Took care of that on the way home from work today. After bicycling to and from the market and listening to the usual Tuesday night chat show, I went downstairs, hooked it up and taa-daa! Signals! Copied a little W1AW (on a mill, no less, at 15 wpm -- not well, but that's my sketchy touch-typing). I'm too sleepy to try more than that but hey, I might get back on the air yet this week!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
HAMSHACK PROGRESS
Yesterday, I very carefully made up a replacement DC power cable for my Ten-Tec "Scout" ("Old Reliable," for which I have bandpacks for 160m through 10m for all the normal Pre-WARC bands) . Got down to the shack and remembered the power supply takes an IEC cable for the wall-socket 110 which I also did not have.
Took care of that on the way home from work today. After bicycling to and from the market and listening to the usual Tuesday night chat show, I went downstairs, hooked it up and taa-daa! Signals! Copied a little W1AW (on a mill, no less, at 15 wpm -- not well, but that's my sketchy touch-typing). I'm too sleepy to try more than that but hey, I might get back on the air yet this week!
Took care of that on the way home from work today. After bicycling to and from the market and listening to the usual Tuesday night chat show, I went downstairs, hooked it up and taa-daa! Signals! Copied a little W1AW (on a mill, no less, at 15 wpm -- not well, but that's my sketchy touch-typing). I'm too sleepy to try more than that but hey, I might get back on the air yet this week!
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I listened to W1AW at 7047.50 Tuesday night for half an hour. I'm so rusty! Their signal was just slamming the meter; very strong. Some of those CW stations are so fast it sounds like digital modes.
ReplyDeleteI got licensed after they dropped the code requirement, but I'm seriously considering tackling it after I get my CCNA Security Cert out of the way. I want a Rockmite in the worst way. I adore small radios that can be operated far away from society on very little power.
ReplyDeleteA few years back, I was able to spend a couple of Dayton Hamventions wandering around with QRP luminary Ade Weiss, possibly one of the nicest guys I've met (especially for a college professor!). He liked the tiniest Elecraft rigs (among others), about 2" cubes.
ReplyDeleteAde can coax terrific performance out of any rig -- he dropped by my work on his way home and tuned around on the mammoth SX-28A receiver I keep there, pulling signals out of the noise where I didn't even realize there were signals!
His advice on tiny, flea-power rigs: persistance and picking your moment; it is better to answer calls than to originate them. Best of all is to find someone already working low power stations and wait for him to call.
Bit about Ade Weiss and QRP ARCI and The Milliwatt at QRP ARCI Website.
ReplyDeleteHeh, glad you mentioned QRP ARCI, I forgot my membership expired this Spring. I was wondering when my next magazine was going to arrive. :D
ReplyDeleteAnswering calls rather than calling CQ is my strategy already.