Category: Ham radio

While I was rummaging around through the club’s storage room yesterday, I came across an old Instructograph machine. I’m not sure how old this particular unit iss, but it looks like it has definitely seen better days.

It’s a paper tape based Morse code trainer with the Morse code encoded as holes in the paper tape. Along with the Instructograph were nine tins containing other tapes. Seven of them were rusted closed so I didn’t try to force them open. A couple were left open, including the one already on the Instructograph.

The Instructograph is essentially just an automatic straight keyer with an audio oscillator. As the paper tape moves between the contacts, the key is closed where the dots and dashes are punched out of the paper and generates the tone. The tapes are double-sided, so when you finish playing one, you just flip it over, thread it back onto the machine and play the other side.

I think the tape speed would have been controlled using this lever on the panel.

No idea if the Instructograph still works or what kind of condition the innards are in. The paper tapes are in somewhat delicate condition and I’m not sure if they’d hold up to much playing anymore if the Instructograph did work.

The special event station for the Yorktown’s 75th commissioning anniversary went fairly well. Operations started off with one of the club members operating the Waterway Net on 40m from the club room, and then we got set up to start calling on 20 m. I spent a couple hours or so working stations on 20 m, moving around occasionally because of QRM. Many stations were coming in pretty loud and clear, although at times the fading got a bit deep.

We tried to move down to 40 m after noon, but got a report that our audio had a lot of RF noise in it, so we spent some time trying to figure out where it was coming from. We ended up narrowing it down to a few culprits: noisy laptops and a noisy power supply built into the FT-897. Something we’ll have to troubleshoot further.

We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon up on 20 m doing a mix of SSB and digital, but with storms moving in, there were loud static crashes all over the place, and we only made a few more contacts. With the band dead, storms getting closer, and a tornado watch issued by the weather service, we decided to call it a day around 3ish.

Finished the day with 55 contacts in the log. Not bad for a few hours of casual operating.

 Band   Mode  QSOs 
     7  LSB     10
     7  PSK3     2
    14  OLIV     1 
    14  RTTY     5
    14  USB     37
 Total  Both    55

Even though tomorrow is the actual day of the USS Yorktown’s commissioning, I thought I’d spend the afternoon in the club room activating WA4USN and get a few more contacts in for the special event. I was joined by two other hams for the afternoon.

Things didn’t quite go exactly as planned, but still went fairly well.

After spending some time figuring out the Yaesu FT-897 that was sitting where I expected the Kenwood 570 to be, I started calling CQ on 20 m. After a few calls, we (WA4USN) got a call over the repeater from a ham at a radio station set up at a nearby Boy Scout camp asking if he could put some Cub Scouts on the air with us for the special event.

Always a good thing to get on the air with Scouts, so we talked with a group of Cub Scouts (Webelos) and then got back to HF. Spent some time calling, and then another call on the repeater with another group of Scouts. Rinse and repeat.

After the third group or so, we decided to just give up on HF and spent the rest of the afternoon talking to Cub Scouts (I was too lazy to break out the headphones).

So even though there were no HF contacts today, I still consider it to be a pretty good day on the radio. Talked to 21 Scouts in total, mostly Cub Scouts. Many weren’t terribly talkative, but a few were downright chatty. Some of them learned about the Yorktown. All got exposed to radio and it seemed to have generated some interested at the camp.

Tomorrow will be all HF though.

Update: I’ll be running the special event activation for a few hours in the afternoon on April 14 starting around 1PM-ish (1700 UTC). Most of the activity will happen on April 15 where we’ll be starting around 9AM (1300 UTC) or so, and going until we run out of steam (maybe into the evening). We’ll probably be operating mainly on 20m and 40m, depending on band conditions and operator preference. There might also  be some digital or CW thrown in as well, depending on whoever happens to be operating the radio at the time.

The 75th anniversary of the commissioning of the USS Yorktown (CV-10) is coming up on April 15, so I’m planning on doing a special event activation of WA4USN from the club radio room on board the ship, along with any other club members who want to join in the fun.

My current plan is to be on the air in the afternoon from about 1-5ish on April 14 and 15. Start times may change depending on who decides to join in the fun. I won’t be able to start much earlier than 1 on each day though.