The long drive

I'll readily admit that I don't mind driving. I've been fortunate to own some pretty nice vehicles. My latest is a Ford F150 that has my Diamond VHF/UHF antenna mounted at the back of the the bed and my ICOM 2820 D-STAR radio nicely tucked into the console. When an impromptu trip came up Tuesday, instead of taking the ultra fuel efficient Honda, I took the truck. The ride is so much more comfortable, I enjoy riding up higher on the road, and of course the radio is much better than any temporary installation I can swing into the Honda.

It's around 9pm and no one is around on the repeaters. This isn't a route I travel very often so maybe I'm not on the active repeaters. I tuned over to 146.52 simplex. A quick call (not a long winded CQ) returns no takers. So wait a few minutes and try again. Just a simple call..."KG9DW mobile on I-39 southbound, listening on 52". And back comes a fine OM - WA9CEG, John in LaSalle. I'm about 20 miles north of LaSalle, so I know John has a fine station. Even in the flat lands of Illinois, working a mobile station 20 miles away does require more than a Ringo Ranger on a 10 foot pole.

Even at highway speeds, our QSO lasted a good 30 minutes. We talked about what we do (or in John's case did) for a living, family, radio, the weather...everything except for medical history! John worked in a steel mill and then owned an ice cream shop before retiring. His 6 kids were spread out about the area, with one living about 10 miles from my home QTH. We spoke of friends, common areas we've traveled, and then of happiness. We talked about things John was proud of, and the impacts he has had on others.

Talking with such a fine man, it was hard not to remember my own grandfather who died last year. The voice was similar, and so were some of the stories and advice. It was even harder not to think of my friend Fred Slayback who passed away earlier in the day after a long health struggle. As I as headed further south, I said my 73s before I ran out of range. John was still running a strong S5 signal as I fell over the hill for the flat run into McLean county. I hope to meet John on the air again someday, but if I don't I'll certainly remember our QSO on a rainy fall night in Illinois.

They say that it's all about the journey and not the destination. Likewise, in ham radio it isn't about the radio or antenna; it isn't about the mode or technology. It's about the conversations.

Setting a Baofeng on FIRE!

I came across this video through the qrz.com forums. K5CLC did some extreme testing of a Baofeng UV-5R, including setting it on FIRE! The results are interesting. Skip to 2:57 to see the flames. I really like my Baofeng HT...not as my primary radio but as the one that is with me when I'm working on the farm, tinkering in the barn, or anytime I'm likely to have dirty hands.

An Arduino arrived

Monday brought a pleasant surprise in the mailbox...our first Arduino! The $5 board from eBay arrived as promised, and it was just as simple to use as everyone said it would be. My youngest daughter and I quickly had it doing a few minor tasks prior to me running off to a fire department meeting. Our next task is to get it to work with a temperature probe. This looks like a very simple and fun little platform. I'm excited!

The builder bug

It looks like I'm coming down with another case of the "builder bug". That's what I call it when I get the urge to make stuff. For the last couple of years, I've been content playing with digital repeaters I've cobbled together, or wiring up a TNC for a Raspberry pi in recent months. But now, I'm looking at Arduinos. These boards are a little lower level than the full-blown Linux system I've come to love with the pi. The Arduinos have incredible potential because of their simplicity. With very lower power consumption, and nearly instant power up, I can see many uses for these wonders of the 21st century. My youngest daughter is working on a project to provide weather data from the high school's crop test plot 4 miles away. That led us to looking at building a weather station from scratch, which led to Arduinos, which then led to...well you get the point. I've now found at least four other projects that I could accomplish with these little microcontrollers. I placed an order for an $4 UNO last night. Let the fun begin!

Project updates

The last few weeks have been very productive on the ham radio front! I cleaned up the coax routing for my Icom 2820 I had installed in the new pickup. While it was only slightly messy, the extra tie wraps and cable management make me feel better. I also installed a GPS puck antenna so the 2820 now shows my position on every D-STAR transmission I make. I had this setup with the 880 in the previous truck, but never had this setup on the 2820. It was very simple - plug in the antenna, change a few settings, and you're good to go. I used a $10 antenna from Amazon.

I moved the antenna for my FlightRadar24.com ADS-B feed radio to a higher location at the end of the pole barn. This required also moving the ubiquiti 2GHz data radio I use to provide internet access to the radio. Luckily I had enough spare mast clamps and hardware to turn this into a nice afternoon project.

At the WX9WX D-STAR homebrew repeater site, the building owner called and wanted our AREDN mesh antenna moved a bit higher. The initial request was for the antenna to be low enough that it couldn't be seen from the road. Now we needed to move it higher so that workers on the roof wouldn't be at eye level with the transmitter. Having worked in the corporate world for quite some time, changing requirements or expectations is something I'm used to. So up to the roof we went, and up another 6 feet went the antenna!

This week Tom KJ9P and I moved the repeater to its newly coordinated frequency. Changing the frequencies on the Motorola radios was a piece of cake thanks to software and a laptop. Re-tuning the duplexer at the site was more of a challenge. I've tuned quite a few duplexers in the last three years, but never one at a site. I found that without a portable signal generator that could go down in the microvolts, it was difficult to do the precise tuning I normally do on the bench. Luckily a quick phone call to Fred KC9REG, who was 27 miles away, resulted in an EXCELLENT weak signal for final testing!

The next projects involve cleaning up the shack. Does anyone ever finish cleaning up the shack? Maybe I should lower my expectations. Finally, I must get an antenna up for 160m before the winter. Plans for a skywire loop are underway. Now to find 600' of 12 gauge wire and some ladder line...