This Weekend in Radio at KB6NU
This weekend was a bit of a busy one here at KB6NU. I got an early start, getting up at 6:30 Saturday morning to meet some guys and carpool to the Marshall Hamfest. Marshall is about an hour away, so we wanted to be on the road by 7 am.
The Marshall hamfest is a good one. The reason is that it’s in a great location. It draws hams from southwest Michigan, southeast Michigan, northeast Indiana, and northwest Ohio.
There were lots of goodies there. Some guys had transceivers for sale, and there were several dealers selling components, something you don’t find at every hamfest anymore.
I got a couple of great deals. The first was a Bencher BY-1 paddle for only $40. I feel kind of bad about it because I pretty much snatched it away from a guy who was talking to the seller when I walked up to the table. He was a bit hesitant about buying it, but at $40, how could I pass it up? I had a nice chat about CW with the guy after I purchased it, though.
I also purchased an Autek RF-1 antenna analyzer for $85. This is the little brother of the Autek antenna analyzer that I have. It doesn’t have as many functions as mine, but for basic antenna measurements, it will more than do the job. It even came with the manual and precision resistors for checking it out.
I plan to pass these two items on to the hams that I teach. Everyone can use an antenna analyzer, and a cheap paddle might just be the thing to get a new guy on CW.
I also purchased a couple of cheap keys that the middle school kids can use with their no-solder code practice oscillators. I got four of them for $30, which isn’t as cheap as I would have liked, but not bad, considering that the mail order stores are selling them for $10 apiece.
Saturday afternoon, I worked the VA QSO Party for an hour or so. I’d almost forgotten about this contest. Last year, I managed to win a certificate for having the highest score from the state of Michigan on a single band (40m) with 36 QSOs (24 CW, 12 phone) with 24 counties. Sunday afternoon, I put in another hour and a half, and all told, I made 51 QSOs in 33 counties. So, I’m fairly confident that I’ve successfully defended my title.
My last contact was with W4IM in Essex County. He was to be #50, and after the QSO, I was going to pull the plug. In the middle of the contact, though, he just disappeared, even though he was 599 here. I tuned around a bit and found another station for #50, but instead of shutting off the radio, I tuned back up the band, looking for W4IM, and lo and behold, I heard him calling me!
We had a nice chat right in the middle of the contest. It turns out that W4IM needed to take a break, and that’s why he suddenly disappeared. It also turns out that Essex County is very sparsely populated, and that W4IM was probably the only station operating from there. So, I bagged a rare one.
Another thing I managed to do is figure out how to configure the IC-746PRO to receive RTTY. This is kind of an amusing feature. I was only able to receive stations working some RTTY contest, so there wasn’t much in the way of conversation, but I’m looking forward to monitoring some more RTTY QSOs.
All in all, a great weekend in radio here at KB6NU.
Leave a Reply