Tag: Miscellaneous

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SignaLinkUSBEver since my friend Fred, PA3YH has got his Signalink, I’m thinking about getting one too. I never participate in any digital modus simply because I have never been able to get the setup right. This Signalink is pretty much a plug and play device and it looks nice too. But hey, it’s a whopping 150 euro’s (with cable and delivery costs). So I’d not feel the urge that much to be in digital modus 😉

But the other day as I was over at Fred’s place and was toying around with Ham Radio Deluxe and his Icom-Signalink integration, it pushed me over the edge. I need to get this! But still there was the money thing. So I put out a Google Alert on Signalink USB. This morning it went off. On Marktplaats (the local eBay) someone offered a Signalink USB. A reasonable price, only it had the wrong cable (Yeasu FT-817). Since my Yeasu still is broken, I need a Kenwood cable for my TS-850. But nevermind, I bought the Signalink. Fred called me to congratulate me with my new toy. He offered me to buy me a Kenwood cable and trade it for my Yeasu cable. That is a nice deal! You see, that’s what friends are for 🙂

First run with the new Signalink where pretty disappointing. I’ve got a lot of RFI in the shack, mainly because the shack is practically near the end fed wire antenna. The Signalink only makes it worse. I really need to make a good earth to be able to feed away all the nasty stuff. I think that is gonna be the next bg thing. Or will it be the Cobwebb? 🙂

Anyway, the Signalink performed very well as voicekeyer interface between the transceiver and N1MM-logger. I’ve used it constant to give CQ’s. Only need to get rid of the RFI in the shack so I can use it at home too.

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PACCWhow, PACC 2010 was a awesome experience! 12:00 UTC I went off for as much as qso’s as possible in 24 hours at the club. My strategy was to work the high bands early and slowly go down towards 80 and 160. I went into the night with 233 qso’s and stuck on 80 meters. Then the really hard time was there. Along the night I only made 50 qso’s on 80 and 160 meter.
It was a pretty cool experience to witness the 20 meter band opening up in the morning. First I could work all Dutch stations and a half hour later I worked the whole world again.

The HF beam (10, 15 and 20) was working great. Only on 15 I had a little feedback when I pointed it towards east. The 80m and 40m open dipole wires also worked great! I’m convinced that we have to have more mono band dipoles with bandfilters, so we will be able to work contests with more people with the club call.

Score for this PACC: 435 qso’s, 50.025 claimed points.
Very exciting about my first pileup, my first pileup hijack, first 24 hour nonstop contest and so on. I think I’m officially Rookie off 😉

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A while ago (somewere end 2008) I started practicing morsecode. Every day I practiced for about half an hour and ones a week I joined my fellow HAM’s on the air and practice with a teacher. For many weeks that kind of worked. But then the teacher had a major lightning strike in his antenna and many of his stuff was blown to pieces. From then on I told myself I would practice every night except the weekends.
Of course that wasn’t the case. In the meantime I picked up a very nice morse training program pointed out by G4ILO.
Some nights I was able to put myself behind the computer for a minute or 10/15 and train a little. But it was not enough to catch the drift. Last weekend I’ve got a new idea for a good training moment!
Every day I have to travel 1,5 hours to work and back. Because I have to travel in rush hours and in the busiest area in the Netherlands, I travel by train. That gives me 3 hours per day to kill some time. Mostly I spend it reading, listening podcastst or just sleeping. But it would be the perfect moment to practice morse code!
So I called a friend who owns a unused netbook and asked him if I could use it for a few months. No problem, he answered. I picked it up last night and this morning I’ve practice morse code for about 45 minutes! Maybe this evening when I travel home, more training minutes will be added. I hope this will lead to a much faster progress.