Disappointing Email from ARRL

A few years back I took the best online course and today I have found nothing that compares. It was an ARRL propagation course it involved interaction with a mentor who was assigned to you. It had fantastic course material, as well as hands on projects. Before enrolling  propagation  was like a foreign language to me. By the end of the course with the help from the mentor, course material and the reviews I began to fully understand how important propagation was and also understood terms such as CME, A and K index, Flux, Solar wind and so on. I was able to put it all together and make sense of things when it came to ham radio and propagation. To this day I still refer to the notes and course materials to clarify things. There were many online course's that were offered. Some courses that still interested me were antenna modeling and RFI....so it was off to the ARRL site to find it. The only coarse's that was offered were public service and emergency communications. I emailed the ARRL asking if any of the other courses were available below was my reply.

Hi Mike,
 
You are correct-- we now offer only emcomm courses online.  
We had to take down our old online course platform and 
have not re-invested in redeveloping the other courses 
to re-launch them on the new platform.
 
However, we are looking at ways to re purpose the content 
from those courses. The first effort is to publish 
an "Introduction to Antenna Modeling" course book 
utilizing the material from the course you mention.

 It seems to me that  a "course book" is the new online course replacement when (and if) it comes out. The propagation course formate was very good and can't be replaced with a book. Seems to me the online learning was just not a priority when the ARRL web platform was revamped......well I'm one disappointed ARRL member.

1000 miles per watting

Over the weekend I was able to get some time to sit down at the rig and get some QRP time in. On Friday there was only time for two contact.  On 20 meters I heard F5HY calling CQ and at the time Michel was a decent signal. His code was a little fast on the CQ calling but I gave it a go. I was using 3 watts and he gave me 529 report.  The conditions were now changing fast and there was lots of repeats at both ends. The contact ended fast as the propagation seemed to be on the downswing. Michel lives in Luc Sur Mer 

F5HY station

France. I did send him an email after the contact he responded that he did not see me in his log. He said it may had been a miscopy of my call. He was going to look into it and get back to me. Up to this point I have not heard. But the contact to Luc Sur Mer France from my QTH with 3 watts works out to 1,218 miles per watt.


I then heard OZ3NP calling CQ on 20 meters and 3 watts just did not seem to cut it so I eventually cranked it up to 10 watts. Ben now heard me in Denmark and I was not sure if he was copying me at times but I'm in his log and I did get an email from him thanking me for the contact. That surprised me as this contact was plagued  with propagation gremlins. AT QRZ.COM Ben has a great setup and with his son now a ham radio history goes back three generations in his family. It was time to shut things down as there was other things that had to be down around the house plus Julie and I were going to have Chinese takeout yummy. 

OZ3NP

QRPp WSPRing

How to pass the time while WSPRing

Leading up to last weekend the sunspots were at an all time high along with the solar flux......it seemed that the radio god's were smiling on us again!! I turned on the K3 on the weekend and it was kinda a  down, it seemed that 20 meters may not had been as hot as I hoped it to be. I then turned to WSPR and thought I would give that a go on 20 meters as well. I wanted to put this solar hot spot to the test.....so instead of setting the K3 on the standard  3 watts output I dropped it down to 500mw's. I gave it a go and was surprised at the good

Dipole at 500mw's

results. Now I had always wondered when using that low power and my SWR after the K3's internal turner on 20 meters is about 2.3 what the

Put those serial cables on the EDGE.....

I have found that the USB world has not really taken over ham radio yet, sure there are some USB devices out there but not many. If you are like me you have more serial cables that you do ports on your computer. Most if not all new laptops only have USB ports. As for PC's they may come with a total of one.  There are the USB to serial converters but I find them to be a bit fussy at times to set up and get good communication going. Last year I came across a product called Edgeport from Digi international   these units can take up to 16 serial cables and with only one USB cable going to the PC. I have the 4 port model and found it on Ebay for about 60.00. Over the past year I have found this unit to work great. You can have all serial cables communicating at the same time. I have never noticed and troubles or slow downs. This is a great solution for the shack with multi serial cables and not enough ports on the PC. If you need it for portable use such as field day it's great as it gets it's power from the USB port so no external power source is needed.

The Elecraft KX3 a need or a WANT

Over the past week I have been doing some radio soul searching..... it all started with some operating time on my Elecraft K3. For some reason I turned to my left and there also on my desk was my Elecraft K2 with literally "0" operating time. At the begining of the summer I wanted to get the K2 portable and use it along with my KX1 on outings. I have the 100 watt module installed in the K2 and that would have to be removed and remote mounted for home use. So I went ahead and ordered the enclosure from Electraft to do this. I had planned this project to begin in the fall along with some other radio projects. Then it hit me "if I have the K2 why am I purchasing another portable rig ....the KX3" I shook my head wondering if Julie had slipped something in my tea!!!! So began the soul searching........the gears started to turn...what was the radio smarts thing to do....

Astron power supply hum solved

On Sunday afternoon it was now time to figure out why the lights in two rooms were flickering. Also along with the lights my two Astron power supplies would let out a deep hum now and then as well. I began by turning off the circuit breaker to the upper rooms to see what all this circuit breaker fed. I then went to each outlet to see if there were any loose wires. I came across a box that had many neutrals tied together and another group of hots tied together. They seemed to have no evidence of burning or overheating and all seemed to be very tight with the wire nut holding each set together. I still gave both  wire nuts a few good turns and put all the wires back into the box. I then went down again to turn on the circuit breaker and see if the problem was fix....low and behold the problem was gone and has never returned since. So even though the wires did not seem loose they must had been just enough to cause the lights to flicker. It's time to go back to radio fun!!!

A new Elecraft KX3 video !!!

 Enjoy the up and coming KX3

My Astron power supply is humming a tune I don't know.......

The other night while at the radio I notice my Astron power supply for no reason was giving out a loud hum for about 4 seconds then nothing. Now I have two Astron supplies an RS-20 and RS-35 both being beside each other I was not sure which one it was. After a process of elimination I found that BOTH supplies were doing it. This was taking place while the supplies were under load from any my radios during transmit and when both radios were not transmitting. I tested each supply with all radios off and still got the intermittent hum. The other items that are on the same outlet  like my PC did not have any troubles at all. I did see....well I thought I did....the compact florescent bulbs on my ceiling fan flicker.

A day of ham radio

It is a very rare event when I am able to spend a majority of the late afternoon and early evening on the radio. Julie and rose this morning to do a much needed house cleaning once that was done it was time for a walk. It's September and the weather is starting to change on Saturday it was 38C with the humidity but Monday it was a nice 18C. After our walk it was  hobby time for both Julie and I, her with photography and me ham radio. I began by starting the PC and opening up the QRP spot website. I noticed a spot for VA2OTA who was activating a summit for summits on the air. I tuned to 14.060 for a listen but was not able to hear anything...... according to the spots he was there and looking for contacts.

So I setup VFO B on the k3 for 14.060 using my new Grove HS-900 antenna. This way I was able to listen for VA2OTA with in my right ear and on VFO A cruise all the other bands for contacts with my left ear. While waiting for VA2OTA my left ear picked up 4O3A at 14.019 I gave him a call and he came right back with a 599...not bad for 5 watts and an attic dipole. It was a very short QSO as he had many in line

New wallpaper just arrived

These arrived the other day and came undamaged just have to get them up on the wall.