RxTx receiving!

A few days ago I finished the 30/20/17m PA Filter and so my RxTx board is all complete. I put on the connectors and powered it up and plugged it in and... nothing. I got noise and the same stuff if I had the board plugged in or not. Bummer. However the frequencies in Rocky didn't jibe with what I was trying to listen to and after some help over on the Softrock forum (or email reflector as the Hams seem to like to call it) I was on my way. Seems you need to run Rocky once, then you get a Rocky.ini file which you can then edit to have the frequencies you're interested in. I was also a little clueless about the dip switches on the board (which you don't need if you're using an I2C controller like I am, but I finally found this page:
SW1 Settings which helped a lot. Anyway here's a copy of my Rocky.ini file in case it helps anyone else out.

Armed with all of that I fired up the RxTx and my crappy old windows laptop running Rocky and I heard stuff! I was able to make out some voice (although barely copyable) and also heard a lot of CW (Morse Code) which I'd expect on this band. Sadly I can't understand CW yet and I haven't worked out how to have it automagically decoded by the computer. Searching for PSK31 signals didn't yield anything legible.

But it worked and that's the big deal!

Next up is to either set up a proper enclosure with real connectors on it so I can use shielded audio cable, or try a little harder and try and make a contact on it. I'm loathe to try and put it in a container without testing transmit unless I can take it out easily!

My first Antenna

With the impending completion of my rxtx board I've been thinking about an antenna. I posted on the ham mailing list at work and got some good advice on what band to look at (30m) and what to do about an antenna. With this info I headed on over to the local Radio Ham Outlet and begged for more help. With their advice I got a RadioWavz 20dp11 20m Dipole, 50m RG8X coax, PL-259 connector for the radio, 300ft UV resistant nylon rope and a Dummy Load. It was a lot of small costs that ended up total ing $180. Quite a bit more than I really wanted to spend, but it all looked like good stuff and I was giving my radio it's best opportunity to pick up some signals and hopefully have something to listen to. I plan to enlist the help of my parents while they're here to help me hang this in the redwood trees behind my house.

While soliciting advice at work and at the Ham Outlet I was encouraged to get an antenna analyzer ($300) and the idea of a multi-band dipole seemed interesting, but alas, that would need a tuner too which would be another $150 to $300. All these amounts are way out of my budget right now. I'm still only playing with this stuff.

RXTX Main Board Complete

Today I soldered the very last component onto my rxtx board! I still have the PA Band Filters to make but the main board is complete (except for connectors). O.K. there's too many disclaimers in there, but it's a big accomplishment for me to get this far so I wanted to share. The blurry picture is one I took with my phone so I could immediately send it off to Micah (KI6TWP) who I'd been building my board with. He's been slacking recently and not coming with me to 'play radios' so I've been charging on ahead. I want to have the full rxtx complete by the time my parents visit in a week.

Softrock RXTX 6.3 ordered

You remember in that last post how I said I had no intention of getting a radio that would let me use my new band privileges? Well the biggest hurdle was time and the cost of another radio. Luckily while reading QST (or it could have been Radcom (thanks G4HON)), I stumbled across the Softrock project and their RXTX 6.3 board. It was cheap and low power and I could build it myself and the instructions looked really good. So with a co-worker I ordered two kits with full band pass filters since no one on the email list at work would tell me what would be the best bands to try. Total cost around $120 which is well within the playing around with things budget. Our plan is to work on it two hours a week after our team meeting in the electronics lab at work. I've never had much success with building electronics, let's hope this one is different.

General Class License

Hey, check it out, I just passed my General Class radio ham exam! Just like last time, the test popped up too quickly for me to study properly so I've been cramming the 484 multiple choice questions in the question pool for the last week and it went pretty well. I think I got 30 out of 35 right (I needed at least 26). I had been practicing on my iPhone using AA9PW's online practice exams and it had been going pretty well. It was a surprise to note that the answers weren't in the same order in the real exam as they are online. I also took the Extra Class exam, but I hadn't studied for that at all and failed miserably with a 25 out of 50.

I still have no idea why I took the test. With the new license I can operate at different frequencies that can travel further, but I don't have a radio that can transmit at those frequencies and I don't plan on getting one. I have enjoyed learning all the stuff though. I already bought the Extra Class book so I guess at some point I'll try and pass that, but not this year. I have until 2011 when the question pool will change and my current book will be out of date. Extra is as high as it goes. It's like being a frickin' black belt in radio geekery. Bad Ass!

Long distance contact

Today I went hiking with my wife around chain lakes in Yosemite. It was a tough hike, but once we had a nice dinner at 9,500ft I turned on my radio to see what we could hear. After some scanning I picked up some folks having a QSO in Monterey (150 miles away!). After they were done I called CQ and had a nice conversation with them. Sadly I didn't write down their call signs, or manage to work out how my signal was getting to them, My guess is that I was Loma Pioneer Repeater Club since I was on 442.900 + PL162.2 that matches their repeater network. It was very reassuring to know that even out there we could contact people if we had any kind of emergency.

My First Contact KG6VMX

Tonight I attended my first ever local ham club meeting (LPARC). It wasn't where they said it would be! I got off the highway behind a car with a vanity plate that looked like a call sign and had extra antennas on the top so I figured I was going in the right direction. However this car pulled over in to the school and not the fire station where the meeting was. So I drove another few miles to the fire station, only to find a nice note telling me the meeting was at the school! Oh well, it was a nice meeting and I got to show my radio to folks and ask why I couldn't hit the repeater. Seems I had everything set up, the positive offset and the tone frequency, what I had neglected to do was actually turn on the repeater tone!

With this new found knowledge and my repeater tone turned on I got home and called CQ and someone answered! My first ever ham radio contact was with Bill (KG6VMX) who it just so happened had been at the meeting that evening.

I added it to my QSO Map.