A Great Day for Ham Radio

Yesterday couldn't have gone any better than it did - I made two SSB contacts using only 10W of power and a wet noodle!

The first station I called was a special station. K3S is based on the world's first nuclear-powered boat, the Savannah. Savannah is currently docked and decommissioned near Baltimore, Maryland, and is recognized as a National Historic Landmark. According to the K3S QRZ page, January 28th is a significant day:

"Radio Operator Jack Binns sent a CQD (former SOS) message from [the] RMS Republic on January 23, 1909, after Republic was rammed by the Italian liner SS Florida. Republic subsequently sank, but Binns' CQD and continuous wireless work [resulted in] a successful rescue of all aboard except two killed in the collision."

It took me 3 tries to get through to K3S. The station's operator was Ted and he gave me a much-improved signal rating of 5x3. He was coming in around 5x8 or so. It was really amazing to work this station due to the special occasion, but at the same time, I also was just scanning around the bands. K3S held a QSO with me on 21.3137.

Later, towards the end of the day, I called CQ on 15m again. As soon as I sent out my third CQ call, N1IIC came right back. Fortunately, he told me that I was extremely modulated, which means my mic gain was too much. It's not very nice to overmodulate, so I turned it down. I guess you really don't need that much mic gain even for 10W. He came in at a 5x5. N1IIC QSOed with me on 21.3680. We had a good talk, I told him where my QTH was at and that I had been hearing RTTY on every band I was on. January 28th was also when the British Isles were hosting a RTTY contest, which took over almost every band. It's so beautiful to hear so many RTTY stations.

In addition to this, I will be updating my station (again!) with another radio provided by HRO - the Yaesu FT-891. If you haven't heard the news already, Yaesu is discontinuing the FT-817/818 line of radios. This looks like a good replacement for the cost as you will get 100W out in a smaller package. 

Until then, stay tuned for a review!

A Word Of Caution When Making PCBs

I had a bit of a health scare today but I think I'm alright.

I had to re-mix some copper chloride etchant since my old stuff wasn't strong enough and had lost its potency. Since I was in a hurry, I bypassed wearing a mask and it may have cost me big time. The minute I opened the muriatic acid, I was greeted with some chlorine fumes, and needless to say, I panicked for quite a bit. I actually fell backward out of fear of poisoning myself. I bet I must've looked stupid!

Luckily, I was doing this outside, but I still caught a whiff of the fumes. I am okay right now, just a bit concerned that I may have done some damage.

If you are making PCBs in this way, PLEASE wear the proper PPE. This includes a mask, eye protection, long-sleeved clothing, and gloves. You could actually poison yourself without realizing it, at which point it may be too late. 

And as always, don't rush production. It's how mistakes like this are made.

This friendly PSA was provided by KE0SBX's ham shack. Stay tuned for more and stay safe out there! Hopefully, I'll return with my Feld Hell interface up and running on the Cub...

One other thing about this solution: This stuff really starts to lose potency after a week or so of sitting in a plastic tub. Despite putting copper in it to agitate it, I think the best solution would be to use a small water pump, like what's in an aquarium. Amazon sells mini ones for under $10. If you have a strong arm, you can also stir it using a plastic fork or spoon, but this may take forever. Once the solution has oxygen introduced to it, it will start to regain its potency. 

My CW Journey So Far (and a bit of WSPR...)

We're Making Progress!

I have started making progress on at least one of my New Year's resolutions, and so far I must say I'm making great progress! Unfortunately, it's just trying to find the time with my busy schedule. 

As of right now, I can send A, B, C, D, E, I, K, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, and X, all at or around 10 wpm. Not bad, not bad at all! I have come across times where I will get N (-.) and A (.-) switched around. I do know, however, that K (-.-) is the inverse of R (.-.), and I guess N would be the inverse of A. If you can think like this, then Morse will be a breeze for you.

Another thing that has helped me is learning dits and dahs. I know, you're going to sound stupid saying it, but it is worth it and it will help you! If you memorize the characters by sound (bee-beep) versus dit-dah (di-daht), it will be much harder for your to process a message.

How do I (you, the reader) get started, then?

A few posts back, I mentioned the website LCWO.net. It costs nothing to join and will teach you Morse via the Koch method. The key (no pun, hihi) is to practice as much as you can in a set time frame. You're not practicing for time's sake, you're practicing for accuracy's sake. For me, I take at least 30 minutes out of my day to practice a lesson or two. I practice each lesson 3 or 4 times for repetition and muscle memory. 

To practice sending, consider making a practice oscillator. You can use anything - a 555 chip works best for the heart of any practice oscillator. If you're not the DIY kind of person, MFJ sells an oscillator with an added bonus straight key! I have used one of these at Scout camp and I must say that they are good to work with.

The key that I'm using is a 3D-printed key that I found on Thingiverse. You can find it here. This works well, but what if I'm out and about? To solve that, I "remixed" a key to suit my needs. The knob is shaped like the old army keys but it is small enough to carry with you in your POTA, SOTA, or QRP bag. That link is here. If necessary, I'm sure one could even use this as their base station key if so desired.

When you think you're ready for an on-air QSO, send out a quick CQ call. Either one of two things will happen: You'll get an answer or you'll show up on the Reverse Beacon Network. The RBN is a great tool to show you where you're more than likely to get contacts. With my MFJ Cub, I was heard over 800 miles from my QTH, which is pretty impressive just for 1-ish watt of power. In comparison, my TS-660 could be heard as far away as Costa Rica and the Canary Islands!

My perception of CW has changed drastically since I first became a ham. I always thought that getting an SSB contact across the world was impressive, but sending a signal comprised of dots and dashes that can reach anywhere is even more impressive - just the fact of "talking" in a different "language" is wild enough. The pure fact that some of these CW radios that are on the air right now are homebrewed is even more bewildering! 

In conclusion, I think I'll be using CW later on in my ham radio career once I'm proficient at it. I'm sure I'll be able to complete my resolution by the end of the year at this rate. But now, as Monty Python puts it, it's time for something completely different...

WSPR

I'm sure you've used FT8 at some time in your life. Well, WSPR is no different! WSPR stands for Weak Signal Propagation Reporter and was developed by Joe Taylor, K1JT, the same fellow who developed FT8 and WSJT-X. Not sure where your signals could go? Try your hand at WSPR!

WSPR is comprised of a 50-bit messaging system. It includes your callsign, maidenhead locator, and the power output of your rig in dBm. For example, my WSPR stream would look like this: <KE0SBX EN20 40>. WSJT-X features a built-in version of WSPR and you can transmit worldwide at any part of the day. The farthest I was heard was in Austria, almost 5000 miles away! I ran WSPR on 15, 12, and 10 meters, all with success. 

WSPR tells us many things. It tells us possible paths where our signals could go, who can hear us, and how propagation is.

If you have an SSB rig, go ahead and give WSPR a try. Trust me, you'll be surprised with the results. Spots are posted to wsprnet.org and are updated constantly. Just type in your callsign in the search and watch how many people spot you. It truly is a great mode to use and it gives us hams a tool to use for propagation.

That's all for now, hope to hear you on the air! 73s!

The Cub Lives!!!!!! (For Real, This Time)

 Yep, you read it right, the transceiver that I gave up on months and months ago sprang to life. I had a feeling that it wasn't dead, my heart of hearts told me that. 

So, what happened, and what did I learn? Here's the important thing: There's more than one way to do something. Ben Franklin once said, "I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways of doing it wrong," and that's what I did. 

With the help of various QRZ.com members, namely KL7KN, I figured out that the receiver can be adjusted with the probing of U2's Pin 1. U2 is an SA602 and is the filter mixer. Probing Pin 1 bypasses the filter circuit, which in essence creates another antenna. The antenna will generate a buzzing or hissing noise. From here, tune L1 and L2 for maximum noise. If you can't hear any stations when you bypass the filter, you still have a problem, unfortunately (once again, thanks A LOT KL7KN!).

I can't tell you how much joy I felt when I began to hear stations when I connected an antenna. It really made me happy when I could hear the FT8 frequency, which means that my tuning was dead on where I wanted it. I could also hear CW stations with ease.

By now, many of you are wondering how well this stacks up to the Pixie. I will tell you that it blows it out of the water completely. The Cub has a crystal filter, an onboard audio amplifier, a great tuning range, and about 2W of output power that can be varied if you want to work QRPp. While the Cub sounds impressive, there are some drawbacks to it. It needs to warm up for a couple of minutes before you transmit so the frequency is rock solid. I also found the alignment to be a bit cumbersome, but that may be because I haven't built a kit like this before. While the audio is acceptable, I feel that it could be a bit louder, but it definitely beats the Pixie's quiet and wide-open receiver any day. For the completed project, I took some photos.

I set the Cub aside and waited to touch up the transmitter side of things until the next day. Turns out, the transmitter side of things was not as complicated as I had thought. In a matter of under 30 minutes, I had a fully-functional Cub, with 1.5 watts of output on 20m. 

In addition to this, I built my own 50 ohm dummy load with a wattmeter output. That can be found here: https://www.qsl.net/kc6wdk/QRP/wattmeter.htm. Here is what mine looks like. I do want to note that my copper chloride etchant, used with a nail polish resist, works very well.

To close, this has been an exciting and fun adventure. Now I'm off to build a dipole antenna and perfect my Morse Code! My next test with this is to see if I can show up on the Reverse Beacon Network, or RBN. 

If you also want to use the RBN, it's easy! Just send the following in Morse Code:

CQ RBN CQ RBN DE [callsign] [callsign] K

CQ TEST CQ TEST CQ TEST DE [callsign] [callsign] [callsign] K

The RBN looks for CQ calls, so even if you just send out CQ, there is a good chance that you'll show up on the RBN. There are thousands of operators listening on thousands of frequencies and reporting daily. If you know how to send CQ and your callsign in Morse, you'll have no problem showing up on the RBN. It is popular with QRPers in particular since QRP can be a little unpredictable as to where you will reach. Having your callsign show up on the RBN site can give you a generalization of where you can be heard and what you can work.

That's all for now from my shack. Hope you have a great New Year! Until next time...

EDIT 1/2/2023 - Just a few moments ago, I sent out a quick CQ call on the Cub using my EFHW. As soon as I finished sending my callsign, I got a report from the East coast at a distance of 963 miles, which equates to around 647 miles per watt! Not bad, especially for 1.5 watts and a crappy end-fed antenna. I'm off to build my dipole now and brush up on my Morse skills...