ARRL Sweepstakes - 2022

The ARRL Sweepstakes was the first contest I ever participated in. Way back in 1993, my buddy (KA0ZWV) and I joined forces on in our college station. It was on the 3rd floor of the school library and had an amazing tri-bander on top. The only problem was, after dark the bands died and we were dead in the water. 

The building was not a typical structure. It was basically an open steel frame with concrete floors. The whole structure was surrounded with a glass façade. Imaging placing a rectangle fishing tank upside-down over a parking garage. If you stood on the 3rd floor at the end of the hall you could reach out and touch the windows, but you could also look down and yell at the guy on the first floor. The point is, there two large metal frames at each end of the building holding the whole thing up. So, we drug the coax down the hall and alligator clipped it to the metal - we lit up the whole side of the library. I'm not sure how, but it tuned up and we worked 80 meters all night. 

Ever since then, Sweepstakes has held a special place in my heart. Every year, I try to spend at least sometime during the third weekend in November work the contest. For the past few years, my son (KG5CZR) or my wife (KC5ERV) have helped out, making us a "multi-op" station. It's been fun and this year was no exception! This year, I used by FTDX-3000 and my relatively new boom with a Heil Goldline mic. I had two antennas; an 80 meter dipole and a three-month old Hustler 6-BTV vertical. It worked very well, although there were times I was in the noise on 40m. I need more radials!

I absolutely love N1MM logging software. It's amazing and, having used it for so many years, it's like a trusted companion in the shack. All the windows go right where I need them and it takes my data entry without a hitch! I kind of chuckle when I hear an operator say, "hang on, I got the info in the wrong place." With N1MM, I type it however I hear it and it magically figures out which is the serial number and which is check! I also love the Band Map feature which tracks where the stations are on the band so I can avoid ones I've already worked and go back to ones I wasn't able to pull in an hour ago. I can't beat N1MM. 

It's hard to believe another SS has come and gone...can't wait until next year!

2022 North Texas ARES SET

The North Texas ARES recently held its Simulated Emergency Test and it gave me a great opportunity to use my tiny thermal printer for ARES messages. It worked amazing well!

The drill simulated a large solar flare, shutting down the power grid for several days. As EC, I planned a drill in conjunction with the SET for our local ARES members, especially to practice their Wnlink skills we recently practiced at a local club meeting. 

During the SET, I asked operators to deploy to local school campuses and report on the status, including the number of cars in the parking lot. This "real world" metric was helpful, giving operators something to actually observe instead of simply "making up" a status report. 

As each operator relayed in the their reports via Winlink, I printed off a copy to give to our agency, which, in this case was the Office of Emergency Management. The printers worked well, operating on battery power and producing a readable report on paper. 

The SET was a success and our local ARES members got a chance to put their skills to the test!

A vacation with the QCX-mini

The family took a few days of Fall Break and spent some time in the Texas Hill Country. We rented a house along the Guadalupe River and enjoyed a relaxing time of kayaking, fishing and family fun. Of course, I packed a few ham radio bags as well!

Once we settled in, I used my arborist line to string up my homebrew, multi-band EFHW antenna from the balcony to a large tree in the back yard. Then I broke out my 40m QCX-mini and checked the band. Sure enough, 40 meters was hopping and I got a chance to work several stations. 

It was a very nice trip made even nicer by the chance to test out my OCX-mini and antenna with worked flawlessly!

Tiny thermal printer for EmCom

The problem: During an ARES activation, passing Winlink messages for a local hospital, we have no way to print the relies for the hospital staff. We were not allowed to log on to the local LAN and use the hospital printers. We thought about bringing our own printer, but some of our stations were running on battery power or were mobile. Additionally, ink notoriously dries up in a few weeks without use which meant buying new ink (up to $30) for each drill. 

The Solution: I bought a tiny portable thermal receipt printer on Amazon for around $40. It operated on 9 volts and includes a 1.5Ah Li-ion battery. It's supports Bluetooth, but so far I've only gotten it to work via the USB cable on Windows. It uses thermal printer rolls which are 58mm wide. It's certainly not large, but very readable. Best of all...no ink or ribbon. The only consumable is the paper and it has a long shelf-life as long as you keep it away from high heat or direct sunshine. 

I charged the batter by connecting the power cable and installed the printer driver (POS 58) which came with the printer. I connected the USB and it found the printer. One issue was finding a paper definition in the printer setting that worked. I finally found "ZPrinter Paper (58mmx3276mm)" which worked well. I believe I had to install the printer driver for the ZPrinter to get this option.

I then exported my Winlink message to a text file and opened it in Notepad. I set the left and right margins to the minimum, the top to 1.0 and the bottom 0.0. Then I set the font to 9pt. Arial which seemed to be a good compromise between readability and size. The best thing is these settings carry over even after closing notepad. Then I simply printed the message and tore off the receipt. See the video for a look at the process. 

UPDATE: With inflation, the price of most of these types of printers has gone up. I've foundone that is still around $45 (see affiliate link below). 

QCX-Mini and a Keyer

So after a club member teased us with a great demonstration on QRP CW, I ordered a QCX-Mini from QRP Labs. It took awhile to arrive (was out of stock and had to wait for the new batch to be manufactured) but once it got here, I was pumped! Spent about three nights putting it together, taking my time to make sure everything was correct. And it tuned up wonderfully!

Next, it was time to find a key. I prefer iambic keyers but the only one I own is chrome Bencher set of paddles. It's just too heavy for a backpack radio like the QCX-Mini. So, I cruised the web and found a nice design on Thingverse. I fired up my 3D printer and went to work. I used the "mini" version which is very small. After a couple of days of fiddling with the fine-tuning, the keyer seemed to work well. I used magnets instead of a metal spring and it has a fairly nice feel. I built a 40m End-Fed Half-Wave antenna and picked up a neat 3Ah 12V Lithium-Ion battery pack recommended by a guy on Reddit. 

This past weekend, I took it along with the QCX-mini out on the trail during a trip to Arkansas. We got caught in the rain, so I didn't have a lot of time to use it, but I did send CQ for a little while and was very pleased. 

A new addition to the bench!

When I was five years old, I used to play with my father's oscilloscope. It was a massive hunk of gray metal with a round screen that I thought looked like a port window on a ship. With the flip of a switch, the screen would glow green with faint yellow lines running up and down and left and right. I used to press my face to the screen and pretend I was looking out of a submarine, hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean, peering into the murky green waters. Unfortunately, I never saw a fish. 

Later I would twist and turn the knobs (I had no idea what I was doing) until I would see a dot zip across the screen. I discovered if I put my fingers near the little plugs on the front of the device, the dot would jump and move in strange directions. 

Now, 45 years later, I have finally purchased my own scope. It's a far cry from that old behemoth but it's still just as exciting. I've found a nice little spot on my bench (it's a WHOLE lot smaller!) and have begun to work through the setup. Unfortunately, I still don't know what I'm doing, but thanks to YouTube and my my son the engineer, I'm learning!

Testing out my new IC-7100

So I recently bought myself an IC-7100 for Christmas. The model has been around for awhile and has a fairly good reputation. It's identical to the IC-7100 the Rusk County ARC has at the OEM office, it will give me a chance to stay "in-practice" to be able to use that one.

I bought a large "gun bag" at Walmart that the fits the radio quite nicely. I took it all out to Lake Forrest Park with my BuddiPole and operated an hour or so. Made a couple of solid contacts on 20m to Minnesota and got a good report. This is my first Icom radio so it's a little new to this Yaesu user, but I'm getting the hang of it. I have not been able to use the D-Star function yet since I'm too far from a repeater.