A Diary of Technology Pursuits
I have now been using the IC-7600 for about 5 months. It has not been used heavily the entire time, but I have used it hard during several contests. Overall I am very impressed. The menus are very intuitive, rarely causing me to "RTFM." The display is as good as any I have ever seen... Continue Reading →
As I found out before, the Elecraft K2 uses the same signal line for PTT input and for one of the Key lines (dit I think). This is a royal pain when integrating into a more complex arrangement such as a computer controlled station, or an SO2R contest station. In these configurations, you are likely... Continue Reading →
After working on configuring my Elecraft K2 for remote operation. I am finally on-the-air. I had been using it in receive-only mode while I completed a "dead-man" timer, that would shutdown the transmitter if I ever lose my Internet connection while in transmit mode. This is required by the FCC. It turns out, that remote... Continue Reading →
I did a bit of testing with 2 wire antennas this weekend. Here is a summary of the results, which I also posted to the IC-7600 e-mail reflector: The antennas: 1 - A "long" 80m Dipole, ladder line, 4:1 balun, then a long coax run to the rig 2 - A fan dipole with 80/40/20... Continue Reading →
I have been looking to purchase a new rig for some time and finally decided to go with the Icom IC-7600. I was torn between this rig, the Elecraft K3, and the Yaesu FT-2000 (because I can not afford the FTDX-5000). For my needs, this is the best of the three. and I will maintain... Continue Reading →
Finally completed the power watchdog timer for the K2. This allows me to operate the K2 remotely within compliance of the requirement to have an automated means of shutting down a transmitter if it exceeds 3 minutes on the air. This is an FCC requirement, and you definitely need to be concerned about the possibility... Continue Reading →
Preparing for CWSS this year mainly consisted of antenna work and integration of the SO2R (Single Operator Two Radio) setup in the Shack. I use mostly wire antennas (no Yagis) but one, a "Fan Dipole" (one design example found here) for 80/40 meters had been hanging for several years. I took it down to check... Continue Reading →
To run a Ham Rig remotely, the FCC requires the ability to shutdown a "runaway" transmitter after no more than 3 minutes of activity. There are several ways to do this. My plan is to use a small Arduino computer board to handle the timeout control function. Here is a basic diagram of the timeout... Continue Reading →
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