wc0v's blog

US Navy Museum Ships Weekend

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:37:59 -0500

Check out the website at http://users.tellurian.com/freddie/nj2bb/ship-event.html. Various US Navy ships will have stations on board on the air from site all around the US commerating D-Day. 0000Z June 7 through 2359Z June 8, 2008

If you work 15 or more of them, you can get a special certificate. USS New Jersey and USS Wisconsin also have very nice QSL cards.

73, Carl WC0V

CW Alive and Well - Picture is worth 1000 wpm!

Sat, 24 May 2008 15:58:55 -0500

If anyone thought that CW was going bye-bye, take a look at the attached .JPG file. That's the lower 70 KHz of 20 meters this afternoon. Every spike is a contester's signal.

CW - the original digital!

73, Carl WCØV

Printed Circuit Boards the Easy Way - EHAM.net - great article

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:45:04 -0500

Take a look at http://www.eham.net/articles/16958 for a great description of ExpressPCB, free software for laying out a printed circuit board. You can print out the layout and do the rest of the work yourself or send the saved file to the company who will (for a modest fee) make the boards and send them to you.

73, Carl WCØV

Installing mobile ham gear in today's vehicles - the word from GM

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:11:29 -0500

Excerpts from the ICOM reflector:

After being told absolutely NO by the local dealer, I bit the bullet and had a local two-way radio shop run power, install 5 NMO mounts plus coax, 2 trunk lip mounts, and the coax plus control wires for a Tarheel screwdriver. Total tab: $600. They were happy to do it, and knew how. The local Toyota dealer wouldn't touch the job.

And here's a great link to GM's notes on installing gear:

handy electronic conversion tools

Sat, 05 May 2007 11:21:00 -0500

Just found these links for electronic calculations and conversions. Should save a lot of time and typos!

1. Capacitor value codes: http://xtronics.com/kits/ccode.htm

2. Calculators of all kinds: http://www.electronics2000.co.uk/

Enjoy.

73, Carl WCØV

CW testing dropped - OR Ham Radio won't die!

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:30:14 -0600

Ham Radio survived the following:

SSB (just ask some old AM'ers)
The Novice License
The Technician License
The Technician Plus License
Incentive Licensing (almost didn't but we did!)
The 5 WPM Extra Class License

And we will survive the following:

Removal of CW testing

We are made of pretty sturdy stuff - we can handle it.

73, Carl WCØV

Check out the new Ten Tec OMNI VII

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:25:31 -0600

try the following link to TenTec's newest rig,the internet-ready OmniVII.

http://radio.tentec.com/Amateur/Transceivers/TT588

Looks pretty slick. Can't wait for the first impressions/reviews.

Everyone have a great holiday.

73, Carl WCØV