K9OZ ham radio blog

I was having problems with high SWR (standing wave ratio) on my ATAS 120 mobile antenna. My guess was the feedline, which was the standard tiny coax that comes with a Comet or Diamond trunk lip mount. I ordered the Coment 3D4M coax cable assemly, which has 13 feet of RG58 coax. All of a sudden my SWR on the ATAS goes down to 1:1 on 40 meters and some random RF problems are solved. Lesson -- use real coax on HF mobile, not the miniature type that's designed to go through a gap easily, but may be so-so on transmitting and sheilding RF.

I made it to the Dayton Hamvention and back last weekend. The highlight for me was the contest forum on Saturday morning. I just stumbled into it, but had a great time and learned some things. I seemed more at homewith the contesters than most of the groups I was involved with at Dayton. Most contesters are CW ops, that's part of it. My big Dayton purchase was a Stationmaster controller from Microham. It's purpose is to interface between the K3 and the PW-1 amp. I got it up and running, but it's been buggy so far, and seems to go into error mode every now and then. I'll keep messing with it, but so far I'm regretting my purchase. It added a lot of complextity to the station, just so I wouldn't have to push a button on the amp and the SteppIR vertical controller when I changed bands. I saw that at good insurance for the amp, but so far, I'm not sold. More on that later.

I'll be in Dayton one week from tonight. Any followers or tweeters going to be there. Let's do a meet-up.

This weekend I was able to run two large QSO parties at the same time -- the New England QSO party which covers the New England states, and the 7th Area QSO party, with all the 7th call district -- Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. I had tried doing it in the past, but found logging a probem. You really need two separate log programs open. With the new setup with the K3 and LPBridge, I'm able to run two logging programs at once. Saturday night I was running the 7QSO party on WinEQF and the NEQSO party on N1MM logger. Both were up on the screen, so switching between the two was simple. I don't have exact numbers, but I did around 70 contacts in the 7QP and 40 in NEQP. I just didn't hear enough New England stations. On another note, I got my 80-meter dipole back up in the top of a tree where it belongs. It's now at 40 feet, rather than sloping from 40 to 10 feet.

Last week I had the Icom 7000 in the Mini Cooper, but was running the power for the radio from an accessory jack in the boot (trunk.)  That worked, but we all know that's not the best way to do it in the long term. Sunday morning I was on a Mini Cooper web site   and did a search for running power lines through the firewall. It turns out it was incredibly simple, with Mini leaving a space to do exactly that, and right next to the battery. So I now have a fused power line running direct from the battery to the radio in the boot. This solved a couple of issues, and I can now crank the power up to 100 watts without fear. Of course, I had to drive around a make a couple contacts. I am impressed with the 7000 as a mobile radio and am getting the hang of going to the right menu on the fly. I'm happy, and ready for the road trip to Dayton next month.

First contact with the new mobile this evening while coming home from Rockford. N4YG, Joe, in Huntsville, AL. We both had good signals, so I think the new setup is working. I got the MFJ remote antenna controller and it works. You push the button to raise or lower the antenna for best SWR. Yes, I can't change bands while driving down the road like I could with the Yaesu radio, but the Icom IC 7000 is a much nicer radio. More on that as I spend more time on the air. Listen for K9OZ/m around 7030 mornings and late afternoons.

Now I'm a true ham, with three antennas on the Mini.

I spent most of Saturday getting the Icom IC 7000 installed in the Mini Cooper. It was a trick, but it's in and seems to be working fine. I'm running the Yaesu ATAS 120A antenna, and have a gizmo on order that will allow me to tune the antenna manually. For right now, it's tuned to 40 meter cw and that's where it will be this week. I had picked up a neat little paddle at Dayton a couple years ago, and hadn't had a chance to really use it. I screwed it to the top of the Cooper's ashtray, and it should work great there. The position is perfect. I'd like to have the control head higher -- closer to line of sight, but for right now its sitting next to the shift lever. Not great, but doable. If you really want to mess with the radio, pull off the road.

A few years ago I was visiting my uncle Merrit, WA0HFH and we went down in his shack and started going through his old QSL cards. I was amazed he had one from me, that I had sent him shortly after getting my license. It's not often you find something you wrote and sent as a 12-year-old. This was sent in late October 1965, and I got my license in August. So I think, from reading the message, I had just gotten these fancy printed QSL cards, and was proud to send him one. During my novice days, I carried out a schedule with my uncle nearly every Saturday afternoon, chugging away at low-speed CW. At the time I didn't think much of it, but looking back now I realize the time he put in to help a nephew get on the air. My novice station was a Globe HG 303 transmitter and a Heath HR-10 receiver. My dad and I had built the receiver from a kit -- a weeks-long endeavor that I'm sure was a chore for my dad, but again, he willingly put in the time to help.

I was talking about getting active mobile again, that's opertating cw HF from the car by my definition. I put the ATAS 120 back on the Chevy Equinox, and unfortunately, it seems to have died. I've run the Yaesu FT-857/ATAS 120 combo for a quite a few years and really like it, but the antennas don't seem to last that long. This is my second one that has died, so I don't think I'll buy a third. So I'm at a quandry -- what do I use for an antenna. I ran Hamsticks for years, and may go back to that. They are simple, cheap, and you don't feel bad when a $18 antenna fails. I'm also debating what radio and what car to do this in. I spend most of my road time in a Mini Cooper, but I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to shoehorn a HF rig into that car last weekend, an didn't come up with a solution. I presently have a Yaesu FTM-10 in the Mini, which is perfect for a limited-space installation of a 2 meter/440 radio. The microphone and speaker are hou...