What did you do in the shack today?

Cross post from the CW thread, I got this put together and it works really well. I can't wait to try it out. I'm still a little nervous about working straight key on the air, but I'm probably good enough now to do it.

1690391642074.png
 
timbo said:
Looks nice...what brand is it (or did you build it from scratch?)...
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I wish I built it from scratch. It's an American Morse Equipment MS2. It comes as a kit so you can pretend you built something, but all you really did was assemble it and solder two wires. Because I'm a junky I have been thinking about how I can make a key or paddle out of metal. I know you can work brass or aluminum with woodworking tools, but I just don't want my shop full of metal shavings. I suppose I could start by making a base plate for this one out of some brass.

I played around with it for a while last night. I don't know if it helps but I'll watch some videos and hear a word, send it, hear a word, send it. It seems like a good way to get practice in without feeling like I'm practicing. I like that I only have to pay attention enough to keep the word in my head, and the rest takes care of itself.

I thought with this being so small it would be harder to use, but it's really no more difficult than my J-38. I just set it on my leg, held it so it didn't rock around too much, and I was in business.

I also found that I CANNOT send words with "XP" in them, like "explicitly". Add the "L" after the "P" and it just magnifies the problem. I must have sent "EXLD..." 10 times in a row. What a crazy thing the brain is.
 
ToddDubya said:
I wish I built it from scratch. It's an American Morse Equipment MS2. It comes as a kit so you can pretend you built something, but all you really did was assemble it and solder two wires. Because I'm a junky I have been thinking about how I can make a key or paddle out of metal. I know you can work brass or aluminum with woodworking tools, but I just don't want my shop full of metal shavings. I suppose I could start by making a base plate for this one out of some brass.

I played around with it for a while last night. I don't know if it helps but I'll watch some videos and hear a word, send it, hear a word, send it. It seems like a good way to get practice in without feeling like I'm practicing. I like that I only have to pay attention enough to keep the word in my head, and the rest takes care of itself.

I thought with this being so small it would be harder to use, but it's really no more difficult than my J-38. I just set it on my leg, held it so it didn't rock around too much, and I was in business.

I also found that I CANNOT send words with "XP" in them, like "explicitly". Add the "L" after the "P" and it just magnifies the problem. I must have sent "EXLD..." 10 times in a row. What a crazy thing the brain is.
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Very Nice...I have an Iambic Bencher BY-1 paddle key, a WW2 vintage J-37 and an old Speed-X key which I bought from Lafayette Radio Sales back in the early 70s. I can send easily at 20-25 WPM with my Bencher but....I can't copy that fast so I usually use my J-37 on CW. I like it better than my old Speed-X. I tore my Speed-x down to clean it a month or so back as there was some rust coming through the plating. It didn't clean up as nicely as I was hoping for so I'm just going to pop it back together and put it up on a shelf here in the "shack" as memento from years gone by. I made my first CW contacts on it back in the day so it holds a place in my memory (such as it is ;)).

Anyway, I may look at buying one of those keys like you have...I looked up the price and it's quite reasonable.

I'm a gizmo nerd for sure. :cool:...Aren't we all???
 
I've got a Bencher that lets me send much faster than I can copy, too. That was a treat when I first committed to learning CW. And a J-38 that I've been learning to send straight key with. I bought one of the American Morse Equipment PortaPaddles awhile back for field use and I've been very pleased with that. So when I was looking for a straight key for portable I checked out what he had. He seems to be in no hurry to ship, and it comes from CA so I think turnaround time was 7-10 days. But the machining is nice, the components are nice, and it's a fun little kit to put together and use.

I joined SKCC awhile back and I keep saying I need to just do it, but so far I haven't. Maybe one day while I'm hammock portable I'll hike up my skirt and make my first SKCC contact. I'm really still learning and right now my focus is on common QSO words, soon to be phrases, which should help with that.
 
ToddDubya said:
I've got a Bencher that lets me send much faster than I can copy, too. That was a treat when I first committed to learning CW. And a J-38 that I've been learning to send straight key with. I bought one of the American Morse Equipment PortaPaddles awhile back for field use and I've been very pleased with that. So when I was looking for a straight key for portable I checked out what he had. He seems to be in no hurry to ship, and it comes from CA so I think turnaround time was 7-10 days. But the machining is nice, the components are nice, and it's a fun little kit to put together and use.

I joined SKCC awhile back and I keep saying I need to just do it, but so far I haven't. Maybe one day while I'm hammock portable I'll hike up my skirt and make my first SKCC contact. I'm really still learning and right now my focus is on common QSO words, soon to be phrases, which should help with that.
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Yep, I have an SKCC cert hanging here in my shack, but I'm really not worthy of it...
 
The Morserino came today. Looks like two weeks from order to delivery. That's not bad considering he said it could be several weeks just to ship, and the free shipping (postal service) could be up to 40 days (usually less in EU and North America).

I meant to get a time check when I started, which I did, but then forgot. I want to say I started soldering around 8 and finished maybe 9:30. It would have been earlier but I accidentally soldered the switch to the wrong side of the board. I wasted a bunch of time failing to desolder that. In the end it doesn't matter, but I wanted it to be right.

A few minutes assembling the cover, standoffs, LoRa antenna, etc. and I was in business. I'm not sure I care for the capacitive paddles it comes with, but they may just take some getting used to. You can use your own, so if I really don't like them it's no big deal.

I played with it for a little bit, but my brain just couldn't tonight. I think it'll be a nice little gadget and should be a good tool to help me learn and then get faster.

1690597182565.jpeg
 
In the shack today (just now)...

I updated N1MM to the latest version for tomorrow's IOTA contest.

Then I went looking for Island stations that can usually be found on the air for casual contacts the day before the actual contest begins at 12:00 UTC 2023/07/29.

Didn't take long to find 5W1SA who was 13+ db above the noise on FT8 and reported me back at -02 db. I was using a 3 element Yagi and 70 watts on 10 meters.

I am still receiving him now if anyone reads this and wants to hop on.

🐯
 
I got two new toys this week, one as recent as yesterday, that I finished building mere hours before bed, and I'm already like "I wonder if there's any good sales on". I haven't even really put either new toy into service yet. I think I might have a problem.
 
In the shack today...

I got home from the sign handout at GOAL HQ and switched on the rig and opened N1MM, which I had prepped last night. I am now working the NA QSP Party summer CW contest.
Low pressure contest with a simple exchange (name and state), but only 12 hours 18:00 - 06:00 so get in on the action soon.

🐯
 
It wasn't today, but I was on vacation this past week and brought my Mountain Topper that I power with three 18650 batteries. I'd charged them once when I first got the radio and they were basically still full when I topped them off pre vacation. One evening I was setup on a table by the lake and I suddenly noticed the voltage went from 12.5 to 8.5. Uh oh, one cell just went to 0v. I unplugged the radio and pulled out the burning hot battery from the holder.

I have no idea why one battery suddenly shorted, but I'm glad it wasn't worse. I have an assortment of 18650s I rescued from old laptop batteries. Typically one cell in a battery will go bad and the whole thing is shot, so I'd open them up and salvage the ones that take a charge. Yeah, skinflint and stuff, but I have a bunch and I've never had a problem until now.

I'm getting some of those lithium batteries the kids use in their drones and stuff. I need one for my Morserino so I'll get a few and pair one up with a 12v boost converter and see how that does. It sips power so I should get decent time out of a battery.
 
I'm trying to muster up the fortitude to tear my shack down and reconfigure it for more efficient operation. Might do it tomorrow or Thursday...or Friday. Maybe Saturday :oops:
 
Well, as I threatened to do in a couple posts above, yesterday and today I tore my shack down and redid almost everything. It took me way longer than I thought it was going to take. I'm just moving a lot slower than I used to. I moved things around so, to me, it seems a lot more efficient to use. I like it. There's a few things I still need to do...Fabricate a cable that was too short that goes between my TS-850s mic input and my W2IHY iPLUS station control box...it is just 2" too short... No way to make it work. I need a "cable stretcher"...LOL.

I'll pop some pics in here tomorrow. I'm tired....gonna hit the rack.
 
timbo said:
Well, as I threatened to do in a couple posts above, yesterday and today I tore my shack down and redid almost everything. It took me way longer than I thought it was going to take. I'm just moving a lot slower than I used to. I moved things around so, to me, it seems a lot more efficient to use. I like it. There's a few things I still need to do...Fabricate a cable that was too short that goes between my TS-850s mic input and my W2IHY iPLUS station control box...it is just 2" too short... No way to make it work. I need a "cable stretcher"...LOL.

I'll pop some pics in here tomorrow. I'm tired....gonna hit the rack.
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One of my favorite parts of ham radio is the DIY-ness of it. Every other hobby I've had, that would have read "cable too short, gotta order a new one".

My buddy just dropped off an old FT-857 he was selling. $100, I couldn't say no. Step 1 is get PowerPoles on it and see how bad the display is. It came with a box of stuff that screams "ham rigged". He used it for years in his rover and I think now he's running two 817s into transverters for higher frequency stuff.

1. PowerPoles installed, she powers up.

1691941103233.png

2. The display is a hair better than it looks in the picture, but it's definitely tiger striped. It's useable for now, but I'm definitely going to explore some options.

3. It has 60m but no Tx. Does anybody know if that's available just disabled? I'm tempted to program it with the same load I have on my 857D, but I don't want to blow it up. I can count on two fingers the number of times I've used 60m, so if this doesn't do it it's really no skin off my teeth.

4. It has the noise reduction and bandpass filtering and they're selectable. I thought those only came with the D model. Maybe there was an interim version? Or an option?

So far my goal of zero new radios this year has been violated four times, plus the kit I built that technically I bought last year, so I think I'm safe on that one.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what niche this is going to fill for me. I didn't need it, but I couldn't pass it up.
 
I took the aforementioned rig out today and played mostly POTA all afternoon. The screen is good enough for what I needed. Only a few times I was unsure of the frequency and it was as easy as down 1KHz to get a more readable number, and back up.

After about an hour or more of giving everyone 52, 53 signal reports while I was getting 57, 59 I started to wonder if the S-meter was bad. If I turn the RF Gain all the way down, it would peg at S7 instead of (I think) S9++. I never saw an actual signal above S3 when they were loud and clear. I've seen that it can be calibrated, but I don't have any equipment for that. I tried a factory reset with no improvement. And the attenuator/IPO were both off. I don't even know what would cause this to be off; the audio seemed just fine.

I have the external S-meter LDG makes for the 857, but it is not a true s-meter, it's really just what the radio tells it to do so I expect it'll give me the same values. I'll try it out though.
 
ToddDubya said:
I took the aforementioned rig out today and played mostly POTA all afternoon. The screen is good enough for what I needed. Only a few times I was unsure of the frequency and it was as easy as down 1KHz to get a more readable number, and back up.

After about an hour or more of giving everyone 52, 53 signal reports while I was getting 57, 59 I started to wonder if the S-meter was bad. If I turn the RF Gain all the way down, it would peg at S7 instead of (I think) S9++. I never saw an actual signal above S3 when they were loud and clear. I've seen that it can be calibrated, but I don't have any equipment for that. I tried a factory reset with no improvement. And the attenuator/IPO were both off. I don't even know what would cause this to be off; the audio seemed just fine.

I have the external S-meter LDG makes for the 857, but it is not a true s-meter, it's really just what the radio tells it to do so I expect it'll give me the same values. I'll try it out though.
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Come on dude you should be able to buy a used HP/Agilent 8935 for about $1200-$1500 to calibrate that $100 used radio's meter.




🐯
 
CatSnoutSoup said:
Come on dude you should be able to buy a used HP/Agilent 8935 for about $1200-$1500 to calibrate that $100 used radio's meter.




🐯
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There's a 0% chance I haven't considered that. I'd really like an o-scope first. This winter I might pull that off. It's not the cost but the hoarderness of my house that's holding me back.
 
ToddDubya said:
I'd really like an o-scope first.
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I have had a Rigol 1052E for about 10 years, it has worked pretty well on the random occasions I use it for something.

It was from their budget line at the time, not so much an endorsement as just saying I believe this 1054Z would be the equivalent today...

www.amazon.com/Rigol-DS1054Z-Digital-Oscilloscopes-Bandwidth/dp/B012938E76/

oqa2Z0Uh.png



If I was buying today and still wanted to stick with a four channel I might also look at the Siglent brand's offerings and expect to pay a little more.


🐯
 
I have to imagine not too long ago something with the capability these scopes have would set you back four to five figures, and now they're a few hundred bucks.
 
CatSnoutSoup said:
Today I received an aftermarket replacement battery for the one on my Yaesu FT-1DR. Physically pretty much an exact copy for the original SBR-14Li which still works but is getting old and I a wanted a spare
.
We will see how it works out, but reviews were positive. Paid $36 and hopefully it is a good deal because an OEM replacement costs $80.

Also fits FT-2DR, FT-3DR, VX-8DR.

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RV274F4/


🐯
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