Sunday, October 27, 2024

Video: Destruction, dolphins, KX2 and POTA

Cedar Key, Florida has been a favorite motorcycle-ride destination of mine for a couple of years now. It's


a laid-back "Old Florida" town, off the beaten track. A couple restaurants, three bars and a few shops - not too much else.

The real Margaritaville.

Hurricane Milton passed this way a few weeks ago and I was expecting to see large-scale devastation.

While the waterfront shops did suffer significant damage, the overall damage from the storm were less than I'd expected.

Coulda been much worse - I'm glad it wasn't.

The harbor separating Cedar Key from Atsena Otie Key is a playground for dolphins and makes for a fun kayaking trip to Atsena Otie, a POTA site accessible only by boat.

No kayaking for me today but the splashes I saw from the shore quickly distracted me from the hurricane damaged town and I sent my drone over for a look.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Moto-POTA in Mississippi with KX2

 

With a good (and quite cool) forecast for the week throughout Dixie, I left Florida for a nice three-day ride to Texas.

I stayed off the interstate and let the back roads take me past cotton fields, farms, pastures and unhealthy-but-delicious places to eat.

The KX2 allowed me to have some after-dark distraction in the tent. 

Sunset comes early this time of year and it was nice to be able to play radio after chatting with the campground neighbors in the evening.

Two of my neighbors at Natchez State Park were a couple from Germany, touring American Civil War sites in a rental RV.  It was very interesting to get their perspective on things.

I stuck to CW even though I had the KX2's mini-mic with me. The antenna was my 17' (5m) whip screwed into its mount, which is bolted onto the motorcycle. Contacts were made on 20 and 40 meters with some DX worked as well.

Thursday, October 10, 2024

Is a 2-tone IMD measurement possible with the tinySA Ultra?

I no longer have my old Siglent, Rigol or other spectrum analyzers I once had access to - the ones used (among other things) to measure IMD of SSB rigs.

But I do have everything else I need: 2-tone generator, directional coupler, fixed attenuators and a tinySA Ultra.

With Hans G0UPL making great progress in developing firmware that will allow SSB operation with QMX/QMX+ transceivers, I wanted to know if the tinySA Ultra will allow measurement of IMD.

Hans' method of SSB generation is unique and it will be interesting to see how the transmitter output looks compared to more traditional rigs.

The original tinySA does not have the resolution bandwidth needed to make IMD measurements, but the newer Ultra version, with 200 Hz minimum RBW, does.

My test subject was the KX2 on 20m phone.

Saturday, October 5, 2024

(CE)SSB with the QMX+

Hans G0UPL posted the following:

I'm so happy. That's why I am writing this. CESSB works! I have recorded a 1-minute YouTube demo (Churchill's speech still) showing a QMX receiving QMX+ CESSB transmissions: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vnJZ7-j6gc


I'm getting my mic ready!

When the CESSB-enabling firmware is released, the QMX+ will be a high-performing 6-160m CW/SSB/digital transceiver for $125. Truly amazing.

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Thursday, October 3, 2024

If Ambrose Bierce had been a ham...

Ambrose on 20m phone in 1875
Ambrose Bierce was a Civil War veteran and a writer. His experiences at the Battle of Shiloh provided fodder and inspiration for numerous stories that would be written 25 years later, in the 1890's.

Most of these stories were written metaphorically, to capture the somber essence of war rather than its literal realities.

As such, they are dark, moody and macabre, with Bierce's writing often being compared to that of Poe.

His best-known story is Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge which, 70 years later, was made by Rod Serling into an episode of The Twilight Zone (you can watch that episode here).

Bierce's cynical wit (and refreshingly sardonic humor) can more quickly be discerned by a quick read of a few examples from his Devil's Dictionary:

  • Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
  • Circus: A place where horses, lions and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting foolishly.
  • Conservative: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
  • Cynic: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
  • Egotist: A person of low taste; therefore, more interested in himself than in me.
  • Funeral: A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching their undertaker.
  • Guillotine: A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders, with good reason.
  • Imagination: A warehouse of facts, with Poet and Liar in joint ownership.
  • Marriage: A household consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
  • Noise: A stench in the ear. The chief product of civilization.
  • Religion: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

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If ham radio had existed during Bierce's time, these might have been his observations: