The KEØVH Hamshack for November 2015

Greetings all, as I have written here in the Hamshack article, I have been trading, selling & buying radio’s for the past couple of years and now have what I term for myself an ultimate Shack! JJJ There are several great websites that Hams list and sell/trade equipment on that I would like to hand off to you. The first is the one that I have mostly used in addition to the classified sections of www.QRZ.com and www.Eham.net is http://swap.qth.com/. AND, I have just discovered a new one I didn’t know about at http://www.hamradiosforsale.org/. This site has radios listed by manufacturer and in order that you can check specifically for a particular radio you may have been dreaming of.   I have had great luck in using these websites and talking to great guys who are using the sites. One thing in particular that I always do is talk on the phone to whoever I am doing a deal with so I can get to know them a little bit, and yes, kind of check to see if I am comfortable with doing a deal with them and it works so they can feel good about doing the deal with me. When I am selling a piece of gear I always ask for a postal money order, never a personal check or cash. I usually include the price of shipping when asking for a certain amount for a particular piece I am selling. When buying I do the same, although I did one deal thru PayPal. Lots of folks are using PayPal now, and although there are bad apples in every bunch, I really have never had a problem in my dealings. So I would encourage you to look at the classified sites for when you are in the market for a great bargain on a used radio.   Lots less expensive than a new one, and most are lovingly taken care of and shipped to you. And, always ask for pictures, the history of the rig, are there any known problems, and whether or not it is a smoking home.

 

The Yaesu FT-857D mounted on the dash, tuned to the Colorado Connection Vail CO machine

 

The new rig in the truck now is the Yaesu FT-857D.

She lights up PURTY at night!

I am really excited to have this radio online now for my journeys around the state. So far, it has operated really well on HF and V/UHF. And since I have the 897D in the shack, I have a matched set! J During a trip to Eagle CO and then north thru an isolated area south of Steamboat Springs, I really enjoyed talking on 40 meters to a guy up in northern Wyoming, my friend Greg, WB7AHO, and a ham in Salt Lake City as I drove thru the area that had no repeater coverage. 40 meters works really well for regional communications during daylight hours. I regularly have been in no repeater coverage area’s where I have many times talked back to Denver.   A large portion of the state, as I have written before, is covered by the Colorado Connection linked repeater system, http://www.colcon.org/ and makes it pretty easy to talk back to Denver or across the state to Grand Junction, or north to Steamboat Springs. There are also IRLP nodes across the state. Keri, KBØYNA runs a great set of IRLP linked repeaters out in the Grand Junction and Montrose area with tremendous coverage. And of course, the radio works where the cell phone doesn’t, so it gives you a sense of communications security for sure as I travel all over creation! Plus friends who will listen for you, and keep you company while on the road. Ain’t Ham Radio great?

COLORADO CONNECTION REPEATER COVERAGE

My good friend Rich, W9BNO, visited the Hamshack here last month and he and I had a great time talking on the FlexRadio. Here is Rich checking into the Columbine Net on 3.989 a little past 7:30 Mountain time. Signals were really great that night! Thanks for visiting the Shack Rich!

 

EMF/K-LOVE/Air1 Engineer Scott Todd, NØBST, sent out an email here to our group reporting: “For those of you who like old tech, a friend of mine has figured out a way to rebuild an old phono cartridge, using a piezo element like what you’d find in an audio greeting card”. Here is the link to the video produced by Scotts friend, Chris Cuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB9xp8RQ7mc&feature=youtu.be

 

You probably know about how the Voice of America, like so many other shortwave broadcasters have unfortunately become a think of the past. But know you can actually visit the VOA’s Delano CA transmitter again. It has literally been moved across country and set up in a museum to Bloomfield, New York. It is an old Collins 1960’s era 821A-1 250kW transmitter with a shipping weight of 38,000 pounds! Great reading and pictures at http://www.radioworld.com/article/voa-delano-transmitter–readied-for-public-display/277263 .

 

I saw this driving thru Denver the other day. Really laughed at this one COOL!!!!

 

AND, I now have my dashcam/sports camera working again. A weird LI-ON battery type, but by golly it was available at Amazon.com and so I am working on some new video’s again. Check out the latest and maybe some you missed at:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ke0vhjacktv

 

Don’t forget the Monday Night Broadcast Engineering

IRLP (and Echolink) Hamnet, every MONDAY EVENING

At 7pm Mountain time (9pm Eastern) for radio discussions, both

Broadcast engineering and amateur radio. The first and

3rd Mondays are also SBE NET nights. Details on how to

Join are at http://www.ke0vh.com/net/net.html. I hope

You will be able to join us and share your engineering and

Ham exploits!

73’ & God be with you. See you next time! de KEØVH