Eugene

Field Day 2017 plans

Field Day is coming up in a few weeks! As usual, this year I’m planning on spending most of Field Day weekend down at the USS Yorktown playing radio as WA4USN.

In addition to that, at home I’m also going to set up the antenna on my temporary PVC mast and run the radio off a couple of lead acid batteries that I took out of some UPSs. I’ve made up a wiring harness that will let me connect the two batteries in parallel to the radio. I tested it earlier to make sure they would power the radio, but I haven’t tried transmitting with it yet. I figure the batteries should be good for operating at QRP levels for a couple hours. Hopefully I’ll be able to make a few contacts.

Museum Ships Weekend 2017

Had a blast playing radio in the NJ2BB Museum Ships Weekend event this weekend. I think this was the first time I’d done any significant radio since last year’s Field Day (I really need to get that antenna up in the air…).

This year two of the ships at Patriot’s Point were activated: the Yorktown (WA4USN) on Saturday and the Clamagore (NJ4DU) on Sunday.

Although there was a lot of QSB on 20m both days, there was still some decent propagation into the northeast, midwest and out west. Lots of contacts in the New York/New Jersey area, a bunch of contacts in California and Michigan/Illinois/Ohio. Texas was a big hot spot of contacts.

Unlike last year, we got some pretty good pileups going, and I was able to work on a pileup for a solid hour on Saturday before taking a break. I had a few other pileups going earlier, but that was the longest one I worked. When I left for the evening, I think we were up to just over 400 contacts for the day for WA4USN.

Sunday I wasn’t able to play radio for as long, but it was the first time I had operated as NJ4DU. Interesting little tidbit:the NJ4DU call sign is derived from the ship’s naval call sign, NJDU.

We got a few small pileups going on 20m before the band got too crowded. Took a bit of a break to look for some other ships, and then found a decently clear frequency to run again. Had a nice little pileup going before I had to call it quits for the day and let someone else take over.

Unfortunately, this may be the last time the Clamagore gets activated for Museum Ships Weekend. Because of its deteriorating condition and high cost for restoration, it looks like it is destined to be sunk for a reef off the coast of Florida.

It may not be the last time NJ4DU gets on the air though.

Great! Based on the feedback we’re getting we may need to do some special activations of the Patriots Point ships.

— WA4USN (@WA4USN) June 4, 2017

Next up: Field Day 2017.

Lowcountry Contest Club Mesh Networking Symposium

Update: I received a correction for the date of the symposium. It will be on Wednesday June 14. RSVP by June 11.

Did you know there was a Lowcountry Contest Club? I didn’t know there was a Lowcountry Contest Club. Apparently they’ve been around a while.

Anyway, word came to me that they’re holding a Mesh Networking Symposium June 1014 at the Fleet Reserve Association in Goose Creek.

The Low Country Contest Club (LCCC) will be holding a symposium on MESH networks for amateur radio at the Wednesday, June 10, meeting of the LCCC at the Fleet Reserve Association in Goose Creek, SC at 1800. We generally arrive at 1800, order food/drink if desired at appx. 1830, and start the symposium shortly thereafter. Note that there is no “meeting,” just the symposium. Directions, etc. are at the bottom of this email.
Terry, N4TLF, and I have been working for some time on establishing a 2.4GHz link between our houses, so we could further investigate the use of MESH networks in amateur radio. We have finally managed to establish the link, and are currently working on ways to improve it, and also make the link available to others.
To make a MESH network really useful we need more participants. To that end we are inviting interested members of TARC and CARS to attend the June meeting of the LCCC, and will have (for lack of a better word) a symposium on MESH networks that will address
equipment, software, and problems involved in making a useful MESH network in the Charleston metropolitan area. We should have an example of a MESH network set up in the FRA building, and a demonstration of at least one possible application.
If you know of a ham that is interested please bring them with you. They do not have to be a member of any club; only interest is required!
This is a growing part of amateur radio. We think you will find it interesting, and hope that this will help to get a MESH network established here in the local area.

~~I assume they mean Saturday June 10 and that Wednesday is just a typo.~~

The symposium date is June 14. RSVP by June 11 if you want to attend.

Ham radio mesh networking is becoming a pretty popular thing these days with projects like Broadband Hamnet and AREDN using COTS wifi equipment and custom firmware. For hurricane and storm prone areas like the Lowcountry, having an infrastructure independent communication network based on a mesh network over the ham bands could be a very useful thing.

~~I’ll be out of town at Southeast Linuxfest when the symposium is happening, but~~ if you’re interested in going, RSVP to W4MEL at <w4mel at arrl.org>

Power supply: Out to the control board

I’ve finished tracing the power supply schematic out to the control board. I’ll go through it once or twice more to make sure I’ve got everything right, but I think I’ve got a fairly complete schematic of the power supply now.

Here’s the schematic so far.

I did run into an anonymous transistor type part with a red case that I wasn’t able to identify. Whatever markings were on it have been rubbed off, so there’s no way to really identify it anymore.

The base of the transistor (I’m assuming it’s the base anyway) is connected to pin 10 of the 723 voltage regulator while the emitter is connected to the bases of the power transistors. The collector goes to pin 12 of the 723 and the collectors of the power transistors. Checking with schematics for my Astron RS-35, there’s a TIP29 transistor in roughly the same spot, so I’m reasonably confident this mystery part is an NPN transistor of some kind.

Tracing out the control board was a bit tricky, but I think I managed to get it right (I think I’m missing the diode on the schematic though). I’ll need to recheck where the wires coming off the control board go in the rest of the power supply.

Quite impressed with the way this power supply was put together. Everything is soldered or screwed together nice and cleanly, and the wires are nicely dressed and bundled together with zip ties and string.

Except for the blown fuse, I don’t see anything obviously wrong with the power supply. I think I will look into replacing that AC input plug though before I try applying power to this thing.

Happy hamiversary to me!

Today is my 5th hamiversary! 5 years as a licensed amateur radio guy!

It’s been a pretty fun 5 years where I’ve learned a lot of new things and remembered a lot of things I used to know. The shack has been off the air for the past year, but once I figure out how to get the antenna back up in a mostly stealthy manner, I’ll be back to throwing RF into the sky.

I’m looking forward to many more years playing with amateur radio.