Starting to ponder ways to connect the desk mic (an Astatic 877L) we picked up last month to the radio. Right now the mic has an XLR female connector on the end, while the radio uses an RJ-45 modular connector for the microphone input. I figure I have a few options:
Replace the existing cord on the microphone with some Cat5 that already has an RJ-45 connector on one end.
Make a pig tail with an XLR male connector and some Cat5 with an RJ-45 connector
Cut the XLR connector off and splice on a length of Cat5 with an RJ-45 connector
Fortunately, the bottom of the microphone has this handy wiring label. There aren’t very many wires to connect up to the radio.
Astatic 877L wiring diagram
Having a look inside the base of the microphone, everything looks to be wired up as shown on the label. It looks like if I choose to replace the cable with a length of Cat5, it will be a little bit of work, but shouldn’t be too bad.
Wiring inside the microphone base
From the Kenwood TS-480 manual, the pin-out for the microphone connector is
1 – UP
2 – +8V
3 – GND
4 – PTT
5 – MIC GND
6 – MIC
7 – N/C
8 – DOWN
Looks like red (XLR pin 2) would go to PTT (4) and black (XLR pin 3) I think would go to MIC GND (5). Not sure where the white wire should be connected to, but it currently goes to pin 1 on the XLR connector. The green wire in the mic doesn’t appear to be connected to anything.
The downside to replacing the mic cable with Cat5 is that the wires are quite a bit thinner, so I”ll have to give extra thought to strain relief at the microphone base.
Another Field Day has come and gone. I was able to get the laptops set up and networked just in time for the action to start.
This year, the 2PM start didn’t sound quite as chaotic or noisy as it did the last couple of years. I’m either getting used to listening through the noise, or it just wasn’t as busy this year, or both. I’ve seen other people mention that band conditions weren’t all that great.
I spent the first couple hours logging and keeping tabs on the network connection between the two laptops. Got in a bit of operating before the skies broke open and the torrential rain started. It was bad enough that we had to break down both stations and get them inside out of the rain.
Rain kept us off the air for a couple hours as more rain passed on through, but later in the evening the rain cleared out and we were able to set up one of the stations again.
I headed back home around 8PM and got back to the ship the next day for the last couple hours of Field Day. Weather was much nicer, and band conditions seemed to be better. I got in an hour of operating and was able to make 10m and 15m contacts into the northeast and northwest.
Looking at the counts in N1MM, we made somewhere between 600-800 contacts. Because of the wifi dropping out and having to break everything down for the rain, the logs on the two laptops got out of sync. Some operators also didn’t want to computer log, so there are some paper logs to add in as well. I think next year one of the things I’ll have to do is send out some instructions on how to do the logging, and make a cheat sheet available at each station.
Had lots of fun again this year, and looking forward to next year’s Field Day.
Another Field Day is coming up in a couple of weeks and once again I’ll be playing radio with fellow WA4USN club members on the USS Yorktown with CARS. I hope to spend a little more time operating this year.
I’ll also be paying closer attention to the generator and battery hook ups to learn how to set up the rig in the shack on portable power. Hopefully the weather is nice and the propagation is good.
Had another great time at the Atlanta Hamfest this past weekend. Was very pleased to see a lot more people outside in the flea market/bone yard area. The hamfest seemed a little more crowded than last year too, which was nice. The inside flea market and commercial area seemed less full than last year though. Maybe everybody was outside this time.
There were a lot of things to see, and I ended up spending most of my time wandering around the bone yard. Came back with a pretty good collection of things this year and could easily have come back with a lot more.
One of the more interesting items, and the first one we bought was this funny toilet mug. We figured it would be a good gag gift for the club’s Christmas party gift exchange.
Toilet bowl mug
One of the sellers out in the bone yard had a bin of “free stuff” which had a few interesting items in it. I pulled out a Hall effect transducer kit and a 200 μA meter out of the bin. Not sure if the meter is working, but if it is, it will be nice to put to work in something. The Hall effect transducer kit looks like it will be neat for learning about what kinds of things can be done with them.
Hall effect transducer kit
Microammeter
I also bought a parts bin of various power transistors from the same person. He also had boxes filled with bags of resistors, capacitors and various other random components that I was very tempted to pick up, but I already have a pretty decent stock (actually, probably not) and moved on.
My next purchase was a trio of air variable capacitors. As I was checking them out, the seller said “$3 and they’re yours”. Too good to turn down. One of them is already geared up with a dial and everything for a VFO tuner.
Air variable capacitors
We had been talking about getting a desk mic for the shack, and found a very knowledgeable lady who’s been a licensed ham for over 50 years. Picked up this Astatic 877L mic from her that looked in pretty good shape. One of the rubber feet has fallen off and I’ll have to wire up a cable to plug into the radio, but that’s no big deal.
Astatic 877L microphone
The last stop (for purchases) was a table full of a fairly random assortment of items from kits to components to enclosures and more. I think this is where I picked up the bulk of my purchases. Enclosures, a bag of grommets and containers of screws and standoffs, couple pieces of copper clad PCB. One of the enclosures even had some protoboard and resistors in it. This was another one of those tables where I could have picked up a lot more things than I did. He gave me a pretty good price for all the items I took off his table too.
Standoffs and grommets
Project enclosures
Wrapped up the hamfest with a purchase of some Dacron rope, some ceramic insulators and a 25 foot length of coax that will eventually feed a 2m antenna.
Pretty pleased with all the things I was able to pick up at the hamfest. And naturally, after we left I was thinking about all those other things that maybe I should have bought too. I guess it wouldn’t have been a good hamfest if that didn’t happen, would it.
