Posts on CatLan.net

Kanga QRP Pocket Transmatch

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 18:27:37 +0000

A review of the Kanga QRP Transmatch kit and a quick look at some of the options on the market right now.

Yaesu FTM-400 RAM Mount

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 00:27:33 +0000

Backstory

I recently bought a new POTA-mobile and decided to move my mobile into it. I had it mounted previously in my Ford Ranger on a PanaVise dash mount. That worked well but the new (to me) Xterra has a ton of other options. I ended up getting a dash top mount from ICS-Fab.com that allows several things to be mounted. I figured this was a better option that would allow me to move stuff around or add and subtract easily in the future.

Kaw River State Park

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 23:44:00 +0000

25 November 2022

POTA K-2341

WWFF KFF-2341

A Quick Outing

I had a few things to take care of before heading back home to Illinois, but also had some time this morning to sneak in a quick park activation. On the map this seemed a lot further away but once I got to the location I realized it was a spot that I had passed hundreds of times growing up and never knew it was there. This is one of the things I love about portable ops, it really helps me find cool places that I wouldn’t of otherwise gone. Some of them right under my nose for years.

Perry State Park

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 20:44:00 +0000

24 November 2022

POTA K-2347

WWFF KFF-2347

Park

Perry State Park or just Perry Lake as I’ve always known it, is between Topeka and Lawrence. It gets pretty busy in the summer time with its beaches, but is very open in the winter time. Like all state parks in Kansas (except Kaw River State Park) there is a small fee for parking.

Clinton State Park Kansas

Wed, 23 Nov 2022 20:44:00 +0000

23 November 2022

POTA K-2332

WWFF KFF-2332

A Small Hike

I started this one off with a small hike because I wanted to activate on top of Sanders Hill Mound that overlooks the lake.

When I got to the top I found a very nice park bench that would be perfect for setting up at. It was unfortunately for me occupied by a couple having a very deep conversation. Not one to break up a lovers rendezvous I decided to continue down the trail to see if I could find another prime spot.

Reifsnider State Forest

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 18:06:00 +0000

21 November 2022

K-4840 Reifsnider State Forest

New Key

This was a short trip to Kansas to visit my mom for Thanksgiving, but I still stopped to hit a park on the way. Just before I left I also got in the new “SP4 POTA/SOTA CW Morse Magnetic Iambic Double Paddle - Designed By N0SA” and sold by CWMorse.us.

Jordan Lake

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 06:44:00 +0000

16 November 2022

POTA K-3844

WWFF K-3844

North Carolina

Not my first activation in North Carolina and probably not the last. Jordan Lake is an easy drive from the Raleigh area, and a nice chance to get outside on this trip. My wife tagged along with her cousin and one of her kids. I guess everyone was pretty tired because they had planned on going on a hike but all ended up falling asleep on the beach. The cousin came over and checked out what I was doing, and I felt bad because it’s still pretty hard for me to dit and dah while holding on a conversation. In the end I think everyone had a good time and we got out of there before the sun went down.

Roan Mountain

Sat, 12 Nov 2022 18:03:00 +0000

12 November 2022

Roan High Knob W4T/SU-005

Grassy Ridge Bald W4C/EM-001

K-2972 Roan Mountain State Park

K-4525 Cherokee National Forest

K-4510 Pisgah National Forest

K-6936 Pisgah State Game Land

K-4556 Appalachian Trail National Scenic Trail

So Many References

First things first, you can activate a lot of references in a very small space. I did not do that. The Roan Mountain area contains several peaks and parks. Some overlap and some don’t. The ridge itself splits Tennessee and North Carolina. If you hike to Roan High Knob you’ll probably start at Carvers Gap and follow the Appalachian Trail up to the peak. The trail switches back between TN and NC several times.

Horseshoe Lake

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 23:13:00 +0000

7 November 2022

K-0998 Horseshoe Lake State Park

New Radio New Park

Wow wow wow! Today really lined up to be a fun day in the park. I put in my order for a KX2 while deployed on the 4th of July and it finally came in today four months later. I pulled it out of the box and immediately hooked up the battery to the charger. I wasn’t sure if I was going to have time to hit a park before sunset, but the battery only took a couple of hours to charge the first time. That gave me just enough time to skim the manual and get some basic settings plugged in.

KX2 Shipping Times

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 20:43:22 +0000

Might be a bit of a delay

I ordered my KX2 on 4 July 2022 and received it on 7 November 2022. That’s a hair over 4 months or 18 weeks. Elecraft has a Shipping Status Page which gives you an estimate. As I’m writing this it says 12-16 weeks. I did find mine as the fully loaded shack in the box version with the AX1 and the the smaller CS40 case as well.

Pere Marquette State Park

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 15:51:00 +0000

4 November 2022

K-1015 Pere Marquette State Park

Back On The Air!

So happy to be back on the air. I spent the last six months in Saudi Arabia on what is hopefully my last of six deployments with the Air Force. I brought my radio with me but could never get permission to actually operate. I spent most of my time listening to CW on YouTube, Morse Runner, and RufzXP.

2022 Illinois QSO Party

Sat, 08 Oct 2022 12:30:24 -0500

16 October 2022

The Illinois QSO party is next weekend. I hope to be able to make it home in time to have a run at it again this year. Last year I activated K-1029 Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park from the county line picnic area to work both Jefferson and Franklin counties. I had a slow start, but a great time. I would love to do the same again this year, but I might get back just a day or two before it starts, so I might be a bit jet lagged from living on the other side of the planet for the last few months. It might also be a shock going from 120+ degree days to an Illinois fall. Maybe I’ll work this one from the comfort of my own home this year :)

QRP Zombie Shuffle

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 13:28:37 -0500

The fun QRP Zombie Shuffle is back! Another fiendish good time awaits 28 October! Come up with an awesome zombie name and sign up for your very own free zombie number!

http://www.zianet.com/qrp/ZOMBIE/pg.htm

The exchange is easy enough, just RST, SPC, Zombie Number, Zombie Name.

Sam A. Baker and Mudlick Mountain

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 22:44:00 -0500

20 March 2022

POTA K-1746 Sam A. Baker State Park

SOTA W0M/SF-033, Mudlick Mountain

WWFF KFF-1746 Sam A. Baker

WWFF/SOTA/POTA

The WWFF (World Wide Flora and Fauna) Get your Park ON Spring Fling was this weekend. I hadn’t made any specific activation plans, but I was in between classes (spring break wooooooooooo), the weather was looking great, and I was dying to get out and play radio. The Virginia QSO party was the same weekend so the bands should be lively. Before this I had never made a WWFF outing or submitted a log. A quick look at their map showed that many of the WWFF sites are also POTA and some SOTA sites as well. WWFF-KFF maintains a cross reference list between POTA and WWFF locations. I really wanted to get out and hike a bit so I started comparing the maps to try to find the magical trifecta of the three major portable radio programs. I really wish there was a combined map that would show all of these together.

Falls Lake North Carolina

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 22:40:00 -0600

5 January 2022

K-3841 Falls Lake State Recreation Area NC

Rounding Out the Family Visit

This has been a reasonably long road trip. First a night at Dillon State Park in Ohio, then staying with some family near the DC metro in Virginia and last but not least it’s time to visit family near Raleigh, NC. This gave me an opportunity to activate a park one day. I chose Falls Lake just north of Raleigh (pronounced rally or ral-ee). This allowed me to get some coffee and snacks on the way.

Anacostia Park DC

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 21:21:00 -0600

31 December 2021

K-0654 National Capitol Parks Park

Family Visit Near DC

So after hanging out with some amazing small humans I decided to get up early and head out to a park. Strangely the DC area doesn’t have a ton of CW activators so I decided to bump those numbers up a bit. I didn’t end up bumping them up quite as much as I thought I would but still better than before.

Dillon State Park Ohio

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 20:37:00 -0600

28 December 2022

K-1947 Dillon State Park

Road Trip POTA in Ohio

On the road again to see family in Virginia and North Carolina. We made our drive from Illinois to Virginia over two days and stopped at a cabin in Ohio at Dillon State Park. We stayed at a cabin right in the park and it was much nicer than I was expecting from a state park cabin.

Buford Mountain Conservation Area Missouri

Sat, 18 Dec 2021 14:17:00 -0600

18 December 2021

POTA and SOTA Together

My wife was was going to be out all day hanging out with a friend so I decided to activate a park while she was gone. After some looking around I found Buford Mountain Conservation Area in Missouri about an hour and a half away. Turned out that it was POTA K-8281 and SOTA W0M/SF-002! I hadn’t done any SOTA activations yet so it took me a minute to figure out how to schedule an activation on SOTA Watch.

Julius J. Knobeloch Nature Preserve

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 15:33:00 -0600

12 December 2021

POTA with company!

My wife Alison was just getting over something so we decided to get outside and go for a nice walk. The walk just happened to be nearby in POTA K-7853. We both have park bags now so we can both enjoy getting out of the house in our own ways.

K-6498 Current River Conservation Area

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 21:48:52 -0500

3 October 2021

On my way home from K-6491 Peck Ranch I decided to try for a second activation. Another park that had never been activated before! Current River Conservation Area was about an hour away and on the way home. I had seen on the map that not far into the park was a fire tower. I decided that was probably going to be one of the highest points so I checked that out first.

K-6491 Peck Ranch Conservation Area

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 19:50:00 -0500

3 October 2021

Bruce talking with a friendly neighborhood snail.

I was planning on helping a friend with a car but he canceled last minute so I did some late night planning of another potential activation. Looking at the Missouri list on pota.app I noticed that there are several parks that were completely un-activated. I made a list and decided to start with one of the ones that was the furthest away.

POTA K-1015 Pere Marquette State Park

Sat, 02 Oct 2021 21:23:00 -0500

2 October 2021

This was the start of a long POTA weekend for me! I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get out because the weather forecast showed thunderstorms all weekend. I took the chance and headed about an hour away from home to Pere Marquette State Park near Grafton Illinois.

POTA K-1029 Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 21:18:00 -0500

26 September 2021

I was looking for a good spot for the 2021 Illinois QSO party and decided to try and do a POTA activation along side the QSO party. Looking at the POTA site I noticed that K-1029 Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park is on the boarder of Jefferson and Franklin counties. Pavilion 1 is even named County Line Picnic Area! I figured I should go check it out before committing to it, so I decided on a day trip POTA activation.

POTA K-7872 Stemler Cave Woods State Nature Preserve

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 20:09:00 -0500

12 September 2021

The weather here is finally starting to cool off so I decided to see how my pack does on something longer than a 50 foot walk from the parking lot. The parking area is pretty easy to miss, and only big enough for 4 cars max. The trail head is fairly overgrown as well but opens up nicely a few hundred feet in. Once inside you’re treated to a nice open wooded area with good shade and rolling hills. I didn’t see a cave entrance, but I could imagine there being quite the cave complex in there somewhere.

1st POTA Activation

Sat, 28 Aug 2021 23:42:56 -0500

So I decided that today was the day that I would get out of the shack chair and into the wild! By the wild I mean a nice park table at Carlyle Lake which is two different POTA parks. I activated K-0991, but I think you could easily count this as a 2fer with K-4114 as the actual lake. I submitted just K-0991 this time though.

2021 Missouri QSO Party

Thu, 05 Aug 2021 16:08:38 -0500

Spoiler… it was fun

I participated in the Missouri QSO party this year from in the state. Being in the Illinois side of the Saint Louis area made it an easy trip. It took a while to decide on a location though. Originally I planned on camping in a state park on a county line, but the early summer heat made me start looking for something else. I ended up renting a cabin on AirBnB.

IC-705 and AH-705

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 22:53:57 -0500

So I decided to sell of some gear and buy the Icom IC-705 and it’s matching tuner the AH-705. I initially hooked it up to my home QTH antenna, a 43 foot vertical with my existing Icom AH-4 tuner. It worked great of course, but being a home station isn’t really the intent of the radio now is it!

Vibroplex Vibrokeyer

Thu, 20 May 2021 13:44:28 -0500

A Nice Local Find

I recently picked up a Vibroplex Vibrokeyer on FB marketplace. A local guy was clearing out some of his dad’s old gear. It was hard to tell the condition from the pics but I met up with him anyway and paid $50 after making sure it wasn’t just totally falling apart. I made a quick cable for it and was pleasantly surprised to see that it worked just fine. A little dirty but it was simple enough to go from my normal two paddle iambic key to this single lever key.

Morseino-32

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 15:31:26 -0600

I put together my Morseino-32 v2 today. It was very straightforward to put together. Some of the soldering was a bit tight, but as long as you have a small tip on your iron you should be fine. I pulled out the magnifying light to make it a bit easier. The instructions are on OE1WKL’s GitHub site if you want to check them out.

1st CW QSO

Sat, 24 Apr 2021 15:20:02 -0600

I just made my first CW QSO! On top of that it was with K3SAV which is an International Marconi Day special event station! Thankfully they were very patient and willing to work with my poor sending.

KF7P Entrance Panel

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 16:29:47 -0600

Part of the fun of moving to a new QTH is getting to design and build a new station. My old entrance panel was very permanently attached to the old house so it was time to go buy a new one.

Icom AH-4 Control Cable Length

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 22:09:00 -0600

How long can the control cable for the Icom AH4 be? I’m not sure but at least 170 feet (52 Meters).

Icom includes a 16ish (5 meter) unshielded cable (OPC-136) with the tuner. That doesn’t get you very far except for mobile and portable operation. Lucky for you they also sell a 32.8 foot (10 meter) shielded cable (OPC-420). Still 30 feet isn’t going to cut the mustard for my latest install sooooooo…

Icom AH-4 on DX Engineering MBVE-5AE

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 21:49:46 -0600

I ordered a pile of goodies from DX Engineering including their DXE-MBVE-5AE-BRT, their radial plate, a spool of their DXE-400MAX, and a goodie bag of assorted bits. Just doing some quick test fitting before putting everything in the ground. I wanted to see if the Icom AH-4 will fit with the stock hardware.

Icom AH-4 Mounting

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 21:04:49 -0600

For whatever reason, Icom doesn’t include mounting diameter in their specs. The included u-bolt will fit up to a max of 2.5" pole. The mounting bracket is slotted up to 4" so you could probably use a larger u-bolt of at least 3.5". I’m not sure about minimum mounting, but I had it mounted to a piece of 1/2" EMT shoved in the ground for field day one year and it was just fine.

OmniRig and Icom Data Modes

Sun, 07 Jun 2020 15:12:00 -0600

I use OmniRig as a middle man for radio control. It works great for what I need, but I find that it could use a couple of different data modes as it only has one mode for data, while many modern radios have separate modes for RTTY and AFSK SSB digital. The default Icom IC-756ProIII .ini file sets the radio to RTTY when digital is selected. I use a SignaLink USB external sound card interface for all my digital modes, so the RTTY mode doesn’t work for me.

Anderson Powerpole Connectors

Sun, 05 Apr 2020 16:43:23 -0600

I’ve been using Anderson Powerpole 15/30/45Amp connectors for a while now, but recently I’ve really thrown them on everything. That left me with quite a few different kits and baggies of Powerpole parts laying around. The wife was getting rid of this organizer so I decided to put it to good use. I threw everything in and printed some labels.

Felo Workbench Screwdriver Holder

Sun, 05 Apr 2020 16:23:07 -0600

I found zeno4ever’s Gamma screwdriver holder posted on Thingiverse and decided to give it a try. I don’t have a Gamma screwdriver set, I have a Felo Wood Handle Screwdriver Set that my amazing wife got me for my birthday this year. I’ve really grown to love this set, and they’re my go-to screwdrivers now, so I wanted to keep them handy on the workbench.

DIY Heil Hand Switch

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 09:40:54 -0600

HRO recently had a great deal on Heil headsets so I decided to pickup a Heil Pro Set IC. I’ve been looking at these for years, so I figured it was finally time and I’m glad I did. The headset is great, super comfy and sounds great coming and going.

Inset Ruler in Workbench

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 22:47:51 -0600

I inset an 8’ ruler into my workbench for quick and easy measurements. It cant run away from the workbench if it’s a part of the workbench right? Anyways here’s how I did it.

I looked at several rulers before I settled on the Starrett ASE-96. I liked that it had big easy to read numbers and could be read from either direction. It’s aluminum and pretty flexible. Its listed on their website as a straight edge. I’m not sure I would use something this large and flexible as a straight edge for much more than marking material. It’s 2" wide and .125" thick. The markings are printed on, not engraved. I’m not sure how well it will hold up over time, but it’s taken a bit of abuse and nothing has rubbed off yet. It does sit below the surface of the workbench just 1-2 thousandths to help with wear but it still feels flush most of the time.

Putty and vi

Sat, 11 Jan 2020 12:09:00 -0600

I do most of my text editing on *nix in vim. Sometimes you don’t have access to vim so you have to use vi. No big deal, but for some installs map the arrow keys to letters on the keyboard. Hitting up tends to type a capitol A. It’s usually easy to fix though.

Temporary Workbench Mount

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 21:00:16 -0600

Craftsman 1/3hp Grinder on removable mount

With an ever growing collection of tools and a workbench that isn’t growing anytime soon, I needed to find a way to sturdily mount various tools to the bench without having them take up the whole bench. I looked around online and found a few designs that others had made. Some required you to clamp them into a vise or bolt them through the workbench. I wanted a little bit more flexibility. I wanted to be able to mount it anywhere on the main bench, move the tool to another bench, or have some flexibility in a temp setup if necessary. I also wanted a way to store all of these tools.

TP-Link Kasa HS105 Smart Plug Review

Sat, 21 Dec 2019 15:46:18 -0600

TP-Link Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug Mini HS105

It’s that time of year again. The Christmas tree is up, the lights are on, and the kitten has sap all over her. In the past I’ve used a D-Link smart plug to control the tree and set timers for it. This year it has gone missing. I never had a problem with the D-Link, it worked just fine and never failed to run its schedule. However, if it’s missing then it does me no good.

STLCYBER Meetup

Fri, 08 Nov 2019 07:56:04 -0600

I finally got to check out one of the STLCYBER Meetup’s. The meetups are free to attend and are sponsored by local business. They meet up at T-Rex in downtown STL. Every month they invite a new speaker to come and present. This month was Diane McClain who is a cloud security architect with Centene Corp.

Blog Move

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 13:34:46 -0600

I decided to give a different setup and domain a try. Thanks for checking out my content on seanfmcmahon.com! That content will stay right where it is and all new content will be here on catlan.net!

-Sean