3 for 3

If I was a Major League Baseball player, I could say I went "three for three" this weekend. I had three things that I wanted to accomplish and I got all three done.

The first and second were to get my QSOs in for my personal State Party QSO Challenge. The South Carolina QSO Party was yesterday (Saturday) and the North Carolina QSO Party was today. I made four QSOs in South Carolina and a half dozen in North Carolina. I don't know if it was the difference between Saturday and Sunday, or the number of Hams in each state, but North Carolina on Sunday was much easier than South Carolina on Saturday, Seemed like there were way more North Carolinians on the air.

I chased both states on 40 Meters and on Sunday everywhere I tuned on the band, there were stations calling "CQ NQP". On Saturday, I had to really twiddle and hunt for South Carolina stations. I worked both QSO parties during the 1730 to 1815 UTC time window on both days. Maybe a lot of South Carolina Hams get stuck working Saturdays - who knows?

Anyway, that was goals 1 and 2 accomplished.

Goal number 3 was to build a sample of one of the kits we'll be offering at NJ Makers Day on March 21st. At our South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club last Wednesday evening, I was handed a WHDTS Sound Light Controller LED Lamp Kit.

The instructions that came with the kit are clear and well written. The kit was not hard to put together at all, but it took me about 35 minutes. I'm thinking that a youngster who is inexperienced, and is just learning how to solder for the first time will take over an hour to build this - even with assistance. If you include the USB power cord, there are 28 components to solder, including a 14 pin DIP IC.

In addition to the regular resistors and disc capacitors, there is a 1N4148 diode, three electrolytic caps, 9 LEDs, two transistors and one switch - all of these being polarized components that you have to make sure are installed in the right direction before soldering. This is going to take time and we might have to recommend that this kit be geared more towards the older teens.

It works OK for what it is. You plug it into a USB power source and depress the switch. Then a loud noise like a clap or a whistle causes the ring of LEDs to light up. I put it near a speaker that was playing some music and that will cause the LEDs to flicker in time to the music as well - but the speaker has to be pretty loud. The microphone on this kit is not super sensitive.

Relatively speaking it was a good weekend and I'm happy that I accomplished the things that I wanted to. It was tough being in the basement this weekend, though. While it was in the 30s outdoors on Saturday and the low 40s on Sunday, the basement remained a "balmy" 57 degrees. Not the most comfortable. I just don't know how WG0AT and these other SOTA guys do mountain topping in the Winter. It's definitely not for me!

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

A Shameless Plug

Check out the first header photo on the NJ Makers Day Website:

https://njmakersday.org/

I was quite surprised to see this, as well. This was brought to my attention by SPARC President Bill W2AOF. Our monthly business meeting on Wednesday was largely devoted to getting ready for this year's event.

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

Maker Day 2019

I haven't posted for a while. There hasn't been much going on with W2LJ to post about .... until now.

This past weekend was Maker Day Weekend in New Jersey, with Maker Day activities happening at various locations around the state. The South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club pitched in and joined the effort at the same location as last year - the JFK Memorial Library in our neighboring town of Piscataway, NJ.

We gathered at the library at 9:00 AM our goal was a bit different this year. We wanted to emphasize soldering and kit building skills, so we purchased a variety of different kits that would interest a wide variety of people.  As last year, we wanted to feature kits that had a relatively low parts count, so that the kits would be relatively easy to build, and could be completed within a reasonable amount of time.

To that end, we scoured Bangood's offerings (there are literally thousands of inexpensive electronic kits available online there, and other places) and bought some digital clock kits, some voltage/temperature meter kits, some LED flashlight kits, wireless FM microphones and 8 note electronic organ kits and we also had a decent number of code practice oscillator kits left over from last year.

The day went like a whirlwind! I was busy from 10:15 AM to close to 4:00 PM helping to build kits and instructing proper soldering technique. I have to say that some of the participants really picked up on soldering, and their work looked almost professional, even though this was their first exposure to soldering irons and solder.

In addition, these "kids" (for the most part the participants were young, but there were a few "close to 20 somethings" and even one parent participated.) learned what different components looked like, the difference between ceramic and electrolytic capacitors, and even a little bit about the color code on resistors. We taught them about the indents on the ends of integrated circuits and the flat side of transistors.

I helped out with 2 and 1/2 code practice oscillators, two clock kits and one electronic organ. Much to our delight, everything that was built worked, with the exception of one dud. We didn't have time for too much trouble shooting, as we were booked for time slots right up to the closing bell. We had about 5 building stations ready to go at all times, with an hour allotted for each kit. In the end, I think we had twenty first time builders take advantage of SPARC being there.

In addition to the kit building, we had a video on "An Introduction to Amateur Radio" going in loop fashion throughout the duration. We also had "Ol' Reliable" Dave KD2FSI set up an HF station. He had his Yaesu hooked up to his AlexLoop and was able to pick out quite a number of FOC stations doing their thing on 20 Meters. Dave set up a big 24' monitors and had CW Skimmer going on his laptop so that visitors could see Morse Code being displayed before their eyes in real time. As always, Morse Code still draws and fascinates people - ESPECIALLY younger people!

I couldn't stay to the very bitter end, but I'm pretty sure the library staff was happy that we were there again. It was a very successful day and I'm so proud of all the SPARC members for the time and talent that they donated.

We learned some tings in addition to what we learned last year; and I'd say we're probably pretty certain to return for Maker Day in 2020. It's gratifying to share what we've learned about electronics and building with the rest of the world - especially the younger world.

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