Massey Christmas Open Hangar 2013

The WX was really good for the Annual Massey Aerodrome Christmas Open Hangar Day.  I have been several times but it has not always been a good flying day and usually have taken the car.  The temp was about 40F when I left and had to put the charger on the battery to get the engine to fire.  With a 'hot' battery it did finally fire up with full choke.  Will have to work on getting a real pig tail wired up to the battery charger instead of the exhaust stack and a screw in the '+' side of the two pin trailer connector that goes to the battery.  Otherwise the whole cowling must come off to get to the battery.  So we arrived late and I parked 3/4 of the way down the runway to avoid a 'back taxi' while people were still coming in.  Massey is a great venue and I saw a number of people that I have met over the last 8 years of flying on the Beautiful Eastern Shore.

This pix is from the Massey Archives but it was here today.  It is a great looking 1947 Republic Seabee.  These are great amphib planes and you don't see many flying anymore.

Breitling Top Time and Jim Clark

Jim Clark wearing a Breitling Top Time.  Dad had one of these watches that I got when my mother passed away last year.  It had quite running and I sent it out for reconditioning.

http://www.automobiliac.com/automobiliac/2012/6/25/jim-clark-and-his-breitling-top-time.html

Here is a link to the watch repairer's blog which shows the work done on it.

http://watchguy.co.uk/service-breitling-toptime-venus-178/#comment-116537

CQ WW CW 2013

  World Wide CW

K3pg

40-10 only (well a couple by loading the feedline)

failing TR relay especially Sun loosing connection on RX side 

Ant Cushcraft R7

Rig Yaesu FT-1000MkV

K1EL keyer

Amp Alpha 78

N1MM and DM780

Assisted with internet by telnet with w3lpl Go PVRC

Total op time about 15 hours of 48

Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty   ZN

   3.5       4      7    3    2

     7     140     393   62   17

    14      65     184   43   14

    21     140     394   64   23

    28     144     406   61   20

 Total     493    1384  233   76

Score: 427,656

CQ WW SSB 2013

Got on the CQ WW SSB for about 4 hours or so and enjoyed some DX on 10M.  Lots of fun.  Go PVRC!

 Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty   ZN
     7       8      24    7    2
    14      42     120   24   11
    21      35      94   25   12
    28      44     120   19   13
 Total     129     358   75   38
                                                     Score: 40,454

Ant Cushcraft R-7 gnd mounted vert
Rig FT-1000MP MkV
Alpha 78 used on 40 and 20 only
Software N1MM
Internet connection for assist

New Garden PA

Went up to a Wings and Wheels at New Garden PA a few months ago.  Found this pix of us landing on the web.

Wiring Up an Aviation Headset Adapter for ICA21

After years of using a Aviation Headset with a hand mic with the old Icom A21.  I finally purchased from SkyGeek  part number PA-81.  It worked except for the PTT so I had to open the mic jack and rewire it.  I used this drawing and got it back together.  It seems to be working with the radio.  Next will try it with the intercom.  This sounded good in the intercom but I received bad transmit audio reports on the air so I added a 470 pf cap at the mic element to see if it was RF getting back into the radio.  Will try it again soon. This is on a Sky Lite SL-800 headset that has an electret mic element.  One year later the resistor failed open and the PTT quit.  I redid it and played with the resistor values a bit by adding several 33k in series and trying it at 33, 66, 99k and there seemed to be an increase in audio level at 66k  and I redid it with a 100k so not to have to put 2 resistors in the little adapter.  The small cap seemed to help with RF getting into the audio in some cases.

New airplane

Waiex at Perryville MO 

We spent the weekend getting checked out in the plane in MO.

Builders and Me as the plane changes hands

Plane packed and ready to go on last leg home

Where we camped at the airport in Danville, KY