KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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Operating notes: Narrow filters, MiniMaker Faire, Canadas Cold War Museum

Posted: 05 Jun 2016 10:38 AM PDT
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Friday night, I was calling CQ on 30m and not having a lot of luck, when I
heard a very faint signal a couple hundreds Hz off frequency. One of the
reasons it was so faint, is that I had my receive filter set to a pretty
narrow setting to reduce the level of QRN during my previous
QSO.Â*Fortunately, my hearing is pretty good, and after detecting the faint
signal, and realizing that the filter was pretty narrow, I opened up the
filter, adjusted the RIT, and had a great contact with the other guy.

The point Im trying to make is that when calling CQ, you probably shouldnt
have your filters set too narrow. You could miss a fun QSO.

You should probably tune around a bit, too, after calling CQ. While most
radios now have VFOs, there are some guys out there using home-brew,
crystal-controlled transmitters. If you dont tune around, youll miss their
call and possibly a great contact. Another reason to tune around is that
even most operators realize that they should zero beat when answering a CQ,
its not difficult to misadjustÂ*ones VFO and answer a CQ off-frequency.
If Â*you dont tune around, youll miss that call and possibly a great contact.
Thom, W8TAM, having a great time at the Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire. Yours
truly (yellow shirt) and Joe, AC8ES, are in the background.
Mini Maker Faire 2016

Yesterday, was the 2016 version of the Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire. This
year, it was held at the downtown branch of the Ann Arbor District Library.
I was a little leery that attendance would suffer because of the parking
situation downtown, and it did seem slow at first and probably a bit down
overall, but I think it was a success.

We had a great turnout of amateur radio guys, including Thom, W8TAM; Prem,
AC8QV; Joe, AC8ES; Ed, AB8OJ, and Dave, N8SBE. Thom and Ed showed their
SDRs, Joe brought his 3D printer and his RaspberryPi WSPR setup, and Dave
brought his K3 setup.

As usual, I had my collection of keys and was teaching kids (and some
adults) how to send their names in Morse Code. I have a chart of the
characters (see right) that I tape to the table next to the key, and when
someone approaches the table, I ask if theyd like to learn to send their
name in Morse Code, and if they say yes, I ask them to tell meÂ*the first
letter in their name.

After they tell me, I show them the character on the chart and then show
them how to send it. Once theyve successfullyÂ*done that, I tell them to
look up the rest of the letters and then send them as well. If they
successfully do this, I thrust out my hand and say, Nice to meet you, Joe
(or whatever name they just sent me). The look on some faces is priceless.

Because this was the Maker Faire, and a lot of the attendees are on the
nerdy side, there was a fair amount of interest in the bug. After I showed
them how it worked, they really appreciated the mechanics of it.
VE3CWM

This morning,Â*I worked RalphÂ*at Â*VE3CWM. As their QRZ.Com page notes,
VE3CWM (VE3Cold War Museum) is located in the Emergency Radio Room, 25 feet
underground, on the top floor of a 4 story decommissioned nuclear bunker.
The original call sign was VE3GOC (Government OCfanada). Much of the
original radio equipment, a 1984 Yaesu FT-902DM and accessories (above
photo), have been recovered and are still operational to this day. The
equipment is maintained and operated by members of the Museums Volunteer
Radio Group (VRG).

We had a nice contact, and if Im ever up that way again, Ill make sure to
visit the museum.

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