I headed to US-4356, Boyd Big Tree Preserve for an activation. I took my time and med 51 contacts: FT8, FT4, 2 SSB, 2 CW. I stretched my 40M EFHW from pavilion to tree to the East. A bystander hung out for 40 minutes to see what I was doing, so I showed him around the bands.

While on a trip to New York with the kids, I activated a couple parks.

Bashakill Wildlife Management

At US-9136, I parked in the middle, and threw the 40m EFHW into a tree to operate 20M and some 40M, FT4 & FT8 I made 13 contacts in the US, Sweden, Germany, and Spain. I got sweat on (in?) the touchpad of the laptop, so the pointer was being very jumpy and hard to control.

Highland Lakes State Park

On the edge of US-2074, I barely got my 10 contacts in time. I used the magnetic loop, and aligned it to go up and down the coast on 40M.

You may have seen that the name of this blog changed from KC3WWC to KD3EE, shorter, snappier, lighter-weight callsign to say phonetically and to key in CW.

In changing my callsign, I made a lot of work for myself updating things:

• QRZ.com notified me first, and had me start a new logbook
• Echolink
• Blog name: DNS, Apache, SSL certificates, redirects from the old name, CI/CD, Github repo name.
• LOTW: requested a new cert and all that – Done in a day thankfully.
• Name on 2 Quanshengs
• Callsign in APRS radios: BTech, RadTel
• Allstar node
• Name tag I made in LibreOffice Draw.
• Pota.app website
• Hamalert
• WSJT-X
• Gridtracker has lots of logins: new api key for new QRZ logbook.
• Update everything again on the field laptop
• Aprsdroid
• Ham2K Polo on my phone
• Practice saying it and keying it.

My Week in Radio

• POTA in DE (park and a bonus trail)
  • homebrew delta loop
  • 32 contacts on ft8 w/ 1W
• watched a youtube video about line throwing techniques with an arborist
  • I can now throw much higher and more consistently
  • my far trees are near power lines, so I’m conservative with my throws
  • now have my main wire higher than ever before: needed more throw line.
• been coding a bunch on 4 different personal projects all at once.
  • lots of fun.
• testing and fixing a bug on the spectrum analyzer of the Quansheng firmware I use
• prediction that FCC might grant me a new callsign tomorrow.

Others

• WA3VEE, Ron:
  • Valley Forge Hamfest in Kimberton
    • lots of 985ers attended
    • headed to the field days site
  • 985 breakfast coming up
• WA3KFT, John:
  • sold some stuff at the Valley Forge Hamfest
  • hamfest seemed smaller than previous years
• KD3BPI, Simon:
  • enjoyed Valley Forge Hamfest and meeting everyone
  • source of noise on the radio in the car was picket fencing
  • will upgrade to a better mobile
• N3CRE, Charles:
  • evaluating AllStar and EchoLink
• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • working on lab bench
  • prepping for tower work tomorrow
• KC3YSM, Steve:
  • rerouting some LMR400
  • need some things he needed in Ron’s photos from the ham fest, should have gone
  • generator project with soft start
• KD3AIS, Tim:
  • observed all the ham radio antennas on a trip across ohio
• KD3APR, Paxton:
  • working with Ron on some antenna and radio upgrades
• NA3CW, Chuck:
  • control for pre-net AMPM.
  • testing out a balun with a different tuner to see about tuning all the bands. it works!

Questions

• KD3APR, Paxton:
  • Looking at 900MHz DMR used for emergency response, Radio Reference is not very clear about what they use. Does anyone have details?
  • DMR is the generic digital voice
  • 900MHz might be pretty niche
  • Is it security through obscurity?
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • Are you sure it’s 900MHz for first responders?
    • DE may use P25 phase 2 trunked system that’s similar to DMR, like Chester county does. on 800MHz band.
    • There may be concerns in public service for privacy, so it might be obscured.
    • P25 is used for more specific details.
    • Ham radio has no encryption.
    • 902MHz-928MHz is 33cm ham band, so they’d not be there.
  • W8CRW, CR:
    • W1RC, Mike, might know about DMR programming
  • KC3YSM, Steve:
    • ARES in DE may use 900MHz ham bands
    • 900MHz band is undergoing changes to accommodate some broadband usage
  • W3MFB, Mike:
    • KI6OM has a repeater on 900mhz
    • 900mhz might be better for digital work than voice
• KD3BPI, Simon:
  • Got 3-ohm Motorola monitor speaker from the hamfest, and the Yaesu wants an 8-ohm speaker. How do we match it?
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • it’ll probably just work, but maybe not totally efficient.
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • should be fine.
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • it probably will be quieter or may distort. fine on low.
  • KD3BPI, Simon:
    • the speaker was in the free pile, and is stamped 1961.
• WA3VEE, Ron:
  • When receiving through the repeater and trying to offer signal reports, be familiar with what the repeater sounds like to you when considering how another station sounds through the repeater. Understand that if the repeater is noisy to you, then even the best signal into the repeater will be noisy. Try simplex for better signal reports
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • with enough listening you can tell the difference of where the noise is introduced.

R1CBU 0.31.2 has been out for a while, so I finally upgraded. The only fix didn’t matter to me so much, but it was time to get up-to-date.

I watched Youtube and saw a better way to throw the line by cradling the weight on the line and swinging the weight between my legs. It’s much more confident, powerful, and accurate. I threw my home antenna higher in the same tree. It’s so high that I needed to add more throw line now.

!–more–>

One morning, I headed to Delaware to have lunch and to activate US-1730, Alapocas Run State Park. It was also along US-9878, Northern Delaware Greenway National Recreation Trail.

I put up my homebrew delta loop with 4:1 balun. With the tuner on the X6100, I could get 1.5:1 SWR on 20M. For kicks, I only ran 1W and made 23 contacts calling CQ on FT8. The location was very quiet for listening.

On 15M, I got Italy with 1W.

I tested a new 5200mAh 12V Li-Ion battery, and it worked for the entire activation. It dropped from 12.3V to 10.9V or so which was plenty for the radio.

I printed new covers for meshtastic nodes, and I have a second mobile node for Emily to use on trips.

My Week in Radio

• Zero Retries Conference
  • Sept 13
  • virtual and in-person
  • digital aspects of radio
• current job ended
  • travel for some parks and other projects
  • maybe building another lightweight directional VHF antenna

Others

• WA3VEE, Ron:
  • Joe’s been sick in the hospital, but he’s fine. It’s just hanging around long.
• NA3CW, Chuck:
  • hosted PMAM net in Joe’s place.
  • Working on Joe’s tower with Bill
• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • Joe’s tower will soon be in the air.
  • Lab bench is all built in the new shack
• WA3KFT, John:
  • make power easily available on your bench
  • building a master list of callsigns: 985 gang
• KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • remote switch full of lots of bugs
• AF3Z, Jim:
  • continued CW practice
• KD3APR, Paxton:
  • on an 8W HT and beating the intermod
  • trying to repair a radio, but the screen goes white and it’s hard to work on.
• W3MFB, Mike:
  • listening to 40m

Questions

• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • Reading about his HeathKit he’ll put in his shack. It has 2 different powers listed for AM. What is Controlled Carrier Modulation?
  • WA3KFT, John:
    • Controlled Carrier Modulation is the cheap way to do AM over plate-modulation.
    • The audio changes the power of the carrier.
    • Pay attention to peak rating.
    • It’s kind of like SSB.
    • Power supply needs enough power to not sag during peak transmission.
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • HeathKit DX60 also has controlled carrier modulation.
    • It’s much harder to overdrive the modulation.
  • WA3KFT, John:
    • T150 applies modulation to screens instead of the plate in some models.
    • burned out a screen with audio too high
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • screen modulation can sound excellent
    • plate modulation can require a very large audio amplifier
    • has used carrier control to save $5k/month of a $30k/month power bill on a large AM transmitter
    • BBC would down modulate a very high carrier to keep the signal very quiet. This was very expensive.
    • It’s all about average carrier power in our radios.
• KD3BPI, Simon:
  • switched to a magmount on a cookie sheet outside.
  • has the Baofeng on the magmount on the car. at speed, he notices more noise (crackle) in TX and RX. Should he ground the antenna and radio to the car better?
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • check the connection of the whip to the magmount
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • Could be building up static, since magmount isn’t electrically connected, and power is not connected.
    • try clipping a lead from coax shield to something metal
  • W3MFB, Mike:
    • HT is a good way to start.
    • could be “mobile flutter”
    • switching to a more powerful modile radio
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • Congrats on fixing your signal for the net.
    • Seconds the idea of static building up.
  • KC3SQI, Wayne:
    • power cord to lighter outlet will be a good ground
• W3MFB, Mike:
  • Why don’t we break for emergency traffic during nets.
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • Nets typically have a script asking for priority traffic.
    • We may not have thought about it. May not be necessary.
    • One signals an emergency; “break break” between transmissions.

Zero Retries Conference is coming up on September 13. They explore the technical and digital sides of radio. There’s news of it on the Ham Radio Workbench.