Archive for category Shack Stuff
Vintage / Modern convergence
Posted by jeff in Shack Stuff on February 24th, 2010
I just had to do it… I had a spare D104 and an Icom microphone connector.
This mic rocks on the air!
Icom 746 FAQ
Posted by jeff in Shack Stuff on February 9th, 2010
Last night while on the 1900 Net, I heard that it was possible to run the Icom 746 with separate transmit and receive antennas. According to Sky’s Daughter’s FAQ it was possible to do this running split, setting VFO-A on Antenna 1 and VFO-B on Antenna 2. Unfortunately I have been unable to make the Antenna selection follow the VFO but I’m going to keep trying to figure it out. Links available below:
Sky’s Daughters 746 FAQ PDF Link
My local link to the 746 FAQ PDF
DLARC Hamfest
Posted by jeff in Antenna Stuff, Shack Stuff on February 5th, 2010
Tonight was the 2010 DLARC mini hamfest which brought a great turn out to our monthly meeting. I’m pretty psyched to have come home with about 300 feet of RG8/U. Coax is a non-stop necessity in this shack… At least for the time being. All in an effort to convert from my RG8x to support an upcoming amplifier purchase. For those not in the know, RG8x is a smaller diameter 50 ohm coax cable that serves the HF world very well, but usually has a maximum power rating of 300-500 watts.
Linux and Ham radio bond
Posted by jeff in Shack Stuff on December 20th, 2009
The latest Linux Journal magazine features ham radio. How cool is that?
-.-. – -.- -.. . -. …- – – -.- – - -
Posted by jeff in Shack Stuff on December 20th, 2009
On Dec 11, my Bencher BY-1 paddle arrived and I’ve been practicing code ever since. So far I can send around 20 WPM, but I’m having a hell of a time decoding. For the non-hams, the title says CQ de N3QO.
Snow at N3QO
Posted by jeff in Shack Stuff on December 20th, 2009
Off to the right you can see my Hustler 6-BTV vertical sitting in 7″ of show.
It’s been over a month since my last entry, so what better time to do some bulk posting!
crickets…..
Posted by jeff in Antenna Stuff, Shack Stuff on September 23rd, 2009
WOW! It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Even with this blog being purely about ham radio, alot has been going on for me within the hobby. Here’s the update:
1) The Pocono Hamfast was an unfortunate bust. We drove 70 miles from our QTH in Pottstown, PA, to be faced with a “less than mediocre” hamfest. Only 1 vendor listed on the flyer was there and they were only selling power poles and HT cases. Honestly this has to be the worst one I’ve been to yet, which was quite unfortunate.
2) With the upcoming 2009 CQ RTTY contest this weekend (Sept 26-27) I’ve enabled digital modes on Laurie’s Heathkit SB401/301. I took a hint from another ham using the HD15 phone patch as a computer interface for a DVK (digital voice keyer), I used our SB-630 station console for PSK/RTTY/SSTY instead. It was quite simple to do even though their appears to be a 550 ohm impedance difference between the computer and the phone patch interfaces. So far so good. Posts with photos coming soon.
3) I recently aquired an IC-2200H for the truck. Even though it’s only 2 meter, it gives me better D-Star capabilities down the road. My interest in D-Star has been waning as of late. Packet loss and “R2D2′ing” gets old quick, especially when you are a member of net operations. Thoughts of selling my 91AD for this reason have been plaguing me lately. See my recent D-Star post.
4) After spending an afternoon with my local radio club (DLARC) and speaking to a fellow ham, I’ve been introduced into the world of Hex Beams and Cubical Quads. I’ve never really investigated these types of antennas as they’re not considered to be the “conventional beam”. I’m happy to say after doing a bit of research, I’ve started building the base of the antenna and am quickly aquiring the parts to build the rest of the antenna. It seems all the commercial vendors want $100 for a hex base. I really wanted to go with the DX Engineering base, but decided to go completely homebrew instead and spent $30 at The Home Depot last night on parts. As I build this thing I’ll post my experiences and photos as I progress.
Station rack
Posted by jeff in Shack Stuff on September 10th, 2009
This weekend I built the last piece to the desk, the rack. It’s sized for 16U but real usable is 14U due to the slant face. I didn’t think to start the rails higher in the rack to add a kick plate. Either way, the bottom U is unavailable. I was impatient and didn’t want to wait for rails to be shipped to me (call it a curse), so I visited Guitar Center in Plymouth Meeting and picked up a set of rails from them. I only had to trip a half inch off of the width of the rack. Not bad…
Shock Hazards and crashing computers.
Posted by jeff in Antenna Stuff, Shack Stuff on September 5th, 2009
Be careful with those vintage radios kiddies! While completing the finishing touches on my station grounding system yesterday, a got good little buzz coming off of the antenna feed line off the YL’s Heathkit transmitter. The power switch was off, which I always make sure to do whenever I’m making any connection changes to it. It felt like a shock from an electric outlet just not as intense. After I had her station grounded, the voltage differential went away, which is what I expected.
Here’s what I discovered:
Upon disconnecting the RG8u feed from it, I had no differential between the ground bus nor the cable shielding. This indicates a proper ground from the bus to the radio, which is where the cable shield is connected to.
After lifting the ground strap from the radio so the radio appeared to “float” electrically, I still had no difference in ground. I soon remembered that I previously hooked an audio line between her receiver and her computer so she could decode and monitor RTTY. When I pulled the audio cable, a 60 VAC differential appeared between the ground bus and the radio’s chassis.
Here’s why:
The Heathkit radio is powered with a 2 wire AC cord unlike the newer radios with external power supplies feeding 12 VDC to the radio. The DC power supplies bond the negative side of the circuit to their chassis ground, which in turn is then usually fed via a 3 prong power cord with ground. Since the Heathkit is essentially floating via AC, they probably attached chassis ground to the neutral side of the power feed. So when you compare the difference between a station ground and chassis ground, 60VAC appears, one half of a 120VAC house feed. Hopefully your not comparing the difference with your hand. It’s definately an attention getter.
One of the things to keep in mind when you start introducing voltage differentials and computers, you run the risk of damaging computer components. Think about it for a moment. The radio is floating electrically and your computer is grounded. Now you attach a 1/4″ to 1/8″ wire from your radio to your computer. While your pushing that connector into the computer’s Line-in jack, it’s possibly contacting other non-ground pins on the audio card, unleashing the voltage difference between the radio and the audio driver circuits in the computer. POOF! Your sound card or motherboard could be woofed. Mine didn’t, that I’m aware of.
Lesson learned: Ground your components before interconnecting them.
Additional station grounding.
Posted by jeff in Antenna Stuff, Shack Stuff on September 4th, 2009
Today on the way home from taking my RHCE (RedHat Certified Engineer) certification test (I passed), I stopped over at the local hardware store and picked up a roll of Yorkshield 106 PT. It’s a 12″ by 20ft roll of .020″ copper flashing. I created a grounding bus under the desk and interfaced it into the grounding wire coming up from the outside ground rod. It’s a similar product as the Georgia Copper .022 rolls, but a bit cheaper. I created 2″ straps that connect the radios to the ground bus.
