The First 100 Years Are The Hardest

 ARRLs Winter Field Day 2024 is in the books.  Spent about 2 hours and made all contacts on CW.   Winter Field Day is a communications exercise. WFD is held on the last full weekend in January and enables operators to practice portable emergency communications in winter environments as the potential for freezing temperatures, snow, ice, and other hazards present unique operational concerns.  I worked from my remote stations near Richland Chambers lake for about 2 hours on Sunday and got about 20 sections logged,  all via CW.  Too bad I had work a work commitment and had to shut down just as I was getting on a roll! Chris de WX7V

 I was able to get four activations in this month - consolidating posts and pictures from our private facebook groups to document here for future reference.   First Up was a New Years day activation at  K-4419 ID Fairchild State Forest in the Piney Woods area of east Texas.  Nice and relaxed outing, this was my 42nd. activation since September 2021.   To bad Texas State RR State Historic Park isn’t registered, would have been a nice 2-fer.   The pine trees were magnificent and truely inspiring! January 5th:  I  had a great pair of activations today in Bonham Texas.  On the way to my last activation I ran over something on the highway and had a blow out.  No such issues this time!   81 contacts in all,  thank you hunters!   First I activated the Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site first.  The noise floor was quite site (S8/S9) and I was about to give up after making 5 contacts, but before I k...

Just in time for Christmas,  the big kids came home from school and wanted to get some of the old toys out.  I charged up the Airwheel no problem and aired up the tire.  But the battery on the Segway Ninebot wouldn't charge after nearly a year of non-use.    Turns out the battery management system won't allow a charge if the battery voltage falls below 27v.   My battery measured 25v.  The only way to get it working again is to remove the battery, and bypass the BMS and charge the battery directly, effectively jump starting it.    I had to do this last year around Christmas as well so this time I've decided to document for my personal use and future reference. You can google lots of how to videos showing the complete process.    I'm documenting here for my personal future reference if needed.    Also, I used jumpers from the plug on the charger so that I didn't have to cut into the charging cable.   To make t...

I've put the finishing touches on my remote operations set up for my Flexradio 6600.   I've addressed everything I can think of for now and documented the "as built" design as of December 15th, 2023. The Ubiquity EdgeRouter X is very sophisticated.  Smart Queue Management has eliminated virtually all dropped packets and reduced bufferbloat when network latency is high. The PC at the remote station is a Beelink  Mini PC with AMD Ryzen 5 and runs all the local software  for the Shack including SmartSDR, PSTRotor, and other utilities as needed. Splashtop gives me full remote desktop control, including Microphone Pass Thru from my Local PC to my Flexradio at the remote station. The Kasa Smart Strip is connected via WiFi and enables me to reboot my PC or shut down the mains power to my radio when needed, saving me a drive down to the lake.    The Digital Loggers 120v Trigger Relay is connected via RCA input to softboot the Flexradio via Remote Power On. 73,...

I've created a workable solution for sending CW via a "straight key" to my remote Flexradio 6600 at the lake using RemoteKeyerInterface (RKI) and a simple Serial/USB circuit.   RKI is only available for Windows. RKI enables you to use paddles or a straight key to send CW through a remote Flex‑6000 transceiver.  After several iterations I've settled on a design using the Sparkfun FT-231x breakout board and RKI v1.05 that was originally posted by Gary KT7AZ on the RKI  groups.io forum .   However, to send CW reliably via a straight key - there were two main problems I had to solve. First,  I had to resolve the network latency and buffer bloat in my shack's network by setting up a router with Smart Queue Management.   The Ubiquity EdgeRouter  was recommended by a friend of mine (Larry N1FG) and has been working great.  I'm using the 4 port Edgerouter X which was only $50 at microcenter (open box special).  No more audio stutterin...

The SKCC WES is the monthly CW straight key event sponsored by the Straight Key Century Club, held on the 2nd Saturday of each month and lasting 36 hours.   Each month has a theme which provides operators with bonus points.  The November theme celebrates our Veterans, and bonus points are given based on the number of years served by the SKCC Veteran operating. This weekend was my first "contest" to really explore the limits of the new Hexbeam and I'm very pleased with the results:   I could hear many new European and Asian DX stations, including Israel, Malta, Gibraltar.    Surprisingly  I never heard Australia or New Zealand this weekend, and never saw them on the Spotting page.  I was able to work Japan, Marquesas Islands, Alaska, Mexico, San Marino, Argentina, Cameroon, South Africa, France, Spain, England, Serbia, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, and Malta.   Not all DX were SKCC members, but I worked them anyway! Flexrad...

My refurbished hexbeam is finally up and operating perfectly!  Got T2C on first try.  I'm planning for many years of good years of DX atop the 45G tower.  I mounted the Carolina Windom just under the top plate,  running NW/SE. The 35ft tower is constructed of a short base section buried 4 feet in the concrete, three 10ft sections, and a final section cut at 5ft to meet the local planning and zoning requirements.   I'm using an Yaesu G-800DXA Medium Duty  rotor and ROHN TB3 Thrust Bearing. Enjoy the video I recorded of W8S to compare against my dipole. 73,  Chris de WX7V

I had a great month and a lot of fun as the Straight Key Century Club (SKCC) Brag Bonus Member.  I used my favorite cootie key - the Titan made by W1SFR. My score was aided by all the members working VC3K. I also completed my personal goal to work all states im September as the brag bonus member. Got the last state (North Dakota) with four hours to spare on Saturday!  Also worked Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hawaii, Alaska, Portugal, Germany, France, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Canada.  Made 341 QSOs in Brag Month with 325.   Final Brag Score: 278 (Highest since January 2023). 73 Chris de WX7V  

 I got to combine three things I love today on my 52  birthday:  My Dad, Ham Radio and State Parks!   Thanks to all the hunters who made todays activations so much fun!  I took my dad for a ride along, and he wound up logging for me the old fashioned way, pen and paper!  We had a blast at K-3011 and K-3049.   Enjoy the pics!!! We started at Fort Richardson State Park just outside of Jacksboro Texas, and dover over to Possum Kingdom State Park.   Didn’t have time for lunch but we did see some of our old stomping grounds, including the house we lived in for a few years in the 1980s.   Yaesu FT-857D,  ATAS-120a Active Tuned Antenna System 73 Chris de WX7V 

 I spent August 14th - 26th in the UK and India as part of a business trip.  Knowing it would be hard to be away from radio for that long,  I took along my Elecraft KX3, AX-1 shortwave antenna, a Bioenno 3Ah LiFEPo4 battery, and a set up AA LiFEPo4 batteries to use as a backup and for SWL (Short Wave Listening) The plan was to activate in England as M/WX7V, as permitted for Amateur Extra licenses holders from the US under   CEPT agreement T/R-61-0, and to do some SWL while in India.  I also had set up my FlexRadio 6600 for remote operation thru SmartLink using Marcus Roskosch  DL8MRE SmartSDR for iOS application on my iPad. It would have been neat to operate in India as VU/WX7V.  The US has a bilateral agreement  with India but the permit process is extensive.  The Amateur Radio Society of India ( ARSI ) requires 5 original WRITTEN copies of the application , each submitted correctly and each with copies of your travel visa, copies...

The Maritime Radio Historical Society (MRHS) will host a Crypto Transmission from KPH for intercept operators to decrypt using the Enigma Machine, or in my case a simulator.    Award certificates will be available for anyone who intercepts the message and submits the decrypted message within 72 hours of broadcast. KPH will be transmitting the message of the day today at 20:00z, using an actual message sent by a U-boat in the North Atlantic in 1942.   Posted CW frequencies for the transmission are 6477.5, 8642.0, 12808.5, 17016.8, and 22477.5.  Messages will be repeated, then transmitted 15 minutes later via RTTY at 6324.5, 8427.0 and 12585.5. Links: Event Announcement:  https://www.radiomarine.org/mrhs-events Procedures for setting up the Enigma Machine to decrypt the message.   https://www.ciphermachinesandcryptology.com/en/enigmaproc.htm Enigma Machine Simulator:  https://www.101computing.net/enigma-machine-emulator/ SKCC RandomGram An...

 I recently bought the Ultra Pico Keyer kit so that I could have CW memories available when operating the FC-4CR, which itself is a work in active development with a bunch of us supporting Yu BG2FX with testing and hardware modifications.   The FX-4CR will eventually be a great portable radio, and I’ll do a write up when the firmware is stable and field tests are complete. The memory keyer kit was straight forward to build and I finished it in one evening.  The kit comes with a neat little 3D printed box, and you can choose different colors for the front like Thomas K4SWL did in his POTA Activation demonstration last year.    The buttons on the front can be used to record or send CW from memory.  The dial controls the speed and is adjustable from 5 to 30 WPM.  I have my set to about 15 WPM, which is about as fast as I can copy (always shooting for 20 WPM hi hi).  They keyer works with either a straight keyer or iambic paddle.   Iambic is re...