The First 100 Years Are The Hardest

Friday afternoon I was able visit the Washington on the Brazos Historical Site, something I vividly remember reading about in 8th grade Texas History class and always wanted to see.   The site is located on the Brazos River, only about 31 miles south of College Station.  The exhibits were fine to see and gave me a new perspective on this period of Texas.  Known as the Birthplace of the Republic of Texas in 1836,  Washington was a thriving town with an important ferry crossing that allowed all sorts of supplies and goods to be transported from the gulf coast up to the frontiers towns.   Texas had been a colony of New Spain, a part of the Spanish Empire till 1821 when Mexico achieved independence from Spain.  15 years later,  Texas would become an independent republic in its own right. More history and information at:: http://www.thc.texas.gov/historic-sites/washington-brazos-state-historic-site 73,  Chris de WX7V

This morning I had the chance to activate K-0454 as part of the Early Shift before work.   I got to the park  just before 7am ET and found an out of the way place to park my rented POTA Rig (a very fun to drive Honda CR-V Hybrid).  It took me nearly 30 minutes to get set up because I kept fiddling around and messing up the most basic things. First I couldn’t find my MacBook Air that I use for HAMRS - figured I left it back in the hotel.  Then I couldn’t find a pen and paper for manual logging, other than the envelop with my license and FAA/TSA/Airline related Lithium battery transportation policies that I keep in my Go Pouch.   I spent a few minutes to see if I could  get HAMRS loaded on my work tablet, but (wisely) decided against that.  A few more minutes to experiment with the manual logging screen directly in the POTA Website.   I was about to Call it a Day when I noticed the MacBook was in my backpack after all! Next,  I used a 16oz Weav...

The KiwiSDR platform enables you to listen to radio from anywhere around the world. This is particularly useful if you want to hear your actual "on the air" transmission and fine tune your audio settings - both transmit power and TX audio equalizer if your radio supports it. My FlexRadio does. This morning I was calling CQ on 30M and RBN showed my signal spotted in Samoa and New Zealand at 11dB and 14db respectively. Conditions per Log4OM2 were Kp:2 (Quiet) A:13, SFI 136 Sunspot 44. OK but not great given where we have been in Solar Cycle 25. Using the KiwiSDR Map, I found station ZL1ROT on line in New Zealand with an 80M HF antenna and a S/N Score of 31.  All channels were busy so I had to wait in queue for a few minutes before getting access to the receiver. You can see my CW signal on 10.119 in the KiwiSDR screenshot below.   The settings are all default except the mode set to CW and the zoom set to zoom to band.  Connected to KiwiSDR: Software-defined re...

I activated K-6590 today as part of a trip to east Texas.  WMAs are really great spots to operate, relatively undeveloped, with very limited motor traffic.   Check ahead because most WMAs are closed frequently for sponsored hunts.  A special use permit or a hunters license is required to enter WMAs in the State of Texas. The Old Sabine Bottom WMA consists of 5,727 acres of bottomland hardwood habitat. According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife, the land was purchased in 1995 for the conservation of this valuable habitat type and to provide an area for public recreational opportunity. Conditions were excellent but it was a little difficult to find a hold a frequency that was clear of contest QRM.   I operated near the upper edge of the 20M band with great success - 14.341 SSB,  63 contacts in just under 50 minutes.  Rig -Yaesu FT-857d,  ATAS-120a actively tuned screwdriver antenna,  100 watts. 73 Chris de WX7V

 I completed the ERC Version 4 USB kit from Vibroplex this week.  The kit comes with a CD for the calibration and test software, plus a PDF folder that has the kit assembly instructions and installation guidelines to mount the board inside the control box for specific rotators.    The kit was easy to build, but getting it working with my rotator took a bit more work.  Specific pin outs and solder points are not documented -  you have to determine that on your own.  The  theory of operations is discussed, and schematics for many rotators are provided, but I needed to use a voltmeter and a little of of trial and error to correctly wire the ERC board to the Yaesu G-450ADC rotator controller. In addition to USB cable, the kit also requires an external 12V power supply.  Vibroplex sells a fully assembled SMD surface mount version that uses power from the USB cable instead.  The board has test points for both 5V and 12V supplies.  Vibrop...

Update 11/23/23.  Something broke in my Log4OM/SliceMaster CAT control set up.  Log4OM kept showing OFFLINE at startup after I upgraded to v2.30.1.0.   The only way I could get it running was to install HAMLIB 4.5.5 and configure CAT to connect to an active HAMLIB instance.   All is good for now.  I'm also running the latest version of SliceMaster v0.11.0g SmartSDR 3.5.9. -----  I've been using N3FJP's Amateur Contact Log (current version 7.07) since Field Day 2021, along with the associated contest loggers.  I've tried many other loggers and all have fallen short until this year when I loaded the revamped Log4OM v2 - Next Generation logger (current version 2.26.0).    Oh, Man this logger is packed with features and the look and feel is great.  The platform is a real joy to use.  The configuration set up takes some time and effort to get the most out of the platform but I've found the time is well worth it.   A...