So Walt got on the air and in his usual gruff and no-nosense manner announced, "Hey! Whoever's sending the tones - you've got no audio. Stop it and identify yourself". I was saying "KA2DOH (my call at the time) testing.", but it wasn't coming through. I had Walt's phone number and gave him a call, explaining the problem. After listening to my profuse apology, he got quiet and thought for a few seconds. Instead of giving me a tongue lashing, as technically I was breaking the rules, he suggested that the impedance of the microphone element might not be the proper valuthat the rig was looking for - a mismatch. Sure enough, that's what it turned out to be.
I listened and I learned something (that had never occurred to me) and was able to remedy the situation by going to Radio Shack, where I purchased and soldered into my microphone an element with the proper impedance. Walt could have dressed me down, and read me the riot act, but he didn't. He was that way to everybody. In fact, in dealing with all the Old Timers throughout my Amateur Radio career (there were many) - they were all like that. I can't ever remember a time where I received a snotty, snarky or sarcastic reply to a question. In fact, in my dealing with experienced Hams, they have always been helpful, accommodating and educational. And I live in New Jersey, too - supposedly the home of unfriendly, sarcastic, snarky and just plain mean ol' human beings in general!
So where does this curmudgeon live? DOES this curmudgeon live? Or have we become so hyper-sensitive to any kind of criticism that even helpful criticism is taken as an incidence of ego-shattering reprimand?
Maybe they do exist, and maybe I'm lucky that I've never come across one. Maybe I just need to go down on bended knee and be grateful that I've never run across the "No kids, no lids, no space cadets" type of Ham. I can tell you that I have become dear friends with several "Old Timer" Hams who did have very rough and gruff reputations, only to find out after spending some time talking with and listening to them, that they had hearts of pure gold. Sometimes that's all it takes, just listening for a bit instead of always chattering and insisting that we know everything, and that we're always right - when maybe, just perhaps, we're not.
Food for thought.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
