TN QSO Party 2013

As a bit of a warm up for the SC QSO Party in a couple of weeks, I spent a few hours on the air yesterday playing in the Tennessee QSO Party.Started off slow, but then it started picking up late afternoon/early evening. Made 22 contacts in S&P (seek and pounce) mode tuning around 40m, including the K4TCG bonus station. Not a whole lot but I was content with it. According to N1MM, my score should be 620.

I wandered around 15m and 20m, but the only TNQP activity that I could hear was on 40m. Picked up plenty of rag chewing and nets on the other bands, but zero TNQP activity. I thought it was kind of odd, but maybe those signals were just skipping over me.

Logging was a little easier this time around because now I have a connection between the laptop and the radio, so N1MM is able to get the actual frequency from the radio instead of me having to go back and edit the contact afterwards.

Had fun making contacts. Looking forward to participating in the SCQP on the 21st. There were apparently no QSOs from Charleston County last year, so maybe that will make me a much sought after QSO.

CQ WPX results

Got an email informing me of the log check report for my submission and final results for the CQ WPX contest I participated in back in March.

I had 82 QSOs, lost one because I either heard or entered the call sign incorrectly, so a net of 81 QSOs counted for the contest. It’s too bad. The lost call was a multiplier for me too.

Two stations copied/entered my exchange incorrectly and one station copied/entered my call sign incorrectly, so I guess I wouldn’t have counted for their scores,

Final score ended up being 17520. Good enough to rank #54 in 4-land, #262 in North America, and #967 in the world. With the Rookie overlay, I ranked #6 in 4-land, #22 in North America, and #69 in the world. Not bad for only participating in it 12 out of 48 hours.

Fun contest to operate in. Looking forward to trying it out again next year.

CRX1 IF Amp

Made it up to the IF amplifier stage of the CRX1 build. Got a helpful critique of my soldering technique from Thomas/LA3PNA before I started working on it today, so hopefully the parts I did today look a little better. Made it up to the point where T1 gets attached before I decided to call it a day. Figured it was a good stopping point.

CRX1 IF amp
CRX1 IF amp

Still haven’t applied power yet so I don’t actually know how the assembly is going. I think once I get T1 put on, I’ll work on attaching the header pins so I can attach some of the external components. Then I can run through some of the tests.

CRX1 Power and Audio amp

Ahh, the smell of melting solder.

Started soldering the bits onto the CRX1 circuit board. After going through and taking inventory of everything and noting where everything goes, it was time to heat up the soldering iron.

Here, the power conditioner (middle right) and audio amp (upper left) stages have been completed. Haven’t applied power to the board yet. One of the people assembling a beta kit used header pins and connectors for the external parts (like the power connector, pots, etc) so I think I’ll do the same. Then I won’t have to worry about soldering temporary wires when I get around to testing things.

CRX1 power and audio amp completed
CRX1 power and audio amp completed

I made it half way through the sidetone oscillator stage (lower middle) before I decided to call it quits for the night.

CRX1 sidetone oscillator section
CRX1 sidetone oscillator section

Having everything on one side of the board definitely makes things a little easier. I don’t need to flip the board over, and the board lays flat on the table. The pieces are still pretty small, but with some more experience under my belt now, it’s not so bad. I’m starting to like working with SMT, although I haven’t quite decided if I prefer it over through hole.

While I was working, the lens from my magnifier light fell out. One of the clips had broken and the lens ended up falling out. Fortunately I wasn’t soldering at the time so it just fell into my lap and onto the ground. No breakage fortunately, but now I’ll have to figure out how to secure the lens with one of the clips missing.

Back at it tomorrow.

Etherkit CRX1

Thanks to Jason/NT7S, I now have a new kit to work on: the Etherkit CRX1. I have to admit that getting it was a bit of a surprise. When I pulled the box out of the mailbox, I thought it was the CC1 I had to send back for fixing.

Etherkit CRX1
Etherkit CRX1
Etherkit CRX1
Etherkit CRX1

The CRX1 is the little brother receive only version of Jason’s CC1 kit. Like the CC1, it’s almost all SMD components with a few through hole pieces. Everything is on one side of the board though, which should make assembly easier.

Etherkit CRX1 board
Etherkit CRX1 board

According to Jason, this is production kit #1. I’m looking forward to putting this one together. Hopefully I don’t mess anything up this time. As with the CC1, I’ll be documenting my build progress here.