General Meeting News

• Harrisburg Packet Node
  • W3ND
  • 145.010
  • 145.030
  • BBS available
  • vara-fm and winlink available soon
• K3IR active for PA QSO party at site
• picnic coming up in a month
• Red Rose Hamfest is Oct 4
• September meeting may be search and resucue
• at the training center October-March

Presentation: Winlink w/ Harry N3FMO

• winlink net
• saturn net: emergency services and salvation army
• initially, saturn was only during the day for retired people
• first weekend Harry ran the net on winlink, 20M, he got 70 check-ins.
• winlink is good for emcomm
• winlink is familiar as email
• lots of templates to use
• can use telnet if internet is available
• HF can be slow for a large volumes
• using telnet can keep RF available
• https://winlink.org/
• for Harry’s net, email: satemail
  • Noon Thursday - Noon Saturday
  • stations can be placed on the map with “mymaps”
  • name, city, state, country
• K3IR-10 connects to winlink RMS

My Weeks in Radio

• new callsign a couple weeks ago: KC3WWC -> KD3EE
  • spent a day updating callsign everywhere
    • websites
    • local software
    • radio gear
    • still finding updates to make today
• all POTA activations
  • travel and local
  • mostly FT8/FT4, but also some CW and SSB
  • new callsign proved quick to key and understood right away
  • tried small magnetic loop and EFHW
  • usually 2W
  • almost ruined one activation
    • sweat on the laptop touchpad caused it to be flake out may want to bring a backup mouse or be more careful

Others

• WA3VEE, Ron:
  • troubleshooting his AllStar node with Joe’s help
  • suspecting the network beyond the hotspot
  • diagnosing which tower he’s using with software on iphone
  • replacing his van
• NA3CW, Chuck:
  • congrats KD3EE on new callsign
  • AMPM pre-net
  • working on trailer project
• W3FES, Fred:
  • building small antennas for scanner listening
• W3QP, Tim:
  • back from a week in VA
  • SOTA
  • lots of bugs
  • encountered a mother bear and cubs on one summit. they left on their own accord
  • when near sugar grove (government)
    • he thought his radio was malfunctioning
• WA3KFT, John:
  • net control and participant on various 6m and 2m nets
• KB3ILS, Keith:
  • 30M CW contact to
    • ZL (New Zealand)
    • Netherlands
    • both QRP EF wire
  • wire in a tree
    • smooth CW on a bug to operator in west virginia
• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • hosted the roundtable last thursday
  • hosted welfare net on sunday
  • Joe’s tower tomorrow
• W3JAM, Jeff:
  • adding desks to “studio a”
  • 45-degree antenna mounts to work both horizontal and vertical
• KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • working on antenna mast

Questions

• KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • What’s the best plug to seal up a 3/8-inch hole on the wrong side of a weatherized box?
  • WA3KFT, John:
    • 2 flat plates and a bolt through the middle
    • plus some caulk
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • there may be a rubber gasket plug, but those may be too big.
      • hubble wideman for plugs
  • KC3NZT, Harvey:
    • bulkhead blanking plugs
  • W8CRW, CR:
    • epoxy and a backer
• KV3JGB, Matt:
  • For an antenna running into the tree and a feed line are on the ground, how can he run it to be out of the way, so he doesn’t need to move it to mow?
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • could it be buried?
    • could you run a “messenger wire” to keep it overhead to the tree?
  • W3QP, Tim:
    • ran a bit of conduit underground
  • KC3NZT, Harvey:
    • temporary becomes permanent
    • shallow bury when ground was soft
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • if you do bury it, rope in the conduit, and exposed can wick moisture out.
    • conduit is never wide enough after a while
  • KC3SQI, Wayne:
    • has buried line for 6 years now, no trouble.
    • existing feed line can be used to pull the next line.
  • KV3JGB, Matt:
    • thanks for the suggestion underground and in the air

I played a little FT8 at US-8834, State Game Land 136, with only 2W on my 40M EFHW in an inverted-V. I made 26 contacts, and looked for some CW, but barely heard anything.

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.