Ham Radio Help Desk

For those of you working with 802.11 equipment and in particular Linksys routers installed with DD-WRT, you are well advised to ensure Automatic speed negotiation is turned off and set to one speed.

It seems the network connection breaks just a moment while possible wireless speed connections are constantly re-examined. We have some very far 802.11 links and this causes nothing but trouble if you have the client server connection like that in N3FJP FDNet 2.5.

We set our units’ parameters to the slowest speed possible and the performance of our network connections went through the roof.

Back to Field Day…

Last year I made three posts about power in the generator category all related to issues we had with generators, UPS devices (why they don’t like some generators) and a thought about that dang fuel cap on the Honda EU2000.

If you are using generators at your Field Day please have a look at these posts for some previous lessons learned…

The Honda Inverter generators are, by far, the most fantastic generators ever to hit the market. Even with that fuel cap issue, they are still worth it. So very quite and such clean power… nice.

GL

If you are like many ARRL Field Day operations you have a Get On The Air (GOTA) station for guests.

We have done this every year I have been involved with my club’s Field Day and have had mostly good results. We usually have one Boy Scout troop stop by and make a few QSOs each. Also some technicians in our club like to operate the station during the late hours to get a chance to do SSB HF (yes we always have a control operator with valid privileges). Also it seems every year a new ham really enjoys the simplicity of the GOTA station without the concern over band sharing the other stations deal with.

Every year our GOTA is set up pretty much the same…

• Icom 746
• HF Antenna – Wire Dipole
• Microphone
• Key
• Computer for logging
• and that’s about it

Last year I posted observations about what the youth seem to enjoy most about our Field Day 2008…
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A sort of deer fever sets in before and during the ARRL Field Day event.

The excitement causes some of the most odd assumptions to occur.

Visit…

Field Day Urban Legends, Myths and FAQs

…for more details.

Bonus points are important for the annual ARRL Field Day event in June.

If you are thinking of participating in your local club’s Field Day festivities or are heading to the campground with your family for a Bravo station, bonus points are available.

One of my favorites is the Alternate Power Field Day bonus.

To quote the ARRL Field Day rules for 2009…
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This is a reprint of an article posted on CosJWT.com. More than ever the ideas of using 802.11 WAN network gear for Field Day makes good sense.

It took two years, but we finally managed a super reliable wireless network for our ARRL Field Day operations.

This year we will be at the same location and plan to accommodate up to five HF stations plus GOTA, VHF and, hopefully, some kind of Satellite station. Also a natural power station is planned, but will be co-located with an existing station.

The layout within the 300 meter circle will be close to what is shown in this picture…

Field Day Facility Layout

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Working at an airplane company as an EE certainly puts energy density of electrical storage components at the top of the list of important things.

Of course the buzz word of the decade when talking about batteries is Lithium, Lithium, Lithium.
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Last night I had a nice QSO with a fellow using the Olivia digital mode.

What surprised me was the way he called CQ.

Olivia seems kind of new, but established procedures seem to exist at least on this site…

http://hflink.com/olivia/

…suggesting the typical calling Olivia modes are 500/16 and 1000/32.

It took me a while to figure out this fellow was calling using Olivia 250/8 and on a frequency not posted in the above link.

Question:

Is there a “formal” set of good Olivia habits or are we pretty much free to use links like above as guidance for good practice?

John

I started up the HF station and prepared to make a few digital contacts using PSK31, Olivia, etc.

When I attempted to answer someone’s PSK31 CQ I noticed my RF power was averaging about 30 watts, but peaking at 70 or so.

I doubled checked various knobs on the US Interface Navigator, software, etc. Everything looked fine.

I transmitted again. The peak power was still there.

I knew this was not right and I was frustrated. I then recalled the power meter correlated very well with the sharp clicks coming from my kid’s air hockey table in the next room, but how could that noise be getting in and if it was, why was it having any affect from so far away.

Aha… the “MIC GAIN” on my Icom 746 was still up meaning the microphone on my Hail headset was still live and mixing with the audio from the Navigator.

Plus, the staccato noise from an air hockey puck smacking against the handle is a lot louder than it might seem because it is so short.

I turned the mic gain down and all is well.

I have not found an automatic way of muting the microphone input during sound card transmit with my IC-746. Have any of you found a way to do this?

73
kx4o

I have been coming up to speed with the N1MM software and I really like it.

This morning I decided to answer some of those Alabama QSO Party calls.

As soon as I configured the software CAT interface for my Icom 746, it proceeded to fiddle with the radio settings and moved the radio to the 2 meter band. I was on the 40 meter band at 7.244 MHz. The N1MM and Icom 746 danced a bit more and put me on the 20 meter band, then the 2 meter band. I manually changed bands back to 40 meters. When I transmitted, the radio transmitted up at 7.344 MHz – OUT OF BAND.

Horrified, I looked at all the settings to find the Duplex + setting on. It wasn’t before. Weird. Odd. Surprising.

So I carefully turned off DUP and all is well.

Everyone is well advised to pay attention to what N1MM does to your radio settings once it initializes.

Other than this behavior, it was a simple matter to bring up the AL QSO Party “New Log in Database” feature.

Whew!

73
de kx4o