I'm out of town this week working in southwestern Mississippi. Knowing that I'd be away from home all week I decided to bring my FT-857D (which I never use anymore at home), a power supply, an iambic key, a balun, assorted cables, and wire for a 20 meter dipole.
For the longest time I've been meaning to bring a radio and enjoy my evenings tuning around. The first night of traveling I was too tired to lug the stuff in from the van, but Tuesday night I stayed in McComb, MS, and was fortunate enough to be on the top floor (4th) of the Hampton Inn. I thought, "Great, couldn't ask for a better situation." To top it off, they screwed up my reservation and upgraded me to a suite, which meant double the typical room area - more room to spread out my antenna! In fact, the 33 feet spread out nicely.
Now, I didn't have high hopes for this setup and I figured that I wouldn't manage any contacts. But at home I can string a random wire out across the floor and hear stations with ease, so I figured I might have a shot. I didn't expect what happened.
I couldn't hear a darn thing. Not a single signal on ANY band. My noise level was pegged, S9+, so something was either generating a ton of noise or the walls were made of kryptonite. It was a brand new hotel, so who knows? I made sure that nothing was running in my room, no a/c, no tv, no fridge, but it made no difference whatsoever.
I've taken my radio to work, which has oodles of industrial, high-voltage machines running and had no problems picking up signals. Needless to say, I was more than a little disappointed to not be able to hear anything. I may try it again this evening as I'm staying in Georgia, just west of Atlanta. I'm on the bottom floor, but it's worth a try, I guess. Maybe there was something running elsewhere in the hotel in Mississippi that wiped everything out?
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
My to-do list
What's the weakest part of your ham station? If you had to pick something about your station that's not quite up to snuff, what would it be? And, why haven't you taken steps to change matters?
For me, there are three things that really bug me about my station. OK, there's really more than just three, but these are three that I've known about, thought about, and wanted to improve for a long time, but for various reasons I just haven't gotten around to it.
First, I need to improve my station's grounding. And while I'm making admissions, I went a long time without ANY grounding straps connected to my radios. Yes, I know, shame, shame, shame. That's been remedied and I've buried a few 8 foot grounding rods throughout my back yard. All of my antennas are now grounded. Perhaps not according to strict guidelines, but better than nothing. I'm slowly making progress but not fast enough. The builder of my hex beam suggested that I pay closer attention to ensuring a good ground and that's stirred my interest again. Maybe now I'll get off my duff and continue improving it?
Do I notice a difference by having more and better grounds? No, not really. But that's not the point, is it? I know I need to do this.
Number two - I need to raise my hex. I have the ability to raise the mast to 40 feet. It is sitting around 20 feet now, putting the antenna around 25 feet. Why haven't I done this? I can't do it by myself. I need to summon help, as in coerce my neighbors to help.
The last one is that I need to improve the ergonomics of my station. I have a great u-shaped desk that's sturdy and very roomy. It is so roomy that it allows me to pile stacks of crap all over it and still have room to move around and not feel cramped. That's not good, because it encourages me to keep piling more crap on it. My two primary radios sit on either side of a dual-monitor setup. What I want to do is build or buy a small riser that will allow me to place both radios underneath the riser and have my two monitors above. That way they'll be positioned directly in front of me.
Another boneheaded thing that I've done is to position my rotor on the right side of the desk away from everything else. Why did I do that? The power plug wouldn't reach any further when I set it up eons ago and that's where it has remained. Talk about lazy. Same for my antenna switcher. I have to reach over and lean completely across the desk to switch antennas. Why is it there? The coax jumpers wouldn't reach any closer to the middle of the desk. It'd take me a half-hour to fix, tops. Lazy.
My computer is tucked away underneath the desk, right where it should be. Except the side is off where I installed a 2-port serial port card. I ought to put that back on before the spiders start invading. My Winkeyer only has two cords, a USB cord and a cord from my iambic keyer. They're spread out all over creation like a couple of snakes, always in the way. In fact, cords are everywhere, power cords, keyer cords, coax cables, USB cords.
Whenever I walk into the shack I marvel at the huge desk and then shudder when I look at the mess that I've made and do nothing about. I guess it's more about operating to me. If I'm in the shack, I'm on the radio listening, not tidying up, not hiding cords, not moving equipment closer. I'm operating.
And, you know, maybe that's more important than a clean desk.
For me, there are three things that really bug me about my station. OK, there's really more than just three, but these are three that I've known about, thought about, and wanted to improve for a long time, but for various reasons I just haven't gotten around to it.
First, I need to improve my station's grounding. And while I'm making admissions, I went a long time without ANY grounding straps connected to my radios. Yes, I know, shame, shame, shame. That's been remedied and I've buried a few 8 foot grounding rods throughout my back yard. All of my antennas are now grounded. Perhaps not according to strict guidelines, but better than nothing. I'm slowly making progress but not fast enough. The builder of my hex beam suggested that I pay closer attention to ensuring a good ground and that's stirred my interest again. Maybe now I'll get off my duff and continue improving it?
Do I notice a difference by having more and better grounds? No, not really. But that's not the point, is it? I know I need to do this.
Number two - I need to raise my hex. I have the ability to raise the mast to 40 feet. It is sitting around 20 feet now, putting the antenna around 25 feet. Why haven't I done this? I can't do it by myself. I need to summon help, as in coerce my neighbors to help.
The last one is that I need to improve the ergonomics of my station. I have a great u-shaped desk that's sturdy and very roomy. It is so roomy that it allows me to pile stacks of crap all over it and still have room to move around and not feel cramped. That's not good, because it encourages me to keep piling more crap on it. My two primary radios sit on either side of a dual-monitor setup. What I want to do is build or buy a small riser that will allow me to place both radios underneath the riser and have my two monitors above. That way they'll be positioned directly in front of me.
Another boneheaded thing that I've done is to position my rotor on the right side of the desk away from everything else. Why did I do that? The power plug wouldn't reach any further when I set it up eons ago and that's where it has remained. Talk about lazy. Same for my antenna switcher. I have to reach over and lean completely across the desk to switch antennas. Why is it there? The coax jumpers wouldn't reach any closer to the middle of the desk. It'd take me a half-hour to fix, tops. Lazy.
My computer is tucked away underneath the desk, right where it should be. Except the side is off where I installed a 2-port serial port card. I ought to put that back on before the spiders start invading. My Winkeyer only has two cords, a USB cord and a cord from my iambic keyer. They're spread out all over creation like a couple of snakes, always in the way. In fact, cords are everywhere, power cords, keyer cords, coax cables, USB cords.
Whenever I walk into the shack I marvel at the huge desk and then shudder when I look at the mess that I've made and do nothing about. I guess it's more about operating to me. If I'm in the shack, I'm on the radio listening, not tidying up, not hiding cords, not moving equipment closer. I'm operating.
And, you know, maybe that's more important than a clean desk.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Hex beam woes continue
Since installing my multi-band hex beam antenna just after Christmas of last year I've watched its performance degrade progressively and I'm puzzled as to why it's happening. Along the way, I've learned two very important points:
1. They don't like heavy wet snow
2. If you're going to buy commercially, do your research
Item #1, heavy wet snow, is something that I wrote about back in March when an especially wet snowstorm swept through my area and pretty much disfigured and nearly destroyed my hex. You can see pictures here. Surprisingly, once I took it down, damage was minimal.
Item #2, I thought I'd done my research on where to buy. WI4USA had a nice website and several testimonials. I spoke with him on two occasions and felt comfortable about my purchase. Since March I've attempted to contact WI4USA several times. His website is no more. Finally, this past Sunday, I heard from him via email. It seems that he lost his job in Atlanta, has moved to Memphis, and no longer can produce hex kits. I hate to hear that anyone has lost their job. I think all of us have come into contact with at least one person (often more than one) who has been affected by the economic situation we find ourselves in. Again, I hate to hear that.
WI4USA did offer some useful suggestions that I am going to try. Most centered around ensuring a good ground. After trying them, I will list what I end up doing and the outcomes here. I feel much better now that Thom replied and I appreciate the fact that he's not thrown in the towel. I wish him the best.
The situation is that the noise level is so high now that I can't hardly copy any stations. Swapping coax has no effect. My two other antennas, a G5RV and a Zero-Five vertical don't exhibit any where close to the same level of noise. And it is getting worse, almost daily. SWR checks on all bands reveal nothing, all normal or as expected. Clearly something is amiss. My next step is to take the darn thing down, take it apart, ohm out the center post, rebuild it, and try again. Along with Thom's suggestions.
Even after it suffered through the surprise snowfall it worked fine. The last time I can remember using it effectively was during the CQ WPX CW contest. It seemed ok then. More this weekend.
The situation is that the noise level is so high now that I can't hardly copy any stations. Swapping coax has no effect. My two other antennas, a G5RV and a Zero-Five vertical don't exhibit any where close to the same level of noise. And it is getting worse, almost daily. SWR checks on all bands reveal nothing, all normal or as expected. Clearly something is amiss. My next step is to take the darn thing down, take it apart, ohm out the center post, rebuild it, and try again. Along with Thom's suggestions.
Even after it suffered through the surprise snowfall it worked fine. The last time I can remember using it effectively was during the CQ WPX CW contest. It seemed ok then. More this weekend.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Uneasy predicament
What would you do if you ran across a really poor operator on the air...and you knew him? When I say "poor operator", what I mean is, someone who is probably not intentionally causing QRM but maybe they don't know any better and the QRM is a side-effect?
Would you tell him or her? Would you just let it go? I know if someone posed those questions to me, I'd probably say that it depends on the circumstances.
Well, I find myself in that predicament and I don't know what to do.
Here's the details - a nearby ham - and by "nearby" I mean that he lives within 5 miles of me - has been active on 20 meters lately. I don't know him well, but I have made his acquaintance. In recent days, he's been trying to work some DX stations on SSB and he's not having much success. Either they're not hearing him, he's not in the right place at the right time, or they're ignoring him because of his behavior.
He's incessantly calling out of turn, calling when the DX stations are calling for specific stations (not him), tromping over ongoing QSO's, and calling before the DX stations have ended their contacts . And it's not a random, isolated thing - it's an on-going, long term approach. And I've encountered it at least 4 times this week. In fact, each time that I've stumbled across him, he's committed some sort of screwball action.
To top it off, instead of using standard phonetics, he's using ridiculous words that a foreign speaking ham is unlikely to understand. This isn't his call, but let's say it ends in "LHU". Instead of saying Lima - Hotel - Uniform, or even London - Honolulu - United, he might say something like Long - Handle - Underwear. I know that's not a crime, but c'mon, he's not doing himself any favors and he's probably angering or confusing the DX.
There have been some, not many, on the air comments directed towards him by other hams trying to work the DX, but he seems oblivious or undeterred. Maybe he's not hearing them? I would think he has to be, since I'm hearing them. I don't agree with their approach to call him names, but I can understand their frustration. He's kind of spoiling the fun, you know?
Now, here's the kicker, the fellow has been a ham for a long time (extra class), licensed since the mid-30's, in fact. So, I'm sorta torn between the following:
1. Cut him some slack, maybe his hearing isn't that good.
2. Leave it be, maybe his station is marginal and he really doesn't know if the DX is coming back to him or not (ok, probably not true, if he heard them to begin with...unless he's relying on spots only).
Or,
3. Tell him because he ought to know better no matter how long he's been a ham.
I know if I were doing something boneheaded and didn't realize it, I'd want someone to tell me. How would I react? Hard to say, depends on what I've done. But my dilemma is, does he know what he's doing and just not care? If that's the case, then, indeed, it's wrong. I feel that I have an obligation to point it out to him, but at the same time, will I just make a bigger mess of things and should I just leave it alone and tune away?
What would you do?
Would you tell him or her? Would you just let it go? I know if someone posed those questions to me, I'd probably say that it depends on the circumstances.
Well, I find myself in that predicament and I don't know what to do.
Here's the details - a nearby ham - and by "nearby" I mean that he lives within 5 miles of me - has been active on 20 meters lately. I don't know him well, but I have made his acquaintance. In recent days, he's been trying to work some DX stations on SSB and he's not having much success. Either they're not hearing him, he's not in the right place at the right time, or they're ignoring him because of his behavior.
He's incessantly calling out of turn, calling when the DX stations are calling for specific stations (not him), tromping over ongoing QSO's, and calling before the DX stations have ended their contacts . And it's not a random, isolated thing - it's an on-going, long term approach. And I've encountered it at least 4 times this week. In fact, each time that I've stumbled across him, he's committed some sort of screwball action.
To top it off, instead of using standard phonetics, he's using ridiculous words that a foreign speaking ham is unlikely to understand. This isn't his call, but let's say it ends in "LHU". Instead of saying Lima - Hotel - Uniform, or even London - Honolulu - United, he might say something like Long - Handle - Underwear. I know that's not a crime, but c'mon, he's not doing himself any favors and he's probably angering or confusing the DX.
There have been some, not many, on the air comments directed towards him by other hams trying to work the DX, but he seems oblivious or undeterred. Maybe he's not hearing them? I would think he has to be, since I'm hearing them. I don't agree with their approach to call him names, but I can understand their frustration. He's kind of spoiling the fun, you know?
Now, here's the kicker, the fellow has been a ham for a long time (extra class), licensed since the mid-30's, in fact. So, I'm sorta torn between the following:
1. Cut him some slack, maybe his hearing isn't that good.
2. Leave it be, maybe his station is marginal and he really doesn't know if the DX is coming back to him or not (ok, probably not true, if he heard them to begin with...unless he's relying on spots only).
Or,
3. Tell him because he ought to know better no matter how long he's been a ham.
I know if I were doing something boneheaded and didn't realize it, I'd want someone to tell me. How would I react? Hard to say, depends on what I've done. But my dilemma is, does he know what he's doing and just not care? If that's the case, then, indeed, it's wrong. I feel that I have an obligation to point it out to him, but at the same time, will I just make a bigger mess of things and should I just leave it alone and tune away?
What would you do?
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Mandatory vacation and ham radio
For the past couple of years the company I work for has shutdown the week of July 4th. They've always "encouraged" that employees take vacation during this stretch, but didn't require it until recently. I don't really enjoy having to burn vacation like this because I certainly wouldn't pick the busiest and most expensive time of the summer to go somewhere. But since a number of our customers also close during this week, I guess it makes sense from a company standpoint.
This year, however, they waited until last Friday to make the official announcement. That was unbelievable. "Oh, and by the way, everyone needs to take vacation next week, we'll be closed." Not that several of us hadn't suspected as much, and a few of us had some inside info that indicated a strong possibility of it happening, but that's a really sorry way of handling the matter if you ask me. My wife had no chance of taking vacation where she works on such short notice, so we're basically hosed. That's the case with everyone I've spoken with.
But what will be, will be. So, trying to make the best of a crappy situation I decided to take a trip to Atlanta and visit Ham Radio Outlet. Last year, while working near Cleveland, I visited AES, so this was a good opportunity to compare. While the HRO store in Atlanta is a good bit smaller than AES in Cleveland, it was stocked to the gills. I don't recall really seeing anything at one and not the other. The Cleveland store probably had more stock in the back, just guessing.
The one aspect where I'll give the store in Atlanta a leg up is their radio demonstration setup. AES more or less had a half dozen radios set up in the corner, while HRO had an entire wall configured with all the major brand offerings. Very impressive. Two radios really caught my eye, the new ICOM IC-7600 and the Yaesu FT-2000. I spent a good bit of time toying with both. Having an FT-1000MP myself, I had a good level of familiarity with the 2000. I had no familiarity with the 7600. Given the time of day that I was there, about the only thing that I could listen to was 20 meters and I concentrated mostly in the CW portion of the band.
From an ergonomic standpoint, I felt far more at home with the 2000. I'm sure a lot of that was because of my experience with the 1000, but the ICOM felt, well, rather flimsy by comparison. First of all, it was quite a bit smaller than I expected. The Yaesu dwarfed it. The main tuning knob on the ICOM - a lot of positive comments have appeared on eham - was awful, in my opinion. Small and rather clumsy. The finger dimple was teeny-tiny and I had trouble spinning the dial. It didn't spin smoothly. If there's one thing that I'm kind of picky about, I love having a good feel to the main tuning knob.
Clearly the 2000 is a radio that you can look at and figure out rudimentary functions the first time you sit down with it. Knobs are everywhere. Forget doing that with the ICOM. The knobs are very small and a lot of the features are menu-driven. And I don't know the menu structure, so I was at a disadvantage and you'd have to discredit my comparison to the Yaesu accordingly.
Maybe it was that the 2000 reminded me so much of the 1000 - sure, steady, solid, BIG feel. It was also noticeably larger than the FT-950, which I hadn't realized.
From a performance standpoint, truthfully, I couldn't tell that much difference in the limited time that I had and the manner that I tested them. Signals sounded the same on one as they did the other, same levels, same sound, same, same, same. The display on the 7600 was very cool. The bandscope was very neat and I can see how that would be a really nice thing to have. Interestingly, they had the 2000 hooked up to a monitor, so the same thing was available for it too. But, clearly adding that capability would be extra cost for the 2000 and not the 7600.
But, again, given the time of day and the lack of signals, I didn't really get much opportunity to fiddle with the DSP capabilities, plus, customers were in and out, some looking over my shoulder - lots of extraneous noise around. Very informal test.
The 7600 was priced at roughly $3300 and the 2000 around $2300, I think. I don't know if the ICOM needs an external power supply - I think it does - and I believe that the model of 2000 that I was looking at has a 120 VAC supply built-in, like the 100-watt version of the 1000 does.
Not a bad way to spend a mandatory vacation :)
This year, however, they waited until last Friday to make the official announcement. That was unbelievable. "Oh, and by the way, everyone needs to take vacation next week, we'll be closed." Not that several of us hadn't suspected as much, and a few of us had some inside info that indicated a strong possibility of it happening, but that's a really sorry way of handling the matter if you ask me. My wife had no chance of taking vacation where she works on such short notice, so we're basically hosed. That's the case with everyone I've spoken with.
But what will be, will be. So, trying to make the best of a crappy situation I decided to take a trip to Atlanta and visit Ham Radio Outlet. Last year, while working near Cleveland, I visited AES, so this was a good opportunity to compare. While the HRO store in Atlanta is a good bit smaller than AES in Cleveland, it was stocked to the gills. I don't recall really seeing anything at one and not the other. The Cleveland store probably had more stock in the back, just guessing.
The one aspect where I'll give the store in Atlanta a leg up is their radio demonstration setup. AES more or less had a half dozen radios set up in the corner, while HRO had an entire wall configured with all the major brand offerings. Very impressive. Two radios really caught my eye, the new ICOM IC-7600 and the Yaesu FT-2000. I spent a good bit of time toying with both. Having an FT-1000MP myself, I had a good level of familiarity with the 2000. I had no familiarity with the 7600. Given the time of day that I was there, about the only thing that I could listen to was 20 meters and I concentrated mostly in the CW portion of the band.
From an ergonomic standpoint, I felt far more at home with the 2000. I'm sure a lot of that was because of my experience with the 1000, but the ICOM felt, well, rather flimsy by comparison. First of all, it was quite a bit smaller than I expected. The Yaesu dwarfed it. The main tuning knob on the ICOM - a lot of positive comments have appeared on eham - was awful, in my opinion. Small and rather clumsy. The finger dimple was teeny-tiny and I had trouble spinning the dial. It didn't spin smoothly. If there's one thing that I'm kind of picky about, I love having a good feel to the main tuning knob.
Clearly the 2000 is a radio that you can look at and figure out rudimentary functions the first time you sit down with it. Knobs are everywhere. Forget doing that with the ICOM. The knobs are very small and a lot of the features are menu-driven. And I don't know the menu structure, so I was at a disadvantage and you'd have to discredit my comparison to the Yaesu accordingly.
Maybe it was that the 2000 reminded me so much of the 1000 - sure, steady, solid, BIG feel. It was also noticeably larger than the FT-950, which I hadn't realized.
From a performance standpoint, truthfully, I couldn't tell that much difference in the limited time that I had and the manner that I tested them. Signals sounded the same on one as they did the other, same levels, same sound, same, same, same. The display on the 7600 was very cool. The bandscope was very neat and I can see how that would be a really nice thing to have. Interestingly, they had the 2000 hooked up to a monitor, so the same thing was available for it too. But, clearly adding that capability would be extra cost for the 2000 and not the 7600.
But, again, given the time of day and the lack of signals, I didn't really get much opportunity to fiddle with the DSP capabilities, plus, customers were in and out, some looking over my shoulder - lots of extraneous noise around. Very informal test.
The 7600 was priced at roughly $3300 and the 2000 around $2300, I think. I don't know if the ICOM needs an external power supply - I think it does - and I believe that the model of 2000 that I was looking at has a 120 VAC supply built-in, like the 100-watt version of the 1000 does.
Not a bad way to spend a mandatory vacation :)
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