I can't really say I was surprised this week, but I have found myself being "curiouser and curiouser" about ham radio satellites!

It seems like everyone is talking sats and amsat at the moment. I follow several folks on Twitter who are into satellites, the crew at ICQ Podcast keeps mentioning them, and I just read through the Winter Field Day rules again, and was looking at those satellite bonus points...

To see if this was an itch I wanted to scratch I downloaded GoSatWatch at the recommendation of NJ4Y and KX9X. They were right- this is a great app! Using it I went and stood in the field behind my house (in the mud...) And listened for the first time to a satellite pass as SO-50 went overhead. Think about it - signals from space! How is that not freekin' awesome! I know, most people aren't impressed because they think of satellites as a way to get their TV, but none of them can talk back to the satellite, so I still think it's awesome!

In addition to listening to SO-50 passes, I also listened to the ISS pass a couple times during last several days. For one of those passes I actually hooked my HT up to my AnnaLink Interface (Remember when I made that? Whodathunk it would be useful for satellite stuff too!) I then used the audio modem in the PocketPacket app to snag a packet sent through the digipeater on the ISS. Fun stuff!

Anyway, I think I have a new project in the queue, to add to all the other ones - building an antenna for satellite work (you should know me by now - I wouldn't be happy just buying one!) So, once I have the time to tackle it, I'll share here. I suspect however, that I'll end up using scraps from my garage, and maybe some of the stuff from this section of Lowe's:

Bye for now!

If you're anything like me you may have missed the fact that the Winter Field Day 2017 results were posted a while back.  The website breaks down the entrants into the 3 main categories for posting results:  Indoor, Home, and Outdoors.  To see those results check out the Winter Field Day 2017 Results Page.

Based on those categories,  I was in the "Outdoor" group, and I ended up in spot 77 out of 182.  Last year the categories were done slightly differently, and in the group I was in, I was about 33 out of 40.  I'd say I improved, considering that in the new groupings my score was up against all the multi-ops etc!   I was curious though, how I fared compared to the same group I was in last year (Single Operator, Outdoor) so I grabbed the data and worked some pivot magic with Excel.  In just the 1O group I was 41 out of 118 - a great improvement if you ask me!

 Anyway, enough about me - it dawned on me that others might be interested in some more detailed groupings, results, and data evaluation.  With that in mind, here are the results in some of the breakdowns that people might be interested in.  At the end of this post you can also find the Excel file that I used to generate these results, in case you are data nerd too and want to play around with it.  Lastly, I do have a typo on some of these, but it is just that - a typo, it doesn't actually change the scores or rankings, so I'm not going to bother fixing it, since it would take forever (I'm not even going to tell you what it is - we'll see if you catch it ;-) Enjoy!

Or, at least that's all the categories that I broke down - if you're a data nerd, you can probably think of even more ways to slice and dice this, but I figured this would cover the majority of what most people would want to see!  If you want to do some of your own slicing and dicing, the files below are free for the taking:  The first is a zip file of the PDF's of all of the tables above, and the second is the Microsoft Excel file that has the data and pivot table in it that you can feel free to play around with..enjoy!

I made something that I want to share with you!

If you've stumbled on my blog, or ever talked to me on the air, you probably know that I do quite a bit of portable and mobile operating (actually, because of the current state of my shack project, ALL of my operating is portable and mobile at the moment.) 

As I thought about it however, I really didn't feel like removing body panels, rolling back carpet, and all that business, so I didn't get around to it.  While I was stewing on this, I got to thinking about the times I did do CW from the front seat.  The Yeasu 857d (and probably the other Yeasu rigs as well) has a feature called "MICKEY."  This feature lets you do Morse Code by using the mic as a weird sort of paddle.  With this feature turned on, the down button acts like the dah, and the up button acts like the dit.  It works, but to be honest it is a pain, so I started avoiding it.  

The realization I had was this - those are just buttons.  I can probably make an interface that plugs into the mic jack, and just uses the lines for those buttons, so that I can plug a key into the mic jack.  The wheels started spinning.

So, first I needed a pinout of the mic jack. Luckily a google image search for "Yeasu 857d mic pinout" brought up just what I needed.  If you look at the jack, flat side up, the connections are, from left to right:

With this information it seemed obvious to me that all I needed to do was make something that went to the appropriate pins.  I also wanted something that I could keep in my glove box, so that I could work CW on a moments notice.  With that goal, here's what I came up with:

Now, to make this work, the settings on the radio are important, because I am relying on the "Mickey" feature.  This means that I need to have these setting correct:

So, with the interface made, and the settings chosen, it's time to show you how it works!  Check out this short video I made to see it in action:

 
To wrap up, here's the parts list with links if you want to make your own.  Several of these things come in quantities greater than you'll need, but it never hurts to have spares, or build up your supply!
Project Box 4x2x1
RJ45 Feed-through
2 Buttons
Stereo Jack
RJ45 plug
network cable
​And, if you don't have these tools already, you might want to check them out as well.  I used mine in this project, and in A LOT of other projects as well:
RJ45/RJ11 crimp tool
​Dremel Tool

Bye for now!

No, that's not a typo...I actimated a park!
​ My daughter is now 6, but it wasn't that long ago that she was still trying out new words. The first time I heard her try to say "activate" I had just picked up my phone, and had accidentally held the home button down long enough to turn on Siri. My daughter promptly said "uh oh! You actimated Siri!" To this day, in our house we still use the word "actimate" quite regularly.

Anyway, enough about the nonsense that goes on in my house - I'm actually writing to update you on my second trip to Mashamoquet Brook State Park (You can read about the first trip here.)

This time around, I reserved the one camp site they have that has a power hook-up. Most of the camp-grounds I've gone to that had RV hookups had either 50 or 30 amp connections, plus a standard 15 or 20 amp outlet. I realized the first night of this trip however, that this site only has a 30 amp connection, so I ended up running off battery power for the first night anyway.

In spite of the power mishap, I had a good first night - my very first contact was actually with Jeff, KB3ZUK. Jeff is the North American Continental Representative, in addition to being the log manager for the call district I live in, for the WWFF program. It was fun to actually get a contact on the air with Jeff, after all these months of e-mails and such as I sent in my "actimation" logs!

After my contact with Jeff, I found a frequency of my own, and quickly racked up enough contacts to bring my total for this park past the 44 mark (the US awards only require 10 per park, but I like to shoot for 44 because that's where most of.the international awards kick in.)

Before evening number 2, I stopped at an RV center and picked up a couple adapters so that I could use the AC power at the campground:

in addition to this adapter, I also got one to go from 50 amp to 30 amp connections. This way I'm now covered for using AC power no matter what type of connection a place has. Of course, there is always the option to use batteries in places with no AC, but if it's available, why not make life easy?

With an easy power solution for the second evening, I was able to dive right in to making more contacts.  With the pressure off, I started out in CW.  This was a particularly exciting one for me, not because I made a lot of contacts, but because I upped my speed a little bit.  I leaned CW using the PC program Just Learn Morse Code, which uses the Koch/Farnsworth method.  As I practice I've been using faster character speeds, and faster word speeds, but on the air I've been hesitant, so prior to now I was keeping my keyer set at 5 wpm.  This time I decided to bump it up to 7 wpm, and I found it was actually easier for me to copy stations at this faster speed, because it's closer to what I've been practicing.  After  a few more like this I just might have to bump the speed up to 10 wpm and have a go!

Anyway, with plenty of SSB contacts, and a few more CW contacts under my belt, I was in good spirits as I packed up and headed out.  I don't know what park I'll end up at next, but I hope I have just as much fun as I did at Mashamoquet!

As a final note, if any of you are CW newbies like me (or seasoned pros for that matter) check out the ditdit.fm podcast - it's a new one, all about CW.  For me it has been a good resource for tips and hints from the CW pros.  It's also nice to hear the top notch operators talk about their experiences when they were in my shoes - great stuff!

If this is the first you are stumbling upon my "Crowd-Sourced" project series, feel free to go back to part 1 to come up to speed.  For the less patient, here's the "what you missed last time" version:

One of the pieces of equipment that my work revolves around comes in these neat little boxes.  We had a couple that were getting scrapped, so I nabbed one of them, and gutted it down to the box, and the battery that was built into it.  I figured I would use it as a ham-radio project, but since I was undecided exactly what I wanted to build, I started putting it up to a series of votes.  Through that voting, it was decided that I should build a small/portable HF station into the box.  In the most recent installment I asked for feedback on what radio architecture to use, whether I should do a kit, build from plans, or use a pre-built radio, and whether or not I should try to squeeze a computer into the package.

Since you are probably most interested in the results, I'll share those first, but please stick around after that, because in the voting process, there were, as C+C Music Factory says, some "Things That Make You Go Hmmmm"

With this, we were deciding whether to go the route of an SDR radio, or something based in hardware.  I must admit that the results here surprised me, but the overwhelming majority - 70% - voted to go with a "traditional" architecture.

This was a resounding yes, 60% of the vote.

Since going the SDR route wasn't chosen, this question is no longer applicable, but just for fun, 55% said to use a computer, 35% said to go computer free, and 10% didn't care.

With this question, I was basically deciding if I should do a kit-built radio, build something from scratch/plans, or just buy an off-the-shelf radio that's ready to go.  This category did not have a clear winner, with 35% voting to buy something finished, 30% voting to build from a kit, and 30% voting to build from scratch/plans, and 5% that didn't have an opinion.  

I did ask for comments along with the votes, and many individuals had input that I'll put into the next round of planning as I share the next steps.  For now though, the results of this vote, and the prior votes, bring us to this point:

I'm going to be building a small HF station into this box, and powering it from the existing battery.  The station will be based on a traditional architecture (non-SDR), with a small form-factor computer included.  Because the final vote was so close, the radio itself might be off-the-shelf, a kit, or built from plans.  

Choosing the actual radio will be what we vote on in the next installment.  For that, I will be using the input from everyone that gave it, along with some research on my own.  I will also narrow down the options to things that are feasible - some of the suggestions, while great, were either too physically large for the box, or are out of the range of what I'm willing to spend for this project.

I hope you stuck around this long, because I think there are some good educational nuggets in here.  

That's all I have for now folks!  Sometime in the near future I'll have the next part in this series ready to go, and we'll decide on things like which radio and which computer to use!