Stuff

Heathkit Clock: My Final Words

It is beautiful. The printed circuit board may be the highest quality I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t keep time any more accurately than any other 60Hz clock.

You would think that they could have incorporated a WWVB receiver as in previous editions. Better yet, a GPS-based timebase. No, it uses the 60Hz line as a timebase.

There are aspects of the assembly that are clunk/finicky too. The predriled holes in the bottom of the wooden sides (used to attached the bottom plate) really need to have a tap run through them. The battery hold-down strap is mickey-mouse. The dots between digits are a kludge.

Getting Back in the Saddle

The past year or so has been really hectic.  My professional workload has been much higher than I would like. Things are starting to settle down now. Time to give some attention to my much-neglected ham station.

This morning’s task was to get my weather station connected to the Internet once again.

My weather station is an older Acu-Rite 5-in-1. I was using an old laptop to collect it’s data and send it to Weather Underground.  Several months ago the old PC died but I never got around to doing anything about it.

With a little spare time on my hands, I ordered a replacement laptop from Dell.  This morning I unboxed it, and set it up.  I installed Acu-Rite’s data collection and connectivity software, and within minutes everything was fully operational again.

Click Here to view my Current Weather.

Building the New Heathkit Clock

I could stand it no longer – I HAD to build something. I decided it would be Heathkit’s resurrected Most Accurate Clock (GC-1006). Way back when, I lived 1/2 mile from the Phoenix, AZ Heathkit store. I bet I was there once a week. At one time my entire ham station was Heathkit.

A full assembly review will follow, but in this post I want to talk about the tools that make the building not only possible but pleasurable.

LED Magnifying Lamp

I’m 66 years old now, and my eyes are not what they were when I was nineteen. This thing is nice and bright and the magnifier allows me to give those solder joints a close inspection. I got mine from Amazon.

Aven 17010 Adjustable Circuit Board Holder

For $12.27 I was not expecting much, but this quality of this thing surprised me. I wish I had bought this 30 years ago when I was building Heathkits all the time. It holds the pCB nicely, and the PCB can be rotated so you can work on either side. I purchased it from Amazon.

Weller WE1010NA Digital Soldering Station

Nothing symbolized the words “I’m Back” more than this.  Many years and two houses ago (and back when my entire ham station was Heathkit) I owned an older (non-digital) Weller soldering station.  I loved it.  In 2007, I moved into a new house.  It was a very nice house. I had kinda lost interest in Ham Radio and so the fact that there was no room for a ham station didn’t bother.  Nor did the fact that there was an HOA and antenna restrictions. I sold all my ham gear, my test equipment, and my tools. Including that Weller soldering station.

So when I moved into this house out in the country and saw that I would have room for a nice bench along the wall behind me to hold ham gear, and there were no antenna restrictions, I started reacquiring the tools and gear. And one of those tools was this Weller soldering station.

Back on the Air, but the Ameritron RCS-4 Gets Taken Down

Over the weekend I repaired my Hy-Gain AV-640 vertical and replaced the coax.  Everything is working nicely again. I talked to N3EON Steve in Baltimore this afternoon and he gave me a nice 59 report.

However, as I was tuning up, Sweet Lady Wife walked into the ham shack and said “You are turning my radio on and off”.  Her radio is a Bose WaveRadio, and it sits almost exactly opposite the RCS-4 antenna switchbox.  The RCS-4 box is mounted outside the house, and the Bose is right inside, up against that same wall, just 10 inches from the RCS-4.  And the RCS-4 switchbox has a plastic cover instead of metal.  I took the RCS-4 out of the equation, did another tune up, and the Bose was quite happy. So much for the RCS-4.

I tried breaking thru a pileup to reach a PJ4 (Bonaire) station that was booming in, but my little pistol was no match for the big guns.  He said he wil be on every night this week so I’ll keep trying.  When the income tax refund arrives, I’ll get an electrician in here to run a dedicated line for the Ten-Tec Centaur amplifier.  Then perhaps I’ll have more success.

Trying out HRD (Ham Radio Deluxe)

More changes here at the new QTH.  It’s always been somewhat of a pain to get Win500 and other ham radio programs to run in a VMWare Fusion virtual machine and connect to my radios.  I’ve had a Dell laptop running Windows 10 just sitting around, so I’ve decided to put it to use as the official Ham Shack Computer.

One of the first things then was to find a new logging program.  I’m trying out HRD right now and it seems to work seamlessly with my TS-590 via the USM cable.  I’m really using only the logging and rig control functions as this point, but the fact that it connected to my TS-590 right away without any fiddling is a good sign.

I’ve also got Win500 running to control my GRE500 scanner. (I’m presently using it to monitor a local 6M repeater.) That also connected flawlessly.

K7RPM is on the Air Again VHF/UHF

I’m happy to say that I’m back in the air at least on VHF/UHF.  Things are a little makeshift (The antenna is vip-tied in a tree) but at least I am on the air.

145.350 (WIldflower Mtn)

147.000 (Mingus Mtn)

Preparing for a Move

I’m preparing for a move. I’m 64 years old. My Sweet Lady Wife is 62. Time to downsize from this two-story 2200 sq ft house into something single story and smaller.

We’re planning to move to the Mayer, AZ area. (Actually Cordes Lakes) I’ve done my research. No HOA. No antenna restrictions in the CC&Rs. I’m looking forward to having a real antenna for the first time in 10 years.

One of the two places we are looking at is on half an acre and would certainly allow for a tower, but for now I’m planning on putting up a Hy-Gain AV-640 vertical.

I’ll be on the air from the new QTH in 2-3 months.

I’m Switching from Aether to MacLoggerDX for logging

I’m a Mac user and have been using Aether for logging my contacts for several years.  I love aether.  It’s nice and clean and for the most part is very intuitive.

The trouble however started when I got my vanity call.  Aether does not know how to handle the fact that contacts prior to date XXX were made using my old call (WB7OBG) and subsequent contacts were made using my new call, K7RPM.  The only workaround I came up with was have two log files. Also, Aether seems to be unable to connect to QRZ.com for callbook access.  I give it my callsign and password and it says “Login Failed”.  I’ve manually logged in to QRZ.com with no problems.  Multiple callsigns (and certificates) is also problematic when interfacing with LotW.

A couple of days ago my frustration level was to the point I was ready to drive a marlin spike through my monitor.  I decided to look at alternatives.

So far, MacLoggerDX seems to work pretty well. The ‘two callsigns’ problem is solved with the ‘Operator’ field. MacLoggerDx’s integration with LotW is a little looser:

“MacLoggerDX supports LoTW and eQSL with Ham standard ADIF files. QSO’s can be exported by ADIF, signed (using the ARRL supplied applications) and uploaded to LoTW. MacLoggerDX also uses LoTW and eQSL ADIF confirmation files to update the QSL received status of your logged QSOs”

MacLoggerDX also seems to have no problem connecting to my Kenwood TS-590s

73’s

Dave

Yikes! I Need New QSL Cards Too!

K7RPM_QSL_Back_800wAs I logged my contact with EI4KF and reached for a QSL card to send him, I realized that I have not ordered SQL cards with my new call!

I created my QSL card using photoshop. and have OvernightPrints.com print them.  I personally think that by using a custom SQL card I get a better chance of a reply.  It also gives me the chance to become more than just a callsign.

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