Contacts from the Dominican Republic

Below I have my log from the Dominican Republic.  A few noteworthy contacts highlighted in yellow.  The first contact was actually on 30 meters,  My guess is that the 20 meter EFHW and the counterpoise got close to half wave on 30. 

AE7KI's was a famiiar voice. Terry transmits from Tennessee but his voice is from down under.  I recognized him before I heard the callsign.  

F6HKA was a familiar call.  I checked -- he was a Straight Key Night contact from one year ago.  Great to meet up with Bert again. 

The Aeronautical Mobile contact was icing on the cake.  More on this tomorrow...

Thanks to all who contacted me or tried. 


In the Dominican Republic 30 December 2019 – 11 Jan 2020

4Jan2020 

30 meter CW HK1ANP Fred.  I was in Bavaro.  30 meters on an 20 meter EFHW!

All subsequent DR contacts on 20 meters from Samana near Las Galeras

6Jan2020

0922 CW EW1I Alex in Belarus.

0959 SSB KG4ZEC. A net on 14.300

1657 CW KB3WAV Md

1701 SSB AE7KI Terry – old friend from Tennessee and Australia.

7 Jan 2020

0917 CW F6HKA Bert near Limoges 14.050 SKCC 60693

1500 CW KN4ZQ Dave in Palmyra Va. Me 599

1523 NO CONTACT but close,  CW KC2OHL

1800 CW KC5F Steve – he answered my  CQ   NC SKCC 21092T

8 Jan

CW N3JB John in Va. Me 599

CW W9YXX Bob in Ind. Me 569

1749 CW W8TK Tom in Tuscon Az.

9 Jan

0700 SSB KX4WC/AM Me 57 767 170 miles NW of San Juan

0840 SSB KI5PZE Miguel, Lake City Fla. In Spanish.

0908 SSB W1FDY Jack in SE Va. Me 58 

The point of the Pen shows where we were in Samana. Bavaro is on the Eastern tip if the island.

N2CQR Portable with uBITX in the Dominican Republic (video)

More to follow... 

KK4DAS Michigan Mighty Mite Heard by WEB SDRs -- CBLA Mobilized!

Dean KK4DAS continues to do great things with his Michigan Mighty Mite.  He has been calling CQ on the Color Burst Liberation Army (CBLA) frequency of 3579 kHz.  I think I was the first one to hear him, but since that memorable moment he has been picked up by multiple Web SDR receivers, including the one at Penn State (PETE JULIANO'S ALMA MATER!)  (screen shot above, listen by clicking URL below).  He has also been heard by Web SDRs in Concord Mass,  Newport News Va, and Cleveland, Ohio.  FB Dean.  

So come on folks -- this is a mobilization call for the CBLA!  Get those MMMs on the air.  Send us reports and recordings from Web SDRs or the RBN. 

Listen to Dean's MMM as received at the Penn State Web SDR: 

http://soldersmoke.com/KK4DAS MMM.wav

It sounds great!  And nice CW Dean!  

Santa Came to SolderSmoke! From Australia!

Oh wow!  Santa Claus made a really long distance DX trip to SolderSmoke's East Coast HQ last night.   His chief Elf this time was Peter VK2EMU who crafted the AMAZING Morse key you see in these pictures.  This is truly a work of art.  I will indeed put it on the air with a homebrew transmitter.  And we will keep on soldersmoking.  

Thanks very much Peter.  This was really great.  

Merry Christmas to all!  

Dean KK4DAS Puts Michigan Mighty Mite on the air! And is heard in Falls Church, Virginia! (video)

QRZ.com says we are 5.9 miles away.   The U.S. Postal Service almost prevented this from happening -- they objected to my just putting the crystal in an envelope and mailing it.  Dean's wife had to pay postage due.   

The rig didn't work at first, but Pete N6QW provided sage advice and tribal knowledge.  Adjustments were made and Dean experienced the Joy of Oscillation.  Then, he connected an antenna and was heard at the SolderSmoke East Coast HQ. 

Obviously the beret was the key to Dean's success: 

This was a lot of fun.   And it is a reminder of the power of the MMM.   Dust off those Mighty Mites!  Call CQ and see if you can be picked up by the Reverse Beacon Network.  Let us know if you succeed.   

Getting ready

Done!  Dean's MMM

SolderSmoke Podcast #216 Is Available: BITXs, Paesano, Paraset, ET2, Antuino, Mailbag

Bill's uBITX with HB keys and the mic that used to be the podcast mic! 

SolderSmoke Podcast #216 is available 

21 December 2019

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL! 

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke216.mp3

Pete's Bench 

Sprat Article

BITX 40 Fun

ZL2BMI Rig

Paraset.   Three tubes!  Almost an ET-3!

Bill's Bench

ET-2 Adventure over,  Rig on the wall

Final QSO count. 20   3 "random" 

Last QSO with AA8OZ

Lessons learned:  100 mW not the problem. Crystal Control cramps your style. 

N0WVA regen amazingly effective.

Tried for the Sunrise Net.  Walter sent me some crystals.  

On to the uBITX. 

Accidentally wiped out calibration and BFO settings. 

Had to do recalibration and reset BFO. 

Learned a lot about the rig. 

How they did CW and how they do it now. Shift TX?  Or shift RX?  Or just shift BFO on RX? 

How all the signals end up as upper sideband.  Only one BFO freq.  Very cool. 

TalentCell 12 V Lithium Ion 3 AmpHour battery. Size of a deck of cards. 

Inspired by Peregrino -- I ordered EFHW Tuner from QRP Guys. 

Homebrew Straight Keys

Antuino upgrade 

SMT soldering. 

Back to Arduino Nano and the IDE.  

A very cool tool. 

Antuino filter analysis.

Version 6 of uBITX out. 

The "Watt Meter" DC power meter.  Very useful.  8 bucks.  LINK:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-DC-combo-Meter-LCD-Watt-Power-Volt-Amp-RC-Battery-charging-Analyzer-M/152339793114?fbclid=IwAR0u9SlZi2Dm6zOJyZt4fDTu7w_pjBIEYD_FiNfLymxtQUbMjcNHjfB17P0

SPRAT, balloons and hardcore homebrew hydrogen. 

MAILBAG

VK3HN's AM receiver.  I ordered 6kHz 455 kHz filters from Australia. 

Dean's MMM

Peter VK2EMU   Hertz not hertz. 

Ben KC9DLM LTSpice YouTube Videos

Steve Silverman  Electroluminescent Receiver Kit

Lyndon N0LFX back to listening.  FB OM

Steve M0KOV built a pill bottle variometer.  Did you get the regen going? 

Anthony VU3JVX   FB HB uBitx.  

Allison KB1GMX  Great to hear from her

Leif WB9IWT -- helped me trouble shoot my uBITX (BFO was low)

Mike EI0CL  old buddy from Azores days.  Recognized his voice on 20.  Great QSO.  

YouTube LTSpice Tutorials

For those who want to get started in circuit simulation, or to improve your use of the LTSpice program:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT84nve2j1g_wgGcm0Bv3K4RSl2Jdjsey

And this one for the inductor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65fNDRows90&feature=youtu.be

Thanks to Ben  KC9DLM for alerting us to this.

Hangin' it up (the ET-2)

My ET-2 minimalist QRP CW adventure is (for now) officially over.   I have taken the rig - festooned with the callsigns of all the stations I contacted -- and have put it up on the wall.  This may be a new form of art.  I think I am the first radio amateur to do this.  I think it is pretty cool. 

Here are the stats:   I made 20 contacts with the rig. I had it on the air from 12 October 2019 to 7 December 2019.    Seventeen of the contacts were the result of my posting pleas for help on the SKCC Sked page and/or the Summit DX page.  Three of the contacts were completely random. One station -- W1PID -- provided four of the contacts.  Thanks Jim. 

My power out was usually around 100 milliwatts.  I used either a 40 meter coax fed dipole or a 135 foot doublet fed with window line. 

My best distances were Wisconsin and Georgia. 

Crystal control was the real limiting factor.  100 milliwatts didn't seem to be much of an impediment. The most amazing thing about this rig is the N0WVA regen receiver.  It took a lot of peaking and tweaking, and it took some skill to operate. but once I got it going it was an amazingly good receiver.  Really Amazing for just ONE J-310 FET. 

The last contact was really nice.  I was calling CQ and AA8OZ came back.  He was in a cabin on a trip with some scouts.  He too was on a wire antenna.  He was one of those guys who said WOW! when I told him about the rig.  We had a nice long conversation on 40.  It was a great way to wrap up the ET-2 adventure. 

Thanks to all who helped me make contacts and for all those who tried to work me. Thanks to N0WVA for the regen inspiration. And thanks to Glen Yingling W2UW (SK) for the ET-1 idea. 

The rig is standing by.  On the wall.  Perhaps it will return to service, maybe during solar max. 

Farhan's New uBITX Version 6!

I'm currently reviving my "version 3" uBITX and putting it on CW.  It sounds and works great, but when I saw this I realized that I am falling behind.    

Farhan wrote: 

Here is what it looks like :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdnXn5oibpg

And of course, yoiu can buy it on hfsignals.com. The shipping will happen from Tuesday onwards. We have a limited supply of the first 200 boards. The rest is for after christmas.

The most important thing about this revision is that the  Radio circuitry is almost unchanged. We have incorporated the connectors on the PCBs. So, this kit needs none of the confusing soldering. You snap in the TFT Raduino onto the main board, plug the power and antenna from the back, snap on headphones, plug in the mic (supplied with the kit) and off you go!

It is offered in two kits now : The basic kit (150 USD) is without the box (like old times) but with a microphone and two acrylic templates for the front and back panels. 

The Full kit (199 USD) has the box with speaker, mounting hardware etc. Both are described on the website. 

Now, about the TFT display: 

For those who are using the 16x2 display and you would like to upgrade, you will have to do three things:

1. Add a heatsink to the 7805 of the raduino

2. Buy https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32815224002.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.3b9548336X8T43 and hook it up as per http://www.hfsignals.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/raduino_tft.pdf

3. Grab the new Arduino sketch from https://github.com/afarhan/ubitxv6

Background : 

I have been hacking away at adding a TFT display for the Arduino for sometime. Finally, I managed to do this with a really inexpensive 2.8 inch TFT display that uses a controller called the ILI9341. The display update is slow but, clever guy that I am, the display very usable. it uses the same pins that earlier connected to the 16x2 LCD display. This display is available everywhere for a few dollars. 

_._,_._,_

Crystals -- Old and New and World War Two

I was watching Greg Charvat's great video about the WWII ARC-5 receiver yesterday. Greg admonished all of us to preserve any WWII gear we might have in our shacks.  Just one day earlier I had found the crystal pictured above in my junk box.   There is some old stuff floating around in here! I will preserve this one. 

Speaking of crystals,  Walter KA4KXX recently sent me some 40 meter crystals for use with my ET-2 transceiver.  Walter suggested that I use them to check into the daily (1300Z) Sunrise Net on 7123 kHz.  These were modern "short" computer crystals.  So I put them into FT-243 and FT-241 holders.  (Don't worry Greg, no WWII gear was destroyed in the process).  It was kind of fun to put the new rocks in old boxes. They work just fine in the ET-2.  Thanks again Walter! 

Finally, Chris KD4PBJ has been helping a buddy of his buy a Drake 2B.   This morning Chris asked about the E Crystal adjustment coil on the back of the Drake.  I told him that was to allow the use of "overtone" crystals.  But, sadly, I advised him not to worry about it too much because the days of ordering bespoke crystals (overtone or otherwise) are behind us.