Tag Archives: Paul (N8BHT)

2015/07/26 (N) Rearranging

I was up at 8 AM but did not make coffee as Linda was still asleep and the grinder is fairly noisy.  I put the last load of laundry in the washing machine, cleaned the litter tray (which we keep in the downstairs shower), and then worked in my office.  Jasper (the cat) came down to assist me but mostly ended up supervising.

All three monitors mounted in the ham shack using the ZioTek wall-mounted track system.  The Dell is in the middle.  There is a mount and room for one more monitor at the right end.

All three monitors mounted in the ham shack using the ZioTek wall-mounted track system. The Dell is in the middle. There is a mount and room for one more monitor at the right end.

I mounted the fourth (last) arm on the wall-mounted rail in our ham shack.  I swung it back against the wall to get it out of the way as I do not have a monitor that I want to install at that position at the moment.  I cleaned up the tools and staged them by the stairs and then moved the coiled coax out of the way and cleared a few things off of the desks so I could move the desks back into position.  I left them farther out from the wall than before so they were appropriately placed relative to the three wall-mounted monitors.  I then put various pieces of ham radio equipment back on the desks.

Monitors obviously need computers.  I removed the Dell Precision laptop from my computer desks, removed the computer from the combination docking station and monitor stand, cleaned all of the pieces, and reassembled it.  I set it at the left edge of the ham desks, slid it under the left monitor, and placed our old Icom IC-706 HF transceiver on the monitor platform, just for appearance sake.  We are not using thus radio at the moment but it fit nicely in that spot.

I placed the GoBox with the Icom IC-7000 HF/VHF/UHF transceiver and 12VDC power supply at the right edge of the desks, put the MFJ-998 Intelli-Tuner to its left (under the right monitor), and put the larger variable voltage DC power supply on top of it.  The time we spent yesterday determining where to mount the rail on the wall was time well spent.  The monitors are at a comfortable height for viewing when seated at the desk, tilted down slightly to avoid glare from the overhead down lights, and the bottom edges are high enough above the desk to permit sizeable equipment to slide under them.  The desks are also far enough out from the wall to make it easy to attach and manage cables.

I rearranged my primary ASUS laptop on my computer desks and checked my e-mail accounts.  I have had a discussion going on this past week with Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine about hats with the BCM logo and responded to a couple more of those communiques.  Around 10:15 AM I heard footsteps and knew that Linda was finally up so I wrapped up the work in my office, transferred the laundry to the dryer, and went upstairs.

Linda was working at her desk and was not hungry but wanted coffee.  She did not sleep well last night so I made a pot of Sumatra Manhelding which is NOT one of our half decaffeinated blends.  I got myself a bowl of granola and had a large glass of orange juice.  We spent the rest of the morning in the living room reading, writing, and menu planning.

The dinette area of our bus with the two fan-coil heat exchangers on the floor.  They will go in the bases of the desk when it is installed in this corner.

The dinette area of our bus with the two fan-coil heat exchangers on the floor. They will go in the bases of the desk when it is installed in this corner.

I like to hear the grandfather clock strike 12.   Besides the charming Westminster chimes, it serves to announce that the part of the day has arrived where I am supposed to get some of the physical work on my to-do list accomplished.  Today, however, my #1 priority was to redesign the pull-out pantry so I limited my physical work to gathering up my tools from the basement and moving them to the garage, moving the bus back to its normal parking spot, and taking photos of cabinet details in the bus for Jarel.  I mixed in a little e-mail, a few computer updates, some ham radio, and time for meals, but basically I worked at my drafting board most of the day and evening.

For dinner Linda made a very tasty dish that we had not had before.  The base ingredient was rice and she used basmati even though the recipe called for brown.  I prefer basmati rice to brown rice so it was a good substitution as far as I was concerned.  The other ingredients were garlic, power greens, mushrooms, and blanched fresh green beans.  She sliced and caramelized a large onion and used it as a topping.  This was essentially a “1-pot” dish in that all of the ingredients ended up combined prior to serving.  Linda makes a lot of dishes like this and we both like them. This particular dish had the crunch of the green beans, the chewiness of the rice, and the soft earthy character of the mushrooms held together by the garlic and olive oil and topped with sweet earthiness of the caramelized onions.

At 8 PM local (EDT) I participated in the weekly SLAARC Info Net for the first time in a couple of years and did so from the comfort of our ham shack.  It was a pleasure using our new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band transceiver with our Diamond X-50N 2m/70cm antenna at a height of 40 feet and connected by good coaxial cables all the way through.  Club president Harvey (AC8NO) served as net control operator and did a nice job.

After the net wrapped up at 8:45 PM Steve (N8AR), Andy (N8DEV), and I chatted for another 20 minutes trying to find some rhyme or reason why our Yaesu FTM-400’s are experiencing random audio dropouts.  We did not get it figured out and wrapped up our QSO so Steve and I could check into the LARK (Livingston Amateur Radio Klub) net that started at 9 PM (EDT).  This was the first time I had checked in to this particular net even though LARK is based in Howell and the repeater is closer to us than the ones in South Lyon or Novi.

The LARK Net was much briefer than the SLAARC net and concluded at 9:16 EDT.  Steve and I went back to the South Lyon repeater where Paul (N8BHT) heard us and joined the conversation.  When we finally wrapped up our testing QSO I went back to work on my pull-out pantry drawings.  I was about to shut everything down at 10:45 PM EDT when Mike (W8XH) announced his presence on the South Lyon repeater.  He was mobile but full-quieting and I did not experience any dropouts during our 25 minute QSO.  I took a few minutes to e-mail Jarel and then called it a night.  I had a few almonds as a snack, got ready for bed, and worked on this bog post for a while.

 

2015/06/29 (M) Website On The Air

Linda was up at 5:55 AM this morning and left for the bakery at 6:15.  Experience has shown that this is usually early enough to get ahead of the morning rush hour traffic inbound to the Detroit metro area from the northwest.

I got up about an hour later, had granola for breakfast, and enjoyed my morning coffee (Sweet Seattle Dreams half-caff blend from Teeko’s) and then made a run to Lowe’s to purchase a couple of copper ground lugs and 5 feet of #10 green ground wire.  Back home I tried to use one of the ground lugs to terminate the ground wire from the cable entry box (CEB) to the 36″ ground bar on the wall behind the ham radio desks but it’s shape prevented the wing nut from going onto the stud.

I planned to use the other lug to attach one end of the #10 wire to the ground bar and put a male spade lug on the other end to mate with the connector on the Go Box ground pigtail, but that clearly was not going to work.  I dressed the ground wire and (temporary) coax in the ham shack and put the ceiling tile back in place.  I then started cleaning up the living room and small bedroom per Linda’s request before she left this morning.  Some of our (my) projects have a way of expanding throughout the whole house.  I had hoped to also pick up the coax cables spread out in the recreation room, and at least start to straighten up the ham shack/office, putting materials away and moving tools to the garage.

At 10 AM I made a few phone calls.  The first was to Rick Short at ISRI USA regarding the 6860 bus driver’s seat and a possible visit tomorrow morning.  I got his voice mail (again) and never got a return call (again) so I gave up on getting any assistance from him or from ISRI USA.  I called Linda to make sure she did not have any commitments on Wednesday and then called Josh at Coach Supply Direct to set up a visit to his shop for Wednesday late morning.  Linda and I plan to finalize our Flexsteel furniture order and give Josh the deposit during that visit.  Next I called Scott Adams, AC8IL, at Adams Electronics and ordered a 20 foot length of LMR-400 with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 connector on the other end.  Scotty and I also chatted briefly about tower bases.

I e-mailed Scott Neader at QST.com regarding the transfer of the SLAARC domain name and website from GoDaddy to QST.com and got a reply back right away with an outline of the steps I needed to follow.  First on the list was creating an account for our ham radio club through his billing system.  I took care of that and e-mailed him back.

Keith Kish, from Kish Lawn, care showed up around 11 AM to cut the grass.  When he was done I headed back to Lowe’s to look for an alternate ground clamp and pulley support for the tower but did not find anything suitable.  So as not to have it be a wasted trip I bought three more bags of broken brick pieces to use around the tower base and cable entry box.

I spent some time looking at the Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE on several different ham radio equipment vendor websites.  Yaesu is offering a $100 rebate on this 2m/440 mobile radio through tomorrow.  All of the distributors are selling it for the same price, $599.95 and the rebate brings it down to $499.95, so if I buy one it will come down to who has them in stock and is offering free shipping.

Linda got home from the bakery around 3 PM, earlier than I expected and nice for her.  She went for a walk while I continued to fuss with ham radio and website stuff.

For dinner Linda made a white beans and mustard greens dish.  We eat a lot of lettuce, kale, and spinach, both raw and cooked into dishes, but only occasionally have collard greens or mustard greens.  Mustard greens have a very strong, bitter flavor and I liked them more than Linda did.  I think they are an acquired taste and may be more suitable as an accent ingredient rather than a main one.

After dinner I checked my e-mail and had a reply from Scott at QTH.com.  The QTH SLAARC account invoice was ready so I paid it using a personal credit card.  I then moved the coax from our Icom IC-7000 to Mike’s Icom IC-2820H and turned it on.  Mike was on the South Lyon repeater discussing the Field Day event with Steve (N8AR) and Bruce (W8RA).  Paul (N8BHT) was able to join the conversation but I was not successful breaking in so I just listened.  It was an indication that my power into the repeater was probably still marginal but a good reminder that ham radio conversations are very public.

When they were done I called for Mike and he came back.  We had a good QSO (chat) about the Yaesu FTM-400.  Jim (N8KUE) joined in for a while.  After Jim dropped off we tested my ability to transmit to, and receive from, both the South Lyon 2m and Novi 70cm repeaters.  The added power of the IC-2820H over my IC-7000 (50W vs 35W in the 70cm band) combined with the lower signal loss of the better coax made just enough difference that I could hold the Novi repeater when transmitting although my signal was still on top of a lot of noise coming back out of the repeater.

Linda wanted to watch an episode of Scorpion, followed by NCIS Los Angeles, after which I caught an episode of Two and a Half Men and then turned off the TV.  I will have to make a decision about the Yaesu FTM-400 in the morning.

 

2015/06/26 (F) Field Day Setup

I was up at 7 AM and ready to leave for breakfast with the other SLAARC members who would be setting up our temporary field site for the ARRL Field Day event.  I called the SLAARC repeater and Steve (N8AR) came back and wanted to know if I had the site use permit from the township?  No, I did not.  Paul, N8BHT, got on the air and said he gave it to Linda so I went back home.  Linda was up but had no recollection of receiving it.  We looked through the materials she got from Paul but could not find it.  I left again for breakfast but after more radio QSO went back a second time to retrieve all of the records and bring them with me to the field day site.  (Our best guess is that he gave the permits to the other Linda (NF8C) who is the club secretary.

SLAARC's Field Day setup begins in earnest when Steve's equipment trailer arrives.

SLAARC’s Field Day setup begins in earnest when Steve’s equipment trailer arrives.

By this time it was too late to make it to breakfast so I stopped for coffee and fueled my car.  Mike (W8XH) also did not go to breakfast with the group in South Lyon so we were the first to arrive at the site.  Another 10 guys showed up shortly thereafter.  John’s Sanitation then arrived and dropped off our rented porta-potty.

We had 12 people for most of the day and 14 total who were there for at least part of the day.  It was a good group and just the right size for the task.  We worked steadily from 9 AM until almost 5 PM except for an early afternoon lunch break.  By the end of the day we had erected two towers and set up six antennas (20m beam and 6m beam co-located on the taller tower, two off-center fed dipoles from the taller tower, a 40m crossed dipole from the shorter tower, and a 40m 1/4 wave vertical with four elevated counterpoise wires).  We also put up three radio tents, a screen room, and the big food tent.

Larry (K8UT) holds the 6m beam while Steve (N8AR) and others attach the 20m beam to the mast of the taller tower.

Larry (K8UT) holds the 6m beam while Steve (N8AR) and others attach the 20m beam to the mast of the taller tower.

The weather was cloudy and dull and not the best for taking photographs but I took pictures anyway.  I had to be deliberate in my shot selections, however, as both of my memory cards were almost full.  All of the work that needed to be done today was finished by 4:30 PM and most of us took off.  Our Field Day chairman, Paul (KD8SNZ), and a new member, Ron, setup their tents as they would be spending the night and keeping an eye on the site.  Steve (N8AR) and Eric (K8ERS) stayed a bit longer to test the antennas using the mobile radio in Steve’s SUV.

Back home I took a nap for an hour before dinner.  Linda grilled Portobello mushrooms and corn on the cob and cut up some fresh strawberries and cantaloupe.  After dinner I went to my office and transferred all of our recent photographs from the Sony alpha 100 DSLR to my computer and then to our older NAS device which we had with us this past winter.  I then started backing up all of the photographs we had taken since December 2014 from the old NAS unit to the new one.  This involved a significant number of images, a lot of gigabytes of data, and took a bit of time.

Rather than sit around waiting for file transfers to finish I decided to turn on the Icom IC-7000 ham radio and see if I could figure out why I could not hear the Novi 440 repeater on Wednesday when we tested the antenna and coax installation.  I checked the Nifty guide for the Icom IC-7000 and, as Mike had suspected, I did not have the Tone Squelch frequency set correctly for the Novi repeater.  I changed the mode on the 440 MHz band from ‘Tone’ to ‘TSQL’ and then caIled Mike (W8XH) on the phone to see if he could help me do a radio check.  We spent about an hour going back and forth between the Novi and South Lyon repeaters.

With the correct settings I was able to work both repeaters although I had a lot of background noise (static).  I played with the noise reduction (NR) and pre-amplifier functions and both seemed to help.  Mike tried various combinations of power and simplex operation and we determined that the basic problem seemed to be a weak signal in both directions.  I am still suspicious of the fact that I do not have the Go Box grounded as I vaguely recall from three years ago having noise problems with this setup until I grounded the box, which is tied to the radio ground.

Field Day is an "all hands on deck (antenna)" event for our SLAARC group.

Field Day is an “all hands on deck (antenna)” event for our SLAARC group.

Mike was suspicious of the coax I used to go from the lightning arrestor to the radio but looked up the specifications on my Diamond X-50N antenna and suggested that an antenna with more gain might be in order.  We also discussed the location where I placed the antenna on the tower.  Although most of the antenna is above the tower it is on the northwest leg.  The two repeaters lie to the southeast so the tower may be ‘blocking’ some of the signal although that does not seem likely to me.  Of more concern to me is that I mounted the base of the antenna so that two of the three counterpoise (ground plane) rods are even with, and parallel to, two of the three topmost crossbars.  If anything is being blocked it is likely those as the crossbars are between the rods and the repeater locations.

Ed (KD8OSM) jumped in briefly to let us know that I also had a ‘hum’ that sounded like the 60 Hz power line frequency only higher pitched.  I have a small fan installed in the back of the Go Box so I hummed the same pitch as it was producing into the microphone and both Ed and Mike confirmed that this was the tone they were hearing.  The fan is audible, but not that loud, and was two feet behind the microphone so I would be surprised if it was picking up the fan noise.  It is possible that the fan is inducing the hum electrically, but I believe it is a DC fan, so that seems unlikely.  I do not have an AC line filter installed on the fan, or anywhere in the box, so that may be a next step.

The larger of the two towers is up and secured.  It has a 6m beam antenna on top of 20m beam antenna on a common mast with a rotator.  We also attached one end of an off-center-fed dipole to this tower.

At the SLAARC Field Day site atop the Lyon Township Atchison Memorial Park the larger of the two towers is up and secured. It has a 6m beam antenna on top of 20m beam antenna on a common mast with a rotator. We also attached one end of an off-center-fed dipole to this tower.  Tents are being erected to house the various operating stations.  The weather was overcast and forecast to get much worse before Field Day as over on Sunday.

Mike and I wrapped up our QSO and I shut the radio off.  I checked my e-mail and saw that the May 2015 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine was available.  I logged in to the website and downloaded both the standard and high definition versions of the April and May digital editions.  By the time I got to bed it was well after 11PM.  I finished up yesterday’s blog post draft and outlined as much of today’s post as I could before I lost the sequence and details of the day’s events.

 

2014/05/04 (N) Northwest Winds

The weather yesterday was mostly cloudy with occasional light rain and the winds came up strong starting in the afternoon.  They tapered off by bedtime but resumed a hard blow this morning with low, puffy, white clouds streaming in from the northwest and making the trees dance.  It was a brighter morning than we have had most of the week as the sun played hide-n-seek with the clouds.  The temperature remained cool, making for a brisk day, but it was a nice change from the cool, overcast dreariness of the past week.  Except for Thursday, when the high temperature is supposed to hit 80, the daily high temps will be around 60 all week.

Linda made her scrumptious blueberry pancakes for breakfast and then went for a walk.  She had barely left the house when she returned, very excited, to tell me she had just seen a young albino deer running through our yard.  By the time I got outside it had moved on to the woods west of our property.  We often see the same deer day-after-day as they travel their circuit, so I also hope to see this one someday.

After checking in on the blogs I follow using the Feedly app on my iPad2 I made a couple of corrections to a recent blog post, approved a comment from our daughter-in-law (the first one has to be approved), and deleted the 59 spam comments that the Akismet plug-in/service trapped since last night.  I put a load of laundry in the washer and then spent some time looking online for a padded case for my new laptop computer and a replacement for one of our APC SmartUPS units that has failed.

With the move to tablet computers, the choice of laptops is diminishing, especially those with larger screens, and along with that fewer choices for accessories such as cases.  In the past 14 years I have always purchased larger roller cases, with separate cases for the computer that fit inside, as my laptop traveled with me every day everywhere I went.  I had the most recent of these cases with us in Florida and, after getting the computer/case and accessories out of it, I stored it in a closet (where it tended to be in the way).  The next time I touched it was when I unloaded it from the bus to bring back into the house.

It was clear from that experience that I do not need another roller case.  I do, however, want something that will protect my new laptop computer.  I think I have narrowed the choice down to the Everki Advanced or the Everki Lunar, both available through Amazon Prime.  The Advanced is very reasonably priced at under $40 and has generally favorable reviews, mentioning the ASUS “Republic of Gamers” (ROG) models in particular.  The Lunar has more storage space, and also has generally favorable reviews, but is over three times the price at just under $130.  Posts on the ASUS ROG Forum seem to favor one of the Everki backpack models, but I do not want a backpack style case.

Our failed APC uninterruptible power supply is a Smart-UPS SUA1000.  By trading it in on a SMT1000 we can save $75 off the retail price.  I need to confirm that the discounted price includes return shipping; the SUA1000 weighs 48 pounds.

I revised the RVillage Quick Start doc I created for the GLCC, CCO, and FTH RV clubs, making it generic for use by Bus Conversion Magazine or anyone else.  I then uploaded it to a new RVillage page on our website and revised a couple of other pages to link to the new one.  I then uploaded blog posts for the last three days.  I set up my new laptop in my office and installed seven more updates.

At breakfast yesterday I got a tip from Paul (N8BHT) on a used tower.  He e-mailed me the owner’s contact information later.  I called the owner, Wayne (KD8H), this afternoon and got a little more information about the tower.  It is an aluminum Heights Tower, 80 feet, with Fold-Over Kit (FOK) including the drive motor, a rotator and antenna mounting plate.  It is already on the ground and disassembled into sections.  Wayne is retired and I will likely go look at the tower tomorrow afternoon.  I e-mailed Paul (N8BHT), Mike (W8XH), and Steve (N8AR) to see if they were available to go with me.

Linda made lentil loaf for dinner with baked yams and fresh asparagus.  After dinner I drove to South Lyon for the May meeting of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club.  SLAARC usually meets on the 2nd Sunday of the month but pulls the May meetings forward a week to avoid Mother’s Day.  Our topic of discussion this evening was the upcoming ARRL Field Day operating event, which takes place the last full weekend in June.  We had a couple of new hams at the meeting and afterwards several of the guys helped Christine, KD8VEA, get the PL tone set correctly on her radio so she was able to participate in a group QSO with Steve (N8AR), Mike (W8XH), Fred (AC8VL), and myself on the drive home.  In spite of what many people think, including some older/former hams, amateur radio is alive and well in the North America and all over the world.