Back when I was a kid, I never got into many long conversations on the radio. …Now, however, I find myself having much longer QSOs….

Today, I spent a lot of time on 20m CW, making eight contacts in about 3 hours of operating time. What can I say? I like to rag chew….

Operating 20m this morning was a bit frustrating. The band was open, but it didn’t seem if anyone was operating!

I worked a station in the Azores and one in New Mexico, both coming in with good signals and giving me a good report. I also heard and Swedish station working a German. But other than that, the band was really quiet. If only more people had their radios turned on!

I just worked a great special events station: K0W - celebrating the dairy cow. Right now, he’s on 20m CW at 14.055. The special callsign application notes that the call is good through the end of the year, so if you’re reading this before Jan. 1, 2003, you may still have a chance to catch him. I tried doing a Google search on K0W, but I don’t think there’s a website.

Got an Icom IC-735 Transceiver?

Then you should join the IC-735 mailing list. It’s a pretty low traffic group, but it seems to be a good one. It has a high signal/noise ratio, as they say.

Monday evening, I installed a phone plug on the keyer in place of the header that was on there. This turned out to be more of a job than I’d anticipated….

Thursday, I took the Heathkit keyer apart, spread out the schematic and began poking around. It looked to me like everything was working the way it should, so I buttoned it all back up, built a cable to connect it to my IC-735, and voila it keyed the rig perfectly….

I have a Heathkit keyer that I bought and built nearly 20 years ago. It’s actually a pretty cool device. It’s processor-controlled and has a number of memories. The unique thing about this keyer is that it comes with built-in “”paddles.”" They’re not mechanically operated, but rather switch capacitively.

As I mentioned earlier, the output doesn’t seem to be working properly. When you touch the paddles, the output switches, but it latches up into an always on state.

I just spent a couple of days down in Miami Beach. I didn’t take any of my handhelds, although I’m thinking that maybe I should have. We were on the 10th floor of our hotel, so I could have done pretty well on VHF. Maybe next time….

Saturday, I worked 20m CW for a while. I had an interesting QSO with a guy in Mineral Wells, WV. I heard him calling CQ, and to be honest, his fist really sucked. Even so–being the good FISTS member that I am–I called him and we began the QSO. Well, after the first exchange, he came back, and not only was his fist excellent, he was sending somewhat faster as well….