I refuse to let the *(*&^% people take going to Dayton away from me because of the gas price. Its not cheep but its my yearly fun trip. I have a few guys with me usually and they help pay some of the expenses except for first timers, they get to come with me for free their first time!

For me its 260 miles each way from Mt Morris Michigan to Dayton OH, I use my Wifes van (holds more people then my pickup and don't worry about rain for all our treasures we find) the van gets about 23 miles to the gallon so that's 22 gallons of liquid gold at 4$ a gallon is 88$ then there is the hotel that's 125$ a night for 3 nights 375$ so it looks like 500$ for me to walk in the place.

I know its a lot of money but it is the one thing I get to every year, my Wife told me I had to go ( I did not get to go last year, some kids burnt one of my stores to the ground just before Dayton last year) I am driving her nuts and she needs her weekend with the house to herself!

This year I have a new guy that has only had his ticket for a few years, he is almost 70 year old and he is like a kid all excited, I love that!

I have went along before and I will do it again but its such a waist I can carry 4 guys, the hotel I rent has a full kitchen and places for 4 to sleep so it really does not cost me anything more and I enjoy the conversation there and back in the van.

As long and I am blessed to be able to afford it I will continue to go.

Delbert McCord
KA8OCN
Mt Morris, Michigan

The only problem I ever had in a forum at Dayton is 2 years ago the D-Star forum was HOT! I take 2 bottles of Rush's Tea, the top is large and easy to refill. I dont mind overpaying for a cold drink but I just do not want to wait in the lines sometimes.

What I do it part at the mall and just pay for the bus pass. If I (or someone in our group) buys something big or heavy I normally just take a ride back to the van with it. This gives me a chance to rest my legs and to pick up something cold out of the cooler in the back of the van. I think the bus pass is a good deal.

Don't worry about it much, you will figure it out, just have fun! I would suggest to leave the 2 meter ht in your hotel room, with everyone there having one its not dependable, just use a cell phone. We used to carry 220 rigs but its one more thing to keep track of when you are getting distracted by all kinds of stuff you will be seeing that you never even thought of. Bring a pen and some paper, never know when you need to take down a note or give someone your phone number.

Hopefully I will see you there!

Del
KA8OCN

I can't tell you about a lot of Women, but I can tell you about 2, my Wife just is not intrested in any way. My Sister is retired, has a 100 ft tower for her wind generator. She has done a lot for me over the years and I was overjoyed when she told me she would like to get her license. I set her up with some books and a account on www.hamtestonline.com and she was passing her General regularly. I told her to go to her local Radio Club and ask them about the testing sessions in her area.
She would not say what happened but she never went to be tested, she was unimpressed in the class or lack there of with the people she talked with at the club. All she would tell me is "I don't think they want women there"

I only know this because I had purchased her a used TS-2000 for her first rig and she called me to say she no longer wanted it and had no intrest in Amateur Radio anymore.

Yes I did look at the manual and Icom says 16 volt MAX, I sure dont like only .5 volt safety margin.

I have been looking for some kind of voltage regulator on eBay that would protect me around 12 to 13 volts and I have found a few but none can handle the current that may be required during transmit. I have the Icom 880H, Alinco 235 220Mhz Rig, and a Kenwood TS-480 Sat.

If I don't let the solar charger cycle the batteries every once in awhile, It will shorten the life of 680$ worth of batteries.

I'm thinking about picking up a non switching regulated power supply, taking the transformer and the rectifying part out and feeding in my DC into it. What I am not sure about is if the voltage going into it will be enough, most regulated power supply's voltage going into the regulators are around 20 to 24 volts.

Thank to everyone for the replys

Delbert McCord

I am playing with setting up a solar power system. I noticed today that the voltage was 15.5 Volts today when the charge controller was conditioning my batteries.
Will this damage my Rigs? I pulled the fuse that feeds my station and after the voltage went back down I put the fuse back in and turned on my Rigs.

I have a Morning Song controller and I called them today, the man said that the controller will do this "Conditioning the batteries, overcharging them" every once in awhile. So this is going to happen again.

Will it hurt my equipment?

Thank you for your time.
Delbert McCord
KA8OCN

First of all, don't worry about unfriendly people. I have been a Ham for 30 years, if I get on our local repeater I feel like a stranger and a outcast.

Its only natural for people to split up into little groups. Scan the ban (if you are operating 2 meters) and look for some simplex operation. In our area most of what I would call "Good Hams" operate simplex.

Also if you rig has the ability to operate D-Star Get on some of the reflectors, Reflector  1 C has stations checking in for all over the world and i have never heard any unfriendly people (I have listened to people that I could not understand, their accent coupled with my hearing means I cant always understand them.

I do not know if you are a General (if not don't worry about it, If I can do it ANYONE CAN) If you are going to get started in HF I would suggest 17 meters, small antenna, easy to build a wire and most people on 17 meters are very nice.

If you want to make your local Hams sound good and you have a HF receiver, tune in to 14.313 after you listen to those people your locals will seem like Saints to you!

Have fun, don't let anyone chase you off the air, us old farts need the new blood!
Delbert McCord
KA8OCN
 

I owned a IC-7000 and it works great! But for me it had 2 problems with the reason I sold it and replaced it with the 857 Mobile and the Kenwood 480 for home.

The IC-7000 GETS HOT! Second its not user friendly at all, I would not want to try and change freq or power level when I was driving.

The FT-857 I had in my truck for 4 years, and my truck is a work truck and it got beat, the head was abused by life, and my Granddaughter. It still worked fine with I took it out. I replaced it with a IC-2820 (no HF) I wanted to play with D-Star and the one problem that the FT-857 has is a tiny screen!

If you are not looking for 2 meters or UHF you really should give the Kenwood 480 a look, thats a nice rig and it has a lot less menus to deal with.

I think that was a great question, I usually use them (homemade out of PVC pipe scraps) but my 75 meter antenna at this time does not have them.

My plastic support poles broke in the high wind and without the plastic support I had to quit using my windom. until I have time to put up a telephone pole to hold it up. So I took a old 40 meter dipole from a past field day and all I had was some 6 conductor phone wire, I added some phone wire on my 40 meter wire and tied it up almost 10 full feet off the ground and 5 ft at the ends. I just looped the phone wire on the ends and tied some nylon cord on to that. The crazy part is Its working GREAT not doing much DX but I rag chew with the local group almost every night.

The moral of the story is any antenna is better that no antenna so just put something up and have a ball.

Do not let anyone give you a hard time about being a extra and asking what they think is a dumb question. I have been a Amateur Radio operator for 30 years and I am a extra but I ask lots of questions.

I dont always use it but I have a AL-1200 Amp and when I use it I normally run 1000 watts and the only time I every had a problem with antennas that could be dangerous (except having them fall on me) is when I had to move my vertical at my cabin because of construction and I did it in a hurry and only had some electrical tape to seal the PL connector, I forgot to bring some better sealer up to the cabin, it went a entire year and got some moisture into the PL and shorted the PL connector, it BURNT the center conductor on LMR400 WOW. MY tuner detected the problem and shut the amp down with no damage to the amp at all! The Palstar AT-AUTO tuner paid for itself that night!

My wire antennas always have insulation on the wire, some say its good some say its bad I seem to have the best luck with the insulated wire.
 

I am wondering why you are asking this question in the first place?

Its alot easier now than its ever been. I think the VE's giving you the test want a person to pass as much as the person taking the test.

There is no shame in not passing, I always say try it without studying at all and then study. Its nice to know how much you know without the memorizing the test.

I flunked my extra the first time (by 1 question) not bad for someone that had not studied. Yes I passed it the next time.

I just could not give up my old call, I kept my Novice call, it has served me well for quite a few years.

I for one HATED going to the FCC office to take the tests years ago, those people had no sense of humor at all!

If it were me I would pick up a cheep 2 meter rig on eBay, you should be able to find one for around 100$ and buy some coax and make a vertical antenna. There are lots of plans out there for a Jpole (not a bad antenna and easy to make) or a 1/4 wave.

Scan the band and listen, find some local people and get to know them. they will be able to give you glues about used equipment in your area and help you lean to make your first HF antenna (normally just a wire) coax will be the most expensive thing you will need at first in the antenna department.

Once you get a idea from talking with your new friends of what HF rig you would like start looking. I have had better experience on eBay than I have had on Ham Classifieds or Swap and Shops. On eBay you have the persons feedback to look at and if you pay via paypal they have a guarantee if things go wrong and you cant get the seller make it right.

I have purchased on eBay in the last 5 years when I got active again, a ICOM 756 Pro III, Kenwood 2000, Kenwood 480 sat, ICOM 2820, 2 Ameritron ALS-600 Amps, and lots of other stuff I just dont remember now. I have had good luck but and this is important you MUST READ every word in the auction!

Your best resource will be the local gang, you will have to scan for awhile, In my experience you will find the people that have been doing it awhile and willing to help you on Simplex.

Have fun, I hope to catch you on the bands someday. if you are a computer nut download echolink software (its free on the web) you will have to register (prove you are a ham) and give me a call on echolink (KA8OCN-L) we have a echolink simplex link on 223.420 and there is a good group of guys on that freq.

73 KA8OCN
Delbert McCord

I like QTH.com and eHam.com and I support both of them BUT (there is always a but) I stick with eBay for my buying because there is feedback to look at. There is nothing like that here or on QTH.com.

CUT EVERYTHING 10% to start with them review every program for places where real cuts can happen.

Its sad, when the private sector is hurting we have to cut ourselves, and every time some lovely government person comes and takes 20$ out of our had for some stupid reason thats cutting us by 20$.

The only way to be fare is cut across the board at least until the economy starts coming back around, and not just on the fake reports the fed puts out on jobs every week and then a few days latter its always adjusted up a bit after they get the praise from the media about job growth.

On the tower problem, its your property and I do not think anyone should be able to tell you what you can or can not have. Thank God I live in the country and no one cares what I do!

Del McCord
Tea Partying Ham...
 

WOW I spent many hours of my youth with hard headphones on listing to my HW-18. When I got out of CAP I gave the Rig to the Lapeer squadron in Michigan.

I found one on eBay a year ago and could not stop myself from putting a bid on it, well as ebay goes I now own it. I purchased a internal DSP board and I am going to turn mine into a external speaker (I am going to make the lights work and if I can without screwing up the audio I am going to have the audio tickle the S meter.

I am telling you all this to say if you need some parts I plan on removing the guts of the rig, if you want the parts I will be happy to sent them to you. (except the swithches, s meter, speaker, volume controls.

I DO NOT have a power supply but they are available on ebay all the time.

Mine was on 4604 KHZ

73 Del McCord
dottys@charter.net

I purchased one at Dayton, or at least I paid for one at Dayton 2009 but I did not received it until a month later.

I have Alinco 235's and I have this Jetstream, yes it puts out more power (and we work mostly simplex in my area) but it really did not make that big of a difference.

I did have a problem with mine. The female pl connector in the back is only soldered to the board. The connector moves from the coax (I use LMR400, kind of stiff) I was having intermittent problems mostly on receive. I took the rig apart and found the solder had a crack in it. I removed the solder and placed a nice heavy copper wire in the connector and soldered that in place and have never had a problem with it again.

I use it every day.

One thing I really like about it is when it came out the going price on the Alinco 235 came down big time. If I need to purchase another 220 it will be the Alinco 235, I just had to have one Jetstream when they came out to play with.

Delbert McCord
KA8OCN

Because they can't think of enough to say to stay keyed for 6 minutes.

We have a guy in our area that takes 5 minutes to just say he has to go because he it to busy to talk, but who cares, its his way and I would rather listen than talk.

Hows that change working for you?