Eugene

Hamfest-ing

Went to the Charleston Hamfest today and spent a few hours wandering around checking out all the things. It’s a smaller event than the Atlanta Hamfest I went to in June, but I still enjoyed it. The variety of things to see wasn’t as big, but it was still fun seeing everything and meeting up with fellow hams.

I had big plans to acquire a bunch of antenna making supplies, like coax, wire, feedlines, connectors and other things, but after looking around a bit I decided I needed more of a shopping list to know what to get. Instead, I ended up with a cap with my call sign and name embroidered on it, and a table mounted magnifying lamp for the workshop. A couple of pretty good acquisitions, I think.

I’ll have to put a shopping list together for Hamcation next weekend.

Softrock Lite II completed

Finally got around to putting the last components on the Softrock Lite II receiver. It passes all the voltage tests, which seems like a good sign. I replaced the breadboard jumper terminals with a 9V battery connector to make it more portable. Now all I need to do is make an antenna connector and a wire to a sound card and I should be up and running with it. I’ve got a short length of coax with an SMA connector on it that I can use for the antenna connection, and I’m pretty sure I can find something in my junk box to cannibalize for the sound card connection.

Next on the air

Now that the HF radio is on the air, the next things I need to get set up are the VHF radio, the OpenBeacon and the Softrock receiver.

I’ll need to get/make suitable antennas and get coax for each of them.

The OpenBeacon needs to be reprogrammed, but it works. I can plug in a USB cable and watch it blink out slow Morse code (which is still almost too fast for me to copy). I can also hear it on the HF radio at 10.130 MHz. I’ll need to make up a suitable antenna for it.

The VHF radio should be all set to go once I get an antenna set up and hooked up to it.

Just need to get around to putting the last transformer on the Softrock receiver and make up the external connections to get it on the air.

I’ll need to make up a shopping list for the hamfest next week.

First contest

Operated for the last few hours of the North American QSO party last night. First contest I’ve participated in under my own call sign. There was a pretty good amount of activity on 40m when I was on and I added 17 more contacts to my log. I even managed to make one contact at 5W because I forgot to turn the power up on the radio after tuning it (look ma, I’m QRP!)

Didn’t hear much activity on any of the other bands, although I wasn’t listening too hard.

Had fun tuning around the bands making contacts. It was interesting seeing where my signal was reaching out to.

Almost invisible

From the street, the antenna is practically invisible against the trees, aside from the white rope used to secure one of the wires (and sometimes even that’s hard to spot).