ATS-3 Progress

It's been an unusually cool and damp May, so far, here in Central NJ. In fact, when I woke up this morning, the outdoor thermometer was reading 42 degrees. Quite cool for May in New Jersey. Tonight promises to be just as cool; and as a result, my neighbor must have had his heat running because I had quite bad local QRN on 40 Meters tonight. Up until about 10:00 PM EDT, the QRN was about S9.

So what's a Ham to do when the noise levels are unbearable? Heat up the ol' soldering iron - that's what! I managed to find homes for about a dozen more capacitors on the ATS-3 tonight. I'm actually seeing enough progress where in two more manual pages, it will be time for the initial testing phase. I swear, if I'm EVER going to make it into the QRP Hall of Fame; it will be for taking the longest amount of time to complete a QRP kit from start to finish.

I almost launched a capacitor into never-never land by squeezing it just a bit too tightly with my tweezers. Luckily, it hit something on my construction table and rebounded right back to me. I don't need to go to the local electronics store and embarrassingly ask for one SMD capacitor!

After I completed soldering, I turned the rig back on to find noise levels on 40 Meters back to normal. My neighbor's house must have reached the desired temperature. So I called CQ around 7.050 MHz using the bug for a change this time. I had a nice little QSO with John K9LIR. A friend of the family was in his shack listening to the dits and dahs. Seems she finds Morse Code fascinating.

Tonight, I didn't sound too bad on the bug. I can tell you there are nights when the CW just flows out of my Vibroplex like musical notes out of a fine instrument. Other nights it's an abomination - enough to send women and small children screaming into the night. I guess the arthritis in my hand wasn't too bad and everything more or less "clicked". When I'm off and the CW coming out of the bug sounds particularly horrible is when I go back to the keyer and paddles for the evening. Believe me, I end up doing everyone a favor by doing that!

73 de Larry W2LJ

PS: Thanks for all your prayers for KB9BVN. I got an e-mail from him indicating that he pulled through the emergency bypass surgery just fine; and that he should be home later this week

A new blog for your perusal .....

Steve NØTU, who goes out to do a lot of portable QRP work accompanied by his two goats, Peanut and Rooster has set up a new blog - "Peanut and Rooster Adventures". It's VERY new and there aren't a lot of posts right now; but it is definitely one to keep your eye on. I've enjoyed watching Steve's videos on YouTube; and it's great that he's starting a blog about their adventures. For some reason, Google is very slow for me tonight; so I'll add Peanut and Rooster to my list of "Blogs of Interest" sometime tomorrow.

Tonight was also the Flying Pigs monthly Run For The Bacon sprint. It was so good to see some activity on 20 Meters again! I actually made 5 QRP QSOs on 20 Meters after 9:00 PM Eastern time. Wow! It's either the return of summer time conditions or maybe Ol' Sol is getting a few freckles back? Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come. In any event, I broke the 1, 000 point barrier for the first time in a long time. It certainly helps that 40 Meters is QRN free for me now that the heating season is over.

I was also fortunate to work Jim W1PID on 80 Meters during the Sprint. He was 599 plus plus PLUS and nearly blew my eardrums out! It was definitely a good thing that I had the ALC turned on, on the K2; or I might be saying, "Eh?" a lot right now!

This coming week is the NAQCC monthly Sprint also. Keep an eye out on the announcements for that.

73 de Larry W2LJ

Prayer Request

I saw on the Flying Pigs e-mail reflector that Brain Murrey KB9BVN, a very good friend and brother Flying Pig is in the hospital undergoing some tests and possible open heart surgery.

Brian can only be described as a "salt of the earth" kinda guy. He's a great Ham and his enthusiasm for the hobby in general and QRP in particular is infectious.

He's also put in a good many years as a troop leader for the Boy Scouts, molding young minds with the ideals of good citizenship.

So without getting all syrupy, I'd like to ask all of you who read this blog on a regular basis, if you would, before you go to sleep tonight, offer up a small prayer for Brian's continued health and safety.

He's one of the good ones.

Thank you!

73 de Larry W2LJ

Memories of Hamventions past

The image to the left is an aerial photo of the Dayton Hamvention circa the mid 1990s. The building in the middle is, of course, the Hara Arena. The cars appearing above the arena are in the parking lot. All the activity below and to the right of the building (which looks like lines of parked cars) is in fact, all flea market! That is what Hamvention was like when I last attended.

I hear tales told "that it's not like it used to be". That's a shame, indeed! Some of the best memories I have as a Ham revolve around Field Day and Hamvention.

I have been to Ohio for the "World's Largest Gathering of Hams" six or seven times, all told. I first went in 1985 and 1986. I remember the 1986 Hamvention because I had brought along some electronics text books; and in the evenings in the hotel room, I would study for the Digital Electronics Degree that I was taking at DeVry. Back in those days, I would go out to Dayton with my friends Barry WB2KLF and Mark N2EBA (SK). We stayed at a Knight's Inn in Dayton proper. I remember in particular the tacky purple drapes at the Knight's Inn. They were supposed to look "regal", I guess! Thinking back on them, the only word that comes to mind is "Ugh!".

The best times at Hamvention were those during my tenure with the Piscataway Amateur Radio Club. My companions for those wonderful trips were Bob W3BBO who was living in Piscataway at the time, Rich AA2KS, Bill W2WK, Rich W2PQ, Charlie N2LHD (SK), Chuck WB2MSV (SK), Don KO2K, Jimmy N2LFI (SK), Marty KB2JSG and a bunch of others I can't recall right now.

When the Piscataway group first contemplated going to our first Hamvention together, we met for dinner at Rick AA2KS's house in order to plan our trip. He lived in Edison at the time; and, boy, can his wife Pat cook! I've never, ever had as good an Italian meal as Pat could put together! If I remember correctly, our first trip out there together was in 1994. We caravaned with N2LHD leading the way, and four of us followed in Rich's brand new Cadillac. Rich W2PQ brought along a cassette tape of "The Jerky Boys" and we howled at the low brow humor on the trip out. In all, it was a twelve hour ride; and we'd start out on Thursday at about 5:00 in the morning to arrive in Fairborn at about 5:00 PM. Our first night's dinner always seemed to be at the "Spaghetti Factory" in Dayton. About 20 or so of us Hams from the greater Central NJ region had a sit down of good food (although not as good as AA2KS's XYL's) good talk and best of all, laughs.

We stayed at the Homewood Suites in Fairborn where the AMSAT folks stayed. Bob W3BBO and I were big into satellite operating at the time; so that was an added treat. On our first trip in 1994 we got to the greater Dayton area; only to be greeted by tornado warnings! Back then, Hamvention was in April and the weather could be wild and woolly. You had to be ready for anything from snow to heat to rain to hail and thunderstorms! I think that Mark Twain must have been to Dayton once or twice. He must have, because he was the one who came up with the line, "If you dont' like the weather then wait five minutes!" That was Dayton in April to a "T"! If it was rainy, there was mud everywhere! Rich AA2KS would make up wipe our shoes off with a towel before we dared get into his brand new Caddy! And when it rained, it poured! I remember, in particular, being caught in the midst of the flea market during a downpour and was lucky to have brought along an umbrella. Not so lucky was some guy who was selling boat anchors (antique radios) that were sitting on the ground, only to have a mini torrent of a storm created river run through them! Hopefully the prices on those fellas got knocked down!

To me, the flea market WAS Hamvention. I spent more time outside than inside. I always looked for "oddball" items. I remember one year I bought two little pieces of nylon that were embroidered with the words "REMOVE BEFORE LAUNCH". It turned out that these tags were safety pins from fighter jet ejection seats. They would be put in place so an ejection seat couldn't accidentally be launched while the aircraft was parked. Where else could you buy something like that except for Hamvention? I never made the "major purchase" of a big ticket radio at Hamvention; but if I had wanted to, there was plenty of opportunity! All the biggest vendors were inside the arena; and you could do a lot of price comparing before you decided to plunk down the big bucks. Guys literally spent hours going from booth to booth doing careful shopping.

I first became a member of FISTS at the 1994 Hamvention; and I remember meeting Tom Dandrea N3EQF, the author of Log-EQF at that Hamvention. I had already been using Log-EQF since 1992; and it was nice to actually meet and talk with him there. I bought a Kent Twin Paddle at Hamvention one year as a kit. That was a great paddle and like an idiot, I sold it a few years back.

The second year that we went out there, I brought a laptop along that I borrowed from work. I was a member of AOL at the time; and during the evenings I would go online and would host a "chat" for the Amateur Radio Interest Group. I would fill them in on the latest and greatest and would answer any questions that they might have had.

Luckily, the Homewood Suites was pretty sophisticated at the time. The phones in the rooms had extra jacks on the side, which made plugging in a modem a rather easy thing to do. That was fun and rewarding experience. I've never had the opportunity since then to play "on the scene Reporter"!

The Hara arena was the place to be for the Forums. I only went to a few during my times at Hamvention; and the best was the "Electrical Safety" forum put on by Ohio Central Power and Light. They used great visual aids to impress upon us the dangers of getting near power lines. You all know those familiar words, "Never put your antenna near live power lines". There's ample good reasoning behind that as O C P & L showed us. They demonstrated what could happen to your hand if it came in contact with a power line by turning off a circuit breaker box and taking out a huge buss fuse and replacing it with a hot dog. Literally moments after turning the power back on, the hot dog exploded!

They also demonstrated how items that we thought were non-conductive, are not so in real life. Let's say for instance, one leg of your dipole falls across a power line. You get the genius idea to use a corn broom to whisk the wire away, right? After all, the broomstick is wood and the actual broom is just straw, right? Won't conduct electricity, right? WRONG! At power line voltages, there is enough water in that wood and straw so that if you actually tried to do that, it would be the last thing you did on earth Try to explain to St. Peter why you arrived at the Pearly Gates with all your hair and eyebrows singed off!

At the end of your first day , you were always the victim of sensory overload! Look how disheveled (but happy) I was at the end of Day One during one of my trips out there! By the way, you probably can't notice it from the size of the photo; but the callsign cap I was wearing had N2ELW on it. I had that callsign from 1983 until 2000. I was also wearing my official Piscataway Amateur Radio Club baseball jacket, which I still have! Those were the days! I was about 20 pounds lighter, had way less gray hair and way more energy (and disposable income) back then.

Days Two was always good as the routine was to make sure you soaked in everything you might have missed on Day One. But Day Three (Sunday) was always mixed with sadness and gladness. You were happy to be getting back home to your loved ones; but sad to be leaving the "Ham Radio Experience of a Lifetime" and if you were like me, you were undoubtedly disappointed that you didn't win any of the fabulous Hamvention Door Prizes.

I hope all of you out there have either gotten to or will get to experience Hamvention at least one time in your lives. I guarantee (1000%) that you will remember it forever! My goal remains to make it out there at least one more time so I can finally attend a "Four Days in May" QRP convention.

73 de Larry W2LJ

Sorry I haven't been here

It's been an EXTREMELY busy week at work. We're opening a new Data Center and I've been deluged with preparing all the Cisco networking equipment that will go in place ahead of the servers.

By the time I've gotten home each night; and have done the normal "Daddy" things that I do when I get home; there's been nothing left over in the tank for radio. It's been a week of getting up early, going to work early, getting home late and getting to bed early!

And to think that when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up! Sometimes it's not all it was cracked up to be.

Hopefully this weekend, I will scrape together some time to get on the radio. I have an idea or two in mind for "Website of the Week" for next week. I also need to find some time to just veg for awhile and recharge the ol' batteries!

And through all of this, I've been wishing VERY hard that I would wake up, find out that this has all been a bad dream; and that I was really at Dayton and FDIM !!!!!

73 de Larry W2LJ

Website of the Week

This week's Website of the Week is an off-shoot of the ElectronicsUSA Website. For those not in the know, ElectronicsUSA.com is where you can go to purchase Whiterook keys and paddles. By making the recommendation that I am about to make, I am in no way endorsing anyone's product.

That being said, if you go here, you will enter a great gallery of photos of Tuna Tin II kits that have been built by various Hams. Talk about variations on a theme. It's almost like snowflake phenomena - no two Tuna Tin IIs are quite the same.

Enjoy the photos - I hope you get inspired to pick up your soldering iron and build something!

73 de Larry W2LJ

Making progress

'Twas a busy week the past week! My son made his First Holy Communion on May 3rd and Mother's Day was just yesterday. Getting ready for both weekends left precious little time for radio or blog posts for that matter!

But I did get on the air for just a tiny bit yesterday; and for a greater bit tonight; so I haven't been totally radio starved. And last Thursday night, 40 Meters was especially nice! I managed to work Ireland, Hungary and the Cayman Islands all within the space of about 20 minutes! It was a night of good conditions.

However, what I really wanted to note is that I've been making steady progress with the ATS-3 and I should have it done soon; unless something comes up out of left field! I noticed tonight that I have more than half of the SMT devices mounted. If things go well, I should be able to take the finished radio on vacation up to Lake George this summer.

Speaking of "summer"; the weather here in New Jersey so far this May has been cooler and wetter than normal. Friday we had over 1.25 inches of rain. The weekend was breezy, raw and uncomfortably cool. Ideal weather for the grass; and it's been growing faster than I've been able to keep up, mowing-wise.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a day to buck the trend. We're looking for sunny skies and highs around 70 degrees. Hopefully, I'll be able to get to the park during lunch and will be able to break out the K1. I'm thinking of stowing the mag mount and Hamsticks in the trunk to see if I have better luck with those over the PAC-12. Maybe I'll make my first portable QSO for 2008 if I get lucky.

73 de Larry W2LJ

Every now and then, you win one!

I should begin this post with a preface like the one from "Dragnet".

"The story you are about to read is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent."

A few years ago, I got into a pretty nasty and heated argument (via e-mail exchanges) with a Ham about QRP. In general, this guy gave me the old "party line".

"The receiving station does all the heavy lifting ......."

"I've never heard a QRP signal that wasn't difficult to copy........."

"Yadda .... yadda .... yadda"

Shortly after our disagreement (maybe a few months later) I happened to come across him on the air. We ragchewed for a bit and lo and behold, he gave me a 599 RST! We're several states apart; and at the very end of the QSO, I let it out that I was QRP and was running 4 Watts (at the time). Needless to say, he was stunned. He didn't think that a QRP signal could EVER be loud, despite all my explanations of propagation and all that good technical sort of stuff.

The next time I heard from him was via an e-mail. He must have become somewhat convinced because he started turning his 100 Watt rig down to 5 Watts and started joining in on the QRP Foxhunts. (OK, I guess I really had him hooked now!)

The coup d' grace came tonight. Another e-mail explained how his QRO rig finally gave up the ghost after umpteen years; and what is my opinion on either the Yaesu FT-817 or the Icom IC-703?

I'm happy that I was able to able to bring excitement and fun back into the life of a Ham who admitted he was beginning to feel rather blase about the hobby. He confided to me that QRP has given him back the excitement and thrills that he experienced back in his days as a Novice.

Now THAT's cool! BTW, we've come to be pretty good friends and we exchange e-mails on a regular basis.

73 de Larry W2LJ

Website of the Week

Here's a Website that's a personal favorite. I don't know how quite to describe it other than it has a real Jean Shepard K2ORS "feel" to it:

Real Stuff by Joe Tyburczy

Joe has a folksy way of telling stories that are fun to read and easy on the eyes. He also has an article about an antenna that I used for about 18 years with great success! I personally vouch for "The $4 Special" !!!!

Anyway, pop on over using the hyperlink I have provided, I think you'll enjoy visiting for a spell.

73 de Larry W2LJ

A nice thing to hear

The following post appeared on the Flying Pigs QRP Club International e-mail reflector today:

So some might say this doesn't count since there was an Internet in between, but still. Radios at both ends, and I think you'll agree it's exciting.

So I'm listening to my Echolink/IRLP node and this station that I don't know connects to me from Utah. We start chatting, and. Not only is it a 14 year old kid (jus' like me when I got started! Actually, he got started younger!) And he's saving his pennies for an HF rig. But mind you, not just any HF rig. No sir! He wants to build a tuna tin II! So not only is this guy a fairly new Tech who is learning the code because he "wants to", but he's a young guy who's interested in learning the code "and" building a radio to get on the air with it! Not being of much of a building inclination (although I would love to change that--just need the right local elmer), this really, really made my evening. He's one of those fortunate kids with hams in his family, which has to have helped. :-) I invited Brady, KE7OMC, to come play in our mud hole. Just about to send him info on the piggies (not to mention other great sites with nice kit stuffage!)

72 es OO,
Buddy, KB5ELV
Long lost FP#329

Wow! Unfortunately, that's a situation that is not nearly as common as it used to be. But it is one to be nurtured. So, I have a Tuna Tin II that's sitting on the side, waiting to be built .........

I e-mailed Mr. Brady KE7OMC and told him it was his for the asking. If I can help in some small way for a young Ham to become even more interested in CW and QRP; then it will have been well worth it!

Anybody have a 40 Meter receiver kit that they'd be willing to give a deserving home?

73 de Larry W2LJ

Another good night in the Ham shack

I got another bunch of capacitors soldered on to the ATS-3 circuit board. Wow! My eyes are definitely NOT what they used to be! In a few days I'll turn 51 and even with bifocals, soldering this teeny tiny stuff is an adventure. Used to be that I could read the small print on tiny capacitors with no trouble. Now I need all kinds of help - bifocals, an Opti-Visor ..... whew!

Sight problems notwithstanding, it was another pleasant night on the air. 40 Meters was in excellent shape and I started off the evening with a short ragchew. From there I went to the lower portion of the band to see what DX I could sniff out and I worked HI5 (the Dominican Republic) and S52 (Slovenia). I also heard a YV5 station (Argentina) that was coming in loud and strong. Argentina would have been a new one for me via QRP; but this op was really interested in rag chewing. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, and I would have hung around if I wasn't so darn tired!

A "real" conversation with a DX station is always a good deal; and doesn't happen often enough. But tonight, all I have in mind right now is my head hitting the pillow; which I am going to do as soon as I finish this post!

73 de Larry W2LJ