Friday, March 17, 2006
All is well that ends well...
The day ended with a quick QSO with my dad. He lives exactly 14 miles away but on the other side of a 2200+ ridgeline. (And in a completely different culture). Anyway he can just BARELY make it into the low level repeater that I hang out on. Noisy but readable.
It was cool to hear him.
Before that we got a three way CW QSO going on between JV, Greg and I. It was great. I was copying well and the other two seemed to be having fun.
It was my first chance to play with the SCAF-1 filter and head phone for actual on the air CW. The filter needs some adjustments, but seemed to help by cutting out a lot of the higher frequency static.
Prior to that I started the IC-100 online Incident Command Course. ICS is the coming "thing" in EmComm. So we all should learn it. I've had three or four exposures to it. First Responder class, ham training, CERT training, and ECC. So now I get to take it "officially." Oh boy...
Mid-day I got email from my work buddy Craig. He was able to get the transceiver in the abandoned ham shack at work going on 40m SSB! And the head equipment guy at work said that he would provide "any support we needed." GOOD DEAL!
There is a nice Bencher there in the shack and the vertical is tuned for the high CW part of 40m. Getting on CW at lunch from work is a possiblity!
Lessons learned:
Need to "adjust" the filter for my headphones
Need to complete the PAC-12 antenna assembly
Need to complete the keyer power cable
Need to pull down the 20m loop
Need to clean up the shack
Oh boy...
The day ended with a quick QSO with my dad. He lives exactly 14 miles away but on the other side of a 2200+ ridgeline. (And in a completely different culture). Anyway he can just BARELY make it into the low level repeater that I hang out on. Noisy but readable.
It was cool to hear him.
Before that we got a three way CW QSO going on between JV, Greg and I. It was great. I was copying well and the other two seemed to be having fun.
It was my first chance to play with the SCAF-1 filter and head phone for actual on the air CW. The filter needs some adjustments, but seemed to help by cutting out a lot of the higher frequency static.
Prior to that I started the IC-100 online Incident Command Course. ICS is the coming "thing" in EmComm. So we all should learn it. I've had three or four exposures to it. First Responder class, ham training, CERT training, and ECC. So now I get to take it "officially." Oh boy...
Mid-day I got email from my work buddy Craig. He was able to get the transceiver in the abandoned ham shack at work going on 40m SSB! And the head equipment guy at work said that he would provide "any support we needed." GOOD DEAL!
There is a nice Bencher there in the shack and the vertical is tuned for the high CW part of 40m. Getting on CW at lunch from work is a possiblity!
Lessons learned:
Need to "adjust" the filter for my headphones
Need to complete the PAC-12 antenna assembly
Need to complete the keyer power cable
Need to pull down the 20m loop
Need to clean up the shack
Oh boy...
