Things that make you go hum… Or maybe bonkers. I have a Astron RM-50A that I have been using to power two Motorola units that I use for VHF/UHF. Yes, overkill, but I have been planning on putting it in a console that will also house my Seinna and my Icom IC-746Pro.
This last week I finished constructing the console, so now comes the fun part of taking everything apart and putting it back together. Since I got the PS, it has always had a pretty annoying hum to it, so I thought now would be the time to work on it.
I took the cover off of it, dreading the possibility of what I would find. I have read too many Amateur Radio horror stories about de-laminated transformers and such. You know, best to just pretend it doesn’t hum. Anyway, I found the transformer to be in decent shape, so I checked the nuts and found a few loose and one on the big capacitor missing. I tightened them up and replaced the missing one.
It seems to be better, but I do still hear some hum when it is on. The top cover really deflects right over the transformer when I first turn it on. It doesn’t help to apply pressure to the top cover, so I don’t think that is it. I guess I will just see what happens.
BTW, I did let the capacitors discharge before working on it. That’s why I am able to make this post.
I stumbled a crossed this page this evening on Space Today Online.
What an amazing history the Amateur Radio community has with space. It is incredible what “non-professional” engineers can accomplish. Maybe we just need to turn over the Manned Space program to the Amateur Radio community. I have a pretty good feeling they wouldn’t throw away all the accomplishments and sacrifices made by the engineers at NASA over the last 5 decades. Just Saying….
As president of the Amateur Radio Association of Nebraska the responsibility of rebuilding our Severe Weather Spotter Network partially falls on my shoulders.
Like most Amateur Radio groups over the past several years our members have aged and are less inclined to be available for these types of activities. We have been working on bringing new younger members into the association for the past year, but that takes time. While we have been successful in getting 5 -10 new licensees, we still don’t have enough to take on all of the Storm Spotting roles.
So I appointed a committee to contact hams in surrounding counties and identify the ones that are willing to help out. Then the committee will appoint a team leader in each county that will be responsible to coordinate that counties spotters.
We will see how it goes. If any of you have been through this and have any ideas for us, I would appreciate hearing from you.
On Sunday, ARAN put in it’s first of 4 new repeaters in our network. We are replacing some old equipment including the duplexers.
At this site we replaced the duplexer and the repeater. We are using new Bridgecom repeaters with Cat 400 controllers. This site was using 2 antennas with the Tx antenna at 60 feet. With the duplexer, we are now at about 180 feet.
The range now is a lot better than it was. Kind of fun getting in the middle of this, haven’t done this type of work before.
I got the Sienna on the air last Monday. I am still waiting on the 100w amp and the embeded PC, but we have been hitting PSK hard all week.
I have made a little over 20 contacts with it since. Great performer and a fun project to build. I plan on taking it camping as soon as I get the embeded PC put in. That way I only have to take the Sienna, a monitor, keyboard and mouse with me.
After my post the other day about SDR, Dave KØRWM contacted me about his experiences with SDR. He was gracious enough to send me a DVD of recordings he made using his SDR setup. He also included instructions for downloading WinRadio from http://winradio.org.
I have to say I am really impressed. The audio quality is very good. He uses an Elektor SDR and a USB Sound card for a total investment of less than $250.00. He has since ordered a RF Space SDR-IQ that costs around $500.00. Not a bad price for such a high quality receiver.
As soon as I get some more of my other projects out of the way, I plan on playing with more SDR stuff. There is a lot more I can do with Winradio not to mention the PowerSDR software. The thing I like about it is the low cost of entry. When you look at the price, a new ham can get into this stuff for less than the inflation adjusted price of my old Heathkit HR-1680.
Thanks again to Dave, that is what I love about Amateur Radio. Just ask, and somebody will step up to help out.
Windstream, the local telephone company in Hastings and the surrounding areas suffered a malfunction in some of it’s switching equipment located in Lincoln, NE yesterday. The area was left without 9-1-1 service for most of the day. Here is a quote from the Lincoln/Lancaster 911 Center:
quote:
“Julie Righter, Communications Manager for the Lincoln/Lancaster County 911 Center, verified Thursday evening that landline telephone service to 911 had been restored. Cellular service into 911 was still not operational at that time. Until 911 services was fully functioning, it was suggested to continue to use the seven digit numbers listed below to access emergency services. Those numbers remained active until all service was restored.
The public could also go to local fire stations and Ham radio operators were posted at many major intersections in Lincoln to deal with emergency situations.”
Hastings/Adams County Ham’s help was not requested, but it does highlight the need for planning for situations like these not just severe weather.
We have been working on a new set of repeaters for the ARAN club. We decided on Bridgecom units with Cat 400 controllers.
Our next problem was how to get them on IRLP. We currently have two IRLP Nodes on simplex (3258 and 7438). At least one of those will go on a repeater. Then we were going to put nodes on the other repeaters also. Then we got a bright idea about putting it on just one of the repeaters.
We have 5 repeaters and we link them together though one repeater that is in the center of a spoke. That repeater acts as a hub for the rest. I posted a message on the IRLP mailing list yesterday and received many good comments from the other users. It looks like this might be an ideal arrangement, so the next step is configuring the controller for the IRLP node.
If you have any experiences with something like this, let me know.
I am not one to use the terms role model or hero lightly. In today’s world, those terms are thrown around so easily and applied to Hollywood celebrities and sports figures, it demeans the use of the terms.
We all have them however. In my life, other than my father, one of the most influential people in my life was also one of the most humble and unassuming persons that you would have the fortune to meet. I am refering to my uncle Ray. He never married, never had kids, didn’t get rich and wasn’t a powerful politician.
He did however make a difference in everyone’s life who meet him. He was a prolific letter writer. If you were lucky enough to get one of his letters, you knew right away that it was written by someone who had a unique insight into how humans related to each other. He had an incredible memory and used it to record and pass along some of the most interesting “Tall Tales” that were told on the Great Plains of America.
As a testament to his enduring friendships, two weeks after he passed away, I received a phone call from the VA hospital were he had been. On the other end was a WWII friend of his in his 70′s who had driven across the country by himself to see his old friend one last time. I invited him over to my house and he spent several hours that evening telling us stories about my uncle and his selflessness that endured him to all of his buddies in the service. As was his custom, my uncle had never bragged or related any of these stories to us in the years that followed the war. Even in his death he taught me invaluable lessons about friendship.
So you are probably asking what this has to do with Amateur Radio. Well the other day I was out working on a new console for some of my radios. I came upon an old Hallicrafters S-38 that my uncle had given me. You see he was a Radio Corpsman during the war. I was always amazed at the old S-38 and it got me interested in electronics and although Ray was never a licensed Amateur, he encouraged me to get my license.
So one of my next projects will be to restore the old S-38 and get it working like new again. Then every time I fire it up, I can honor one of my first role models and I am not ashamed to say one of my hero’s.
