... and more signs

I am still out of a decent transceiver on the operating table. The Drake TR4CW is decent, but not decent enough for me to spend more than 15 minutes on the air chatting with my local ham radio buddies, during which time I have to touch up the dial and bring it back on frequency at least once, maybe twice. I agree with my ham radio neighbour that if I switch the radio on early it will be steady on frequency when I am ready, but I will also have a steady increase in paying for electricity which I am not using but for heating up a rig. That I do not agree is a wise thing to do.

I am looking forward to the Kenwood TS940SAT being on the bench shortly, maybe for the long holiday weekend, so I can justify staying home and talking to some new friends on the other side of the world if we can find the propagation. On a long holiday weekend like this it would be extremely nice if we had a clubhouse where we could congregate and work some DX too. Club house as in the ham radio Society Head Quarters, and we as in the hams and prospective hams of St Kitts and Nevis. It is on the horizon and coming, and has been for the last 37 years or so, but I think it is finally coming, if we keep on the path, swerving not.

Talking recently to a not so young ham, but not old enough to be a senior ham, I detect some frustration with the forward mobility of the society, but he, maybe like some others, is unwilling to be a part of the solution, for whatever reasons, so he is waiting for the solution to arrive so that he can participate and make the overall ham radio experience better. I think I can see his point in the distance, but I am of the view that we all need to be part of the solution now, we all need to cooperate now, and every Sesame Street character knows this ... worst case scenario we may have to move our ham radio organizations from St Kitts and Nevis onto Sesame Street.

On the personal levels many of us are doing great. Some hams have cleaned out their ham radio spaces, reclaimed and are reclaiming their ham radio shacks, dusting off radio equipment, checking stuff, and finding things they thought they had lost years ago. Listening on the ham bands. Most of us hams go through this at least once in our lifetime, some of us more than just once. Ham radio is hobby that never dies ... maybe like fishing, you only take a break for a while, then the bug gets to you and you are in active business again.

Last week one of my ham radio buddies who is making a come back to ham radio dropped by not to talk ham radio, because we both have other interests, like fishing, but the ham radio topic will always come up ... so I go to computer and we are looking at rigs like the old Japanese rigs like what we used, Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood, then onto eBay to see what is now up for sale, on to Ten Tec Omni 6, Omni 7, and then I tell him I am looking at the Flex radio for my next rig, and pulls up the Flex radio website.

I have never seen a ham respond and react like that before, as he makes an instant, on-the-spot decision that the Flex 3000 is his next rig. I am scheduling mine for early 2011 D.V. To crown off the introduction to Flex radio I go to my desktop and click on PowerSDR v1.18.5 and up come the Flex software demo on my Dell 24" flat panel. So I load up the wav files and we view and listen and tune up and down the bands. I made my day and I think my ham radio buddy made his day too. So now that makes two Flex 3000 radios coming into V4 land shortly, and I will continue the evangelization for Flex radio ... and, NO, I am not being paid by anyone ... you know, thinking about it now, maybe I should try something.

A couple months ago I gave that same Flex demo to another ham radio buddy and he chased me away with my computerized rig. He was sold out on the traditional rig, to wit, the Elecraft K2 and K3, and I am happy for him, but when I can put my Flex 3000 rig, the laptop and switching power supply in a backpack over my shoulder and move out at a moments notice .... maybe in time he will see light, not that I want him to follow my lead, but just to develop an appreciation for the technology today.

I have since update to Flex PowerSDR to v1.18.6 and it is hot and just awaiting the hardware. Do yourself a favour and download the FREE PowerSDR software that runs the Flex radios and take it for a test drive. If you don't like it then go back to your Ten Tec or Elecraft ... but be warned anything else is just not as good, and it is not me just saying so, check the Sherwood Receiver Test Data Table.

As soon as the TS940SAT hit the operating table, work on the experimental 40-meter stacked collinear top and bottom loaded vertical dipole antenna will begin. Everything is here now I am just awaiting the motivator. I expect this antenna to be my last 40-meter experiment for a while and it should become the station's antenna of choice. Of course fine tuning it continues ad infinitum. Up next is the antenna for 80 meters, whether it a collinear or a loaded 5/8 wave will not be until the last minute ... and we already have materials for that construction.

So there are positive signs that ham radio activity is building up in V4, and the Hurricane season may be a catalyst.