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Should QCARC continue giving VE Exams before club meetings in even months?
Total Voters: 3  Loading ... |
Hello again It was a while ago since I wrote anything here, but now I really have something to write about! As maybe some of you know, I took the step, and bought a new radio, the Yaesu FT-991. It is an all band all mode transceiver incl C4FM, where all the best parts from Yaesu’s more exclusive transceivers come together in a very compact sized box. Already the first day, i was struck by the radios very quite receiver and ease of use, even though it’s the first time I’ve ever used a radio with touch screen. But, if you are familiar with a smartphone or a tablet, then you feel right at home with the FT-991. Last weekend, I got to test it’s phenomenal ability to pick out stations just above the noise, even though I had 59+ signals right beside, and without earphones, it was easy to hear what the weak station said, and, to work him! This time Yaesu really hit the head on the nail! I dare to say, that nobody in this price range come even close to the FT-991! It is a radio that will fit in any Go-Box, since it’s even got a built in tuner as well as a built in audio board for digital traffic. I will bring the radio to the next meeting, so you all get a chance to play a little with it. I hope we get a weather like we had today, so we can put up some antennas, and make a few contacts! See you all at the QCARC meeting! Lars KB3WBT PS: The Yaesu FT-991 price is now even lower, $958 after mail in rebate at RandL electronics, which is a super deal!
That’s exactly what I did in my old Kenwood TS-700A. Now, if you look at the picture below, you can see that the S-meter has a very dim light, and also the two knobs down at the right (shortly after this picture was taken, those two lamps went out) Now look at the picture at the right, quite a difference isn’t it? LED’s found at RadioShack and also the resistors needed (1/4w 180-220 Ohms)
Since I was just sitting here, I thought that I could show you all what I found at the ham-fest in Butler last Sunday. Well, lets go back to the beginning in this story. In 1978, I became interested in ham-radio satellites, so called OSCAR satellites. Way back then, the AMSAT OSCAR 7 was the satellite to work. It had an orbit that made it show up every 90 minutes, and covered Europe, northern Africa, and also the US East Coast. To work US East Coast stations, you had about 5 minutes before it went down under the horizon again, so you had to be quick! Now to the more technical part, the radio you see here at the right, is an Icom 402, it was the state of the art in late 70’s if you wanted to do some SSB on 70cm. It has 3w out-put, and that is not very much, but then again, your average 2m FM radio had a high-power setting of 10w. I used an Icom 402 on the uplink, 435 Mhz LSB, and then the signal from the satellite came back on 145 Mhz USB. The 402 was hooked up to a 46 element J-beam, and the antenna for down-link was a simple 4 element yagi. Right at the 2m yagi, I had a low-noise preamp, to help my Kenwood TS-700 hear the weak signals coming back from the satellite. I would say, that I worked a few hundred stations via OSCAR satellites. Now to complete this little story. At the hamfest, I paid $10 for this radio in close to mint condition! Needless to say, it made my day! Of course, there aren’t many 70 cm stations around Clearfield — much less SSB ones — but late last night before I went to bed, I went into my shack, and for some reason I tuned around the band and heard somebody! It was Joe W3BC, and he was operating from W3SO in Altoona, so that was my first QSO on my new “old” rig, Joe also gave me the frequencies for 2m and 6m, since what I stumbled into was the VHF contest, lucky them! Hope this little essay was worth reading :) PS: For all you who are interested, there is a 2m version of this radio and a 6m version, Icom 202 and Icom 502, there is also a fm 2m, Icom 215. Lars PS2: This is a 70cm Halo antenna I built for the radio, it’s horizontally polarized and it is Omni directional (same radiation all directions) Update on Halo, just worked W3SO, Altoona, made op laugh! Will listen for other stations also….
Hello everybody, now we are going to have some fun! As some of you new hams might remember, at the last meeting I promised that you were going to play with some of my rigs at upcoming meetings, and I thought you should get acquainted with the easiest rigs first, so, take a look at the radio at the right, that is a Kenwood TS-520, from about 1975, its a so called hybrid rig, which means that it is both transistors and tubes. The tubes are used in the out-put amplifier, but the rest of the radio uses transistors, and has a built in power-supply. Bands are 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10m.
I also have another rig, the Icom 706MkII, but I think these three radio’s are gone be just fine to begin with, I’m sure that some of our other members can let you try some of their radio’s, but, since we are coming into the summer months, I believe we can wait till the fall before we continue with “play N learn”. If you guys N gals have any questions, or any special wishes, please do ask!!! No question are stupid or to dumb, so please ask!! I’m sure we will all have fun playing with the “real stuff”, so come down to our next meeting and “widen your horizon”
Yours truly The Swede KB3WBT
Hey all, here is a good SDR receiver that you can use, to f.x listen to your own signal. Have fun!! Lars http://www.cqdx.ru/ham/new-equipment/genesis-g59-all-mode-160-6m-sdr-transceiver-kit/
Genesis G59: All Mode 160-6m SDR Transceiver Kit ‹ SPARKY’s Blog
www.cqdx.ru The “G59″ is an all-mode 160-6m SDR transceiver with 10mW of output power. The output is boosted to 10W with the “GPA10″ linear amplifier.
The Genesis “G59″ is the best performing SDR kit for the money currently available to amateur radio operators.
http://www.cqdx.ru/ham/qro-qrp/chinese-diy-qrp-hf-transceiver-x1mkii/ 73 de Lars
Remember a while ago, when I wrote about needing a project in order to stay sane, while my shoulder healed? Well, I sure found one! If you look at the picture at the right, that’s it! It’s a fantastic little rig from Kenwood, when they still made simple but very good HF stations – no menus, no electronic band-switch, etc. The model number is TS-130s, and it covers 80m -10m, including the WARC bands, it’s got 100w output and is a cw/ssb rig only, but hey, its a great rig for ragchewing, field-day, beginners’ rig, or when going camping! :) When I got it, someone had dropped the top lid while looking inside, resulting in tearing the wire off from internal speaker, but with the help from some junked speakers, that was an easy fix. Then came the question why the RF power came and went. Well, what really was wrong, was a voltage regulator, sitting on the heat sink, and it was supposed to be insulated from ground. As you might already have guessed, it was not really…that is to say, the little washer with a little flange on, that is supposed to keep the screw from touching the regulator, was damaged, so when keying the rig, sometimes it made contact, and sometimes not…. After having found this, it now works just as new! Speaking of cleaning, now I’m going to tell you what not ever to do!! (AND I MEAN THAT!) When cleaning knobs, do not EVER try to do that in a sink, without a strainer! Why? I’ll tell you why, if you haven’t felt your heart fly up into your throat, YOU WILL! Also, if you haven’t had to take the drain apart, YOU WILL! Now, if you have stopped laughing, and stopped saying S****D I***T, I can tell you, I now know how it feels! I was just lucky that the knob wasn’t flushed out. Having put it all together again, I buffed up the scuffed paint on the case. It looks so good, that I don’t want to let it go, but since it’s only a project rig, I must (at least that’s what XYL says…) A radio in this condition sells really fast, and so did this. Roger KB3ZKJ, is now the happy owner. Congrats Roger! Your storyteller Lars KB3WBT |
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Well, here we go again!