Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Books About Radio listening in the USA

"Something in the Air"  by Marc Fisher

Lots of good stories about the development of music and radio's Rock and Roll era through the 90's.  Easy to read and in a humorous style.





Early radio broadcasting in America in the 20's and 30's.  Lots of good history of radio and the country during this period.


Listening In  by Susan Douglas

More of a sociological treatment than the others AND talks a LOT about hams as an influence on early radio.  





Tuesday, February 22, 2011

ARRL DX CW Contest 2011

Managed to get on some for the ARRL International CW this weekend.

Rig FT-1000 Mk V, Alpha 78 and Cushcraft R7
Puter N1MM, K1EL WinKeyer USB, DM780

Was nice to make some contacts on 10 and 15.  Highlights were working the T30YA on 40M.  Working VK, JA, ZL etc on higher bands.  Trying to figure out 145 Watts as NR from somebody!


Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty
   3.5       1      3    1
     7     118     354   55
    14     141     423   68
    21      83     249   47
    28      29      87   19
 Total     372    1116  190
Score: 212,040

Monday, February 14, 2011

CQ WPX RTTY 2011

  
CQ WPX RTTY Contest


Managed some hours on the WPX RTTY this year and made a few contacts.  Was able to hold a frequency and run quite a bit more than is 'normal' for my small station.  On Sunday the last 4-5 hours was mostly 'running'.  The N1MM program was working except the band map was not filling with spots for some reason.  The station used was Cushcraft R7 vertical, MK V and Alpha 78.

DX highlight was working the S9 Sao Tome and Principe.  S9DX Homepage

 Band    QSOs    Pts  WPX
     7      77     270   53
    14     123     216   82
    21      21      42   18
 Total     221     528  153
Score: 80,784

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

ATS-4a Ready to test Now Finished

ATS-4a is now finished and fully operational.  The audio coupling Cap C55 was a problem that I solved by putting an additional .1uf in parallel with the existing cap.  Some folks have suggested swapping C55 and C61.  In any case it seems that C55 needs to be larger in value for the audio chain to provide adequate output.  At this point I am getting about three watts output at 12V with a weak 9V battery in the Oak Hills QRP Wattmeter into a dummy load.

ATS-4 Finished





ATS-4 Top

ATS-4 Bottom

Today the missing (lost) 'Red' SMD Cap came in the mail.  The last component was added and the unit was inspected and looks ready for final assembly and testing.

Quoted from ATS Yahoo Group


Another ATS4A on air.Posted by: "rv3apm1" rv3apm1@yahoo.com   rv3apm1Thu Mar 10, 2011 2:49 am (PST)

Thanks for this group and thanks Steve for nice job.
Now Built my small nice ATS4 A. Good CW tone , Pout 5-6W and only 15 m 4W. Good RX.
Note:
Not used liquid flux for switches, C55 really 1.0 uF, C46 0.01 uf
BS170, 2N7002 careful to do solder - not good for static
73 Serge