As I reported in my last entry, I put together a small interface circuit to key my rig using the parallel port of my laptop computer. I built the circuit on a little piece of perfboard that fits inside the DB-25 connector shell.

Earlier this week, I decided to put together a circuit to key my transmitter from this laptop. Since I’m using N1MM logging software, I searched the N1MM website and found a simple circuit using a 2n2222 transistor on this page. It looked simple enough, but after wasting more than an hour searching through my junkbox, I gave up.

Like many hams, I now have a computer in the shack. One of the really cool things I can do with it is to type in the call of a station I’ve just contacted, and if he or she has a page on QRZ.com, find out some information about them. My page, for example, has a little bit about my ham radio interests and a link to this blog where they can read more. I have also posted a picture there so people can see what I look like.

I only wish that more hams would post their information. For one thing, posting that information is a good conversation starter. Yesterday, for example, I contacted a guy who lived in the area of southeast Ohio where my grandparents grew up and also was an electronics engineer. Because he had posted that information, I was able to mention those things that we had in common and that started off a nice QSO.

I hate to say this for fear of jinxing myself, but I think I’ve broken trhrough the 20 wpm barrier. For the longest time, I seem to have been stuck at the 20 wpm level, but now I’m able to copy and maintain a CW QSO at 22 wpm. I’m still a little sloppy with the paddles at 22 wpm, but with more practice I should get that down pat.

Gwynn, W8BY, is our club comedian. Every Monday night, he comes prepared with a few groaners to amuse those foolish enough to check into our club net. Tonight, he had a few ham radio jokes. This one was the best:

After an antenna-raising party, Ham 1 says to Ham 2, “Hey, we’re all done. Why are you still on the roof?”

Ham 2 replied, “Well, Joe said that after we got his antenna up, the drinks would be on the house.”

Aren’t you glad I’m not posting the others?

Last Saturday, I tuned the Slinky dipole to 40m so I could work the FISTS Fall Sprint. While I did OK in the Sprint, I’ve had mixed success on 40m since then. For one thing, the Slinky is acting much more finicky on 40 than it did on 30. The SWR is much more dependent on how low the antenna hangs on 40m than it was on 30m, and the lowest I seem to be able to get the SWR is about 1.2:1. On 30m, I was able to get it practically down to 1:1.

About a year ago, I bought a “bullet weight” from Radio Works for getting lines up into trees. The weight has a hole through the center, through which you thread the rope or the wire or whatever. The problem, of course, is what happens when the line gets snagged in a tree?

This happened to me about three months ago, and no amount of pulling on the rope was going to get it to come down. In fact, what happened is that the rope broke, and now the weight is stuck up in the branches.

Recently, there was some discussion on the Elecraft mailing list on how best to do this. To date, here’s the best response:

From: tjmc
To: Alfred Lorona
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] antenna wire

If you must sling a weighted wire into a tree, use a fishing weight. They are rounded and have a small metal loop onto which you can attach the wire.

Better yet, wrap the wire one time around the object ( I use a rock ) and secure with a wrap of elec tape….

The reason is, if the thrown object get hung up in the tree ( which happens offen ) a good pull on the wire gets it out of the tape and the object will drop and wire retrieved.

best

Today, I took part in two contests. Actually, I’m still working one of them.

The first contest was the FISTS Fall Sprint. To be able to work this contest, I needed to retune the Slinky dipole to 40m. tAfter playing with that for about a half hour, I went downstairs, hooked it up to the rig, and tuned around for a QSO to test it out. What I found was the PA QSO Party, so just before the FIST Sprint got started, I made a few QSOs in the PA QSO Party.

At 1700 UTC, the Sprint started. I got out of the gate pretty well, but then after about 45 minutes, it slowed way down, and I had to really work to make contacts, even though I was able to camp on a frequency. I guess all the guys who just showed up for a short time had enough and QRTed.

On Monday, I had a visitor from Poland, Jacek SP1EHI. I took him out to lunch and we had a nice chat about how they practice ham radio in Poland and how it’s different from how we do it here. For example, their 2m band is only 144 - 146 MHz, meaning that there are fewer 2m repeaters there than here, as repeater activity is restricted to the 145.5 - 146.0 MHz subband. Most repeater activity is on 440.

I’ve been thinking for a while about building an Elecraft K1 or K2 transceiver. The K2 is really a full-blown rig, especially now that you can add on a 100W amp, but I’m not sure I want to spend that much or take on the more complicated building project.

Well, about a week ago, I worked Bill K4KSR. He was using a K1, and we struck up an e-mail conversation about the K1 vs. the K2. He sent me a nice comparison of the two rigs, which he agreed to let me share with you: