NØHIO

put my Kenwood TS-B2000 up for sale on eBay.  Finally decided I didn’t like not having a knob to twirl during contests, and at 500 bucks for the optional face for it, I am just going back to my 857D.  Same power, less bells and whistles but for my level of contesting right now, I’m okay with that.  Maybe in a few years I’ll get another big rig.

For Sale — 1 Kenwood TS-B2000

Threw together a random wire (can one truly throw together a random wire?).  Had some bare 26 gauge wire that I had picked up at Dayton 2008, so I put it out the window, up to the porch, out over the garage, over the pine tree, and down to the creek.  I’ll have to do a better ground splice for it when I get that far.

Results:  it tunes 6,  12, 15, 17, 20, 30, 40, 75/80, and 160 — for some reason it won’t tune 10 and I didn’t try 60

Got a number of birdies here and there, but the code practice from W1AW was mostly legible on 14.075.  Did pick up a few SSTV images on that test too but they were a bit scratchy looking.

KDØBMW and I went to MARC Field Day site over the weekend.  KDØBMW worked at the SSB station while I worked at the RTTY station.  Both of us made between 30 and 40 contacts each during the few hours that we had the station.  RTTY seemed to dry up on 20m and 40m early, and we didn’t move down to 75/80m due to both the CW op and I were just tired out.  ‘BMW worked SSB on Sunday and had a nice run going on 20m right up to the end of our time.  KØTER, I and a few others started talking about running 3A next year.  This year we were NXØG 2A CO.  Overall, we made 528 contacts if I add it up right.

Mountain Amateur Radio Club will be hosting their annual CampFest on August 28-30th in Lake George Colorado.  There is no drawing this year and no VE sessions, but it is free for camping, free for vendor tailgating, and will host a potluck dinner on Saturday night.

Link to the event website MARC CampFest 2009

Spent a few hours today playing radio for the VHF QSO Party.  I was quite pleased with how my basic setup went, getting me all the way out to EM85 and up to CM/CO land.  Total of 24 contacts, 22 on 6, and 2 on 2m. Had quite the fun running up and down the stairs to use my armstrong rotator.  Picture below is the antenna “array” used.  Had to take a break at one point for a thunderstorm with some good hail, after that band was not nearly the same and only picked up a few contacts.

Good Morning folks,

stations heard at 145.825:
W9ABA,N0AN-6,WA6YET,N0HIO,KC4ZPL-3,W4AEJ,
No two way QSO again today.  Missed the first part of the window with rebooting the PC.

Stations heard:
N0HIO,KE7ORC,W2CO,RS0ISS-4,N6PAA,AB8JL-14,W9ABA,

Got two pings in on this pass, not to bad.  Still no two way contacts.

Going to try to switch over to the Kenwood off the Alinco and see if I can get that working since KDØBMW was talking about us putting a radio in her car again, and that means the Alinco.

Good Afternoon everyone or I at least like to pretend that someone else is reading this mess.  Since I haven’t done one of these in a couple weeks I’ll do a round up.

HamCon Colorado:  An absolute blast.  Got to meet a couple of my fellow ham-tweeters; kdØbik, and kØrcw.  Caught up with a number of other folks, went to seminars on Flex Radio, meteor scatter (going to have to get a new 2m antenna for that), operating remotely over the internet, and a few ARRL forums.  Won a new 5 band Cushcraft antenna that I will be trying out shortly.

Back to the ISS: since it was too windy this weekend to put up that new antenna I decided to go back to an old joy.. bouncing APRS packets off the ISS.  Had two successful pings, but no good qso’s.  Will have to remember how to do this better so I can start working some of the other birds.

New mic for the truck: I bought the MH-59A8J mic for my 857D, boy that thing is complicated.  Wanted to move the radio to a better spot so I don’t keep hitting the buttons with drink containers.  Quickly I can get it done, and then I can put it in a more permanent form but won’t be as easy to take out when camping .. oh dear I may need “another” radio for camping .. lol .. hmm.. that 817 still looks really good to me.

stations heard
RS0ISS-4,W6MSU,WA6LIE-3,WA6LIE-4,N0HIO,WA6LIE,N0AN-6,WA6YET,KI4WRM,K5VAS,W9ABA,W0DED,KG6NUB-7,AB0PO-3,N8XYR,

This pass I got another packet bounced, and sent messages out to a couple folks, but no good replies in.  I’ll keep trying, since its too windy today to put out the new HF antenna and I want to play radio so I came back to ISS.

Stations heard:
W0JPH,N0AN-6,N0HIO,VE3TZS,W9ABA,RS0ISS-11,