WANTED

 

There is a special place for these two in hell.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Interesting Video “The World of Amateur Radio”

This was posted a year ago by You Tube user timinibovey. People like Dick Van Dyke, Barry Goldwater, Arthur Godfrey and many others extol the virtues of Amateur “Ham” Radio as he explains it.

The video is old and displays that way, which for me reminds me of a time gone by but is still relevant today. Check it out and enjoy, he has many other videos that deal with the hobby.

First Contest 11/17/12

I was licensed in 2008 but never tried responding to contests and was barely active because of antenna limitations and work. I decided that today I would try and participate in some contests I was hearing on 10m. I first made contact with VA7ST, I was clueless in what to say to him but couldn’t get him after the initial contact. The second contact was solid to N6EE and he explained exactly what I needed to do so I did log the first one with VA7ST but I think it will be rejected since there wasn’t a full exchange of information.

These guys talk so fast, I know the idea is to get as many contacts as possible but wow. I was kind of shocked to get out to BC and CA on 10m with just an attic 10m dipole with bad conditions!

Speaking of antennas I adjusted the 10m so it is straight but SWR on that one and my 20m dipoles are through the roof without an antenna tuner. With the tuner it’s fine, these are cut for these bands so at some part of the band the SWR should be fine and I could adjust from there but nope, all over both bands both antennas have SWR of 5 or higher.

Perhaps it’s because they’re in the attic and this is life for that kind of set up? Not sure but I will figure this out….

Thank You All Veterans – Happy Veterans Day!

Today, Sunday 11th November 2012 coincides with the signing of the Armistice on Sunday 11th November 1918 and Joy and we will be taking time to pay solemn respect to the fallen.

Check out this post over at myoldrv.com regarding Veterans day, worth sharing and seeing! http://www.myoldrv.com/?p=5232 

 

New Swiss Dipole Antenna Installed In The Attic

Well, installing a dipole in the attic is real work, half the attic is almost impossible to get to because of the cathedral ceiling in the master bedroom. I installed as much of the length of the Swiss dipole as was possible and then tested it. It performed horribly on both RX and TX..

This is a bummer, I expected RX to be at least as good as the eBay 20m dipole but it wasn’t it was out right bad! While I was up there I re-situated my 10m dipole and made the 20m antenna wire a little tighter. The good news is RX on both the 10m and 20m antennas improved, can’t confirm TX on the 10m, I have been calling CQ on several parts of the 10m band with no response. Band conditions for 10m are bad right now so I’ll try again some other time.

TX on the 20m dipole will have to wait until I upgrade my license or get an Elmer here to help me out. I’ll be going to the FRRL meeting this Tuesday to talk to the guys, we’ll see how it goes.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Remote Control While Camping

How cool is that!

By using Skype for audio and Ham Radio Deluxe I was able to enjoy listening to QSO’s in my RV this past weekend. I don’t have PPT enabled yet, I’m waiting to do that for right after I have upgraded my license. In this screen shot I’m simply remote controlling my WHS2011 server and controlling the rig that way, but I also have my firewall configured to allow remote control directly from HRD installed on my HP Elitebook 8770w Mobile workstation.

As configured it has a 3rd gen i7 quad core CPU (with hyper threading it shows 8 cores in Windows), 16gigs of memory and a 128gig SSD main drive with 500gig 7,200 rpm mechanical drive for backups and data. In January I’ll be upgrading to Windows 8 Pro, Intel SSD 520’s, 32gigs of memory and a 1TB mechanical drive for backup duties.

I’m also working on an antenna system to use with the rig so I can bring a radio along.