What did you do in the shack today?

Boghog1 said:
single strand jammed in the center? RG58? with a proper PL259¿ Having done 12v for years wires come in all way shapes and forms. how long? 8ft or 80ft? so many questions
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I've never used one, but a lot of guys swear by Beverage antennas for receive. Beverage is the guy who came up with it. It's a long loop antenna, very low to ground, possibly even on the ground.
 
Having a 3D printer is friggin sweet. I printed out this dipole center for QRP. I ended up just doing 12 turns around the double FT50-43 cores. I had to enlarge the holes for the banana jacks; I think it was originally designed for nuts and bolts. But otherwise I just changed the orientation so it stood up straight on the bed and printed it as designed.

Winding the toroid wasn't as bad as I expected. I think a lot of people burn the enamel off with the soldering iron when the solder it, but that never works for me, so scrape scrape scrape with a knife.

I'll test it out some dry day and then put some double sided tape under the toroid. The wires are pretty tough, but they're just held in place with tape and I don't want them yanking free. I've got the cover started on the printer now.

For some reason the stuff I find in Thingiverse is usually setup to print in a weird orientation. Like the lid is printed top up, so you'd need a bunch of supports inside, instead of just flipping it over so the top is flat to the printer bed.

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This is the back. The hump you see is to accommodate a telescopic mast. The one I ordered in April may get here someday, so it'll be perfect for that.

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And here's another shot of the mast hole next to the BNC.

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The cover is done. Not much to show, but it fit almost perfectly. I cleaned up a couple spots here and there and sanded the edges a hair to smooth everything out and get a good fit. I hope this baby works after all this.
 
Coyote33 said:
Totally foreign to me. Not really big on the "contest" stuff I guess.
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Answered other people's calls only.

Today I put together some stuff to test out a Teensy with Audio board used to make a CW filter. The FT-818 doesn't really have a CW filter, so you hear almost 3k wide when working CW. Earlier this week my buddy lent me the Teensy and the Audio board and I tried to do something with it, but I'm a rubbish programmer (like RUB. BISH.) and I got discouraged immediately. Then I found this guy's website where he did exactly what I was trying to do. So I stole his code and slowly started removing parts I didn't want.

Tonight I fooled around with the filtering and got it pretty good. It actually has a little gain at the center frequency (700 Hz) so as you home in on a signal it suddenly gets louder.

Once that was working I fooled around with all of the various filters in the Audio library trying to see what I could do with SSB. I was hoping to be able to give it some better selectivity because a lot of times adjacent stations bleed through. I don't know how successful I was.

It's a pretty slick little device, and they have a neat web interface that lets you drop function blocks onto the screen and it gives you the basic code outline to drop into your sketch. It uses the Arduino IDE to program.

The code I started with had a feature where higher frequencies go to one ear and lower frequencies go to the other, and the center frequency ends up sounding like its in front of you. I took all that out, but I should really try it to see what it's all about. I kind of don't want to get used to it because then I'd need one of these devices for every radio.

I also made this so when I measure wire I don't have to dick around with a tape measure on the floor or in the grass or in the snow. Since the picture was taken I've added numbers counting right to left, as well as tenths of an inch since usually you've got decimals to work with. I don't know why I didn't make this years ago.

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I played around a little more with the Teensy and I think I got a good filter for CW. It's a little narrow, but has a smoother pass band and the center frequency really stands out. You can really turn down the volume which cuts some of the band noise and is gentler on your ears.

I also put together a low pass SSB filter that doesn't do a ton, but it should help keep neighboring signals from bleeding through. It rolls off between 2400 and 2700 Hz. I tried a band pass to keep signals from below from coming through too, but it didn't sound very good.

I wish I had a scope to actually see what the response of these filters was. Maybe after Christmas.

Next I want to add a button or switch so I can switch between the two filters. Right now I have to change a line of code, recompile, and reload. It takes just a couple minutes but once this is a finished product I won't be able to do that anymore.

In other news, USPS still hasn't delivered my Wolf River Coils coil that was due four days ago. And today I was supposed to get a package from HRO and they didn't bring that either. Tomorrow I have a Christmas present for my sister coming, so hopefully that's not delayed too. This is getting ridiculous.
 
I fired up my QCX 40m today and strung up my EFHW in a tree , maybe 18 feet up and a counterpoise under it. Got a RBN report from Myrtle Beach with it ,,, 691 miles !! I am not good with CW yet , so set the message and sent it a few times. What really was amazing is I got an almost QSO , but need a key for the QCX. This CW thing is pretty cool , to hit NC on probably about two and a half watts !
 
runner said:
I fired up my QCX 40m today and strung up my EFHW in a tree , maybe 18 feet up and a counterpoise under it. Got a RBN report from Myrtle Beach with it ,,, 691 miles !! I am not good with CW yet , so set the message and sent it a few times. What really was amazing is I got an almost QSO , but need a key for the QCX. This CW thing is pretty cool , to hit NC on probably about two and a half watts !
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Awesome. I was thinking about a QCX mini for maybe 17m or so. I have a Mountain Topper for 20/30/40/80 so I'm covered for tiny QRP CW rig on those bands. But those seem so cool I just want one so bad.

Did you build it yourself? Any extras or just the bare bones? I'd probably just get the case. Their 50w amp would be cool too, if only to learn a little about amps.

I built a little kit last winter that I've only tried a couple times. I think it ended costing about as much as the QCX, only no case, less power, crystal controlled, etc. But it was fun. I got picked up by the RBN 242 miles away with (estimated) 700mW. CW is amazing. I really ought to get that out again.
 
ToddDubya said:
Awesome. I was thinking about a QCX mini for maybe 17m or so. I have a Mountain Topper for 20/30/40/80 so I'm covered for tiny QRP CW rig on those bands. But those seem so cool I just want one so bad.

Did you build it yourself? Any extras or just the bare bones? I'd probably just get the case. Their 50w amp would be cool too, if only to learn a little about amps.

I built a little kit last winter that I've only tried a couple times. I think it ended costing about as much as the QCX, only no case, less power, crystal controlled, etc. But it was fun. I got picked up by the RBN 242 miles away with (estimated) 700mW. CW is amazing. I really ought to get that out again.
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I got it as a kit ,,,,, I do have the gps receiver for it , I didn't get the enclosure for it but just recently bought a box and mounted it in there. Still need to extend the gain and encoder thru the cover.

It was a bit tedious to build but not too bad. It puts out 4 watts with 13.6 volts. Right now I run it on an 8AA pack.

I built a GRPGUYS EFHW 15-40m antenna/tuner and a dummy load.

Next I need to really get serious and learn cw ,, NVIS operation with cw would be the bomb in northern New England with the mountains and all.

73 ,,,,,,,
 
I'm okay with CW, but I'm still only good enough for contest type QSOs, no rag chewing. That's my unofficial goal for this winter. Some days are better than ever.

I bought a Morserino kit this summer and wished I had it when I started learning. They're popular with Long Island CW Club, which I joined but haven't been doing. They have really good classes. I have a whole thread about my CW journey. Mostly it was a way to keep myself on track, but I do document the trajectory.

I definitely think I want to build one of those QCX Minis. I watched a whole series on building one last night and it looks reasonable.
 
I put up the QRP dipole center I printed/made the other day and it works great. I trimmed some wires for 12m and there was zero activity. Then I put up wires for 20m and did okay. I worked a handful of people on SSB then switched to CW and got another handful. Sometimes when I want to bust a pileup I'll say "QRP" but today I felt like seeing how I'd do without the extra help. Most people were amazed. I still credit the Heil headset for an S-unit or two.

I was running the FT-818 and boy I wished I had that CW filter I've been working on. When I switched from SSB to CW there was zero change in the audio. So trying to work weaker CW stations when there's a strong station within 3KHz of you is a challenge and even painful to the ears.

Speaking of CW, I've been practicing more lately and today definitely felt much more comfortable. I'd listen to a few QSOs before throwing out my call and did pretty well keeping up. They were simple, but if I could pay the correct kind of attention I could get most of it no matter the speed.
 
I threw caution to the wind and headed out into the woods today to try my FT-818 with a 40m dipole. I hiked into a shelter on the AT which gave me a dry spot to sit, but the branch selection was poor. I got a few contacts, but it was probably a little late in the day, and my setup was pretty much NVIS. Mostly I got a few PA and MA stations, so that made sense. I gave 20m a try and had about equally bad luck. I know better than to attempt 20m on QRP but that's all I had with me today.

After using that wang-looking PTT for a while now I really wanted something much smaller. So tonight I took one of those small 4-pin buttons they use in everything and soldered it to a small piece of perf board and added a headphone plug. Some heat shrink over the whole thing and it's a pretty nice package. Unfortunately the heat shrink glue kind of made the button stick, so I had to cut a little circle around it. But it works well and it's significantly more streamlined than the other thing I've been using.

The Wolf River Coils coil I ordered is still in USPS limbo. I have a road trip coming up and was hoping to have it for that, but it's looking like we'll have to file a claim and have another sent.
 
This is my basic new PTT. The button is off center because of the hole pattern on the perf board. But I actually like it that way; it's more natural to work with my left thumb.

The cable goes up the back side of the board, the individual wires weave through the board twice for some strain relief, and are soldered to the button. I added some hot glue to hold the wire, then heat shrink over the whole thing. It works great.

1702940394619.jpeg
 
Just ordered 100' of LMR-400...should be here tomorrow. I'm going to replace the RG8-x I've been using since I moved here a few years ago....even using it at a KW :cool: . It seemed to handle the power OK but it can be lossy at the higher HF freqs.
 
Picked up the two Kenwoods, a TS-440S and a TS-130SE, that Junior314 had as a karma this morning. Gave them both a smoke test, and both powered up without any problems. Although I gave both of them a checkout, I focused more on the TS-440S, and tried everything (wasn't extensive or exhaustive), but did try all the buttons, knobs and functions. Everything seemed to work. Opened it up, and it had both a SSB and a CW filter installed as well as an automatic ATU. Does have the glue in it, so I want to run a few tests, but doesn't seem to be impacting anything right now. So might leave it alone if it's not hurting anything. Battery must be good, it still had memory channels configured.
 

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