Kenwood TS-590 on Air test

Here is a new video of the New Kenwood TS-590

here is another video: Click Here

The Older Elmers

Three brothers ages 92, 94, and 96 live in a house together. One night the 96 year old draws a bath. He puts his foot in and pauses.
He yells down the stairs and says
"Was I getting in or out?"

The 94 year old yells back "I don't know. I'll come up and see." He starts up the stairs and pauses. Then he yells,
"Was I going up the stairs or down?"

The 92 year old HAM is sitting in front of his HF rig and listening to his brothers. He shakes his head, picks up the mic and says "I sure hope I never get that forgetful."
He knocks on wood for good measure.
He then yells into the mic,
"I'll come up and help both of you as soon as I see....
who's at the door. "OVER"

Balloon Launch this Morning

The QRP ARCI sponsored iHAB-2 high altitude balloon will be launched tomorrow morning at 9AM CDT, 1400z, from Ottumwa, IA.

The beacon will be transmitting on 14.059 and sending "K6JSS IHAB 2" at about 15 wpm, with 10 seconds between transmissions. A picture of the beacon and a rough drawn schematic can be seen here http://www.wa0itp.com/ihabbeacon.html

If you hear the beacon please post a signal report to www.qrpspots.com and/or balloon@qrparci.com. A typical report might be "heard ihab 2 at 1430z, 579 indianpolis, IN de kb9bvn" QRP ARCI will be sending a nice certificate to those who send a report to balloon@qrparci.com

Live video streaming can be seen at
http://www.w0otm.com/iHAB/iHAB-2/

QRP Amateur Radio Club International

This Weekends Contesting Opportunities.

Wow, here we are at another weekend full of contesting opportunities.
I am wishing all of you who participate good luck and have fun.

ARRL EME Contest Oct 2-3
TARA PSK Rumble Contest Oct 2
EPC Russia DX Contest Oct 2-3
Oceania DX Contest, Phone Oct 2-3
F9AA Cup, CW Oct 2
California QSO Party Oct 2-3
EU Autumn Sprint, SSB Oct 2
International HELL-Contest Oct 2-3
F9AA Cup, SSB Oct 3
UBA ON Contest, SSB Oct 3
German Telegraphy Contest Oct 3
RSGB 21/28 MHz Contest Oct 3

ARDF Championship;USA wins 3 Metals

This is cool. Over the last few months several in my local area have been getting involved with Fox Hunting. I believe it was a week ago the local club, MAARC held a fox hunting workshop.
I tried Fox Hunting for a summer and it was not for me. I an average hunter but could not see the excitement in it. I would rather build and antenna and play around with software etc.
Congratulations to Team USA!!

(ARDF) Amateur radio direction finding

Three Medals For Team USA At The 2010 ARDF World Championships:

from The ARRL Letter on September 30, 2010
Website: http://www.arrl.org/
Add a comment about this article!

Three Medals For Team USA At The 2010 ARDF World Championships:

By ARRL ARDF Coordinator Joe Moell, K0OV

ARDF Team USA has just returned from Croatia, the site of this year's World Championships of Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF). Three team members have new medals for their collections, the most medals ever earned in the World Championships by the USA. ARDF -- also called foxhunting and radio-orienteering -- requires map-and-compass proficiency, stamina and speed, as well as skill using direction-finding gear. It is done entirely on foot. Each day, the competitors set forth into a 1700 acre woods containing five "fox" transmitters in unknown locations. The foxes for each band are all on the same frequency and each one comes on the air for 60 seconds at a time in rotating sequence. Only men and women in the prime age category are required to look for all five; those in the other age/gender categories search for fewer, in accordance with International Amateur Radio Union rules. Read more here http://www.arrl.org/news/ardf-update-three-medals-for-team-usa-at-the-2010-ardf-world-championships.

I-com Scraps D-Star Forums

One day I will purchase a D-Star rig. We only have a few repeaters in my area that are D-Star and only a couple of operators that have a D-Star rig.
I know that the local emergency communications groups are investing into this technology via grants from HLS. Anyway, It looks like Yahoo Groups hold more credibility than most realize.

Icom America scraps D-STAR forums

Icom America have announced the closing of their D-STAR forums due to the popularity of email reflectors

They have posted this message at http://www.icomamerica.com/support/forums/

"Due to the popularity of the YAHOO! D-STAR Groups and the low activity levels within the Icom America D-STAR forums, it has been made to close the Icom America D-STAR forums".

Modern web tools make forums easy to set up and many Radio Amateurs have done so, unfortunately most of them are rarely used.

Postings on email reflectors such as Yahoo and Google groups go directly into peoples Inbox and so are read by many more people which in turn generates more postings in reply.

These are a few of the D-STAR email reflectors that are available:

dstarsoftware
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dstarsoftware

gmsk_dv_node
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gmsk_dv_node

dstar_digital
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dstar_digital

DVDongle
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DVDongle

D-STAR_23cm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/D-STAR_23cm

dstar_development
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dstar_development

dstar-uk
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dstar-uk

The SDR Cube

I posted back in August (Tmate (what your SDR always wanted) I was told by several that SDR is not a popular thing here in the U.S. Looks like they maybe wrong.
While browsing around the ARRL web site I notice an article in which it mention SDR Dominating the 2010 ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference.
While reading the article I was led to the web-page by George Heron, N2APB and Juha Niinikoski, OH2NLT, where they introduced the SDR Cube project.
This definitely looks cool to me.

For more on the SDR Cube;
click here
They also have a yahoo group;
click here

George N2APB and Juha OH2NLT have also added videos demonstrating the SDR Cube in action. The video segments include:- Overview- Tuning a CW station (two clips)- Tuning SSB stations- CW QSO with YL2QT- Tuning an RTTY station
These videos can be seen; click here

High Efficiency Plate Caps for the Eimac 3-500Z Tubes

While chatting with some friends this morning, The topic came up in regards to aluminum plate caps. So this is what I was taught;
These Precision machined 6061 aluminum Plate Caps remove an incredible amount of heat from the plate pin of the Eimac 3-500Z tube as compared with the original style Plate Cap (Anode Cap for our friends in the UK). This gives the operator a comfortable margin of safety regarding the Plate Pin Seal Temperature when operating his amplifier at elevated continuous duty output.
These plate caps are not intended to increase the original ratings of the tube or amplifier, always use good engineering practices and follow the recommendations of the tube and amplifier manufacture when in use.






source

Yaesu FT-8900

I have been asked several times by new and old hams, what is my favorite rig?
My answer is always my FT-8900.
Yes, it is a mobile rig yet it makes for a nice base station also. Mine is in the shack mounted just above my FT-897D.
The FT-8900 has many features that I enjoy such as the separation kit, dual receive, operating FM Satellites and Cross Band Repeat.
The Cross Band Repeat is helpful when I am rag-chewing while sitting around the fire pit in the back yard or in other areas of the house.
My HT is unable to make the trip to many distant stations, but it will receive them well, so I set up the cross band on the FT-8900, grab the HT and take my friends with me.
The other nice feature about the FT-8900 is that it is a Quad Band FM transceiver, able to work 70cm, 2m, 6m and 10 meter bands. If you hold only a Technician Licensee the great thing about this rig is you can operate on all bands.
Did I mention the Hyper Memory? Another great feature.

Check out the Yaesu FT-8900.

ANTENNA ROMANCE

Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married.
The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.
Since they were a perfect match, soon they generated harmonics.
Wrapped the harmonics in dipoles.
But later the harmonics turned out to be parasitic elements.

The true story -- she was a tri-bander and he felt trapped, so they went on separate beam headings

Contest Opportunities this Weekend

We have a few contest to chose from this weekend. I do not plan on taking part in any of these however I do plan on listening to them. Many different web-sites to choose from to get info on these contest. The site I used today is here.

* NCCC Sprint Ladder 0230Z-0300Z, Sep 24
* CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY 0000Z, Sep 25 to 2400Z, Sep 26
* AGCW VHF/UHF Contest 1400Z-1659Z, Sep 25 (144) and
1700Z-1759Z, Sep 25 (432)
* Texas QSO Party 1400Z, Sep 25 to 0200Z, Sep 26 and
1400Z-2000Z, Sep 26
* UBA ON Contest, 6m 0600Z-1000Z, Sep 26

An Electrifying Job

The tower climb to heaven was seen by many last week and the week before. I posted the video in late August. I am still seeing it come across on twitter and e-mails. I do not think the Tower Climb is scary. What would make me nervous is this guys job, watch the video. It has been around for a while but is still cool.

Getting Old

My friend Todd sent me this. Thanks for the laugh Todd
-------------------------------------------------
An elderly ham driver was going down the highway when suddenly his 2 meter rig crackled his call...Answering...he heard a fellow ham's urgent warning.....
"Hey Mark, just heard on the news that there's a car going down US-31 the wrong way, please be careful"!!

Mark replied, "Well I'll declare, it's not just one.......
there's hundreds of them'!!!!!!!!!

Fall is in the Air

I have a few trees starting to change color. Wow, hard to believe that fall starts tonight at 11:09pm.
I am so happy that summer has come to an end. Don't get me wrong, I like summer, hate the heat and humidity and we had lots of that this summer here in Michigan.
In the next few weeks the color tours will begin, my wife and I are looking forward to a small getaway.

Graph obtained from The Fall Foliage Network
http://www.foliagenetwork.com/
A great site with lots of info so you can plan your color tours.

"New" ~ Elecraft Custom K3

Now this is a nice looking rig. I have never operated a Elecraft, heck, I have never seen one. I guess I should try and get out more. This is a beauty and would look nice in my shack. If anyone out there wants to donate one to me that would be awesome. hi hi.
BTW, although this rig is not new, to me the addition of the knobs makes it a new rig. Maybe I should had said the Custom K3 for a title.
--------------------------------------------

Now available: A New Weighted dimple type VFO Knob made just for the Elecraft K3

The original K3 knob weighs in around 3.5 ounces. These premium USA made knobs weigh 14 ounces and they tune just wonderful. This knob is made from solid high strength Bronze. There is something about this bearing grade material that feels ultra slick in the hand. It has to be felt in person to appreciate. Smooth as glass is a good description and the color while being quite different from stock, really grows on you the more you use it.

Installation is easy and all hardware is Stainless Steel. Everything is CNC Machined from billet stock right here in the USA. The set screw that holds the knob in place is a flat tip style (no marring of your VFO shaft). Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed 30 days or you may return it for a full refund.

LINK