Shack clean-up day

Working on cleaning up the shack today.  Just about overwhelming actually...

Hey! Remember me?

Wow, it sure has been a long time since I posted anything.  Been buried at work and allowed myself to get too sucked into a mode where I worked 7 to midnight and then crashed for a few hours before starting it all over again.  Well, things have got to slow down for me as I can't keep up any more.  Making too many mistakes that I can't afford.

So, I took the weekend off and spent most of it sleeping.  Tried to get the plane out and do some flying, but I just didn't feel like I had gotten sufficient rest to be safe about it, so the cub stayed in the hanger.  Maybe next weekend.

I have to dig out the shack and un-bury it from all the crap that has stacked up around me.  Hopefully I can get back to building things again.

Guess what arrives in the post?

Yep, that's right folks...  KX3 serial number 160 was placed on the porch last evening without so much as a signature.  Glad it came before Salmoncon 2012 later this summer as I was hoping to have it on hand for that outing and hopefully a SOTA activation during that event.

Opening the box we find an accessories tray with power cord, USB cable, CW paddles, allen wrenches and so forth.  Elecraft does a nice job packing things up for shipment.  In one of the envelopes was a "Packed with care by Stephanie" slip.  :)  Thanks Stephanie!

Next layer down, we find the microphone and the KX3 itself.

Carefully wrapped in a plastic bag as well as bubble wrap, surrounded by cardboard spacers was the KX3.

As they say on the EEVBlog, "Don't turn it on!  Take it apart!"  Here we can see the soul of the machine and a pile of AA cells later, we fired 'er up!  I love how it comes up on all the QRP CW frequencies out-of-box.

Spent a little time just tinkering with the receiver last evening.  This is one sweet ride of a CW rig.  Today hooked up the paddles and spent some time adjusting them and practicing with the sidetone only.  Hope to put it up on the air sometime this evening or this weekend at the latest.

Off to 4-land today

I am off today to Orlando for a quick visit to my son who is graduating college.  Whoo hoo!

WWVB anyone?

When I arrived back from Finland, I had a little package waiting for me that contained this:

This is a 60 KHz WWVB time receiver module and the associated loop antenna.  I plan to play around with this as an alternative time source to a GPS receiver for syncing beacon signals such as is needed with WSPR.  This was obtained from the good folks at PV Electronics in the UK.  If anyone has any experience with these modules, I would appreciate any insights as I am going at it totally cold.

Back in W/K/N-land

I arrived back in the US after a great trip to Finland.  Next trip will include either the KX1 or the KX3 (if it ever comes...)  :)

I got to do a bit of SWLing but had nothing with which to transmit.  Probably ok given my 18 hour day work schedule.

I am off to Florida Thursday for my son's college graduation and then travel should slow down for a bit.

Jet lagged in Seattle...

Finland SWLing

I moved my base of operations today north to Tampere, Finland where I will be the rest of the week.  I am having fun SWLing on the ham bands hearing all the call signs I drool over working from the states like they are next door...  Because they are!  Hanging out on the low end of 20 metres mostly, but I am hearing a lot of activity on 17 metres as well.

Not much antenna to work with (about 8-10 metres of wire) but having fun in OH-land.  I will be sure to bring along a QRP rig next time I come to Europe and give those fun airport security folks something to quiz me about.

Greetings from Finland

I arrived today in Finland where I will be working this week.  I brought along a little Grundig G6 Aviator receiver (yeah, it's the "Buzz Aldrin Edition") as it is tiny, runs on batteries and also has a BFO so I can decode CW and SSB signals.  I have a little wire antenna I clip on the whip and string it up in the window of my hotel.  20 metres is very busy tonight with a lot of CW, digital and SSB signals.  It will be interesting to see how the band does as the sun goes down.  Only problem is...  I can barely keep my eyes open as I have been up for about 24 hours.  We shall see how it goes.

Off to OH-land (Finland)

This weekend, I will be traveling to Helsinki, Finland for a week.  I have not had time to comply with the Finish Communications Regulatory Authority requirements to apply for a visitor amateur license, so I will not be on the air.  I expect that I will be making future trips to Finland, so I will apply for a visitor license when I return.  The Finnish Amateur Radio League can be found here.

Propeller Case

I picked up a nice little lucite (I think) case for my propeller USB proto board.  Parallax has them in four colours, clear, opaque red, transparent blue and opaque black.  It is simple "tab and slot" construction and goes together easily.  It supports the proto board, super carrier board and both the USB and Serial versions of the board of education.  Very nicely done.  Someone thought this out very well.