AmateurRadio.com

My Chinese Li Ion battery “ol’ Blue” (upper right) has given up the ghost, much the same as Mike VE3WDM has written over at his blog.  In my case, the battery will not take a charge.  The output from the wall wart charger is perfect, but no matter how long it’s connected to the battery, the battery itself will not charge.

I suspect either a faulty cell or perhaps a fault with the little regulator board that’s inside the blue shrink wrap. So the decision had to be made.  Even though the price is relatively cheap, do I buy another Chinese battery or try something else? Do I go back to hauling around my small, but heavy, 5 Ah sealed lead acid battery?

I have a charger that will handle 18650 type Li Ion batteries, as these are what go into the tactical flashlights that I keep in my CERT pack and my radio “Go Pack”.  So I figured that since I already have half of what I need, that I would go a different route this time.

I purchased a pack of 10 type 18650 batteries (upper left) from an American vendor.  The ones I bought are 3.7V and have a rating of 5300 mAh.  I also purchased two of the 4 cell holders that you see above. This gives me two 14.8V, 5300 mAh batteries. All I had to do was solder on the connector that goes directly into the KX3.

I tried them out today and they seem to work without any problems.  I will use a fresh charged pack tomorrow for FOBB and will see how long one pack lasts before I have to switch over to the backup pack.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Band conditions seem to have vastly deteriorated from what they were just a few months ago. It’s not that propagation is non-existent, it’s just that it seems to have left us in a bigger hurry than I would have thought.

I went out at lunchtime today (around 1730Z) to find activity on 15 Meters to be nil.  A quick scan of 17 Meters revealed not so much.  Just a few months ago, both these bands were hopping with all kinds of DX. It wasn’t all that rare to hear Europe, South America and Asia all at the same time! It wasn’t all that rare to hear a good amount of activity on 12 and 10 Meters just a few short months ago.

Since 15 and 17 seemed inactive, I went to 14.061 MHz and called CQ after QRLing to make sure the frequency was dead.  I was answered by fellow New Jerseyan, QRPer and blogger, Chris KQ2RP who gave me a 559 from Maine.

After that, I worked fellow Polar Bear, Ken WA8REI who is having a hard time enduring the heat and humidity in Michigan.  It’s hard to put up with the Temperature Humidity Index when you have so much fur! 😉  Ken was a good solid 579 here when the QSB wasn’t wreaking havoc. We had a nice little chat and then it was time for Ken to go, and my available lunchtime minutes were growing short, too.

Before heading in, I decided to check out 17 Meters one more time.  There, blasting in at 599+ was GA14CG, the Special Event Station for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Scotland.  There was a bit of a pileup, but he was so loud that I figured that I could work him, if only I could place myself correctly.

With time running short, I was able to eventually find the right spot.  GA14CG was using the ol’ racetrack pattern scheme. Start at a frequency, move a bit higher after each call, reach a high point and then continue to work stations, moving a bit lower after each QSO until arriving at starting point and starting the process all over again. Essentially, he was doing laps, which I guess was appropriate considering it’s the Commonwealth Games.  I placed myself correctly on the return trip home and got into the log. They’re on the air until August 3rd, so you have plenty of time to work them.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

I worked three stations this lunchtime.  It takes me a little bit longer (about a minute or two) to get out to the car in the parking lot wearing this orthopedic boot on my foot. Common sense tells me that I should stay inside and go find a quiet place to sit down and read, rather than walking on this. But I was never accused of having an overabundance of common sense, so ……… out to the parking area I went.

I worked two stations on 17 Meters and one on 20 Meters.  DL2DX, Joe was coming in like gangbusters on 17 Meters. He was calling CQ over and over with no takers. I just couldn’t let him think that he wasn’t being heard.  I told Joe that he was 599+ and got a 569 back in return.

I also worked W1AW/4 in South Carolina.  That took a bit of doing as there was quite the pileup and my 5 Watts was being drowned out by European stations.  But I stuck with it and got in the log after I figured out their “listening pattern” and conveniently plopped myself down in the middle of it.

The coolest QSO of the session was on 20 Meters with George WB5USB who was on SOTA peak W5N/PW-019 in the Pecos Wilderness of New Mexico. (Turns out that was probably a 2X KX3 QSO, to boot!)

I gave George a 449, which he was when QSB was at a minimum.  When the fading was the worst, George was about 339.  I got a 529 in return.

I am fascinated by SOTA and the process of going to activate a mountain.  Maybe it’s because of growing up here in New Jersey and not really having a lot of mountains in the area to go to.  I have always lived on the Piedmont. What we do have of bonafide mountains lay in the northwest corner of the state, where the Appalachians run through New Jersey.  They’re about an hour or so from my house, by car.

Years ago when I worked for Sinar Bron, I had the opportunity to visit the Art Center College of Design in Denver to do some maintenance on their view cameras and studio strobes.  While we were there, we took a ride out into the surrounding countryside and the mountains. Now the Rockies are what you would call REAL mountains – to the folks out there, the Appalachians would really be just huge, gigantic hills by comparison. Having seen both, I’d have to agree. That doesn’t take anything away from the grandeur of the Appalachians, but they’re just different from the Rockies.  The Appalachians are a lot older, from a geophysical standpoint, and they’ve had lots more time to erode into a smaller (altitude-wise) mountain range. To illustrate my point, Mount Mitchell in North Carolina is the tallest Appalachian Mountain. At it’s peak, you are at an altitude of 6,684 feet (2,037 Meters). The mountain that George was on today? 9,431 feet (2,875 Meters) – and that’s nowhere near the highest Rocky Mountain.

I’ve been fortunate to have seen the Alps while in Switzerland, they’re a whole different story and they just take your breath away!

Someday, when I’m through with this rat race we call the work world, I would really love to operate from a SOTA peak (out West), even if it’s just one time.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

I managed to hobble out to my car at lunch time today.  The weather was decent, but my right foot isn’t. Seems I aggravated the same tendons and ligaments that I had a few years ago – so now I’m wearing “the boot” for the next week or so. Sigh.

Anyway, after the past couple of days of torrential rain, the skies were blue and sunny today.  The temperatures were downright pleasant and 17 Meters seemed to be hopping.

I worked CT8/DL5NUA, CR5W, and J79BH. So – I reached the Azores, Portugal and Dominica – not terrible.

In other news, we have 118 Skeeters signed up for the Hunt on August 10th. Still plenty of time to sign up. We could use more participation from the West Coast states – HINT, HINT, HINT!

I also attended a meeting of SPARC, the South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club.  We reviewed our Field Day effort and claimed score before officially sending our entry off to the ARRL. We also started making some basic plan changes for next year.  It’s so nice to know that my fellow club members had a good enough time with a QRP Field Day that they want to do it again next year!

By the way, if you want to read the local newspaper’s account of our Field Day – here’s the link:  http://tinyurl.com/ls56z6u.  I think they did a very good job, even though they did get some of the details wrong (like our callsign, for example). But on the whole it was an excellent article which put Amateur Radio in a very positive light.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!