I've been a ham for 44 years now (since I was 12 years old). See my bio for an extended ham radio biography. In late 2000, after being "equipment-less" for several years, Santa brought a Sierra QRP rig and I built it during the winter, then later a PSK20 kit arrived at my birthday! Until spring 2003, I was active only QRP CW on 40, 30, 20 and 15 meters plus 20 meter PSK31. In late May 2003, I bought a Yaesu FT-897, my first new commercial rig in almost 20 years. What a great radio! I use it both at home and in the car. I also have a working PSK80 Warbler, but am "antenna challenged" because I'm currently living in a condominium and using an indoor 40M dipole in the attic. In Jan 2006, I built an Elecraft KX1 "ultra-portable" CW transceiver and have been having a great time making contacts with it, often operating portable near my building at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. In Dec 2007, I completed a basic Elecraft K2 and not only is it the best rig and best receiver I've ever used, but now I'm hooked on building Elecraft kits for sure! I'm a member of the Falmouth Amateur Radio Association in Falmouth, MA on Cape Cod, and was the club's president for 2005 and 2006.
Present Equipment:
I like to get on during the various contests (ARRL DX, CQ WPX, June VHF QSO Party, the monthly QRP Spartan Sprints and NAQCC Sprints) and make a few contacts. Most of my contacts are CW, but if it's a SSB contest, I'll get on for a few phone contacts also. With my indoor antenna, CW is a bit more effective, but SSB works. Contesters have GOOD ears and they need even the weak ones - a contact is a contact, regardless of the signal strength!
For PSK31 with the FT-897 or the PSK-20 I currently use a Dell Inspiron notebook PC running Digipan v2.0 software. I don't use a special interface to the sound card, just a couple of patch cables and a serial cable. The FT-897 even has digital VOX, so all you need are the 2 audio cables. Setting the TX level with the Windows control is a bit touchy and would probably benefit from a trimpot of some sort in the audio line, but it's NOT necessary to spend money for a special interface (i.e Rigblaster or MFJ) for either of my current rigs. The PSK-20 puts out several watts to my attic dipole and contacts with North America and Europe are not difficult at this power level.
I've also briefly experimented with a couple of RTTY and SSTV software packages (MM-TTY and MM-SSTV) and both appear to work fine - now all I need is more free time!
Oh, and check out ARRL's Logbook of the World - a great way to get confirmations! Got my C5Z (Gambia) contact confirmed this way, for example. Everybody should add LOTW to their "bag of tricks"! I use N3FJP's ACLog 3.0 software and can upload new log info directly.
Latest News - 2008
Wow, what happened to 2007?!
A couple of radio events included going to Lobstercon 2007 in Maine. Had a fun time in spite of the rainy weekend (I did stay in a hotel down the road), but would like to camp onsite next time! Also operated once more from Point Prim on Prince Edward Island. (see my W1OH PEI 2005 Report for info on the site there)
The biggest thing in radio this year was getting an Elecraft K2 kit for my birthday in April, then waiting until the week before Christmas to actually start building it! We've been trying to sell our condo so we can move closer to work, grown kids, and grandkids in the Falmouth, MA area and into a real house once again! So that meant keeping the condo spic & span - i.e. no nasty looking construction project tables! Action on the real estate market being what it is, Christmas was almost here, and I decided to take over a corner for a few days and finally build my K2. Completed it the day before Christmas and got the K160RX option into it a day or two later. Nice rig and fabulous receiver!!!!! Middle of January, I tweaked the filters using Spectrogram, so now the receiver sounds even better! I've made a bunch of contacts now including several during SKN and am looking forward to using the K2 during FYBO on Feb 2. And I just got confirmation from Elecraft that my KAT2 ATU, KNB2 Noise Blanker, and BL2 Balun are on their way so I can have some more building fun!
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