Yes. Me.

Gene, I usually agree with your posts, but not today.

There are three kinds of hams who benefit from the dx nets.

First, the small station with a dipole, qrp and poor conditions, who could work the control well but is lost in a pileup.

Second, the new ham, unsure of how or when or what to say. He/she can listen and learn.

Finally, the dx. Yes, I was portable TF a number of years ago. On a dipole at the NATO Base Keflavik. I could geerate an EU pileup in a heartbeat... But couldnt cut thru the callers to work one. Try to be on the other side. I really appreciated the net controllers on 20 meters for sorting the US stations so many more could work TF.

73! John, Annapolis, MD

Just a sidebar comment.... I am surprised at the large number of "regulars" participating in the several "WAS nets" who also do not use LOTW. I assumed that most WAS net users would also LOTW. Unfortunately, Not true. 73! John, Annapolis, MD

A great listener.

Concur with GWY on NooElec. I just received the dongle (VHF) and upconverter (HF). Works. The challenges were finding the connections (F to SMA, SMA to PL259 etc) and realizing to offset -100,006,000 in SDRSharp. Nice job.

John, Annapolis, MD

Check out http://www.ctsolar.com/solarpowerforamateurradiofaq.aspx

I have their 32watt folding panel, into the Sunguard4 controller, into 7 and 12 amp/hr gel cells.

Really works great.

Connect the hardware with Anderson PowerPoles.

Get two batteries, one to charge while you have the other connected to the QRP rig.

Have fun es 73!

John N3YZ

Check out http://www.ctsolar.com/solarpowerforamateurradiofaq.aspx

I have their 32watt folding panel, into the Sunguard4 controller, into a 7 amp gel cell.

Really works great.

Connect the hardware with Anderson powerpoles.

Get two batteries, one to charge while you have the other connected to the FT-817.

Have fun es 73!

John N3YZ

T2T. Not a peep.

Has anyone received a T2T QSL? Mail or LOTW or eQsl?

Tnx es 73! John, Annapolis, MD

Where have the QSLs gone?  Yesterday they were there... Today not. Yet the upload date remains the same.
Whats going on?
John, N3YZ, Annapolis, MD

Web developers have been frustrated with this difference for a while.

The W3C says:

"Visitors to a web site from varying locales may be confused by date formats. The format MM/DD/YY is unique to the United States.
Most of Europe uses DD/MM/YY.
Japan uses YY/MM/DD.
The separators may be slashes, dashes or periods. Some locales print leading zeroes, others suppress them. If a native Japanese speaker is reading a US English web page from a web site in Germany that contains the date 03/04/02 how do they interpret it?"

73! John, Annapolis, MD

Good idea, Tim.

You certainly have options. Several have and will be presented. However may I add some comments, since you noted the FT-897D.

An FT-817 or other QRP rig, coupled with a 7-12AH AGM/gel cell (Battery Warehouse) and a good high HF dipole will certainly meet any minimum emergency comm needs. The FT-817 draws .4A on RX. I recently used that combination during our 5 day Irene power outages. Investigate PowerPoles for your 12V connections. Went well. For effectiveness, I even worked QRP DX into A6 on 20M SSB.

An FT-897D with batteries is ok. Frankly, I haven't added batteries to mine, since the two 4AH batts limit you to 20W. They drain fast. The FT-897 draws about 1A on RX. For battery ops, connect to that aforementioned gel cell.

Also, you might investigate solar generation. The CT Solar site, http://www.ctsolar.com/solarpowerforamateurradiofaq.aspx, might be useful.

73! John, Annapolis, MD

Chris, thanks for the clarification. Got it now. Good question.

Frankly, I've never worried about it. Just set the charge time for 6 hrs. That charge time, splitting the difference among the CHG choices, has allowed me to charge the internal batteries no matter what the remaining charge. Its never overheated in well over 5 years of use.

For the FM LEO satellites I run portable using the FT-817, an Arrow yagi, and the internal batteries.

With regards to some other replies, I too have a 12AH battery that I use for contests.

Hope this helps. 73! John, Annapolis, MD

Chris, the time shown is the charge time remaining since you started a charge session. It is not in any way a sense of the battery charge.

Take a look at the manual, page 15 on CHG, and page 61 on Memory Item #11, time to charge.

I usually charge a low battery for 6 hours. The voltage display then reads about 11-12v. I run it until the voltage shows about 9 or less, then recharge again. The low power display, page 15, usually shows itself at about 8v.

Have fun with the FT-817 es 73. John, Annapolis, MD

The information provided by CT Solar may answer many of your concerns.

http://www.ctsolar.com/solarpowerforamateurradiofaq.aspx

73! John

Cody, take a look at http://www.ctsolar.com/solarpowerforamateurradiofaq.aspx

GL es 73! John