How early versions of TouCans were inspired by the OHIS
KO6BTY and my writing projects regarding one Michael Gladych (page) (general gladych) (general history of physics)
unschooling/homeschooling/parenting in general
and we got to talk to Thomas K4SWL about qrp rigs
We just made it back from our camping trip yesterday, so I hope to have a lot of updates over the next few days, and maybe some pretty pictures as well like this one of Mt. Wheeler and, of course, Project TouCans.
Ham Radio With K0PIR
Nestled along the pristine shores of the Gulf of Mexico lies a hidden gem for nature lovers and amateur radio enthusiasts alike. The Gulf Islands National Seashore, with its stunning beaches, diverse wildlife, and rich history, is not only a...
The post Activating Gulf Islands National Seashore from Fort Pickens Campground appeared first on Ham Radio with K0PIR - Icom 7300 and 7610 SDR Transceivers and now Elecraft!.
The Imuto battery pack it uses weighs in at about a pound, making it the heaviest component of the antenna-borne rig. I've always enjoyed using butcher twine to support the rig, but it looked—and felt—very much like butchers twine was not going to support Powered TouCans, (aka Wireless TouCans.) Butchers twine has always had a bit of an issue getting a bit jammed up on the sap of various trees. This has led to be being able to feel when the twine is about to break. With the extra weight of the battery pack, I've been having this feeling a lot more often. I needed a different way to suspend the radio, but didn't want to resort to rope if I could avoid it.
Enter tarred twine. I'd never heard of this stuff before it on Amazon, but wow! It's tensile strenght is higher, it can be about the same weight, and it doesn't hang up on tree limbs as much. The tar reduces the friction of the string overall. This led to no limb jams over the last weekend during all three POTAs across New Mexico! The tar makes the twine weigh a bit more per foot which gives it more of a rope feel in terms of sturdiness, but without the awkward width of a rope. The rig didn't fall once, nor did it once feel like the twine was going to break!
Here's evidence of the twine in action from the Lincoln National Forest POTA (I was on Monjeau Peak.)
One more twine trick before I go. I also learned over the last two weekends, that one can insert a rock into the end of the twine tube to add weight to roll of twine making it heft a bit farther when launched by an atlatl.
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| Shown here with lava rock that was returned to Valley of Fires, NM |
This little trick also simplifies the design of the atlatl if you happen to be camping. It turns out that folding up a segmented tent pole with the exception of the final segment, creates a very handy two segment long atlatl! The picture below shows the length of two connected segments of th test pole. Want a longer throw? You can simply add more segments. The tent pole also has a bit more spring to it than a typical limb which adds yet a little more loft ot the twine spool. But why does the rock matter you ask? In addition to adding weight, it prevents the tent pole from emerging from the other side of the twine tube making for a more controlled lauch with less thought and less practice.
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| Sleeping pad as well as three year-old and five year-old's booted feet included for scale |
2023 was a phenomenal year for us. So many new sites to see and people to meet. This is a short compilation of our adventures this last year.
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The post The best of Ham Radio Camping, 2023 appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.
This was a busy weekend. Two hamfests and two POTA parks in two days. First hitting Ham Radio Outlet’s Superfest on Saturday and then beeline to Belvidere Illinois, near Rockford, for the Chicago FM Club’s Radio Expo. To make driving easy, we took off Friday afternoon and drove towards Milwaukee, spending the night at the Kettle Moraine State Forest (POTA K-4352)
As a bonus, patrons can view the full, unedited phone contacts for this Parks on the Air activation. Visit my page on Patreon for details: https://www.patreon.com/kb9vbrantennas
I do return QSL, if you made a contact with me and would like a QSL, please send me one. Return postage not necessary, but always appreciated. As they say, KB9VBR is ‘good in the book.
Wind up end fed half wave antenna: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FlatlandersMirrors
Dutch Oven Pizza
Cold ferment dough (make a day ahead)
240 g all purpose flour (King Arthur AP)
170 g water
1/2 tsp yeast
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp olive oil
Mix dough ingredients with rubber splatula, and then knead by pulling and folding dough four times every 15 minutes over a one hour period. The dough should become quite elastic during this time period. Place in refrigerator and let ferment overnight.
Take out dough 1-2 hours before cooking to warm and rise slightly. Work dough into a 12 inch circle on parchment paper. Add sauce, cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms, etc.
Place in 425 degree dutch oven. Turn oven halfway through cooking process to reduce hot spots on the bottom. Cook for 20-25 minutes until done.
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Timestamp
00:00 Introduction
00:51 20 meter activation of Kettle Moraine State Forest
08:18 Dutch Oven Pizza and FT8
09:14 Two Hamfests in two days
10:08 Ham Radio Outlet Superfest
11:10 Meat Sweats
11:42 20 meter activation of Havenwoods State Forest
14:35 K-5579 activation recap
15:39 Camping at Radio Expo
16:16 Radio Expo hamfest
17:57 Thank you to the Ham Radio Outdoors community
The post Camping at the Hamfest! Fall camping is the best appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.
We’re in Southwestern Wisconsin, enjoying the sites of the Driftless Area and putting two parks on the air. Join me for Parks on the Air activations of Tower Hill State Park (POTA K-1478) and Governor Dodge State Park (POTA K-1451).
Southwestern Wisconsin’s driftless area is known for its ancient geological landscape. Sandstone bluffs and deep river valleys carved over eons. The glaciers left this area generally untouched and these cambrian era rocks hold the secrets of time. Mining was an important industry in the region, drawing immigrants to the new territory. Tower Hill State Park encompasses the boom and bust of those lead mining days.
— Links and Items Mentioned —
POTA Flag: https://www.clubgearonline.com/product/POTA-parks-on-the-air-flag/142
Build a Headset Trigger Switch: https://youtu.be/b5Wu8BlrSF0
The Driftless Reader: https://amzn.to/45iVzFx
Pendarvis Historic Site: https://pendarvis.wisconsinhistory.org/
Foil Pack French Dip Sandwiches (based on): https://www.themanual.com/food-and-drink/foil-packet-french-dip-recipe/
Become a patron! Unlock exclusive content at: https://www.patreon.com/kb9vbrantennas
Like what you see? You can leave me a tip:
https://www.paypal.me/kb9vbr
Support Ham Radio Q&A by shopping at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2kO6LH7
The post It’s a Road Trip! A two park POTA adventure appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.
Big Bay State Park (POTA K-1439) and Big Bay Sand Spit and Bog (POTA K-4244) are two little activated entities located on Madeline Island on Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay. It’s always a pleasure to put these parks on the air when we take our annual trip to ‘the island’. For this trip I operate exclusively from the shores of Gitchee Gumee.
Forget-me-not Geocache: https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2ZM34
Madeline Island Wilderness Preserve (Capser Trail): https://www.miwp.org/the-preserve
Madeline Island Ferry: https://madferry.com/
Madeline Island Chamber of Commerce: https://www.madelineisland.com/madeline-island/town-of-lapoint-govt/
As a bonus, patrons can view the full, unedited phone contacts for this Parks on the Air activation. Visit my page on Patreon for details: https://www.patreon.com/kb9vbrantennas
I do return QSL, if you made a contact with me and would like a QSL, please send me one. Return postage not necessary, but always appreciated. As they say, KB9VBR is ‘good in the book.’
Like what you see? You can leave me a tip:
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Support Ham Radio Q&A by shopping at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2kO6LH7
The post Lake Superior on the air! I operate portable on the beach appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.
16th place in the Single Operator – Single Radio – Low Power – In A Park category with 1,053 points.
That’s how it shook out. That category is always very competitive. Or maybe I should say that it’s got a lot of entries. It’s the most fun way to run the contest and single operator, low power is what I’m all about.
That said, I’m hopeful that next year, my daughter might have her ticket and we can do Multi Operator – Multi Radio – Low Power – In A Park because there weren’t ANY participants in that group. It’d be fun to pull that off just once for grins. Maybe even take my dad along. Get a pile of QRP rigs running. That’d be a blast.
My write up on the event is HERE. I’m sure I’ll do it again. It’s really one of two contests each year that get my attention. The other is coming up in February so stay tuned for that!
Roche-a-Cri is French for ‘Screaming Rock.’ French explorers dubbed this outcrop in central Wisconsin that name, but ancient petroglyphs on the rock indicate that indigenous people have been visiting this site for ages prior. Roche-a-Cri State Park (POTA K-1474) is a jewel in the middle of Wisconsin’s Central Sands region and an island of the Glacial Lake Wisconsin.
Roche a Cri State Park is an island. As the glaciers receded 17,000 years ago, central wisconsin filled with water. Glacial Lake Wisconsin is what it was called. Over the millenia, partially submerged hills were eroded by wind and water, exposing their cambian sandstone core. These mysterious outcrops are what remain, islands of a long ago lake.
Standing above the horizon, Roche a Cri was a waypoint, a marker for first peoples, early explorers, and modern times. Petroglyphs mark the passing of indigenous populations. The French explorers named it screaming rock, and this spot was a rest stop along the highway until it was turned into a state park in 1948.
Bonus content, titled “Ship Rock and Glacial Lake Wisconsin” is available to members over on Patreon. Visit my page on Patreon for details: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-ship-rock-85995324
I do return QSL, if you made a contact with me and would like a QSL, please send me one. Return postage not necessary, but always appreciated. As they say, KB9VBR is ‘good in the book.’
— Items Mentioned —
End Fed Random Wire Antenna https://youtu.be/D_-aNzrIXWs
Window Screen Vertical Antenna Ground Plane https://youtu.be/UadUg5H8KO8
Eco Worthy 20ah LiFePO4 Battery: https://amzn.to/3PSpEHu
— Recipe —
Portabella Mushroom Cap burgers
Marinade
2 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp Soy Sauce
1 tsp Rosemary
4 Portabella Mushroom Caps
Salt and pepper to taste
Clean the trip the mushroom caps and for about an hour. Grill over medium heat about 4-7 minutes per side until done. Serve with your favorite hamburger fixings.
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The post It’s a Screaming Rock! Roche-a-Cri State Park Ham Radio Camping appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.
Ohio State Parks On The Air was 09-Sep this year as it always falls on the first Saturday after Labor Day. It’s a contest whose primary purpose is to get operators out into the State Parks of Ohio and enjoy the outdoor spaces the state has to offer.
Last year was the first time that I’d ever participated. I was still quite new to POTA but I was getting better at my portable operations. I spent my weekend at Salt Fork State Park K-1989 or SFK both last year and again this year. It’s a nice park with a good, technical trail that my wife likes to take on with the dog while I’m in the camper running my mouth for a few hours.
I will freely admit that I am not a natural contester. Sitting in the chair for hours making contacts is fun for a while, but I run out of steam after about 4 hours. Knowing this going in and feeling a lot more comfortable with my gear and technique, I had a LOT of fun.
We arrived at camp on Friday afternoon and got the camper put up very quickly. We enjoyed a leisurely dinner.
With the camper set up, dinner consumed, and everything in order, I proceeded to take over the table in the camper, much to my wife’s chagrin. But hey, she knew we were there for OSPOTA and I really only took up half of the table (maybe?). Or half of the camper. I can’t remember which.
The setup for this trip only introduced one material variable into what I do for most POTA activations but was standard for what I do when we’re using the camper.
IC-705 Transceiver aka My Best Radio Buddy
Hardrock-50 amplifier with ATU option
Chameleon whip with extention and capacitance hat
Microsoft Surface GO 2 running Ubuntu
Rite in the Rain notebook and pencil for logging
Heil Sound HTH Series Handie-Talkie Headset
ABR feed line and patch cable
Astron SS Series Switching Power Supply
The only deviations from my normal setup are the Hardrock-50 and the power supply. Those only come with me when I’m out camping in the camper as they’re not exactly bicycle friendly. The rest of the gear cycles in and out.
But the most important piece of gear is the Radio Beagle. This year, Nacho came along and was quite happy to hang out in the camper while I worked as many contacts as I could.
I fired up the station on Saturday right in time to start the contest. My very first OSPOTA contact was my buddy from Mastodon.Radio, N3VEM. I was really happy to get him in the log! I also managed to get a couple of other online friends in there like KC1RSI. The most exciting log entry was, of course, the Editor In Chief of the PCARS Radiogram, Tom KB8UUZ! He also happens to chair OSPOTA and is an all-around good guy.
The bands were a mixed bag. 40m started off OK and it was my only real option due to rough conditions last year. This year, it started to get VERY noisy and I eventually shifted off to 20m when I got as many of the Ohio State Parks as I believed that I could. 15m and 10m were both dead for me. 80m tuned up nicely, but there was no one who could hear me. I didn’t check the MUF or solar conditions for the day, so I’m not exactly sure what I was fighting with. In a contest all that matters is who I can hear because we’re not going to change the sun. 20m held for most of the day. In fact, I was getting really good reports through most of the time I was on the air.
A few fun notes. I hit as far west as California, a lot of Texans, plenty of folks from SC and FL, and up as far as Maine and New Brunswick! Nothing outside of North America, which was not a shock at all. The wildest run was getting three contacts back to back in South Dakota in about 3 or 4 minutes. One ham said it was raining there and that probably kept them indoors and hunting parks.
I had two Park To Park POTA contacts where the other side was in three entities at once. One was in the states and the other was in Canada. The total number of Park to Park contacts was around 20 for the day. From a POTA perspective, it was a big win for me.
I ended the day with 119 contacts in my OSPOTA log. I hit 9 Ohio State Parks (including my own). That’s a pretty good number of points for me. Again, I’m not a contester so quitting after about 4 hours in the chair (5 if you count lunch) was good enough for me. Besides, it gave us time to enjoy dinner and pack up for our drive home.
I’m exhausted by the amount of noise I get around my Chameleon gear. Yes, it is expensive. Yes, it tends to play into the “Tacti-cool” market. But ya know what? It works. Every time. And it is RUGGED. As a big guy who breaks stuff a lot, I appreciate things that are over-engineered. The whips, the extension, and all of the parts of the Chameleon system are built to last in rough environments. No, they’re not light and I wouldn’t recommend them for a trip where you’re backpacking for a week and expecting to make miles every day. But for an operator who mostly travels on bicycle or in a camper or someone who spends time in harsh conditions, they make a great product.
Oh. The capacitance hat? I notice a marked difference in performance on 80m and 40m. I haven’t charted that out because I don’t care enough to run a lot of tests, but my experience is that it’s a useful addition to the system.
The Hardrock-50 with the IC-705 is a brilliant combination. There was a moment in the week leading up to the contest where I was thinking about the virtues of an IC-7300. It’s a great radio for sure and I bet it would be great for a camper setup. The truth is, I love my IC-705 and I know it backwards and forewards. Coupling it with the Hardrock gets me all the power that I need with a built-in tuner. Plus, I built the Hardrock and that makes me smile. Given that most of my operations are portable and not in the camper, the IC-7300 might spend more time in the shack than in the field and we’re back to the fact that I already have an IC-7100 that’s a good base station for me.
My MVP for the day was the Heil headset. That thing was $40 well spent. I usually use it when I’m working CW as headphones and take it along because it removes the need for the hand mic when I’m doing POTA activations. I get great audio reports when I use the mic and it’s very comfortable. It’s over the ear so it doesn’t give me the weird headache I get when I use ear buds for too long but it’s also not noise cancelling or keeping me from hearing stuff that’s going on around me when I’m at a park. I don’t like surprises. It’s comfortable and performs better than it should for the price. I’m a fan.
And here’s what it looked like on the QSO Map:
This year I was much more confident in my gear and I knew my rig a lot better than I did last time around. It was a wonderful weekend in terms of weather and the bands were entertaining if nothing else. There are no complaints on my end for the number of contacts made or amount of fun had. Honestly, contest or not, it’s always good to get out in the woods with my wife and the dogs. Playing radio is a bonus!
The log is submitted and I’ll just wait to see how I did. But the points were never the point.
It’s been a long year, and the fact that we had to spend a significant share of our time at home did not necessarily mean that we had more time to read, write, or do other things that we planned:… Continue Reading →
The post Road trip 2020: travel during pandemic appeared first on K8UA.
Ham Radio With K0PIR
So on the way back to Pierre, SD I took the opportunity to stop and camp a little in Arkansas. See my previous post, Spadra Campground: A Serene Ham Radio Operators Retreat on the Shores of Lake Dardanelle. I can...
The post Camping and Ham Radio Operating at Prairie Creek Campground appeared first on Ham Radio with K0PIR - Icom 7300 and 7610 SDR Transceivers and now Elecraft!.
Ham Radio With K0PIR
Not listed in POTA, but exceptional for operating due to the size and location. Nestled near the town of Clarksville, Arkansas, the Spadra Campground offers nature enthusiasts and Ham radio operators an idyllic getaway. Located on the shores of Lake...
The post Spadra Campground: A Serene Ham Radio Operators Retreat on the Shores of Lake Dardanelle appeared first on Ham Radio with K0PIR - Icom 7300 and 7610 SDR Transceivers and now Elecraft!.
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