Comm Log

2030 PT: Participated in the Olympia ERC Net on 147.560 MHz.

21:00 PT: Participated in the MARA West Cascades Chapter, Central Section Net, on 147.560 MHz.

2115 PT: Participated in the MARA West Cascades Chapter, South Section Net, on 147.560 MHz.

Comm Log

First 10 meter contact!

Well, my 10 m radio works after all. So, I didn't blow close to $90 for nothing, and that makes me fairly happy. I did arrange with N7BUS, Cesar, whom I know from the Tumwater, Washington Radio Shack store, to get on the 10 m band so I could find out if the radio worked. We did so at about 9:15 or so this evening, at 28.4 MHz. Went fairly well, except I would have expected that the received audio would have been much clearer, especially from the short distance we are apart. But, there may be properties of this radio and the dipole antenna I built for it, that need some sort of adjustment.

Comm Log

Heard a call on the OARS Repeater (147.360) from KD7CFA (Doug), who was looking for a communications check on his new Yaesu handheld. Gave him a good report, and we talked about his new acquisition for a few minutes.

Comm Log

2030 PT: Participated in the Olympia ERC Net on 147.560 MHz.

2115 PT: Participated in the MARA West Cascades Chapter, South Section Net, on 147.560 MHz.

2140 PT: Contacted KC7PAG, Don, on 147.560 MHz, to let him know that I had passed the written test for the General Class license, and was now KD7UST/AG.

Passed General Class Test!

On Saturday, November 13 I drove to Shelton and in the Mason County Emergency Services building on the Sanderson Field (airport) grounds, I took and passed the General Class license written test. The test was administered by VEC's from the Mason County Amateur Radio Club. Afterwards I took the Amateur Extra class test, and of course did NOT pass that. But I would have been highly surprised if I had passed it, since I didn't study for it. If I had passed it would have been solely because of pure guesses, which is not a way I would prefer to gain my final Ham license! I'm hoping to take the test again on December 1, just before the OARS meeting, and pass it then. There's a lot of material to study before then!

Comm Log

On the way to Shelton I spoke with a Ham whose callsign I don't remember, but he was a member of the MCARC. He confirmed to me that I was on the right road to get to the testing site. We spoke on the MCARC 2m repeater on 146.720 MHz.

New 10m Radio

Got my "new" 10m radio today. It's a used Radio Shack HTX-100 with a max power output of 45 watts. After trying to operate with it I am still not sure if it works or not!

Part of the problem is that the microphone that came with the radio seems to not be working. I tried transmitting at 28.4 MHz, but the SWR meter I had attached only showed a momentary power deflection, when I pushed the PTT switch. My son Nathan reported that his stereo speakers seemed to be picking up some of the transmission, but nothing intelligible. The other part of the problem is that I couldn't hear anything at all on the entire band when I went looking for transmissions.

So, is my radio broken for receiving, or is nobody on the band? Or perhaps atmospheric conditions aren't propagating any signals? I can't tell. I know a Ham in town with an IC-706 who could possibly transmit so I could see if I could receive him. That's KC7GBQ, Jeff. I'll see if I can arrange it.