Tag: radio

Notes on Field Day 2023

2023-07-082023-07-30 wt8p

I wrapped up another field day with my friend Paul (W7PEZ) in Eastern Washington. For the two days, I had 204 contacts, broken out roughly as: Paul worked 200 contacts, nearly all CW. Both are personal records. Neither of us were “running,” which would certainly have bumped up the totals, nor did we operate all the time, because most of […]

Triple Play

radio

2023-06-10 wt8p

In geocaching, there are a lot of “challenges” published, where in addition to signing the log, you have an alternative logging requirement (“ALR”) to perform some feat. These can be as simple as “find 10 mystery caches” or “find a cache for every letter in the alphabet,” or more complicated. In my 15 years, I’ve done a lot of these, […]

Inside, right-half of the Elecraft K4D with the new Noctua Fans installed

Quieter fans on the Elecraft K4D

radio

2023-04-19 wt8p 1 comment

My first HF radio, the Elecraft KX3, was air-cooled and got me spoiled to the relatively quiet operation. The K4D, on the other hand, has two fans. Although the “base” ventilation speed has been lowered, there’s also some whining from the bearings. Most hams can’t hear it, I, unfortunately, can and don’t enjoy the sound. I’d previously replaced the ones […]

Parks on the Air

pota
radio

2022-10-19 wt8p

In addition to all of the geocaching I planned, I also thought I’d try activating some parks. Parks on the Air (POTA) is a program inspired by the ARRL National Parks on the Air program in 2016 by Sean Kutzko (KX9X) and Norm Fusaro (W3IZ). The idea is simply “everyday is field day,” that is, you take your radio crap […]

Field Day 2022

2022-07-012022-07-15 wt8p

Paul (W7PEZ) and I worked field day as 2B EWA, that is, we set up with battery-powered equipment, everything self-contained. The national forest site near Cle Elum was fantastic – great view from a ledge, higher elevation (near 4000′) so it was cooler, very quiet, and trees to mount antennas. Paul brought his ICOM 7300 (HF) and a Yaesu 857 […]

Marathon Support

radio

2021-09-242021-09-28 wt8p

When the immunization rate in western WA got high enough, the state began opening up a little, leading our first requests to support public events in nearly 18 months. Since June, I’ve worked at (basic first aid, ham radio work) four marathons: three Light at the End of the Tunnel and the Jack and Jill’s Downhill Marathon / half-marathon. These […]

Lion Rock viewpoint taken on 2021-06-25 while geocaching.

Using Slack for CW Academy

2021-07-142021-08-12 wt8p

During the latter part of my Basic class, when students were becoming more engaged, we ran into several problems with the email and text messaging. As an experiment, we used Slack in my intermediate class the most recent term. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. In the spirit of trying to give back, I thought it would be helpful relating our experience. 73, […]

Replacing a noisy radio fan in my Kenwood TM-V71a (and ICOM 208)

diy
radio

2020-09-082020-09-10 wt8p

I have had some interest in experimenting with satellite radio. Typically you transmit on one band, receive on another. This can be done with two radios, but I wanted to keep things simpler and use one. I happened to find someone selling a Kenwood TM-V71a mobile radio for an attractive price. It’s a nice radio, but when I used it […]