N4CDB's Radio Blog

New Domain!

2010-04-08T10:51:00.004-04:00

I've decided it's time to add a little flexibility. I've got a new domain and you can find me at http://www.n4cdb.com. I'm still working on integrating the new blog so for now you can follow the continued ramblings at http://www.n4cdb.com/wp. Hope you enjoy the new look.

It's Aliiiiive...Pt 2 (or so)

2010-04-04T01:04:00.003-04:00

On Thursday I ordered an OpenTracker+ from Argent Data System. I couldn't believe it with yesterday being Good Friday but it arrived in the mail today. From CA no less!

It took me about an hour to assemble. I realized after I'd already connected it to my FT-8800 that I hadn't done a power check of the IC socket. Whoops. Oh well. I didn't let any smoke out.

Seems to be working like a champ. I only configured it for a quick smoke test. As you can see below I have a mixed status. This image actually shows the last update from my TinyTrak. However, it's added the comment I put in to indicate it's coming from the OT+. I guess it just appended it to an existing entry. That sort of surprised me but it does seem to be working.

I'll put the radio in the unit in the truck tomorrow to see if it tracks like it's supposed to. I really hope this unit works with the M120 since I still haven't been able to get the TinyTrak to work with it.

One thing about soldering so close to bedtime is that I think I'll sleep good. :-P

I also did a little work on the rotator issue. I pulled the Hy-Gain Ham IV rotator that I have and put connectors on the cable coming out of the rotator and a small section of cable to the controller. I powered it on and it buzzes when I hit the break release but nothing seems to move when I try to turn it either direction. I'll have to play with it more tomorrow. I was too anxious to put the OT together so I didn't troubleshoot it any.

Cookin' with Fire!

2010-04-01T22:59:00.001-04:00

There are a few repeaters in town that I have a difficult time hitting with any consistency. I've had good success for the most part with my Diamond X300 vertical but for repeaters in other counties I struggle. I decided it was time to make a change.

On the way home from work today I stopped by a friend's and bought a Cushcraft 4-element 2M beam from him. I threw it up on a 20' portable mast and actually guessed the right bearing for the main repeater I was after. I was surprised when I put the compass on it and realized I was right on the money.

I dropped the power on my FT-8800 to low power (5W) and called another buddy that lives closer to the repeater to give me a radio check. On 5W both transmit and receive were pegging the meters! I'm thrilled. Such a simple solution and the problem is solved.

The next step is to affix the mast so it's not just bungie corded to the eaves. :-) I also need to put a rotator on it to get the full use of it. Of course both of these mean getting in the attic to run cable and it's already too hot for that. Not sure when I'm going to get around to it now.

Cruising Along

2010-03-24T18:37:00.003-04:00

I've made some more headway on the Linux/Amateur Radio front. Now I have Xastir running on the desktop and I'm picking up stations. Well, I'm sort of cheating I suppose. I don't have a TNC so I'm using internet feeds. At least it's a step in the right direction though. Once I get either the TinyTrak4 or perhaps an OpenTracker+ running I'll have true APRS capabilities.

I Think I Got It

2010-03-22T17:53:00.002-04:00

I had a moment of lucidity this afternoon over lunch. I think I realized why the placement of the nylon washer had such an effect on the Arrow antenna. I believe that fact that when it's placed on the bottom where I had it the isolation between the feedpoint and the rest of the bracket throws things out of whack. At least that's what I'm going with. :-P

The Sweet Smell of Success

2010-03-21T17:13:00.004-04:00

I haven't been able to use Echolink since I made the switch from Windows to Linux. I've been bummed out about it since I used to be on Echolink running a weekly net for about two years and then I got in this huge dry spell. I downloaded Echolinux but never really got around to trying it out. The more I read about it the less appealing it became.

Well, today I'm working on a presentation on radio direction finding and wanted to take a break. It's raining so I can't do the things in the yard I need to (like move the VHF beam antennas on the ground so our new puppy doesn't hurt himself on them). Instead I decided to see if Echolink works under WINE.

I'm happy to report that it DOES! I not only successfully connected to the test server to configure my audio but also had my first Linux-based Echolink QSO. I connected to our local node and chatted briefly with our District Emergency Coordinator and got a good signal report. I guess I did a good job of setting up my headset. He was a little weak, though, so I need to see about increasing my receive audio. I'm very happy to have it working again.

The previous screenshot shows Echolink running with the Ubuntu 9.10 desktop behind it. You can see there is a station list on the right and the audio is active at the bottom.

River Cleanup & A New Antenna

2010-03-20T18:17:00.001-04:00

Today we (Duval County ARES) did another special event with the City of Jacksonville. It was the 2010 St Johns River Celebration Cleanup. There were about 20 sites around the city where volunteers gathered to collect trash and debris from the parks and waterways. It's a fun event and gives our radio operators the chance to get out and about.

I was net control with a new operator assisting me. Things got off to sort of a rocky start. We weren't sure where to setup first off. I'm usually at one of the cleanup sites and not net control. The event coordinator hadn't communicate where I was to setup so I went with what the park foreman told me when I arrived. We set everything up and started doing initial checkins. Many people were still en route so I decided to wait about 15 minutes.

During the waiting period the event coordinator arrived and said I was in the wrong place. No big deal. I just announced to everyone on frequency that I'd be offline while we relocated. Since the event covers the entire city I decided to use two repeaters to give everyone the best chance of making contact. The secondary repeater was UHF. This posed a problem to me as most of our work is done on 2M and I didn't have a dual-band antenna.

This wasn't really a big deal as I was withing spitting distance of both and could've easily used my HT but I wanted to use my FT-8800 go-box since it's more geared to net control usage. I'd been wanting to build a knock off of the Arrow Antennas j-pole but haven't had time. The materials are in the garage but the opportunity hasn't presented itself. Instead I took advantage of HRO's close location and ordered one that arrived the next day. I assembled it last night but couldn't check it out because my MFJ analyzer batteries were dead.

On location I put the new Arrow on the 14' telescoping pool handle that serves as my portable mast I always keep it in the toolbox of my truck. I mounted it to a railing away from any metal and ran a 50' section of RG-8 to the room we moved to. I couldn't get the SWR below 3.5. I tried a different piece of coax (RG-8X) and it was worse. Keep in mind that I still hadn't gotten back to the net checkins and time was wasting. Well, as it turns out our UHF repeater was offline. Now what? Well, I picked another VHF repeater and put out the word via my HT to use that.

The good news is that I had my standard deployment antenna, the EE-3, with me. I put that on the same mast, in the same location, with the same coax, and read 1.5! Once we were back on the air the event flowed very smoothly.

Over the course of the event the volunteers collected over 1200 bags of trash and all sorts of items that shouldn't be disposed of around our lakes and parks such as couches, TVs, used motor oil, etc. After the event everyone was invited to Metro Park to enjoy a free lunch and entertainment.

When I got home I decided to investigate the high SWR issue and was surprised with what I found. As I reviewed the assembly instructions again I noticed that the nylon washer that was supposed to be on top of the feedpoint connection was on the bottom.

I really didn't see how how the location could matter. Top or bottom it seems to me that the measurements would still be the same. However, the SWR was definitely showing a problem. (Sorry for some of the blurry shots. The macro feature on my camera quit working for some reason.)

I disassembled and reassembled per the instructions and was shocked.

That fixed the problem! I still can't figure out why but I can't argue with the meter.

I guess I'll just accept that the placement of the washer is critical and move on. Here's a close-up of the antenna after the proper assembly.

And the total deployment on the bed of my truck.

All in all not a bad day. Had a great event and figured out the source of my problem. If only every day were like this one!

Another Successful Event!

2010-03-13T22:19:00.001-05:00

And more APRS goodness to boot!

Today Duval County ARES supported the 2010 Gate River Run. This is an ever-growing 15K race that draws runners from around the country in search of $85K in prize money. I was happy to have every mile marker covered this year (though I did decide to skip mile 1). We also had a few additional positions along the route for extra coverage.

Myself and another operator serves as net control. He handled most of the radio traffic and I monitored the tail car. Once again we used APRS in the patrol car that was serving as the tail car at the end of the race. I think it's safe to say that we considerably reduced phone and radio chatter since nobody had to try to get in touch with the office to find his location, they just had to ask us and wait for us to check the map. Our APRS updates were set to broadcast every 180 seconds at a fixed rate. This worked very well for us and we always knew where the last runners were within a block or two.

In addition to the LEO and Fire personnel in the communications tent with us, other LEO got a sneak peak at what we were doing. One of our operators used his iPhone to show the position of the tail car to two motorcycle officers. "They were very impressed and wanted to understand how the heck that was working....!" is the report I received.

Unfortunately next weekend's event, the St. Johns River Celebration Cleanup, won't really provide us any opportunity to use APRS. While we do have several boat ramps in areas that are being cleaned we won't have any maritime mobile stations at these locations.

I was quite pleased that I finally had what I would call a successful round with Depiction. I had my doubts as it didn't seem to want to work for me but during the net I spent some time working on it again. Fortunately this was a very small area we were working in and I only had a few stations to add. I fired up the openaprs.net Quickstart and was pleasantly surprised to see our tail car (JSOTL-9) appear on the map. I think I still have a number of kinks to work out but at least it would appear that I'm making some progress.

On Monday I meet with the Tour de Cure team again. I'm looking forward to sharing with the event director the results of our test last weekend. Now we just need to start scrounging up some radios that we can use as well as some inexpensive GPS units to go with the TinyTraks. I know we won't have enough this year to put one in every vehicle but if we can cover even half of the vehicles and cover the others with actual radio operators that would make me happy. We can spend the rest of the year coming up with more self-contained units that we can deploy as needed.

Our APRS testing has also caught the eye of our Red Cross liaison. He's very interested in putting these soon-to-be kits to use with vehicles that are deployed as part of disaster assessment.

We're making headway with our goals to really implement some good technologies in the county. I can't wait to see what the future holds.

Tour Trial Run

2010-03-06T21:56:00.000-05:00

Well, a number of us from a couple of counties did a trial run of the 100-mile route for May's Tour de Cure. We started at 2pm with stations located at key mile markers along the route. I then drove the route from start to finish to see how well my APRS packets were received.

Several of the guys had Kenwood 710s running and the hope was that they'd be able to digipeat for me. Unfortunately this didn't quite happen as planned and I went off the grid for over an hour. We had one station positioned at a rest stop in the middle of our "dead" zone and he was running UI-View on his laptop. We made a great discovery. He could see all of us and his packets were being seen online. So as long as we can work out the technical kinks so that the digipeating actually works then we should have full coverage. Another point about this critical location is that we have some former ARES members that moved and now live 15 miles south of his location along another portion of the route. Hopefully we can stage a digipeater at their QTH and see the same results.

While I was driving I also used today as on opportunity to test my new Virgin Mobile Wireless Broadband adapter. It worked great the whole way with covering ranging from 1 to 4 bars. I only briefly lost the signal in one area and it was back quickly. I also noticed that I have very little bandwidth usage when just trying to get APRS updates and not browsing, emailing, etc.

I left the course about 6:00 with good feelings about what the future holds. Overall I think it was a great learning exercise for everyone involved. Now my critical need is to figure out a way/place to download individual APRS tracks so I can overlay every station's track in Google Earth. So far the only KML options I've found (through aprs.fi and openaprs.net) are only real-time options and don't let you download the resulting track. The latter says you can save tracks but it hasn't seemed to have worked for me yet.

Well that's all so far. I'm sure I'll have more to report back later.

APRS Coverage Testing

2010-03-05T22:32:00.003-05:00

Well, tomorrow is our first attempt at multi-county APRS tracking in preparation for the 2010 Tour de Cure. Much of the course route is in very rural country and the current coverage is slim to none. We've got four operators from Duval and Clay counties capable of digipeating and tracking via UI-View. I'll be driving the 100-mile route from start to finish to see if having multiple digipeaters along the route will improve our odds of getting accurate updates.

After talking to the event director we have a better idea of what we need communications-wise. I don't know that we'll be able to track every vehicle with APRS since we just won't have enough trackers but we'll do what we can. We'll have 8-10 SAG vehicles along with a sweep vehicle for both routes. I at least want to have the sweeps tracked so we always know where the end is. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that we'll be able to get more tracking systems setup.

There's a lot to do between now and May. I'm very excited that we've got some new people involved and that we're planning well in advance of the ride. It's a huge undertaking but I really think it'll blow some minds when we pull it off.

Some Linux Success!

2010-02-25T20:38:00.000-05:00

One of the issues I've been battling since making the switch to Linux is getting my radio programming software to work. The apps run under Wine but I couldn't get my USB/serial adapter to be recognized by the software.

I finally had success tonight. It was so simple I'm kicking myself. All I needed to do was create a symbolic link from the device to the COM port I wanted it assigned to. So the syntax is:

ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/comx

where 'x' is the port number. Works like a dream!

New Position

2010-02-24T00:34:00.000-05:00

Well, it's with mixed emotions but I was appointed as the ARES Emergency Coordinator at tonight's meeting. Our District EC made the announcement and it was approved later in the evening when our Section Manager arrived. I truly wish my predecessor hadn't needed to step down but I'll do my best.

We had a great meeting. Our guest speaker had to be pleased with the more than 50 people in attendance. He gave a great 2-hr talk on D-Star and his vision for the East Coast of Florida. Hopefully we'll be another D-Star hub in the state in the next few weeks. Looking forward to learning and exploring some new technology.

Marathon APRS Success...Mostly

2010-02-21T20:59:00.002-05:00

It was an early start to the day. The alarm went off at 5:20 and my fellow net control operator arrived in time for us to leave by 6. We picked up our NCS student at 6:08 and then got stuck in traffic. It's usually not a problem but road construction and fewer lanes killed us. We arrived later than expected but didn't have to rush too terribly much to get on the air for a 7am roll call.

About 7:30 the JSO tail car arrived and I installed the radio with the GPS and APRS TinyTrak. The officer driving was very happy to help us and we certainly appreciate it. I monitored via the Blackberry and through my new Virgin Mobile pre-paid wireless broadband account. As the race started fear set it as I realized I'd stopped getting updates. Fortunately I had the mindset to stop the tail car before he went through the finish line. It's a good thing I did. Somehow the power had become disconnected and the TinyTrak was off.

With that catastrophe averted I jogged back to the side to head back to the command post when I heard APRS bursts on the net frequency. That's when more panic set it. The side of the 8800 I had the APRS on is normally set to the repeater we used for the net. Off I went running after the JSO patrol car to stop him again. I was pleased that it wasn't me. :-)

All in all the device worked well. Unfortunately I did have very large gaps in coverage. It was configured to transmit every 60 seconds. Sometimes it wouldn't update for 60 minutes. Just when I'd give up I'd get a good update. I need to go through the raw data but I don't know if it'll tell me much. I did hear that a couple of other operators also had gaps in their APRS updates so maybe it was just the area and not me. We weren't too far from the nearest digipeater so I wouldn't have expected spotty coverage but you never know.

If nothing else I at least have some other ideas now for planning the APRS usage for the Tour de Cure in May. Namely I think we'll need to provide our own digipeater AND igate. Time to do some more research.

Had a great time and after the initial chill of the morning we had a beautiful day. For the record, Mr. Buddy is a great little heater. ;-)

Marathon Preps and APRS

2010-02-20T21:40:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is the 3rd annual 26.2 with Donna Breast Cancer Marathon. Our ARES group has supported it since it began and it's really an enjoyable event for us. It also kicks off our busy season as things really roll into high gear after March 1.

This year we wanted to try a couple of new things. First is the Depiction software. I'd really hoped to use it to have a consolidated view of the event. I had the full course loaded on the street map when I hit a snag. I hadn't considered the possibility of activation problems and for whatever reason I have been unable to get it activated on my laptop. Since I waited until today to try there wasn't any chance of getting tech support to help me manually activate it. I guess we'll chalk this up as a lesson learned.

The second area we wanted to explore was APRS. Typically when we want to find where the end of the race is we have to call around trying to find the tail car and it's not always a timely affair. This year I decided to install an APRS tracker in the tail car. Much to my delight the Sheriff's Office was happy to let us do so.

Unfortunately, now that we had permission up the chain of command, things went south in a hurry. Not only had my TinyTrak stopped working with the Motorola Radius, now it isn't even working with my FT-8800. I'm not sure what was going on. I'd tried so many changes of the configuration, output levels, etc. that I gave up.

Well, a miracle happened and I finally got it working. I still don't know what the problem was (which I hate) but I was able to drive around town a bit and had patchy coverage. It wasn't perfect but hopefully it'll be good for tomorrow.

Since I was having so much trouble with the APRS stuff I decided to give my mind a break before I went postal. At the Orlando Hamcation last weekend I picked up a new vertical antenna for emergency deployment. It's the Eagle One Vertical Antenna. I set it up the first time in about 10 minutes (had some hardware to deal with) and was pleased at least with its receive capabilities. It seemed to be picking up a lot of stations across the bands very clearly. Unfortunately I did want to get back to the APRS issue since it was fairly critical so I didn't have it on the air long but I did get a good signal report from a NC station.
I chalked it up as a success. Can't wait to put it on the air again soon.

Depiction

2010-02-02T19:33:00.003-05:00

A couple of us have been talking about depiction and how we might use it in our ARES group as well as some of the special events our local radio club participates in. If you're not familiar with depiction it allows you to bring together various data sources into a single, integrated environment. You can also share your information with other users so that everybody stays on the same page.

Depiction is a .NET application and, of course, I'm running Linux. My mission at the moment is to get the software running under Linux without having to resort to installing inside a virtual machine. Sure, I have several VMs running with various Windows versions but if I can get something running outside the VM I will. And so I've embarked on the journey...

I ran into my first stumbling block with the .NET 3.5 Framework. I didn't really expect much and got just that. .NET only appears to have worked successfully on Linux using tools like winetricks up to version 2.0. I have yet to find any good stories with later versions. I decided to give DotGNU a try and that's where I am at the moment.

So far I've successfully made and installed the following modules: treecc, pnet and pnetlib. I even have proof that it worked:

x:/DotGNU/pnet-0.8.0/samples$ ../engine/ilrun hello.exe
Hello World!

More Linux Fun

2010-01-09T20:38:00.002-05:00

Yeah, I know, this isn't really radio-related but it all plays into my ultimate goal. If I can't run my radio apps I can't fully make the switch. Granted, I'm playing with VMs so I guess that's cheating but I'm not having much luck with WINE. Now that that's out of the way I just got my 3rd Windows VM running on the desktop. I now have VMs for XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

For some reason the XP VM on my laptop quit working and now I can't get it to read the CD. I'm going to try again tonight since I trust XP more than the others. We'll see. Hopefully I'll get back to work on the TinyTrak and Motorola combo tomorrow.

Perhaps I Spoke Too Soon

2010-01-04T17:25:00.001-05:00

It turns out the fact that I got a successful update was, perhaps, a fluke. Something is amiss with the TT3 now and it keeps losing its mind. I'm thinking it's not stray RF since it still works fine when connected to the FT-8800. Perhaps something came loose in the cable, though, and that is throwing it off. Regardless, I'm back off the air until I can figure out the problem and come up with a solution. What a rollercoaster. :-/

M120...It's aliiiiiiiiive!

2010-01-03T16:31:00.006-05:00

Thanks to Gary, WD0BIA, I realized that the Motorola RJ-45 is wired different from a regular network jack. Turns out I had my wiring reversed. I put a new connector on and it works like a champ!!

2010-01-03 21:27:07 UTC: N4CDB-9>APT311,WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1,qAS,K4GDX:>TinyTrak3 v1.1
2010-01-03 21:27:10 UTC: N4CDB-9>APT311,WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1,qAS,K4GDX:!3017.66N/08129.97Wk000/000/
2010-01-03 21:27:13 UTC: N4CDB-9>APT311,WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1,qAS,K4GDX:!3017.65N/08129.96Wk337/000 [Rate limited (< 5 sec)]
2010-01-03 21:27:43 UTC: N4CDB-9>APT311,WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1,qAS,K4GDX:!3017.65N/08129.96Wk198/000
2010-01-03 21:28:14 UTC: N4CDB-9>APT311,WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1,qAS,K4GDX:>TinyTrak3 v1.1

I now have a dedicated APRS radio. I still need to run power for a permanent installation in the truck so until then I'll be working off some 12V batteries but I'm moving forward now. I couldn't be happier!

Whole Hog Linux

2010-01-01T23:13:00.003-05:00

Well, I bit the bullet and started jumping the Microsoft ship. I picked up a new hard drive after dinner and I'm now running Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit on my desktop. I also installed Vista to a VM like I did with the laptop. So far things are running pretty well.

It looks like the network issue I experienced with the laptop isn't just affecting the wireless. I don't have network access from the wired adapter in the desktop either. I need to do some more research.

I will have to say that I was very pleased with the seamless migration of the Firefox profile. In a matter of seconds all of my bookmarks, extensions, and customizations were in place on the new install. That's where I'm posting this from now. I'm looking forward to some increased stability.

I'm sure I'll have more later.

More Linux News

2010-01-01T11:33:00.004-05:00

Ok, so this isn't technically radio-related but since it involves the laptop I'll be using for my radio stuff I figure I can include the Linux stuff here. Besides, it's my blog and I'll do what I want. :-)

I actually do have some radio news. Last night I built a cable for what will hopefully soon by my new, dedicated APRS setup for the truck. I have a Motorola M120 that's programmed for 144.39 and hopefully it'll be mounted in the truck before long. Unfortunately something is amiss. I tried it last night but I don't appear to be keying the radio with the TinyTrak. The cable rings out ok. Not sure if it's a configuration issue with the TT3 or the radio itself. I'm hoping the latter since I don't have the software to look at the radio.

I'd hoped to spend some time troubleshooting it today but it's been raining all day. I have a feeling that trend is going to continue. Since it's put a damper on my ham activities I figured I'd try something new on the Linux front.

I spent this morning working on Linux virtualization. Last night I installed VirtualBox. I tried doing a quick install of straight Ubuntu but for some reason it crapped out. I don't think I set the initial virtual hard drive size to be large enough and it probably couldn't resize during the install. I also ran into another issue. I tried creating a VM for Windows XP but the laptop wouldn't recognize either the SP1 or SP3 CDs that I tried installing. This morning I finally had some success as it recognized my Vista CD. It took a while to install (enough for two cups of coffee and some breakfast at least) but it's now installed.

The install isn't 100% but it's a start. I can't seem to get the wireless adapter working (or even find it as a network option) through the VM. I'm sure it's something I've missed. I'm going to try to spend a little time with the manual. I'm sure I'll figure it out shortly. At least something seems to be going right for me today. :-P

Hello 2010

2010-01-01T00:20:00.002-05:00

Well, here we are. It's a new year. Doesn't seem much different. :-)

Last night I set about trying to put together my dedicated APRS setup. I have a Motorola M120 that I plan on mounting to the back of the truck cab behind the rear seat. Right now I'll be using battery power until I can re-run power to a distribution panel (probably a WMR Rigrunner). I whipped up an interface cable to go from the M120 mic jack and the TinyTrak serial connector. Everything rings out ok but I can't get the PTT to work. The TT3 shows the Tx indicator but the radio doesn't transmit.

We had somebody coming into town so unfortunately I didn't get to spend any time troubleshooting. I'm not sure if it's something with the Moto or possibly an issue with the settings I have for the TT3 config. I'm going to fiddle with it later today. That's my New Year's Day goal: get it working!

So that's it. Not a very exciting post to kick off the new year but at least it's something.

Linux Ham Update

2009-12-30T16:21:00.005-05:00

Well, I have Xubuntu running and I finally got fldigi configured with my Signalink USB. It was pretty painless but it seems that I had to have fldigi shutdown when I inserted the USB cable or it wouldn't recognize it. I was glad to see that it's even easier than Windows. No drivers or anything to install. Just plug it in and rock n roll! If you want to confirm that it's working tail the log to see it show up. Try this from a terminal window:

sudo tail -f /var/log/messages

If you're not familiar with this command, tail will show you the end or tail of a file. The -f parameter tells it to follow the log meaning it will change on the screen as the file changes. This is how you can watch the log changing in real time. The log we're watching is /var/log/messages. When you plug the Signalink in the log should look something like this:

usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 11
usb 3-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
input: Burr-Brown from TI USB Audio CODEC as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb3/3-2/3-2:1.3/input/input12
generic-usb 0003:08BB:2904.0002: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.00 Device [Burr-Brown from TI USB Audio CODEC ] on usb-0000:00:1a.0-2/input3

I've trimmed some unnecessary data for brevity, namely the timestamp.

Your fldigi soundcard configuration should look like this.

Still trying to make my first Linux-based QSO but my battery is low. It's also my anniversary so I suppose I should stop playing and start getting ready for a night out. At least I know I'm receiving. :-)

Radio Linux

2009-12-19T14:06:00.008-05:00

I've been wanting to gain more exposure with Linux for several years now. About 5 years ago I ran my in-house web server on Redhat but after taking it offline and switching to a host provider I've done very little with Linux. I got a new laptop earlier this year and wanted to try it out since I had some good horsepower but no matter which distro I tried I couldn't get any of the LiveCDs to work. I wanted to go down this road because I wasn't sure which distro I'd like.

I was inspired once again after picking up the January issue of Linux Journal which had several nice articles about Linux and amateur radio. My hard drive is full of various distros and once again I couldn't get any of them to work. I finally reached a small level of success by doing a USB drive install. It seems that Linux doesn't like my CD drive.

With the taste of victory in my mouth I decided to make a change. Unfortunately the only USB drive I had available was a 1GB drive which meant I couldn't use persistence. OfficeMax had their SanDisk Cruzer drives on sale so I picked up a 8GB, ran home, and quickly did a Xubuntu 9.10 install. My history stayed true and wouldn't you know it didn't work. For whatever reason the Cruzer doesn't show up as a valid boot device. To say I was hacked is an understatement. I still have no idea why the Memorex shows up fine but the SanDisk doesn't.

It was suggested to me that the drivers might not be working from the LiveCD but a full install to the hard drive should work. I downloaded the latest Ubuntu 9.10 ISO and tried it. Of course it didn't work. Why should I have expected it to? I decided to go with what worked. I popped the Memorex in, rebooted, and did a full install to the hard drive. Which reminds me. I picked up a 40GB hard drive from CompUSA for $25. It's a small investment to run a dedicated Linux install while I try to overcome the pain I've experienced.

After long last the install worked and I'm making this post from a clean Xubuntu 9.10 install on my new hard drive. I'm finally happy.

Well, this is a much longer post than I'd anticipated so I'll sign off for now. Time to start downloading some amateur radio software!!

Mall Watch

2009-12-12T22:22:00.003-05:00

Every year our ARES group holds Mall Watch. We drive around the parking lot of one of the local malls and provide security with extra eyes. Sometimes we help watch exits for suspected shoplifters. Sometimes we call for a jump when a car won't start. Sometimes we twiddle our thumbs. Whatever the case, from Black Friday to Christmas we patrol the lot over the weekend to provide some additional safety for shoppers.

Tonight I decided to leave the TinyTrak on. This covers a period of 3 hours and roughly 9 miles. This is what Mall Watch looks like. :-)

T-Minus 5 and Holding

2009-11-17T07:50:00.000-05:00

Well, I've decided to put the TinyTrak project on hold. I have the case cut out and some wire leads soldered in place but I just don't have the time to get it finished before my trip. There's no way in Hades it'll happen. So I'll just make do with the first kit I built and hope to get back to version 2.0 sometime in December.

It was a valiant effort but there's just too much going on right now. :-(

Latest Goodies

2009-11-15T23:50:00.003-05:00

Today I picked up the makings of my future battery bank. I got four CS3 HRL12390 batteries rated at about 108AH. These batteries retail for about $250 and I scored an excellent deal and paid a fraction of that. My initial calculations show that I should be able to get about 5 days out of these operating 24 hours a day. I know I won't be operating anywhere near that so I'm willing to bet I could last about 2 weeks.

I'll say one thing, too. These puppies are heavy! They weigh in at just under 73 lbs ea. Here's the manufacturer's description:

HRL 12390W is specially designed for high efficient discharge application. Its characteristics are high energy density, small footprint and high discharge efficiency. It can be used for more than 260 cycles at 100% discharge in cycle service, up to 10 years in standby service.

I probably won't be able to get started on the bank project until after Thanksgiving but I'm at least happy to have the batteries sitting in the garage.

Stalled

2009-11-06T22:25:00.002-05:00

Well, progress on the new TinyTrak has pretty much stalled out. I'm having to re-work the case design and I've been busy working on other things. We'll see what happens this weekend.

Tomorrow kicks of tower weekend. We have a member in our club that's not doing well health-wise and he's asked for help getting his two towers down. We've got a small party getting together to take care of that for him this weekend and I figure we'll do a tower each day. Shouldn't be too bad but you never know.

Aaaaaargh!

2009-10-27T00:03:00.002-04:00

Ok, tonight has been frustrating. It seems I got a little turned around with my serial soldering and I put my power leads in the wrong places. The bad thing is that I had to really test my contortionist skills and fine motor skills while soldering in an incredibly tight area without melting other wiring. Well, I got it resoldered just fine though it took some precious time.

Now on to the grand finale. After getting it put back together I went for the 2nd power test of the evening. Who let the smoke out? It would appear that if you accidentally solder one of your diodes directly to your power lead you exceed the diode's ability to retain its smoke.

So I guess I'll be calling Radio Shack tomorrow to see if they actually stock the 1N4148 diodes or if they're online only. I really hate to wait any longer. This is taking much longer than I'd hoped. :-/

TinyTrak Version 2 Pt 2

2009-10-25T23:14:00.003-04:00

I have all of the components in place that are directly on the board. I have the LEDs mounted (temporarily) in the case. Unfortunately I don't have #20 hookup wire so I'll have to get some tomorrow to finish. I'll use #18 for power but the LEDs and various switches should be fine with #20.

I'm a little bummed that I didn't get it done tonight but it's not a big deal. At least I got to melt a little solder. :-)

TinyTrak Version 2

2009-10-24T23:41:00.000-04:00

I got the new TT3 on Thursday and I've spent the past few days laying out my next design and getting or scavenging the components I'll need. I'm taking my time with this one to make sure I've got a robust and clean implementation. I've been doing some local testing to verify my theories and so far I'm on the right track. I spent today getting the case ready and I hope to start final assembly and testing tomorrow.

I also have to say that I'm impressed with the GPS2. It locks on very quickly. It's certainly faster than the eTrex at signal acquisition. I do wish it had a slightly longer cable. At 6' it just barely reaches where I have my current TT3. This should change once I implement the next version but even another foot would be nice.

More Traking

2009-10-21T15:04:00.002-04:00

Well, the mind is flooded with mods and other build changes I want to employ with the TinyTrak3 so I've ordered another one. Byon just sent me the shipping notice so I should have it tomorrow. I still need to make some drawings and circuit layouts so I don't leave anything out so it might take me a little longer. Hopefully I'll be able to build it out with parts I have laying around aside from the case.

I also ordered the GPS2. I think I'm ready to go to a more "permanent" GPS solution instead of using my eTrex. Besides, I'm tired of changing out AAs. Stay tuned for more updates.

TinyTrak: The Ugly Mod

2009-10-19T23:09:00.000-04:00

When I say ugly, I mean ugly. I'm even embarrassed to post pics. Ok, so here's the problem. Once again I faced the challenge of dual-use. At the moment I have my eTrex Legend feeding the TinyTrak. However, rather than continuing to eat up AA batteries I want to replace it with a standard 5V hockey-puck GPS. However, I want to retain the ability to use the Legend or even my 60CSx. My fear is that if I did a solder blob at J7 that feeding 5V to the GPS might smoke it if it's not expecting it. I haven't looked at the Garmin pin-outs to see if they can take 5V on pin 4. What to do?

Well, ingenuity struck again and I decided to solder a common dual-pin jumper to the pads so I could add the jumper when I needed to have 5V powering the GPS or remove it otherwise. Unfortunately the solder pads are very close together. Oh well, no worries with my expert soldering skills. I quickly knocked the mod out, tested it, and went to put the case back on. That's when I realized my fatal design flaw. The pins were too tall and the case didn't fit. That's when I caused my real fatal error. While trying to jimmy the jumper block I popped it off when one of the solder pads came free. Crap! Let's say the wife had to come out to see what was going on.

I tried in vain to do a repair. I pulled out the magnifying lamp and a fine Xacto knife and started scraping away at the trace for the pad I pulled. That's when I realized it's a very short trace and only went to the pin on the IC. Brilliance struck again when I figured I could just make an ugly fix with a wire jumper. I took a piece of wire lead from a resistor and solder that first to the good pad and then to the jumper block. My does this look like the worst repair I've ever done but it works. It may be ugly but I still have 5V when jumpered.

I doubt I'll go back to clean it up later. I figure I'll use it like this until I smoke it (and hopefully not anything else) before I do it right. Of course I'm not sure what "right" is going to be now.

This is the ugliness jumpered for 5V to the GPS.

See? I'm not lying. :-)

And here it is unjumpered for no voltage on pin 4

And finally, wrapped up in the case (which now closes properly again)...

JOTA Update

2009-10-17T20:03:00.000-04:00

Well, today was the Scouts Jamboree On The Air. A couple of us arrived at around 7:30am to get ready for the Scouts at 8:30. Of course, they were early and we had 15 or so Scouts before 8. No big deal. It actually worked out well, I think. They pitched in and got hands-on training in assembling and erecting antennas.

I'd say we had an easy 40-50 Scouts (including Cubs, Weebelos, and Girl Scouts) throughout the day. I was disappointed that the media didn't show up but I guess you can't have everything. We ended up with three stations (2 voice 1 digital). I was running the digital station and unfortunately the G5RV I put up didn't work at all for me. I had problems using the same antenna at Field Day so I've decided this isn't the antenna for me. I ended up building a 80M off-center fed dipole on-site and tuned it up on 20M. It worked great and in no time I picked up Canada and Mexico.

The highlight of the day for me was seeing the excitement on the face of a 6-year-old Tiger as he made his first PSK contact with a very patient Canadian station. Hats off to Colin for being willing to wait for some slow typing as he asked several questions.

Looking forward to next year!

TinyTrak R8 Mod

2009-10-09T22:06:00.004-04:00

Well, I ran into a bit of difficulty this afternoon when I tried to use my new TinyTrak with my FT-60. As it turns out the cable that I use with my Piccon also works with the TinyTrak. I was excited to be able to use the HT instead of carrying my spare FT-8800 around in the truck. Unfortunately the TT3 wouldn't key the radio.

I just chalked it up to some misconfiguration between the radio and the device. I read through the manual while waiting to get my hair cut and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. No funky menu settings I may have missed other than disabling Rx Sleep.

When I got home I checked the Byonics site and looked up the cable again to confirm that it should work. That's when I saw the problem. With the cable for the mobile I had to leave R8 out of the circuit. In the description for the HT cable it says that R8 has to be IN the circuit.

Byon actually addresses this scenario and describes adding R8 to your cables. Well, that's all well and good if you're building your own, but I was using one of his. So what could I do? Well, the lightbulb went on and I used the same solution I've used for other kits where I needed removable components...I added a single in-line package (SIP) socket where R8 goes.

Now if I'm using the HT I insert R8. If I'm using the mobile I remove it. This is what it looks like configured for the HT. I had to bend the resistor leads a little and lean it over the pots to get the top of the case to fit but there's plenty of room now. I tested it and it works great.

I'm pretty happy with myself and the mod. :-) See ya on APRS!

APRS Goodness

2009-10-07T22:54:00.009-04:00

After much consternation I finally jumped in to the APRS world. I have a Yaesu FT-8800 in a mobile go-box that I figured I could use to put my signal on the air. I also realized I have a Garmin eTrex Vista that I'd been planning on getting rid of but I could use it for the project as well. So $50 later I had a Byonics TinyTrak3+ in my mailbox.

The instructions say it should take about an hour to build. Took me about 2 hours but I spent a lot of time fiddling with the camera.

It's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!! ;D

I remembered I had some power stuff from my General class and I could use an alternate power connection. The pic quality sucks but you can see that the end LEDs are on.

OMG I can't stop! Once I had power I had to make sure I could read and write to it.

Unfortunately when I ordered the unit I forgot to order the interface cable to connect to my radio. Good thing I can make my own. Unfortunately I learned a hard lesson today. PS/2 cables are a pain in the butt to modify. First I learned that only 3 conductors are used. Second I learned that they didn't go to the pins I needed. With this gotcha I couldn't really make the simple cable I wanted to. I also found that if you cut the outer shell off with a Dremel you'll discover that they fill the pin area with plastic. >:( I used a butane soldering iron as a torch to melt the plastic so I could dig it out and access the pins to wire it was I needed. Once that was done I was off and running.

I got the mouse cable wired to the pins I needed to and then made a quick run to Radio Shack to buy an audio cable. That got cut in half and the raw end went to my new serial connector. Then I wired in the PowerPoles with 18# red/black zip line. Finally I heat-shrinked what I could as best I could to act as some strain relief. Unfortunately with so many cables coming out of the serial connector I can't put it in a housing. My other problem is the mini DIN. I put it back in one of the molded shells I cut and electric taped/heat shrunk it to give it some strength. It didn't work. It pulled out when I tried to remove it from the radio. I'll have to figure something else out.

Raw Serial Connections

Wrapped Serial Connections

Radio Connections

After tweaking my configuration I was able to test everything together. To my delight not only did it all work but I didn't smoke my radio either. Within about 10-15 minutes one of the guys was calling me on the air because he'd seen me pop up on APRS. I also used http://aprs.fi to confirm that I was showing up. I'm a happy camper.

I'm really looking forward to finding some cool uses for this. Eventually I see myself getting the more capable TinyTrak4 but this is a great way to get into APRS on the cheap.

Awesome Exam Day!!

2009-08-22T20:09:00.002-04:00

I couldn't be happier with the results of today's exam session. Three of my students were unlicensed (even though this was a General class) and now they have their Technician license. Four students (including one of the unlicensed ones) picked up their General. Three had already taken the upgrade and passed. Even our club president decided to upgrade and he's now an Amateur Extra.

I guess I have to pat myself on the back a little. I had ten students total test throughout the course period and everyone that tested passed. I must be a pretty good instructor. :-D

Big Day!

2009-08-21T15:54:00.002-04:00

Well, tomorrow is the big day. Last weekend I wrapped up the General upgrade course I was teaching with a 2.5 hour review. Talking to everybody I think they're all feeling pretty good about passing. Some of the students have already upgraded so that's cool.

Tomorrow is the exam session. I have 8 students taking tests ranging from Tech to Extra. I feel confident we'll have a 100% pass rate. We'll see if I'm right.

NBEMS Testing

2009-08-09T09:21:00.003-04:00

Well, I finally had the chance to play around with NBEMS using fldigi and flarq. It seems like there's some promise but it wasn't without its challenges. It seems much better suited to SSB than FM. We ended up splattering all over a simplex QSO 1K away that we didn't know about. They were cool about it and actually let us test some more to see how much bandwidth we were taking up.

We started off using it with fldigi set to PSK-31 and this proved entirely too slow for transferring files. We gave up long before we transferred more than 2% of a 35K file because it was taking too long. Unfortunately when we tried changing modes to MT63 flarq on my end quit talking with fldigi. I still haven't been able to get it working.

In the image above the large window is fldigi. The blob of red is the image I was trying to transfer. The small window is flarq.

After talking with one of the guys with WPANBEMS he told me they had similar challenges during their testing. Now they skip flarq and just use fldigi and wrap. Still need to do some testing with it but in my solo run it seems to work. Hopefully I'll have an update on this again soon.

More Digital Fun

2009-07-31T19:23:00.002-04:00

Well, I finally got around to playing with FLDIGI again. I hadn't been able to get it to work with the IC-7000 but I tinkered enough tonight and got the rig control working. I still need to tweak the macros and figure out a few things but it seems to be pretty slick. Now that I have it working I'm one step closer to getting the NBEMS stuff going.

I really want to see about using this on a Linux-based netbook so I was pleased to finally get it working. Hopefully I'll have the chance to get it all setup and configured this weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

A Birthday w00t!

2009-07-14T09:08:00.002-04:00

Ok, for those of you not in the know, "w00t!" is a good expression. A couple of days ago my bestest brother (never thought I'd ever say that :-) ) surprised me with a package in the mail. When I looked at the label I saw it was from Powerwerx. Backing up a bit we've been working out or communications abilities between our locations using various digital modes. I'd operated during Field Day on battery power and hadn't re-charged a week or so later. Well, when we tried to play the battery was too pooped to party. He asked if I had anything to monitor the voltage and I said I wanted to get a good gadget but just kept using the multimeter and hadn't checked it lately.

Coming back to the present time I opened the box and found a Whattmeter. I said, "w00t!" This thing is pretty slick. It gives you current and average amperage/voltage along with power consumption. Now I can compare the amperage my radio is drawing with what the manual states. I'll be able to use this data to make more accurate power plans.

The Whattmeter is small, too. It also came with Anderson Powerpoles so it was installed in seconds. So big birthday thanks to my big bwudder.

NVIS Update

2009-07-12T18:15:00.008-04:00

I finished the HF NVIS antenna last week and used it to check in to the North Florida Phone Net on 3950. My friend Bill was running the net that night and the first thing he did was tell me how good my signal was. I was very happy to hear that. Here's a little rundown of how I put the antenna together. The design is based on the AS-2259 military antenna and can be found here.

The 15' mast is made of 3 5' pieces of 1.5" schedule 40 PVC. I used an end cap for the antenna connection. The hardware is brass for conductivity. Here's the cap before assembly.

Holes are drilled. The S0-239 needs a 7/8" hole. The other holes are sized for #6 screws.

The original plans called for the head to be cut off a #6 screw with the end inserted into the center conductor of the SO-239. I don't see how this is possible as there's no way I see it fitting. I scaled down to a #4 and it fit fine. Here is the assembled cap.

I used a 2' piece of 3/4" rebar to stabilize the mast bottom and keep it from kicking out. Here it is with the bottom section in place and the other two on the ground. I originally started with #18 stranded copper wire but it proved to be horrendous to work with. It knotted, kinked, and twisted to the point of being unusable, at least for this project. I have since switched to #14 insulated stranded which seems to be working much better. Each side of the antenna has two wire runs of 38' and 25'. These terminate at dogbone insulators but you could just as easily use some PVC if you have it laying around.

My feedline is RG-8X and it enters the bottom of the mast through a 3/4" hole and travels up to the SO-239 in the cap.

There was (imho) a design flaw that presented itself early on as I started to raise the mast. The PVC couplers used to join the mast sections didn't provide nearly enough support or rigidity. As the mast went up is leaned and swayed every which way until the top section finally fell off. I panicked since it was the holiday weekend but I managed to slip into Ace Hardware before the closed. I switched to threaded couplers and they provide a great deal more support. Keep in mind that nothing is permanently attached. I didn't glue any of the parts together. I may in the future but for the moment things seem to be fine without it.

After the first night on the air what I thought to be another major design flaw proved to be true. I awoke to find the antenna leaning severely and thought that the stakes holding the legs out had come loose. Instead I found that the center conductor and screw had broken off. I never really understood the logic behind putting so much stress on the connector. I came up with my own design mod and it seems to be better and stronger. I drilled a hold in the side of the cap where I ran a 1" #6 brass machine screw. I then used about a 4" piece of #12 solid wire that I soldered between the center conductor (using a new connector) and the new screw. Now the heavier screw can take the stress without straining the connector itself.

This is what the latest mod looks like with the legs attached.

You may have noticed that I also decided to paint the mast so it blends in better than the stark white PVC. I used Krylon's Fusion Camo paint. It's supposed to bond to plastic without primer but it seems to scratch off the PVC very easily. Time will tell how well it really holds up.

Here is the finished antenna after the mods and paint job.

And finally the cap and legs.

It's been a fun project. My next goal is to model the antenna. Stay tuned for that.

Independence Weekend

2009-07-05T00:05:00.003-04:00

Happy 4th of July!! Drat, it was yesterday already. :-/

Since I had Friday off for the July 4th weekend I started working on a new antenna project. I'm building a HF NVIS antenna. I battled some weak structural integrity on the PVC mast due to the couplers not holding enough. I made it back by Ace Hardware just before they closed and got threaded couplers instead. They seem to add enough rigidity to keep it fairly stiff. It will still definitely have to be guyed.

I also made the mistake of using some 18-ga bare stranded wire from Home Depot. I thought it would work well but instead I ended up with a horrible rat's nest of wire that I'm tempted to just throw in the trash. The stuff knots, twists, and kinks horribly. I replaced the four runs with my 14-ga jacketed and it works much better.

I ran out of time today to get it on the air so hopefully I'll have an update tomorrow.

Right now I'm in the middle of my first digital contest. I'm participating in the 070 club's 40M Firecracker Sprint. Due to late birthday festivities I missed the first 1.5 hrs and I'm giving the rig a break to cool down a little now. The temp gauge looks fine but my output power is being reduced so I felt it prudent to let it breath a little.

I'm not getting anywhere near my goal of 100 contacts but it's still fun. If I get 40 I'll call it a success. It took me a few QSOs to get the contest macros worked out. I can still do a little tweaking but so far I'm not doing to bad I guess.

Well, I'm going to give it another shot. Wish me luck! :-P

Field Day Follow-Up

2009-07-03T00:05:00.005-04:00

Well, I'm finally stopping to take a breath and can give my after action report on Field Day. The first joint exercise between Duval County ARES and the Beaches Amateur Radio Society (BARS) was a resounding success. Our estimates (not everybody signed the roster) have us at about 60 visitors. I'm still tallying the logs but it looks we have about 300 contacts. Not bad for some leisurely operating.

I really was surprised by the number of people that came out. We had the largest waterspout (later deemed a tornado) on Friday night and the temps were in the mid to high 90s on Saturday. It didn't seem to keep the people away though. Fortunately we'd also fogged several times and that kept the bugs at bay.

We operated as K4D and were 5A. The plan was to operate 160, 80, 40, 20, and 15. I was assigned 15M but I was so busy running around that I didn't really operate there much. By the time I could sit down nothing was happening so I moved to 20. Here are some of the guys setting up the "true" 20M station's rotating dipole.

We ran a variety of antennas in addition to the rotating dipole. We had a couple of wire dipoles that had been built by the Jr ARES youth during their meetings. We also used a G5RV from the UASI grant money, and below are some of the BARS members assembling their June meeting project, a 20M Moxon antenna.

We started serving dinner at about 5 and everyone had a good time. The Red Cross brought out ice and drinks and others brought out various picnic items. This sort of gives you an idea what type of crowd we had. We certainly didn't expect to have a parking problem. :-)

With everything that was going on it was time to get some media coverage. I had contacted our local CBS/Fox affiliate and they came out just before dinner and stayed for a couple of hours. During the time they did some live interviews, shot video for later broadcasts, and even did a live feed. Throughout the weekend they aired three stories about the event. We couldn't have asked for better exposure and publicity.

I finally got to start operating around 4:30 Sunday morning. It was the first chance I'd had to really do anything other than run around. Of course I did take a little nap from 1 to 4:30. The bands were open and 40M was really hopping. I was only interested in working digital and knocked out 57 PSK31 contacts in the short time I had. I enjoyed a nice sunrise while the bits were flying.

We've really set the bar high for next year but I already have ideas bouncing around in my head. Can't wait for 2010!

Field Day Around the Corner

2009-06-24T22:56:00.004-04:00

I realized I haven't posted a pic of the new IC-7000 since I added it to the shack. Sorry about that. Here you go.

I know I've said it before but I'm really digging the SignaLink and 7000 paired together. Unfortunately there's been a lot going on and I haven't been able to spend much time on the air lately. I'll have to make up for it this weekend.

Ok, so on to the preps for this weekend. Earlier this year, the family of Donald C. Clifford, K8JZK (SK), donated their father's radio equipment to ARES to give the Jr ARES members a kickstart. As a way of saying "Thank you!" to the Clifford family, the TS-520S they donated will be our Get On The Air station. We thought it was fitting to use it to help introduce people to the world of amateur radio.

The radio has been off the air for about 7 years so we're treating it gently. I've currently got it running off a variac to bring it back to life slowly and hopefully avoid blowing any capacitors or other components. She's been going fine all day and I've got her up to 60V. We'll let her cook overnight and then bump up to 80V first thing in the morning. I figure that by this time tomorrow she'll be up to full power. Here she is. Beauty, ain't she?

Field Day Preps & Other Stuff

2009-06-17T19:55:00.003-04:00

We've finally gotten our Field Day location set in stone for 2009 and it's looking to make for a wonderful event. My church has graciously allowed us to use their Marshside campus. It's 24 beautifully wooded acres with plenty of camping area and gorgeous trees.

At the next ARES meeting we're hoping to have a couple of new antenna projects to work on for Field Day. So far the high vote getters are a 3/4" hardline antenna for 40M and a Moxon antenna at 20M or higher (due to size). I'm really excited about what Field Day has in store for us this year.

My General upgrade course continues to progress. This past weekend we covered the exciting topic of Rules & Regulations along with a little math refresher and some formulas. This week we'll be diving into simple circuits, resistors, inductors, and capacitors. I've got a couple of breadboards so hopefully seeing the circuits for real will help solidify the concepts.

We had a walk-in visitor for the last class and she seems to be very interested in amateur radio. Hopefully she'll be back on Saturday.

HF Update

2009-06-08T14:54:00.002-04:00

I have to say that I've been having a ball since getting the new 7000 and ditching the RigBlaster. I'm knocking out DX contacts on PSK31 left and right. In just about a month spending only an hour or so at a time and operating sporadically throughout the week I've already racked up about 25 DXCC contacts. I highly recommend this setup.

This past weekend marked the first day of the General upgrade course I'm teaching for one of our local clubs. We had one couple traveling but I believe everybody else on the roster made it. We even had some that weren't on the list show up. Nobody fell asleep, walked out, or threw anything at me so I consider it a good class. :-) Next week probably won't be too exciting. Rules & regulations with a math review. Yuck. Oh well, I'll do my best to make it interesting. At the least I have some tips to share that will hopefully help them remember things like the band plan come test time.

Tomorrow I should know more about our Field Day location. Who would've thought we'd have such a hard time finding someplace to operate? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my church will allow us to use our property. We have 22 acres of beautiful, wooded property that doesn't see much use. The trees are tall and spread out where we'd be operating and I think we could really get some great contacts with our antennas so high. The staff meets tomorrow so hopefully I'll know something by lunch.

Some of us did helped with the Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure. It's a 100K/100M bike ride. It took us through some parts of the local area I'd certainly never been through. It was an interesting experience but we definitely have some communications issues we need to work out with the ADA staff if we do this again next year.

I guess that's about it for now so I'll say 73. See you on the bands!

Long Overdue Update

2009-05-23T18:12:00.003-04:00

Well, I guess it's been long enough since my last entry that I can post again. About six months ago I started having receive issues with my 718 and I haven't been on HF much. A few weeks ago the family took a trip down to Lakeland (near Tampa) and on the way back I decided to stop at AES in Orlando. I left with a used IC-7000.

I really like the size and feature set of the 7000. It makes it a great base station that can go mobile if necessary. It works great with my existing LDG Z-11 Pro tuner and I've been having a great time being back on the air.

When I got the 7000 it was time to try the digital modes again. Unfortunately my RigBlaster Plug & Play seems to be a piece of crap. I've had problems before and they reared their head again. I called WMR and got a bunch of attitude from Ed who seemed more set on making me feel like a moron rather than helping me get the unit working. With no help from Ed but assistance from the Ham Radio Deluxe forum I got the stuff working. I even had a ham from OK call me on his own to make sure I'd gotten it working. I can't say the same for WMR.

Once I got the Plug & Pray working again I started having fun. I've made DX contacts in Russia, Cuba, Canada, St. Croix, Germany, Mexico, and others. I also got to try out Olivia which I've been wanting to do. Unfortunately the POS P&P quit working again. I refuse to call WMR and decided instead to throw it in the junk box. I now (as of yesterday) own a Tigertronics SignaLink USB. It was a breeze to setup and I was on the air again without any trouble.

I also finally got my tri-band dipole about 10' higher. I don't know that it'll help much but I've made more DX contacts since I did it. Higher's better, right?

In addition to raising the dipole, I replaced the Hustler vertical with a simple random wire. I have it running through the trees and ending at a push-up mast keeping it at about 25-30'. I also had to replace my DIY copper j-pole so I now have a Diamond X200A on the chimney. I got great signal reports on 5W simplex so I'm quite happy with it.

Starting in June (the 6th to be exact) I'll be venturing into the instructor role. I've agreed to teach a General upgrade course for our local club. I'm looking forward to it. I think we have about 7 students signed up right now. It'll run through Aug 15 (skipping Field Day and Independence Day) with a test session on the 22nd. Hopefully we'll have 7 new Generals come August.

Today we scoped out our Field Day site. We ran into difficulty getting a city park. We couldn't get permission to put anything in the trees as we've done in the past and we couldn't use push-up masts because we couldn't have any guy lines. We found a state park willing to work with us and met with one of the Rangers today. We'll be at Little Talbot Island State Park though more specifically the Ft. George River inlet parking. It'll be the first time that we'll have a location where can actually camp and operate the full 24-hour period. It'll provide some unique operating and setup challenges but that's the beauty of Field Day.

This Field Day should be pretty good. We have some equipment that was donated by the family of a SK to help our Jr. ARES members. That's going to be used as our GOTA station. We also have other counties (including one in GA) that plan on visiting us to see what we're doing in Duval County. I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully my students will take the opportunity to get on HF.

Well, that about sums up what's been going on. I'll try to be better about making updates.

Fay...The Aftermath

2008-08-23T20:35:00.009-04:00

Well, we staffed the shelters for the third day yesterday. I was busy as the Acting Emergency Coordinator so I didn't spend a lot of time trying to jot stuff down for the blog. Friday was definitely the worst for us as the storm headed west right on top of us. It dumped a lot of rain and we had some really crazy flooding. I don't know why people insist on driving through heavily flooded areas. There were several cars completely covered by water.

We did pretty good as an ARES group. The Red Cross kept us hopping as they would close shelters and not necessarily tell us. We started with 10 shelters and dropped to 7. Out of those we kept 5 staffed with radio operators almost for the duration. In all honesty, though, I'm disappointed that out of over 80 members it was the same handful of folks staffing for all three days. Nobody offered to provide relief. On Wed and Thur we had 40 and 38 net check-ins respectively. Out of that many people you would think somebody would be willing to step up and lend a hand so someone else could have a break.

We also lost some operators due to their own issues at home, work, etc. I'm very proud to say that we even had a non-ham friend of one of our operators take her place when she had to leave. He just monitored the radio she left behind and would get on the phone to make his reports to the EOC.

I had two great net controllers operating from the EOC. All of the radio operators did a fine and professional job. I was proud of everyone.

I'll post some pics from our neighborhood and our own backyard when I get them off the camera. I did have a large limb come down from the pine tree that hit the feedline to my dipole. I think it's still connected but I haven't checked it out yet. I also lost one small piece from my Hustler vertical.

This is the weather over and around Jacksonville at 10:34 Friday.

This is a few hours later at 2:44.

I guess we fared ok. I did learn some things for the next activation, though. I need to have a dedicated go bag/box to hold all of my ham gear. It takes too much time gathering everything up and packing it. I need duplicates of things that I would use for home and emergencies so I don't have to take things from home and try to get them back after the event is over. For example, I need FRS radios that are only used for activations instead of the ones I use around the house. The same for coax, test equipment, battery chargers, phone chargers, etc. I spent too much time grabbing things from the house, from the truck, from here, from there.

Hopefully I'll have time before the next activation comes. We'll see. There was already another storm brewing on the heels of Fay.

Emergency Configuration

2008-08-21T11:10:00.004-04:00

I decided it would be prudent to test my emergency antenna setup in the event that I lose the dual-band off the chimney due to high winds. The more I use it the more I'm in love with the EE-3 antenna from Evans Engineering. This thing is so simple and it works like an absolute dream.

Here's an image of my dual-purpose radio. It's configured as a go-box but is also used as my home installation. If the need arises I simply unplug the coax, put the lid on, and run out the door. I'm using a Yaesu FT-8800 with a 10AH 12V battery and MFJ ClearTone speaker. I rigged it with a switch so I can disable the speaker if I'm in a busy environment and just want to use phones. The phone jack is always enabled so I can use phones if I need to hear and cut the background noise but those around me also want to hear what's being passed.

You can see I've got the antenna sitting atop about a 2 1/2' piece of schedule 40 PVC. I cut a notch in the bottom to allow the cable to come out and the pipe can sit flush. I'm using my trusty ol' wood clamp to hold it in place. SWR is down at 1.2 and I can't ask for better than that. I did a radio check with the EOC and was full-quieting through the repeater but didn't make it even on 50W simplex. I guess I'll have to run the long cable outside if the antenna comes down.

TS Fay

2008-08-21T09:16:00.003-04:00

After long last there's finally been some activity on the radio front. We're facing Tropical Storm Fay now and the Red Cross opened ten shelters yesterday.

It was a crazy day for me. I had received a report from a former Assistant Emergency Coordinator telling me that the antenna at one of our shelters had a high SWR. I talked to the Assistant Principal (our shelters are mostly schools) and she said they'd done some roof work and she couldn't see the antenna anymore. Well, I braved the rain and drove all the way across town only to read a 1.8. However, the operator that actually staffed the shelter got worse and worse. It turns out they moved the antenna and I'm figuring they didn't weather seal it as it changed the more it rained. I guess I'll have to get on the roof when this passes.

I finally made it to my own shelter about 2pm. I was pleased to see a 1.3. I was pretty much like a chicken with it's head cut off the whole day. The RC decided to staff 5 shelters with radio operators earlier than anticipated so I was left trying to find bodies. I still hadn't heard back from anyone from my previous email to get ready. It sure was crazy. I had the EOC on one freq, RC on another, admin contacts on another, and my phone all keeping me busy. Of course I was also dealing with the folks at the shelter.

I was quite happy when the RC decided to secure comms and sent all the operators home. It was nice to be in my own bed. :-D So today I'm just listening to the net waiting to see if they decide they need our assistance. We'll see. Maybe I'll have more info later. Stay safe!

Molasses in the Winter

2008-07-22T22:24:00.003-04:00

That's how slow it's been on the radio front. It just seems like so much other stuff keeps cropping up. I still haven't begun work on my SoftRock SDR and that's bummed me out.

I was really looking forward to the ARES meeting tonight and making some 2M antennas. We like to give the folks some practical exercises to keep them learning and involved. Unfortunately I've been sick the past few days. I stayed out of work again today but other than some stuffiness felt well enough to make it to the meeting. As luck would have it, though, I'd lost all track of time since I'm not in my normal routine and I was sitting on the couch when I realized the meeting was starting. :-(

Exciting, isn't it? That's about all I have to offer today. But I felt the blog needed an updated.

July 4th Wrap-Up

2008-07-07T11:05:00.003-04:00

Thought I'd post more than I did from the campsite but it just didn't work out.

So far portable radio communication isn't working out too well for me. I did setup the go-box using my EE-3 antenna on the 12' pool pole about 6' off the ground. I was able to hit two repeaters but didn't hear any traffic.

I was disappointed again with the P1. No matter what I did I couldn't get the SWR down below 16. I tried adding another base rod but that had no effect. I got disgusted and pulled it down and replaced it with the Buddistick. Within minutes I was on the air at 1.6 SWR. Unfortunately the wife and kid got back from the shower and dinner was ready before I could make some contacts. I did hear some QSOs but that's about it.

I'd hoped to make some late evening contacts but the thunder and lightning was threatening so I pulled down the antennas. Of course as luck would have it we didn't get any rain. :-(

So far I'm feeling more confident about the Buddistick than I am the P1. I still have to give it some more tests but I don't feel I can take the P1 out w/o an analyzer. I think if I get the taps set on the Buddistick I should be good to go. I'm looking for something to take hiking so I don't want to lug more than I have to.

Of course, this also means I need to pick up the 817 or 857. I don't see carrying my 718 out into the woods.

Camp set at Gold Head SP

2008-07-03T22:23:00.002-04:00

As expected I got off work early but we left for camp late. We hit a little (hard) rain on the way down but the tarp protected stuff pretty well.

I had my first tick within 10 minutes and the chiggers are out. Should be fun. :-)

We got here too late to setup the radio. I'll do that in the morning and hopefully will be able to check in to SouthCARS. That'll be a good thing so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Well, we'll be hitting the FL Trail tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed that the wee lad manages ok.

That's all for now.

Birthday Update

2008-07-02T10:34:00.002-04:00

Well, things went well yesterday. Da boy kicked things off by calling me (with Mommy's help) and wishing me Happy Birthday. He's a sweet little bugger. When I got home the family went to dinner and back to our house for cake and gifts.

My wife took a cake decorating class and surprised me with a camping themed cake. I'll post a pic later but for now I'll just describe it: chocolate icing with green grass; graham cracker tent; pretzel/icing campfire; and two big pretzels and a fruit roll-up making the hammock. :-D It was pretty cool.

So how about the loot? I did pretty good.

Light My Fire Meal Kit (Red)
Light My Fire Spork XM (Lime Green)
GSI Telescoping Spatula
Basic Illustrated Camping
SAS Survival Handbook
Jetboil Pot Support
Jetboil Coffee Press
White 32oz Nalgene Bottle
1 can stove fuel
And $70 in Dick's gift cards!
I also got a cool little keychain flashlight that's actually a wind-up!

Of course I got the Katadyn the day before.

Time to go camping!!

Happy Birthday!

2008-07-01T15:08:00.000-04:00

w00t! That's right, it's my birthday!

I don't have much to add that's radio-related, but I did get a nice gift in the mail yesterday. I opened it early because I thought it was something I'd ordered myself. When I cracked the tape, though, I saw that it was a Katadyn Hiker Pro water filter that my brother had sent me. This is going to be perfect (and very needed) when I make my end-of-summer hike through the Ocala National Forest in Sept. It's going to be hot and humid and water will be critical. This will ensure I'll be able to resupply the hydration bladder and water bottles when they run low.

I was so excited when I opened it I went right to work putting it together. I have to say it was very simple and went together quickly. However, there is a foam piece with a hole through it that I can't find any info about. I'm assuming it's another prefilter but I'll have to read some more. I don't recall seeing any mention of it in the documentation. The instructions do say to pump the handle a few times to wash out the carbon dust. Holy cow that was nasty. Oddly enough it was a milky white color instead of the black I expected.

Once assembled I went over to the retention pond behind my neighbor's house. Sure, I suppose there could be fertilizer runoff or whatever that the filter wouldn't protect me from, but I was anxious to give it a shot. The water was kind of brownish and I had to shoo a mallard away from my watering hole. :-) As I pumped the intake was stirring up the silt on the bottom. When I got back to the kitchen and checked the glass, it was crystal clear water that smelled fine. I drank a liter and I'm still here today so I guess it worked. I checked the filter and pre-filter and there was fine dirt/silt on it so it did it's job.

So my first impression is a good one. Looking forward to trying it out in a more natural setting this weekend. Thanks brother!

Field Day Revisited

2008-06-30T15:06:00.003-04:00

Ok, so yesterday I decided to tackle Field Day again. I had the data cable problem resolved and figured I'd try the antenna test I'd planned for Saturday. First up was the Blue Star P1. I tuned up for 40M and spun the dial several times to no avail. The antenna was about 8' off the ground but this means it was still being blocked by the house to a good extent I'm sure. I retuned for 20M and got busy. I actually managed to make about 5 contacts. It was hard work, though. I should've had at least one more contact but we lost each other. I could him him calling for me but I was gone I guess.

After a bit of success with the P1 I switched over to the Buddistick. I was feeling lazy and wanted to be able to swap antennas so this wasn't really an apples to apples comparison. I put the Buddistick on the handle of my grill so it was much lower than the P1. I could hear stations but I didn't log a single contact on either band.

The jury is still out on which antenna is the better performer. The advantage of the P1 over the Buddistick is that it's got a coil for 60 and 80. However, my SWR on 80 yesterday was >25 no matter what I did. I'm going to drop them an email to see if they have any ideas. If I can't do 80M (this is pretty big for me since that's where our FL Phone Net is) I'll have to come up with another solution.

I hope to do a better test later this week as we head out camping again.

Field Day Fiasco

2008-06-28T22:26:00.003-04:00

Well, where do I begin with what went wrong today? It all started when I got the our site and went to unload the generator. Having loaded it into the truck last night, I'd used my security cable to lock it to the bed. Apparently I left the key sitting on the aquarium by the door when I left this morning. I had to move the truck and ran the genny from the bed the whole day. At lease she cranked up easy and ran like a dream.

I won't even get into all of the various issues I had today swapping between different coax and antennas. I made a whopping one contact with my friend's Buddistick. Didn't make a single one on the P1. The rig was also seriously wigging out. My Z11 tuner would get a mind of its own every once in a while. The thing would tune, all the LEDs would light. It was insane. I damn near went crazy trying to get PSK31 working. Never did. It was the damndest thing. I connected the RIGBlaster PnP like I always do but I couldn't get a waterfall. Disconnect the input and there's the waterfall. I finally got it receiving (no idea what I did at that point) but while the PTT LED would light the rig never keyed. I gave up on digital after about an hour and decided to make it a voice station.

Ok, it's about time for some good news. We didn't have many kids show up. Regardless, the three that were there had a good time with our mini foxhunt. Unfortunately I didn't get to spend much time with them doing instruction since I was so focused on all of my own problems. I think it went off well enough that I'll try to have it again next year.

Back to the misery. Through all the mishaps I swear I had to look like a Keystone cop. I guess I just kept getting flustered and was making dumb mistake after dumb mistake. I swear that before Field Day even officially kicked off I was more than ready to throw in the towel and say "Screw it, I'm outa here." There was only one flaw with that logic. Go back to the first thing I mentioned. I had the generator and couldn't very well leave it and pick it up later. So I stayed.

At least we had a good time. The burgers and dogs were good. We even met a new friend from SC who was down visiting family and looked us up since he was missing his home club's event. Bob stayed with us all day and it was a pleasure to meet and get to know him ... even if he did give me a hard time like the rest of the gang. I won't hold it against him for long. :-)

I discovered one problem with my Z11. I believe I read where this is actually a common problem. The ground nut was very loose so I had to open it up and tighten it down from the inside. I also noticed my audio would go away at times. Turns out I might have a bad phone jack. Plugging phones into the 718 and removing it would whack it out. Tap the jack or insert/remove the phone jack again and the audio would return. Figures.

Summers in Florida usually have one thing in common year after year: thunderstorms. Today was no exception. About 3:30 or so the rumbles started and we decided to break down. We had the monster V to drop, the 20M rotating dipole, G5RV, Buddipole, and Buddistick along with 5 radios and all the paraphernalia that goes with Field Day. We hadn't quite finished wrapping everything up when the rain hit. As we huddled under the pavilion it hit hard. Then it got harder. The loudest, closet bolt of lightning I've ever experienced seemed to have hit right over our heads. It's not something I'd say I'd like to be in again. I wish I could've gotten a shot of the radar while this was going on but this after-shot will have to suffice. You can see it was still looking pretty nasty after I got home. We were stuck under the pavilion for at least an hour.

Alright, so maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I really wanted to figure out why I'd had so many problems with a configuration I've used before. I pulled everything out of the boxes and mounted things back in the shack. That's when I discovered what I believe is the source of all my woes today ... the data cable.

It would appear upon close examination that the data jack from the RIGBlaster to the 718 will fit both ways. There's an arrow on the jack which I put in the top position so I could see it. The jack fit fine. However, this would appear to be wrong. Comparing the pin layout with the rig jack, I had it upside down the whole time. I don't think I caused any problems or damaged the rig, but it sure as hell screwed me up. Tonight I've heard all the traffic I should've heard earlier. The rig is keying up with PSK31 as expected as well. The world seems to be right again.

I'll have to put the P1 and Buddistick back into service tomorrow to confirm my suspicions but for the moment I'm thinking that was it. I'm sick that I blew the entire day for such a simple, stupid problem. I guess that's what Field Day is for, though, right? I learned a valuable lesson if that has, indeed, fixed the issue.

And that's my Field Day '08. I was up late getting ready for the fiasco and I'm up later than I'd planned tonight. I'm going to bed.

Field Day Preps

2008-06-27T13:09:00.002-04:00

Well, tonight I'll be putting the finishing touches on my preps for tomorrow. I need to top off the batteries and put new ones in the analyzer (can't find my stinkin' charger). I ran the generator a little bit the other night and she started on the 2nd pull. I'm looking forward to it.

We should be operating as 5A with the K4D special event call. Some of the guys are out at the park right now putting up some antennas but here I am at my stinkin' desk. Of course I don't have any work to do so I'm just twiddling my thumbs. And I just realized I didn't hand off the two 40M dipoles I have in my truck. Dagnabit.

Oh well, I'll be there early so we should be able to get them up w/o too much difficulty. Should be an interesting time.

Go Box

2008-06-25T08:47:00.002-04:00

Well, we had a go-box contest at last night's ARES meeting. I have to say I was impressed with my buddy Scott's setup. He rightfully deserved 1st place. I was happy to take 2nd, though. I was going to post pics but I realized they aren't current. I've made a nice mod that I need to get new pics of.

Other than that, not too much going on. I was surprised to see that Scott has the Buddistick which is what I was looking at buying instead of the P1. I'm hoping to try them both out this Saturday so I can do a comparison.

Looking forward to Field Day!

P1 Success!!

2008-06-24T08:55:00.002-04:00

Well, after long last I've finally managed to make contact with the new P1 antenna. I'm a bit disappointed that the 1.5 SWR I experienced when I set it up indoors climbed to about 5 outside. I'm not really sure why. I had the tuning sleeve all the way to the bottom, even added a third base rod, and still couldn't bring the SWR down. Oh well, the LDG Z-11 Pro tuner handled it without any problem.

I just barely missed the 9pm net with my buddies but got relayed in at the end. I have yet to be able to say (with any antenna) if I can hear it I can work it. I was hearing most of net control in TX but he never heard me. Fortunately, my buddy GT in South Carolina relayed me. I had good copy on him but lost him before I could get a signal report. Oh well. 40M wasn't so hot last night. Net control did come back and say that he had good copy on most of my last transmission to GT. I'll chalk it up as a success given that band conditions sucked.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the SWR down with the 80M trap installed. I was really hoping to be able to check into the phone net but it didn't happen. I have an ARES meeting tonight so no radio fun for me on the air. I tried using both the 50' counterpoise that comes with the antenna as well as my #14 40M counterpoise but the SWR was high (20+). I'll have to monkey with it some more. I sure don't understand the reviews of people being on the air within 10 min. I must be slow or something. :-D

Regardless, I've got to get all the kinks worked out before Sat. I'd hate to show up for Field Day only to have problems. Well, at least I know I can work 40 and I can live with that. I do want to try it on 20M also.

Post Camping Follow-Up

2008-06-23T09:51:00.002-04:00

Well, we survived. I meant to post an update last night but I guess after cleaning off the dirt and grime, unpacking, and everything else it slipped my mind. I have to say that even with the minor difficulties we experienced we had a great time and are already looking forward to our next adventure. It might be as soon as the 4th since it's a long weekend.

I got the tent cleaned up a little (at least it's dried out) but I need to go back and get the rest of the dirt off. I thought it was going to rain last night so I packed it up once it was dry. I also need to hit the rain fly and just go through everything to clean it up. The Coleman stove did a great job and I'm very impressed with how my GSI cookset worked. I do wish I'd been able to find a larger set locally but I just had to cut everything up. Even after fixing pancakes, two batches of eggs, and bacon one after the other it cleaned up mighty fine.

I don't know why but the antenna analyzer was back up to 12.2V when we got home so I was able to tune the P1 to 40M with as good as 1.5 SWR. I haven't swept the band yet to get a good idea of the bandwidth but I'm confident now that I'll be able to tune the entire band with a tuner. I'm going to throw the 80M trap on tonight to see if I can check in to the phone net this time. I also cut a radial to the right length instead of dealing with the very small gauge wire that came with it. It was a pain in the rump to lay out and the #14 stranded I have should be better and more durable.

A Storm She Is A Brewin'

2008-06-21T22:03:00.002-04:00

We had a difficult night last night. The air mattress has a leak, the pad is worthless, and the self-inflating pad needed to be exercised before we needed it, not in the field. Oh well. At least that should be good for tonight.

We didn't do much today. Mainly just walked around. No fishing as I'd hoped. We got back and ate lunch just before the bottom dropped out. We had very heavy, steady rain for a good 2 hours. I realized we picked the wrong place for the tent as the lake formed. All in all, though, aside from a little water in the tent (not enough to worry me) the tent held up very well. It was nice to just listen to the rain.

On the radio front, my antenna analyzer batteries died before I could get the new P1 tuned. I could hear the phone net but they weren't hearing me. I also tried answering a CQ on 40 to no avail. The lesson? Always test new gear before you try using it in the field.

Dinner had to change a little. The rain soaked all out firewood and kindling. The charcoal survived for the most part but I did the chicken on the camp stove. The potatoes and corn on the cob were grilled. I think I did a great job. Sadly I couldn't get a good wood fire going so we had to turn back to the stove for roasting marshmallows.

Oh well. My hands hurt from all this typing on the tiny keyboard. That's all for now.

Finally Setup

2008-06-20T22:53:00.000-04:00

Well, we got off much later than planned. Then we hit heavy rain on the way down and had to stop to put the tarp on.

There are a lot of people here but after the ranger got onto our neighbor it's been quiet. As it turns out I actually know the ranger. We've already met some of the locals. A racoon welcomed us as we set up the tent and brought a friend back later. Junior Armadillo just came by to say hi. Oh, I've already started finding ticks.

Dinner was sausage, mixed veggies, and sweet potato patties. Sadly I don't have the antenna up. Might have to wait for morning. So will gps coords as my batteries died. :-(

Oh well. That's it for now.

73
Cary Beuershausen/N4CDB
Duval County ARES AEC

Sent via BlackBerry

Camping Weekend is Here!

2008-06-20T10:25:00.002-04:00

Ok, I really don't have a whole lot to add today but my buddy is on me to keep this thing updated daily.

I'm really keeping my fingers crossed for this weekend's weather. We've had severe wx warnings the past few afternoon/evenings and the last thing I want to do is make camp in a downpour. High temp tomorrow is 92 and it's supposed to feel like 103. Gads.

Looks like there may be another opportunity for a hike/camp in the Ocala Natl Forest next month. I'm really hoping it doesn't fall on the weekend I'm on call but others are putting it together so we'll have to wait and see.

Next update from the campsite. :-)

It's here! But now I have no time.

2008-06-19T08:40:00.004-04:00

Well, yesterday was disappointing. My new P1 antenna from Blue Star Antennas arrived as expected. Unfortunately, after dinner we went grocery shopping for the camping trip and by the time my son was in bed and I had stuff for the trip laid out it was too late and I was too tired to do anything with it other than unpack it and look at it. We have a wedding tonight (Thursday??) so it looks like it's first use will actually be from the campsite.

My initial impression is that it's well made. The instructions are a bit lacking, though. There's a bulleted list that says, "Assemble antenna as shown". Sadly, the drawings on the next page don't make a damned bit of sense. Oh well. Hopefully I'll have an update Fri or Sat.

Suckage

2008-06-17T15:28:00.004-04:00

Well, I guess I'm not such a good blogger just as I suspected. Things have been busy though. I spent Father's Day weekend shooting a softball tournament and I've spent this week so far playing catch up with other things.

I did finally do some radio stuff. I've been looking for a good portable HF antenna for use with Field Day, emergency deployment, and just plain whatever. I wanted a Buddistick but decided on the P1 system from Blue Star Antennas. This antenna gets good reviews at eHam and for the same price as the Buddistick I was able to add the 80M coil. Having 80M capability is really a big deal for me. The North Florida Phone Net is run on 80M and that's where I'd be looking to pass health/welfare traffic through NTS.

Blue Star is only a couple of hours south of my QTH and I already have a shipping notification and tracking number. I don't see why I wouldn't have it by tomorrow. That's good since I have a wedding Thur and won't be able to try it out. Its first field trial will be this weekend from the campsite. Really looking forward to heading out.

My dilemna now is power. I have a 65AH Optima that's a beast to haul around and a meager 10AH that wont give my much operating time with the 718. I'm thinking of picking up another 10AH and running them in parallel but I've already spent a good bit on pre-camping goodies and that's another $30. I may cheat and throw the one 10AH on the charger since we'll have AC. Of course, I'm really trying to do this w/o using such luxuries. We'll see how it works out.

Well, that's it for now. Next update will probably be from the campsite ... if I have cell service. :D

Blackberry Test

2008-06-10T15:18:00.000-04:00

Ok, this is just a post to test the functionality of mobile blogging. :-D

73
Cary Beuershausen/N4CDB
Duval County ARES AEC

Sent via BlackBerry

Wx Update

2008-06-10T15:05:00.001-04:00

Well, we've been having an interesting time lately weather-wise. The past couple of weeks have been filled with severe hail storms producing up to golf ball-sized hail. Today the skies are rumbling again. Looks like some weather is headed our way if it keeps on the north-easterly track. We even have a couple of mesocyclones (ie rotations) out there (the red circles).

Welcome

2008-06-09T15:36:00.000-04:00

Well, it's 2008. I decided maybe it's time to try this blogging thing. So what can you expect? Good question.

My main purpose for this blog is to share what I've been up to with my hobby de jour. :-D Since the end of 2006 I've thrown myself into amateur radio and I'm loving every minute of it. So expect to see articles about antenna projects, homebrew projects, etc.

I'm also heavily involved in emergency communications. Along with this is an interest in weather. So you'll probably see updates about various sever weather occurrences or just anything that interests me.

All in all you may see a variety of stuff here but I'll try to keep it as radio-centric as possible.