985 Workbench: 2025-12-22

 Posted on 2025-12-22

My Week in Radio

  • I discovered UV-Pro can mute a channel, which I applied to my APRS channel.
    • had gotten distracted by a feature to “mute digital signals”, but that doesn’t work very well: taking a while to recognize and mute
  • took the speaker-wire doublet out for another test:
    • POTA after 985 breakfast
    • inverted-v
    • with a 4:1 balun + 1:1 current choke
      • tuned easily
      • no USB disconnects
    • 30 contacts with 1W FT8.
  • I’m having a terrible time terminating RG174 + SMA: shorts

Others

  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • WFD is last full weekend of January: W3R
    • checked 40M dipole at the field day site: contacted Indiana
    • January 3, there’s a testing session in northern delaware
  • KC3RFG, Jim:
    • PI-4 running ham clock died, lost SD card
  • AA3LH, Leon:
    • introduced a choke balun to his G5RV
  • WA3KFT, John:
    • 10M open: Oklahoma and Texas
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • Pentec Trident 4 drifts as it warms up
  • W3KZG, Scott:
    • delivered a tower to Bill
  • KC3NZT, Harvey:
    • long wire came down, so building some new mono-filament linkages, for strain relief. those break instead of ripping stuff off the house.
  • KC3OOK, Bill:
    • simplex net, got to plymouth meeting
  • KV3JGB, Matt:
    • looking forward to WFD
    • starting CWOps fundamentals course

Questions

  • W8CRW, CR:
    • Does anyone make a universal repeater for bluetooth to be able to use it 100 feet away? Specifically for battery data.
    • KV3JGB, Matt:
      • most extenders are for audio
    • KC3NZT, Harvey:
      • could instrument the battery to get and publish your own statistics
  • AA3LH, Leon:
    • Would a 1:1 current choke benefit a vertical ham stick?
    • KD3EE, John:
      • may help. I use it to keep RFI out of the radio and the computer.
      • for verticals, I’ll often add that choke and radials.
    • NA3CW, Chuck:
      • like chicken soup, it may help, but it won’t hurt.
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • His Pentec Triton 4 drifts up and down as it warms. What causes a radio to drift?
    • WA3VEE, Ron:
      • could be a leaky capacitor
      • heat related some way
      • odd that it drifts both ways
    • NA3CW, Chuck:
      • test the tester, read-out
      • check with an online radio
    • WA3VEE, Ron:
      • google says it drifts
    • KC3NZT, Harvey:
      • eHam forum people say ignore the read-out and see what the receiving side is seeing.
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See also