Yay! I Just received today my new Yaesu FTM-350AE (AR) rig with FGPS1 GPS module to run my VHF/UHF operations and especially APRS in my mobile. This radio will replace the good ol’ Yaesu FT-7900 that has been serving the voice comm’s there. That “old” 7900 would be relocated into the Shack for VHF/UHF operations.
You would most probably be seeing more videos and read more about this FTM-350 rig from this blog in the upcoming future 🙂 But first things first…let the unboxing begin… hi hi…Blog
Yaesu Digital HT 08/26/2011 (??)
I bumped into an interesting video on YouTube this morning. This is supposed to be a new digital Yaesu HT, but no model numer yet available. Looks much like my VX-8D though 🙂 Just take a look.
Finnish HamFest / Sappee 2011
QRP in the sun
New Call Book
Just noticed few days ago that the maker of the great CQRLOG logging software (www.cqrlog.com) has made a new call book site for us HAMs http://hamqth.com. It is a free competitor for the http://qrz.com service (disclaimer I’m a paying customer of the qrz.com). HamQTH looks nice and works FB. You can find me there too. http://hamqth.com/search.php?callsign=oh6fxl
CW Training
Phew. I have started the CW training (morse). I really feel that it is something that is definitely needed for serious DXing and especially in the interesting world of QRP working. I ran trough few applications for Windows, Mac and iOS devices together with Android, but find no good apps for my training…untill I found the marvellous multiplatform capable Learn CW Online -web site! It sure works nicely and enables the Koch Method and all. Very interesting and nice way to practice the code. The morse player there is Flash based, but one can change the player from the prefecences to be HTML5 … so it works with iOS devices also. Really cool. The service also has some community features to compare your progress to others and discuss about some morse issues on-site.
If you are interested on learning morse code, just log on to lcwo.net and start training. You can find me there as OH6FXL (my profile). Hope my motivation lasts long enough…learning morse is not easy, but it opens a whole new world in HAM bands when mastered. Looking forward on that. 🙂
Beautiful antenna, ugly balun #hamr
I finally made it. I raised the HF antenna of mine to new heights. Or atleast a bit higher than the previous installation. I managed to get the antenna high up to the top of the tree with my new (EVO3) version of the antenna launcher. It sure is more powerful than the old slingshot (picture below)
New (EVO3 version) Old (EVO2) version
The first picture in this post is a picture of my Ugly Balun – an air wound choke, that I made for my Windom (OCF) dipole to eliminate the RF in the shack (actually I converted my antenna to “Carolina Windom” -like antenna”. As the antenna project is still ongoing I haven’t been able to test that balun yet. I let you know how it works. The antenna project is still ongoing because I encountered new tree branches in our yard when rising the antenna higher. Yep, they weren’t there before… 🙂 as the antenna was couple of meters lower.. Anyway, I hope to test the antenna and the balun soon. I’m looking forward to get rid of the annoying RF interference by this. The other thing I need to do is to shovel up few meters (abt. 50m) of ditch for my grounding cable, but that’s another story..but it affects to that RF too, so that needs to be done.
QSL Cards and Shack Update
Flu, 1st of May and painting
It is the 1st of May (Wappu in Finnish). I’m still recovering from the flu, but quite ok now. I’ve been working some PSK31 in the Shack and painting some serious wood! Yep. We are about to build a new terrace for our house within next weekend, so I just need to get all the wood painted before that…what a rush! There is couple of hundred meters of it, but it is good excercise 🙂
During the “drying time” when waiting the next painting turn I have been working with some other issues…like PSK31 on 20 meters again, what a joy it is..and then playing some drums. I also managed to get my shack WLAN antenna finally working (see picture below). I actually needed to lower it a bit in the mast to get it working better for the wlan from the house. It is a directional antenna pointing towards our house to get the wlan signal from there. The antenna is then conected to a acces point which is acting just as a wlan client and bridge to provide the TCP/IP connection for the shack computer(s). It’s working ok at the moment. Hope it will continue working also tomorrow 🙂 It has been a bit flacky recently..
Summer is coming finally. It just is great. Hope to hear you in the bands. I’m currently working quite a bit the PSK31 on 20 meters as I have also been building my remote setup for that lately. Just to mention.. It is nice to work around the world from the couch, with iPad for example 🙂 Yep. Need to post you a video abt that setup later… I always keep on promising those videos, but just wait…I will. When the worst rush of work has passed by and I have some time 🙂
Building a mic adapter…
I’m currently building a microphone adapter for my Yaesu FT-450 and for my studio mic. Adapter is based on the original one made by a fellow ham OH6HZH. I have been testing his adapter for couple of days now and it just works like a charm with my rig and mic. I’m using my AKG C2000B condencer microphone together with ART Tube MP microphone amplifier in this setup.
As I was buying some components for the adapter project yesterday, I also found the nice foot pedal (black box in the picture) from the local electronic shop. I installed it as foot PTT for this setup and it works like a charm. I have been running it with the “6HZH adapter”. It just is a simple micro controller with nice plastic pedal… 🙂 Looking forward of having my own adapter ready in the upcoming days. More about it later…