Prayers inbound.

Quote from: Sunflower on November 02, 2012, 09:04:37 PM

Quote from: cockpitbob on October 26, 2012, 09:15:58 AM
I'm 10 miles inland in northern Massachusetts.  We may get the snot kicked out of us.  I've got a 5KW generator to keep the house's sump pumps, refrigerators and some lights going.  Tomorrow I'm making sure I've got enough fuel, food and booze for a 2 weeks+.  I might go the the library and get a book and a couple movies for when the internet is down.  We are down in a hole which is bad for ham radio but good for wind damage.  My biggest worry is the basement flooding and a tree coming down on the house, but the trees are loosing their leaves which reduces the wind forces on them.

So how did things turn out? Are you OK?

Sandy turned West sooner than previously forecast, so the nasty stuff passed 200 miles south of us.  It was a non-event.  2"-3" of rain and enough wind to cover my yard with dead twigs and branches from the trees.  It'll take me and my boy 2hrs to clean the wood off the yard, but the trees have been cleaned of dead wood so I probably won't have to pick up a twig off my grass for a year :D

My house has 2 sump pumps.  I have a small generator to run them from extension cords if the power goes out during heavy rains, but today I decided that isn't enough.  I just had an electrician come over to quote a generator transfer switch.  I'm about to put a 6KW generator in the shed that can run the essentials:  sump pumps, refrigerators, heat, a lights, ham gear, etc.

Anyone have any experience with the Ramsey amplifier kits?  1/2W - 2W input power gives up to 20W out.  The kits sell for $45 and come in 20M, 30M & 40M bands.  From the pictures they look pretty small.

I'm thinking 1/2W from a RockMite for fun, and add the amp for when I need to communitcate.

I'm in the middle on this one.  Contests and special events are a good way to get people to use their licenses and keep their skills up.  I know people, like my son, who need some kind of reason to get on the air.  This weekend is nuts though, and Ray has a really good point about it interfering with emergency traffic.  Let's take it to the other extreme though.  If ham radio died as a hobby and our bands were mostly silent, I can guarantee you that the .gov would sell that bandwidth to the highest bidder.  All things in moderation.

When Sandy hits the fan, what are some good HF frequiencies to monitor?

I'm 10 miles inland in northern Massachusetts.  We may get the snot kicked out of us.  I've got a 5KW generator to keep the house's sump pumps, refrigerators and some lights going.  Tomorrow I'm making sure I've got enough fuel, food and booze for a 2 weeks+.  I might go the the library and get a book and a couple movies for when the internet is down.  We are down in a hole which is bad for ham radio but good for wind damage.  My biggest worry is the basement flooding and a tree coming down on the house, but the trees are loosing their leaves which reduces the wind forces on them. 

Wow, there's some nice stuff in there.  Thanks for posting.

Gil,
I completely agree with what you say about learning Morse.  I would even say to start with character speeds of 20wpm, but letter spacing of for 5wpm.  Our ham club has a guy with a PhD in some kind of brain science and that's how he does his Morse classes.

It really is hard, at least for most of us, because we are litterally learning a new language.  At 5wpm you can use a look-up table in your head.  At 10wpm that falls appart and you need to be hearing letters, not dots & dashes.  This is why the .gov set 13wpm as the next speed requirement.  At 20wpm the sounds need to become syllables, and you need to be hearing whole words, not letters.   If you had an easy time learing a foreign language in school, it won't be that hard.  I had a bastard of a time trying to learn French, which is probably why my progress is slow.  I've been at it for 2years off-n-on.  I can copy 10-15wpm depending on my head's mood. 

Good job Ray.  Now you can quit trying to remember where the General portion ends in all those bands  ;D .

So, now that that's done, what's next?

Almost nothing.  But I work from home 90% of the time, and I'm out in the outskirts where everyone has 1+ acres and there's lots of woods between streets and even more between towns.  The zombie hoards from the densly populated areas will have to cover a lot of ground to get to us.  So my plan is to bug in place.

Yes, keep grinding the QRZ.com practice tests over and over.  My son got his Tech and his General when he was 11 using this method.  At that age kids have a great memory.  No, he didn't understand the theory, but that's OK.  Learn the rules and procedures enough to stay out of trouble, and get on the air.  If ham radio is something you stick with, the theory will come with time.

Naw.  It's OK Ray.  Everyone should have SSB capabilities so they can introduce people to ham radio by having them talk to someone far away.

Just do 5 Hail Samuels with a straight key and think pure thoughts.

If the center pin were shorted to the outer threads I would say it is a shorting cap, and the set screw and hole are to attach a tether so it doesn't get lost.  But I think I see a plastic insulator keeping the outer threads and center part insulated.  So, I'm going with it's just a generic wire to PL-259 connector.  A convenient way of connecting to any piece of wire (wire antenna?) .

Hi JMB,

I'm a real fan of end-fed 1/2 wave antennas.  No ground needed, just a short counterpoise.  They hang vertically from one end, so you only need to throw 1 line up a tree, and the coax is short since the connection is at the bottom.  And they work.  One with a great reputation is the Par End-Fedz SWL.  You can get them for $73 at Universal Radio.  It is just a 45' long piece of wire with a match box at one end.

Welcome to the world of radio.  Start looking into getting your Ham license.  There are 3 levels of licenses.  The first mainly gets you VHF/UFH frequencies so your not going to talk around the world.  The 2nd level gets you most of the HF bands.  Not to brag, but my son got the 1st and 2nd levels when he was 11.  But then, at that age he could remember anything and he just kept doing the practice tests over and over.