Moving . . . Again!

Well, life has taken another turn, and my wife and I are headed back to NC.  This means that I've already packed up my HF station for moving, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to set up HF again.  So for now, I'll  be on Dstar and FM V/U for a while.

I believe this will lead to good things for my wife and I and I can't wait to start over at a new location.  I'm hoping this QTH will be one we remain at for many years.  We have moved so many times over the last few years that it's hard to keep up with.

I will still post a few things, I'd like to publish a post regarding my Raspberry Pi Dvap set-up so that others can do the same. It works wonderfully.  Look for some specific information on that coming soon.

Cheers! and 73
AJ4TW

Limited Time

Every ham dreams of having more time on the radio, well, at least I know I do.  More time on the radio, more time to play with antennas, more time to build a kit, and even more time to set up your software.  Unfortunately real life gets in the way, even when we think we could make do with what we've got, we still have to eat.  Today was no exception, very limited time.  I sneaked into the shack and knocked out a few QSO's this evening after hours at work, we were working a little late tonight, but I could not resist when I heard CT9/DJ8OG  on the island of Madeira soon after that I heard a station on Galapagos, HC8/G8OFQ  Tis the season I suppose for Hamcations, boy am I jealous.  Anyhow, I was thrilled to work them both on the first call each.   So much fun.  Thanks to Chris, K4HC for sharing this little gem with me:

A Good Blast on the Radio to Start off the morning

Just as Rick at the VK2GGC station said to me the other morning, "There's nothing like a good blast on the radio to start your day off."

I was able to work Japan this morning on 20m, JH3NGD Kazu, it was a great contact, very enjoyable to be able to communicate around the world directly with your own equipment.

Love a good blast on the radio.

30Mhz to 6Ghz HackRF

Well, I became a backer, I have a long wait at least 5 months until my HackRF peripheral shows up.  I'm a little nervous, but, I'm excited to play around with it and explore some of those microwave bands.  I will be sure to take lots of pictures and screen shots when it arrives.  Long Live SDR! 

Contesting Observation

You know, I notice this all the time, three or more stations piled on top of each other when there is plenty of room to spread out.  Why does this happen?  Don't have enough time to spread out far enough so that you can at least hear who's returning your call?  Wouldn't your rate increase if you had a clear section of bandwidth?  In the picture below you can see two instances of it on 20m.  Maybe they can't hear each other, that's always a possibility I guess.

Wasn't the DEXP

When I actually sat down in front of the F5K I could clearly see that it could not have been the DEXP that was clipping my audio, it was off.  Durp

So, I played a little more with the VOX, I turned the delay up from 250ms to 500ms, which I think is actually a little long, it should be maybe around 350, I'll try that, it's just hanging in there a bit too long, but doesn't cause any real problems.

I also lowered the VOX setting as well I had it about 140 and I've moved it down to about 100.  I want to be able to adjust the boom on my headset without having the noise of it key up the radio.

So, I think it's mostly fixed, just needs a little fine tuning.  I think my audio is a touch on the hot side right now, not terrible just a touch too hot.

Very good morning however, I came into work this AM and caught up with two Australian stations on the 20 meter band.  VK5CE/P and VK2GGC.  I recorded the QSO with VK2GGC Rick was the operator, nice little conversation.   I looked them up on QRZ afterward and I found that VK2GGC is the call sign of the Girl Guides Callemondah. They have a nice couple of YouTube videos up as well. I like this one a bunch:

Girl Guides Callemondah VK2GGC contest Video

Downward Compander

I think I have it set too high.  Listening to some of the recordings I noticed there was some clipping of my audio, no one has mentioned it, but maybe if I got into a little rag chew they would?  I thought it was probably that my VOX sensitivity was set too high, so today I lowered my VOX setting.  But, that did not help.  I had a little revelation, I think it might be the downward compander, I'll try turning it down tomorrow or the next day and see if that helps.