I’ve managed to accumulate a small (5) collection of CW keys over the years, starting with the J-38 straight key, and most recently the Begali Camelback.
After I got my amateur radio license, I knew I wanted to learn Morse code (still working on it), and I knew I wanted a straight key. I love the simplicity and the imagery of and connection to telegraphers of old hammering out CW.
It’s missing the shorting bar across the top two terminals and the shorting lever but otherwise works perfectly. When I’m practicing my Morse code, this is usually the one I work on the most. I really like the way it feels.
Found this tiny little cutting board while we were at our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and thought it would make a nice little block of material to test the CNC machine with.
Little 15 cm x 13 cm cutting board
After seeing it on my desk, I decided it would be much more useful as a new base for my J-38 key. It’s about twice as heavy as the old base I made out of a piece of 1×4 wood.
A bit of sanding, a couple coats of spray polyurethane later, and the J-38 was attached to the new base. Some rubber feet on the bottom help keep it from sliding around on the table.
J-38 straight key on the new baseRubber feet on the bottom
Quite pleased with the way it looks. I like the way the J-38 feels on the new base.
Another back yard Field Day putting the club call (W4BXC) on the air is in the bag. Like last year, we were 1E SC.
As is typical for the end of June around here, the weather was hot and humid, but partly cloudy skies kept things at least tolerable. Fans came in handy as well. Fortunately there were no thunderstorms as often happens this time of year.
Had a bunch of friends over and introduced some of them to amateur radio. Most of the afternoon was spent casually operating in between hanging out, chatting and answering a few questions about amateur radio.
This year, the antenna for the 2m right (just used to monitor simplex an repeater activity) was a janky mag mount attached to the side panel of a PC case, and perched on top of my ladder. Seemed to work well enough. There wasn’t much in the way of repeater activity to listen to though. We did manage to convince a couple of our friends and one of their kids to get on the radio (VHF simplex) from across the yard.
The batteries did pretty well again this year keeping the radios running and putting out 100 W.
Band conditions seemed pretty decent, and most of the contacts were on 20m and 40m. Oddly enough, I heard very little on 10m.
Wrapped up the Field Day weekend with 102 contacts across the 20m and 40m bands. A few contacts short of last year’s total, but I’m satisfied with the result. 200 bonus points brings our score to 404 for this year.
Contest: FD
Band QSOs Pts Pt/Q
7 37 37 1.0
14 65 65 1.0
Total 102 102 1.0
Score: 204
1 Mult = 1.0 Q's
The ISS repeater downlink (what the repeater transmits on and what we listen to) is 437.800 MHz. Because the ISS is moving across the sky at a pretty good clip, the listening frequency needs to be changed as the ISS goes by to account for Doppler shift. At the start of the pass, because the ISS is moving toward you, the listening frequency needs to be a bit higher, 437.810 MHz. As the ISS goes past, it’s moving away from you so the listening frequency goes down. By the end of the pass, you’re listening at 437.790 MHz.
ISS Downlink frequencies
A table of frequencies to listen to for the ISS repeater downlink
Frequency (MHz)
Start of pass
437.810
437.805
Mid pass
437.800
437.795
End of pass
437.790
If you program these frequencies into your radio’s memory, it’s easy to step through frequencies during the pass.
My set up is pretty simple. The radio is a Yaesu FTM-3207D, but any radio that can receive on the 70 cm band will probably work. The antenna is a simple dual band mag mount on a side panel from an old computer case that serves as a probably somewhat inadequate ground plane. All of it is about 2m above the ground on a shelf.
Dual band mag mount antenna setup for listening to the ISS amateur radio repeater
It’s a pretty simple setup, and I’m kind of surprised it even works. Your mileage may vary depending on your local RF environment. My shack/office is full of electronics and can be a bit on the RF noisy side, but I have no problem hearing repeater activity during ISS passes.
I have the radio set to 437.810 MHz (start of the pass) and when the radio picks up the ISS repeater, there’s suddenly a bunch of activity on the radio. When reception gets static-y, I switch over to the next frequency.
This would probably work for listening to other satellites with FM repeaters, although I haven’t tried that yet.
