I wouldn't say I'm excited about a few things that I've got coming - but I'm looking forward to their arrival. One is that 15 Ah battery that's coming from Sunny California. It's made it's way to Texas as of the last time I checked the tracking number. It should be here this week. I did not get a chance to get to Federal Metals on Saturday with the old batteries. That will happen this coming weekend.
I also have a set of SideKx end plates and a cover coming for the shack KX3. I was horrified by how dusty and dirty it had become when I took that picture that I featured in last week's blog post. The lighting down in the basement isn't the brightest, so the camera revealed what my eyes didn't notice. I went down to the shack last Wednesday evening with some Windex, Q-Tips and some paper towels. It didn't take long to get it looking factory new.
The problem was, I knew it was only going to happen again. It's the basement and it's not a finished basement. I went on eBay and just for the heck of it, typed in "SideKX KX3" and much to my surprise a set came up! These were from an estate sale from an SK. According to the description provided by his daughter, they were just sitting down in the basement and from the photos provided, it looks like they were never used. There was a "Buy It Now" option for $25 and after looking at the SideKX website, I knew that was a bit more than 50% off. I grabbed that set in a hurry. I already have a set of SideKX on the portable ops KX3, so I've installed them before. This shouldn't be a problem.
The other thing that I have coming and will probably be my last Amateur Radio purchase for a long time is another QYT K-8900D for the shack. The one I had in the car and brought downstairs - well .... when I damaged the coax to the antenna, I must have fried the finals. It will still transmit, but I cannot bring up repeaters that I can easily hit with a handheld. To prevent that from ever happening again to the mobile unit, I re-routed the coax to a position where it does not get crunched or pinched by the rear hatch door. You'd think that being a Ham for over 40 years, I would have done that the first time. Sometimes, my stupidity knows no bounds, and even surprises me now and then.
The QYT is not coming until Thursday according to Amazon, which is OK, but our ARES/RACES District Bureau Chief asked me to run the monthly nest Tuesday evening, as he'll be away on business. Luckily, the repeater has such excellent coverage that using a handheld won't be a problem or even noticeable. I guess I'll just temporarily attach the handheld to the J-Pole coax and will run the net that way. The Northern New Jersey ARES Net follows a half hour later and the repeater on which that net occurs does not have as good coverage. Sometimes 5 Watts doesn't make it when that repeater is in a cranky mood.
Lastly, I checked into the St. Max HF Net again last night on 75 Meters at 24:00 UTC. Those ferrites that I put on the coax - WOW! I was able to hear everyone last night! The past few weeks, the weaker signals were "getting lost in the sauce". Not last night! Yes, it was probably in part due to better band conditions as several of the check-ins had commented on, but the background noise was so much lower than it has been. I can't chalk that up to band condition alone, the ferrites had to play a big part in that , too.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
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