Thanksgiving portable in the backyard of the daughters house in Aurora, Colorado. I had the ICOM IC-706 with the MFJ 904H manual tuner with a wire going to the gutters. I had never tried loading up gutters before, so I figured why not. Using my MFJ antenna analyzer I tuned them up on 40m and made a few contacts. Then I loaded the gutters up on 20m and checked in to the Maritime Mobile Net. Read More …
We camped a few days around Granite, Colorado. During our stay there we explored the Stone Cabin that was near by. Furthermore the Arkansas River was within walking distance. I did some HF radio and made a few contacts including one to my brother W0EGT back in Missouri on 40m. I used my ICOM 706 and my MFJ 17 foot vertical attached to my homebrew induction coil. Our campsite the 2nd night. Beautiful area!!!
Subsequently it has been a while since I’ve been on mobile HF radio. I was really missing it recently and decided to install it in our new vehicle. However I still have some more grounding to work on but the radio is happy, the antenna is happy and there is no crazy things happening in the vehicle. Meanwhile I am still using my homebrew loading coil that I made several years ago. On top of Read More …
I have been wanting to try FT8 on my ICOM IC-706 for quite some time. Recently my brother finally got his ticket and is a General Class. He also purchased a Yeasu FT-450 as his first HF rig. In the past I have done a few digital modes such as PSK31, SSTV, and some RTTY! But for the life of me I could not get FT8 to work with my ICOM IC-706. My brother did Read More …
Here is a visual look at the 2019 Joplin, Missouri Hamfest! There was a ton of neat stuff for sale and on display here. Furthermore, if you are in the area you might as well stop by the Joplin hamfest.
For several years I have been using my HM-103 microphone on my ICOM IC-706 with no tab to lock the RJ45 microphone tab in place to the transceiver. In addition, I recently ordered a cable crimper from Amazon for about $19.00 that also came with a cable tester and 100 pieces of RJ45 connectors/plugs. After a little bit of some research on Youtube. I found some videos on how to replace network cables. I had Read More …
Well not exactly! I thought I let the magic smoke out of my ICOM IC-706. Furthermore, I was messing around the back of the radio with it turned on I bumped something and POOF! Radio shut down and would not turn back on. I checked the fuses on the power cord and they were fine. I opened up the chassis and peeked inside and found nothing out of the ordinary. Then I spotted a fuse Read More …
The ICOM IC-730 was my first HF radio. I have carried this radio all around the USA doing portable operating. This radio was given to me to use by W0EBV after passing my General test. It is an excellent 1st radio for anyone to get on HF. It covers 80m – 10m bands excluding 12m and 17m. With 100w of output power, this radio is great for Field Day and Winter Field day as well. Read More …
I got a late start on this years VHF Contest. As a matter of fact I did not start setting up till late Sunday morning. That is almost a whole 20+ hours after the contest had started. My wife and I went to Schell Osage Conservation Area near Schell City, Missouri. It has some camping areas and a fishing lake. This is also the place where we did the January VHF Contest in 2018. That Read More …
Few days ago my ICOM 706 was getting bad reports on audio. I quickly checked all connections and double checked them again just to make sure. I changed out microphones and checked settings on RF power and microphone levels and still was get no good reports back. RF power is getting out to the meter. SWR is good. Changed coax cables. Checked all coax connections twice. Power supply is stable voltage. Changed microphones. Checked microphone Read More …