Back on the air!

It took a lot of effort, but I made it! I pulled new LMR400, some nice heavy rotor control cable and two runs of CAT6 cables yesterday. I also reinstalled the roof-top mast and rotor. Today, my middle son helped me hoist the hexbeam antenna back up on the roof and I installed a new ground bar and strap. I got cluster monitoring working in HRD and then attempted to get on the air. Not … Continue reading

You want HOW MUCH?!?!

Dear god, Yaesu parts department is insane. I went to HamCom this weekend. It was fine.. but seemed much smaller than when it was in Plano previously. My goals were: Talk to the FlexRadio folks about updating since my 6300 was back at version 1.2.?? (current is 1.7.x). I want to get their take on the best approach since VAC/CAT etc has changed a LOT, and I use the connection to Ham Radio Deluxe a … Continue reading

Clean up your act!

See this? That is what an over-modulated PSK-31 signal looks like on the waterfall. The green is the OMs signal, and the purple are all of his sidebands. I counted 5 of them. Do you see any other conversations going on next to them? No. You may be thinking, “Well, maybe it was a quiet night on 20M”. Nope.. here is what that exact space looked like a few seconds after this person quit splattering all … Continue reading

So close… but no cigar

I took the day off on Friday to try to get ready for Field Day this year. I planned to operate as class 1E. Here is what I managed to get done in a little over 36 hours: Moved all gear into shack and got set up on the new desk. Set up PC with Ham Radio Deluxe/DM780 (I forgot I gave my previous laptop tomy brother and wiped the drive), LoTW, etc. etc. I … Continue reading