The bands finally seem to be heating up. I’ve managed to make European contacts nearly every day for the past week. Just last night, I called CQ on 40m just before 0000Z and got a reply from an LZ3. He was S5 here, but since I wasn’t expecting a DX call, I had to get him to repeat his call for me. Of course, it didn’t help that he’d only sent it once—DX style—in the first place.
Also, last night, the bands were open to the west. That’s an indication of good band conditions here, as I don’t usually do well to the west because of the way my antennas are situated. I worked both a CO and a CA station.
IC-2820H
As I noted in a previous post, I picked up an Icom IC-2820H at a recent hamfest. It’s an older radio, but I’m really starting to like it. For example, it has a dual-watch feature, meaning that I can monitor two frequencies at the same time.
It has a couple of other unique features, too. For example, there is a second antenna input, and if you connect a second antenna to the radio, it can do diversity reception. It also has a bandscope feature. I don’t think I’ve seen that on any other VHF/UHF radio. I haven’t used either feature yet, but they might be fun to play with.
It has a detachable head for mobile installation, which is a nice feature, but if you’re not using it detached, connecting the control head and microphone is a bit kludgey, as the connectors are behind the control head (see photo above). The data port is also hidden behind the control head. One of the reasons I bought this radio was that it had a data port. Now, I have to find the little DIN connector to use it.
The unit I bought has the optional UT-123 D-STAR board. Apparently, these are a bit rare and sought after. I have no intention of using it, so if you’d like to purchase it, let me know. I even have the original box for it.
CW Skimmer
Last December, I tried to get CW Skimmer working with my Flex 6400. Unfortunately, I wasn’t successful, and being both impatient and ambivalent about paying $75 for the program, I gave up on it after a little while.
Last night, I decided to give CW Skimmer another go. After reading several posts in the Flex Radio Community Forum, it looked like the thing to do was to get a third program called Slice Master 6000, which configures and launches third party applications, such as CW Skimmer, GRITTY, WSJT-X, and flDigi, automatically. By the way, it’s called Slice Master because Flex refers to their receivers as “slices.”)
I installed and ran Slice Master, but it failed to connect. Consulting the forum again, someone noted that the problem was probably with Windows Defender. Sure enough, after adding a rule to allow Slice Master to connect, it did indeed connect, and now I have CW Skimmer running.
I don’t really need CW Skimmer myself, but I would like to provide some input to the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN). I use RBN all the time, so it will be nice to give something back. I’ll probably pay for the full version of CW Skimmer tonight and then see about connecting to RBN.