Reminder- TechConnect Meeting. April 6, 2024 at 10 AM
Hi Everyone.
The next 285 TechConnect Radio Club meeting will be held on Saturday,
March 2nd at 10AM, at the Bridge Church at Bear Creek, just North of Hwy 285
& Kipling. We have coffee & doughnuts at 9:30 so come early for the best
seats.
This months topic is:
Winlink presentation with peer to peer demonstration live over Zoom.
Jon Budoff (KF?ABR), Art Bullock (N?AIU)
The meeting is in the 2nd floor conference room at the Church, near Hwy 285
and Kipling. The door code is 28582#. Someone should be monitoring 146.520
if anyone has trouble getting in. See the club website for complete
directions to the church:
Please park on the West side and enter through the West-side door.
Stairs will be on your right, and an elevator is available.
Take care,
Tony Montoya K0mcw
Program Coordinator
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He was a legend and what a loss for the amateur radio and commercial audio industries. And a heckuva ?nice guy too. RIP Bob Heil! -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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The man who defined the sound of live rock ¡®n¡¯ roll music and brought audio engineering principals into mainstream amateur radio use, Dr. Bob Heil, K9EID, has passed away at the age of 83. He was an ARRL Life Member and in the ARRL Maxim Society. A Facebook post from Heil Ham Radio paid tribute to their founder: ¡°Bob fought a valiant, yearlong battle with cancer, and passed peacefully surrounded by his family.¡±
Heil founded Heil Sound in 1966, through which he created the template for modern concert sound systems for musicians like the Grateful Dead, The Who, Joe Walsh, and Peter Frampton. The talk box used on iconic live record Frampton Comes Alive! was of Heil¡¯s design. His audio engineering products have been featured in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and he was honored in 2007 with the Parnelli Audio Innovator Award for his impact on the live sound industry. ¡°My life has been about achieving great sound, whether on the concert stage or in the amateur radio world,¡± Bob Heil . ¡°I¡¯ve watched Heil Sound go from a regional sound company to a world-class microphone manufacturer. This company has been my passion,¡± he said.
I really enjoyed watching Bob on the Ham Nation show, especially the Pine Board Radio project.
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Reminder- TechConnect Meeting. March 2, 2024 at 10 AM
Hi Everyone.
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The next 285 TechConnect Radio Club meeting will be held on Saturday, March 2nd
at 10AM, at the Bridge Church at Bear Creek, just North of Hwy 285 & Kipling.
We have coffee & doughnuts at 9:30.
This months topic is:
Allen Bishop k0ark. BCARES VOIP system
The meeting is in the 2nd floor conference room at the Church, near Hwy 285 and Kipling. The door code is 28582#. Someone should be monitoring 146.520
if anyone has trouble getting in. Please see the club website for complete
directions to the church:
Please park on the West side and enter through the West-side door. Stairs
will be on your right, and an elevator is available.
--
Tony Montoya K0mcw
Program Coordinator
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Followup on Miady 8AH battery - it's BAD?
Just picked up a new toy:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HB3XK7L/ - MakerHawk adjustable load tester
For a look at that tester, K8MRD has a vid on it:
Not as nice as the West Mtn. Radio unit, but a lot cheaper. :)
Anyway...
I put the Miady 8AH battery box to the test this morning? - still running, but I'm already pretty shocked.
I charged the unit up using the BioEnno wallwart charger, so it's as close to full charge as it's likely to get. Measured VDC at the terminals was 13.2, so a little above the nominal voltage for the unit, 12.8. I have appx 0.3VDC drop with the various connectors inside the box, so I'm measuring not only using the tester, but the Fluke meter at the battery terminals.
First thing I noticed is a voltage drop under load. I would expect a little, but for a full charge to go below the nominal for 1A was surprising.
Even more surprising? 0.5AH from full charge to when the BMS shut the battery off.
I will do more testing. Next thing is going to be charging it with the solar setup, and checking amperage during discharge, to see if the tester is correct. I don't expect to see much with this, since the total time of the load test was about 28 minutes.
Update: Solar charge took 0.37ah until the BMS apparently stopped accepting input, i.e. charge current dropped to 0A. Seeing whether the wall-wart will top it off a bit more.
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Re: RMHAM SwapFest - Sunday Feb 18
Hey all, The SwapFest was a lot of fun yesterday. As usual, it was very well attended; I'd guess maybe 500 people, possibly a lot more than that.? Thanks to Jed we had a club table and this time it was situation in a great location, on the main drag on the way to the refreshment stand, so we had a lot of people stopping by. Corey N5YCO and I had a second table situated next to the club table so that we could unload some extra stuff, and we did a brisk business there as well. I also scored a nice Dewalt reciprocating saw for $10! Now I just need to find something that needs cutting.... :-) We were well represented at the show, with at least 20 club members in attendance. RMHAM also gave away some great prizes, including ARRL prize coupons (I got a $25 coupon and Corey got $50) and John WB4HZA won a super nice Heil microphone! They also gave away some nice HTs.? Thanks to RMHAM for hosting another great SwapFest and I hope to see everyone at our club meeting on March 2nd! -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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RMHAM SwapFest - Sunday Feb 18
A reminder that RMHAM will be holding another of their cool this Sunday at the Adams County Fairgrounds in Brighton. We will have a club table and Corey KC5YCO and I will also have a table where we will be hocking some of our extra radio equipment and computer stuff. And if you'd like to get licensed or upgrade your existing license, the Mile High V.E. Team will also be there doing testing. I hope to see you there!  -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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The first ham radio station on the moon!
In case you haven't seen this..there is a Japanese amateur radio station transmitting from the moon for a limited time. According to an article on the : " The JAXA Ham Radio Club (JHRC), JQ1ZVI, secured amateur radio license JS1YMG for LEV-1, which has been transmitting Morse code on 437.41 MHz since January 19. The probe uses a 1 W UHF antenna with circular polarization and is transmitting "matters related to amateur business."
They're not entirely sure how long the station will be able to transmit as it wasn't designed to survive the 14-day lunar night, but for those of you with a high gain directional UHF antenna, it might be fun to see if you can hear the station. There is also a blog from Daniel Estevez on decoding the signal which is was above my skill level, but it makes for an interesting read:? 73, Mark -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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Re: NA0TC Presentation on February 3, 2024
Too funny! ?I actually made contact with Mark Ehr. ?But I am interested in hearing how others use tools like PSK Reporter to improve enhance their operations.?
Tony
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On Feb 1, 2024, at 8:43 PM, Mark Edwards | W0QL <mark5293@...> wrote:
?
Tony,
What time did you look? ?Notice that some of those might have been for my WSPR station cause it runs 24/7 and WSPR shows up on PSKreporter, too. ?On 10, ?I¡¯m typically active on FT8 around 7 am because that¡¯s when the more exotic stuff comes in. This morning
I worked Moldova, Cyprus, Saba & St. Eustaceous. ?I tried to work Morocco but he never came back. ?So look at the spots between 7 and 8 am for FT8. ?I also work a lot of 12 m these days, same hours. ?My little WSPR station is only 200 milliwatts to a trap
vertical. ?It doesn¡¯t get too many reports on PSKreporter, but it does get a few.?
On PSKreporter one of the methods I use came from CT1BOH. ?I change ¡°callsign¡± to ¡°grid square¡± and put in DM79. ?That shows me where all the hams in northern Colorado are working in the last 15 minutes. ?Very helpful in knowing what band and what direction
and up to the minute in just our little corner of the world. ?I¡¯m looking forward to your presentation. ? See you Saturday!
73,
Mark - W0QL
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One thing is certain: ?The future is uncertain.
On Feb 1, 2024, at 6:33 PM, Anthony Montoya | K0MCW <ahmontoya@...> wrote:
?
Mark,
?
I was working on my presentation for Saturday¡¯s meeting and was playing with PSK Reporter.? I plan to demo it as part of the presentation.? Using PSK Reporter, I noticed that you were on 10m FT8, but not real active.? I called out on WSJT-X
and we made a QSO.? Just another cool use for PSK Reporter.? I¡¯ll share a few more as part of the presentation.
?
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the meeting.
?
Tony Montoya ¨C k0mcw
Tech Connect Radio Club Program Coordinator
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Re: NA0TC Presentation on February 3, 2024
Tony,
What time did you look? ?Notice that some of those might have been for my WSPR station cause it runs 24/7 and WSPR shows up on PSKreporter, too. ?On 10, ?I¡¯m typically active on FT8 around 7 am because that¡¯s when the more exotic stuff comes in. This morning
I worked Moldova, Cyprus, Saba & St. Eustaceous. ?I tried to work Morocco but he never came back. ?So look at the spots between 7 and 8 am for FT8. ?I also work a lot of 12 m these days, same hours. ?My little WSPR station is only 200 milliwatts to a trap
vertical. ?It doesn¡¯t get too many reports on PSKreporter, but it does get a few.?
On PSKreporter one of the methods I use came from CT1BOH. ?I change ¡°callsign¡± to ¡°grid square¡± and put in DM79. ?That shows me where all the hams in northern Colorado are working in the last 15 minutes. ?Very helpful in knowing what band and what direction
and up to the minute in just our little corner of the world. ?I¡¯m looking forward to your presentation. ? See you Saturday!
73,
Mark - W0QL
--------------------------------------------------------
One thing is certain: ?The future is uncertain.
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Show quoted text
On Feb 1, 2024, at 6:33 PM, Anthony Montoya | K0MCW <ahmontoya@...> wrote:
?
Mark,
?
I was working on my presentation for Saturday¡¯s meeting and was playing with PSK Reporter.? I plan to demo it as part of the presentation.? Using PSK Reporter, I noticed that you were on 10m FT8, but not real active.? I called out on WSJT-X
and we made a QSO.? Just another cool use for PSK Reporter.? I¡¯ll share a few more as part of the presentation.
?
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the meeting.
?
Tony Montoya ¨C k0mcw
Tech Connect Radio Club Program Coordinator
|
NA0TC Presentation on February 3, 2024
Mark, ? I was working on my presentation for Saturday¡¯s meeting and was playing with PSK Reporter.? I plan to demo it as part of the presentation.? Using PSK Reporter, I noticed that you were on 10m FT8, but not real active.? I called out on WSJT-X and we made a QSO.? Just another cool use for PSK Reporter.? I¡¯ll share a few more as part of the presentation. ? Looking forward to seeing everyone at the meeting. ? Tony Montoya ¨C k0mcw Tech Connect Radio Club Program Coordinator
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Flex Radio SmartSDR for Mac
Hi all, As many of you know, the club has an awesome remote station located out in Strasburg CO, powered by a Flex 6400 radio and a fan dipole which has coverage of several HF bands including 10/15/20/40 meters. Yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and invest $99 in the MacOS version of the Flex Radio SmartSDR software; I just posted a blog on the topic if you'd like to check it out:? In the meantime, if you're an active NA0TC club member and would like to give the remote station a try, drop me a note and I'll connect you with Mark Edwards (W0QL), our remote station guru. 73. Mark -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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Re: Building a dummy load for less than $5
yikes--like a virus! The gift that keeps on giving... :-) -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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Re: Building a dummy load for less than $5
I have owned both the original Heathkit and later MFJ versions. I didn't own the Heathkit long enough to observe the problems, but if I remember correctly both units are essentially the?same design. What was really annoying?about the wicking problem is that once the connector on the dummy load got saturated with oil, that oil would then contaminate any PL259 connector that I plugged into it.
Bill N0CU
On Fri, Jan 26, 2024 at 12:20?PM Mark Ehr | K0EHR < mark@...> wrote: Thanks Bill--good to know. Hopefully I won't have the problem with oil getting too hot since I'm not likely to be pushing more than 600 watts through it. And we'll see about the wicking issue...I'll definitely have to keep an eye on that. I wonder if the MFJ version is any better in that regard.
73,
Mark
--
---------------------
Mark Ehr | K0EHR
President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club
Littleton, Colorado
k0ehr@...
Check out my ham radio blog:
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Re: Building a dummy load for less than $5
Thanks Bill--good to know. Hopefully I won't have the problem with oil getting too hot since I'm not likely to be pushing more than 600 watts through it. And we'll see about the wicking issue...I'll definitely have to keep an eye on that. I wonder if the MFJ version is any better in that regard. 73, Mark -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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Re: Building a dummy load for less than $5
Mark, FYI. The old "Cantennas" are a cost effective way to dissipate 1 KW+ for short periods of time. However, I eventually sold miine because the mess created by the oil got to be more of a hassle than it was worth. If the oil gets too hot it will come out through the vent hole. Also, over time the oil will wick up into the PL259 connector and create an intermittent connection. Before I sold mine, I tried placing it in an old plastic paint bucket. That helped confine the mess, but didn't help with the intermittent connector. Bill N0CU
On Fri, Jan 26, 2024 at 11:16?AM Mark Ehr | K0EHR < mark@...> wrote: Cool article in Nuts and Volts mag about building a dummy load for under $5:? Not quite as convenient as some of the commercial units but....it works! Speaking of which, I recently picked up the for $129; virtually identical to the old HeathKit "Cantennas". It works great for helping me tune up my new (to me) Ameritron AL-811H amplifier. Funny, when I first got my ticket, I wondered why anyone would need a dummy load when you can just put the load into an antenna. I certainly understand why now--especially when you're trying to tune things at QRO power levels and need a constant 50-ohm load.? I looked at some of the other "dry" dummy loads but their derating curves were disappointing. Like a minute or less at QRO load levels. Here's the derating curve for the oil-based dummy load...so at my amps maximum output (800 watts) I can run it for about 12 minutes. Much better!  73, Mark -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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Reminder- TechConnect Meeting. February 3, 2024 at 10 AM
?Hi Everyone.
The next 285 TechConnect Radio Club meeting will be held on Saturday, February 3rd at 10AM, at the Bridge Church at Bear Creek, just North of Hwy 285 & Kipling.
We have coffee & doughnuts at 9:30.
This months topic is:
Radio wave propagation for FT8 with hints and tips. - Tony Montoya (K0mcw)
The meeting is in the 2nd floor conference room at the Church, near Hwy 285 and Kipling. The door code is 28582#. Someone should be monitoring 146.520
if anyone has trouble getting in. Please see the club website for complete
directions to the church:
Please park on the West side and enter through the West-side door. Stairs
will be on your right, and an elevator is available.
--
Tony Montoya K0mcw
Program Coordinator
|
Building a dummy load for less than $5
Cool article in Nuts and Volts mag about building a dummy load for under $5:?  Not quite as convenient as some of the commercial units but....it works! Speaking of which, I recently picked up the for $129; virtually identical to the old HeathKit "Cantennas". It works great for helping me tune up my new (to me) Ameritron AL-811H amplifier. Funny, when I first got my ticket, I wondered why anyone would need a dummy load when you can just put the load into an antenna. I certainly understand why now--especially when you're trying to tune things at QRO power levels and need a constant 50-ohm load.? I looked at some of the other "dry" dummy loads but their derating curves were disappointing. Like a minute or less at QRO load levels. Here's the derating curve for the oil-based dummy load...so at my amps maximum output (800 watts) I can run it for about 12 minutes. Much better!  73, Mark -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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Re: Anyone heard of a Radioberry?
Will do,. I'm particularly intrigued by its transmit capabilities. I can think of all sorts of interesting use cases, from a WSPR or CW Skimmer receiver to a digipeater to a mesh networking hub. Even though the transmit power is only about 100mW, the fact that it's 100% based on open source software and that there are a number of additional linear amp "hat" designs/kits available intrigues me. Might be a good match for the Raspberry Pi 5 I have coming in a week or so...!? This is definitely a "thing" -- there is a Facebook group with 1900 members along with a Google group and at least one Github repo supporting this.? and...you can buy one for $159 from an Amazon seller (considerably less risky than buying from Ali Express!).? 73, Mark -- --------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@...Check out my ham radio blog:
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Re: Anyone heard of a Radioberry?
Definitely interesting. I don¡¯t have one but I see possibilities. ?Keep us posted if you learn more.?
Tony
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On Jan 23, 2024, at 8:36 PM, Mark Ehr | K0EHR <mark@...> wrote:
? Looks pretty interesting¡a Raspberry Pi ¡°hat¡± that turns into a full SDR (transmit and receive) for about $150 + cost of the Pi. Anyone out there have one?
73,
Mark
---------------------
Mark Ehr | K0EHR
President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club
Littleton, Colorado
k0ehr@...
Check out my ham radio blog:
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Mark Ehr | K0EHR
Mark Edwards | W0QL