2008 MNQP - Ben's first contest

Ben and I spent some time on Saturday working the Minnesota QSO Party. Ben is 7 years
old and this was his first time operating the radios for any period of time. He operated
SSB and I handled the logging and coaching duties in addition of a few CW contacts.

It is not a power house score... but we had a good time and enjoyed ourselves... it
is a hobby after all.  This was the first time that I had actually used the triband
beam, 40m dipole, and 80m shunt in the same contest. Overall I was pretty happy with
the antennas as they seemed to play fine.

Ben was pretty excited about using the radios... now I just need to work on getting
his brothers into the shack. I would like to try to setup a sched with someplace exotic
like the south pole weather/science station.

2008 ARRL JAN VHF Contest

This was my first VHF contest that I have worked from our new house in EN25. Overall
things worked pretty well. The band conditions were pretty brutal which is typical
of Jan in Minnesota.

This contest had a lot of firsts for me:

• 
  1296 transverter (from W0AMT's stash of gear.)


• 
  Elecraft 222 transverter replaced
  my old Microwave Modules until


• 
  Kenwood TR751 as the IF rig for the microwave bands


• 
  RF relay between the 144/432 line from the Icom 706MKIIG and the amplifiers


• 
  Band pass filters for 50 & 144MHz


• 
  PTT/Keyline distribution system


• 
  All the antennas are new... this is the first contest for the VHF tower


• 
  Serious station integration

Some things that I would like to add, change, improve for the next VHF contest:

• 
  Add a switch box to
  be able to use one microphone with all of the radios


• 
  My ability to decode CW by ear


• 
  Add a 902 antenna and transverter to the station


• 
  Use my Elecraft K2 (still
  unbuilt in the original kit box) as my IF for 222
  transverter (eventually for 144, 222, and 432)

Thanks to KC0IYT/R and W9FZ/R for the bands and grids... it would have been a much
slower contest without you.

Flip Romney

I have a new name and slogan for Mitt Romney.

Flip Romney - He
will tell you what ever you want to hear.

Current race observations:

• 
  Huckabee is leading Thompson in my mind. I wish Thompson would give me some reasons
  to get behind him.


• 
  Obama and Clinton all but drown out Kennedy.

I would like to see Kennedy vs. Huckabee or Thompson and that is not too realistic.
I would be really interested to hear some good debate among them on how to move the
country forward.

The Democrat's have a real dilemma:

• 
  Clinton is an old school Democrat but probably knows how to
  get things done. She represents an aging America full of baby boomers.
  


• 
  Obama could provide inspiration to a new generation. But there
  is a cross section of people that feel that he might be too dovish in a world that
  has conflict.
  

The Republican's have dilemma:

• 
  They are not the party of fiscal conservatism any longer.
  


• 
  They are divided between the social/religious right and a group
  of moderates.
  


• 
  

  
  Huckabee seems to be a new force within his party. McCain
  is likeable but his window came and went 8 years ago.
  

  
  

Tell’em where to put the pole

Ok... Huckabee's quote made me laugh about as hard as I have in a long time. 
I can understand why people might be upset with the confederate flag (I don't like
what it stands for.) I think that Huckabee has the perfect perspective on it:

”South Carolina people know true conservatism when they see it.You don’t like people
outside the state telling you how you ought to raise your kids, you don’t like people
from outside the state telling you what to do with the flag,” Huckabee said during
a rally at a Myrtle beach airport hangar. “In fact, if somebody came down
to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell’em where to put the
pole.”

from Fox
News + other media sources.

Vigilante Movies - Cleaning up the mean streets

Paul Kersey: "It's like killing roaches – you have to kill em all, otherwise,
what's the point?"

AMC is running the Death Wish movie series this week. Tonight (Monday) was the original
movie from 1974. The quote above is from the third movie. AMC has been using that
quote in all of the commercials. I have to say that it is a great quote.



I watched the second half of the movie with my sons tonight. I have to say that it
was entertaining to watch a good guy take out the bad guys. It is kind of hard
to not like the vigilante cleaning up the mean streets.

Big Weekend

Talk about a busy weekend!

Ben had a wrestling tournament on Sunday that consumed most of the day on Sunday.
He wrestled 3 times for a total of 18 minutes. He took third place in his weight/age
group. He had two very close matches that were within 2 or 3 points each.

I spent the rest of the weekend working on getting the VHF/UHF and microwave gear
integrated for the VHF contest next weekend. I now have 50, 144, 222,432, and 1296
integrated. I am still a pop gun station but I am hoping that EN25 will be a popular
grid once we get the contests where the rovers are move active. (Who can afford
to be a big gun during a recession?)




I am hoping to add 902 this spring. I also need to get the 10GHz system put together.
Getting the 10GHz system mounted on the HF tower (that is where I have spare wind
load available) this summer will take some design effort.

I am pretty excited to be able to get back on VHF/UHF and best of all it is from our
new QTH.  --Go forth and emit RF!

Transverter Control Boxes

I built a couple of boxes with RJ45 to RCA break-outs. I will use these boxes to extend
the PTT/Keylines for my transverters from my shack where the IF radios are located
to my utility room where the transverters and coax runs to tower are located.

As I finish my basement I am putting a lot of CAT5 in the walls. CAT5 seemed like
a clean way to extend the RCA based PTT/Keylines since it is already in most of the
walls. I figure that each box costs about $5 with the parts that are involved.

Xtratyme Down Again

So tonight I am trying to download a small Debian Boot ISO. My rural wireless ISP
(Xtratyme) disappears in the middle of the download. I am so stuck.... Xtratyme is
the only semi-broad band option out here because Embarq will not deliver the T1's
to our local switch to enable DSL. (The switch does not get any closer to me short
of being in my yard.)

Xtratyme has a bunch of nice people there... but I need a higher level of performance
than they can provide and I expect a higher level of transparent support when the
network is down.

Generally speaking when I find that their network is down and call the support line:

• 
  The recorded message say that there are no outages.
  


• 
  Then no one will return my call


• 
  Then when I call back 30 minutes later the recorded message has been updated with
  a BS message... regardless of the outage being 10 minutes in duration or half a day.


• 
  Then they rarely return my original support call nor acknowledge that there was an
  issue.


• 
  If they do acknowledge your call they make you feel like an idiot for complaining
  that their network is down.

What a crappy deal... no competition between the
vendors... and the level of service and performance shows that lack of competition.

Maybe I am spoiled by working most of my professional career in Fortune 200 firms.
My internal clients expect a lot from us (rightfully so) and I expect a lot from the
people & partners that I work with.

My rural example show a complete & total break
down in the competition that the free market should provide in a de-regulated environment.

FYI... 40 minutes after my initial call to the support they finally call back... and
they are COMPLETELY clueless that they had an outage nor has the support person
even listened to my support voice-mail.  ARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Parts Run

Jacob and I drive into Minneapolis today. I needed some misc RCA, 1/8", and 1/4" parts.
I am in the process of building some PTT/keyline interfaces for the radios and transverters.
I am trying to get the shack setup for the January 2008 VHF contest and I am
quickly running out of time.

While I was at the store (Acme Electronics) I found some surplus pliers, needlenose,
and linesman pliers for $.50 each. The tools might be cheap but there is
always a need around our our house for spare tools. (My wife and kids sometimes
struggle to return my tools back to the proper spot in the Tool boxes or tool bags.)

Sprat Issue 133

The winter 2007/8 edition of Sprat arrived
in the mail earlier this week. I finally got a chance to remove the plastic wrapping
on the overseas mail. Another very fine issue. I love the homebrew tube (valve) on
the front cover.




I wish that there were more gems like this little magazine floating around.

In todays world is just to expensive and time consuming to crank out a newsletter
on paper let alone a magazine. There is something neat about this arriving in the
mail. There is something neat about being able to take it with you when you are out
and about might have a couple of minutes to spare.

As much as I am a e-tech geek I still like getting the paper in the mail!

Sprat is the Journal of the
G-QRP Club