[CQ] Anyone going to HRO sometime?

Bill Paul wpaul at windriver.com
Mon Feb 22 01:14:54 UTC 2010


Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Jonathan Lassoff had 
to walk into mine on Sunday 21 February 2010 15:25 and say:

> Excerpts from Bill Paul's message of Sun Feb 21 13:44:37 -0800 2010:
> > The Ham Radio Outlet store in Oakland is a little tough to get to via
> > public transit, and I haven't been there in a few years. If someone from
> > SF is planning to visit there, I would appreciate if I could ride along
> > with you.
>
> It's a crazy pain to get to. I pretty much just only order stuff online
> to work around this.

Yeah, but then I can't drool over the toys.

> > On another note, I recently acquired a new HF rig (Kenwood TS-850SAT),
> > but still haven't made any HF Noisebridge contacts. :) If anyone is still
> > interested in trying to have an HF QSO, let me know.
>
> Awesome! I've been seeing you doing quite the overhaul on it at 2169. I
> have an Elecraft K2 and a small vertical HF antenna at the space that
> I'd like to try out.

Not so much overhaul as preventive maintenance. The 850 is known for having 
some bad surface-mount capacitors that can eventually leak electrolyte fluid. 
Those are easy to replace, luckily. Unfortunately I also had to replace a 
transistor in the RX IF stage that failed only about 1 week after I got the 
radio. The transistor only cost 50 cents, but it was an incredible pain to 
replace it without proper surface mount soldering tools.

It's working well now though. I even managed to work Italy this morning on 20 
meters. (First European DX contact.) I've heard Germany and France too, but 
wasn't able to get through the pileups.

> I used to be much more active when I lived in Fremont, and there was
> tons of space for antennas, but I haven't been back on the air since I
> moved back to SF.
>
> Want to setup a test CW QSO between radios at the space?

I haven't ever worked CW on the air. I don't even have a key (I used to, but I 
don't know what became of it). I studied morse code just well enough to pass 
the 13WPM test for my general, then never touched it again.

> My radio has SSB, but I don't have a handmic, so I'm CW only at the
> moment.

It shouldn't be too hard to wire up a microphone to that radio. Radio Shack 
sells 8 pin microphone connectors. Oddly, it looks like you have to set up 
some jumpers in the K2 to use a mic. I don't know if you have them already. 
If not, we can probably find some at 2169.

Is your radio the K2, or K2/100?

-Bill

> Cheers,
> jonathan

-- 
=============================================================================
-Bill Paul            (510) 749-2329 | Member of Technical Staff,
                 wpaul at windriver.com | Master of Unix-Fu - Wind River Systems
=============================================================================
   "I put a dollar in a change machine. Nothing changed." - George Carlin
=============================================================================




More information about the CQ mailing list