RARC Presentation - Remote Operation

Well, last Friday night - August 10th, 2012, I had the opportunity to present in front of the Richmond Amateur Radio Club.  Talk about intimidating!  I'm a noob, all of 2+ years in the hobby and I'm looking out at guys with 30, 40, even 50+ years of radio experience - I mean, really, WHAT in the world am I able to tell THEM?!?!?!

The group was very civil, though I was nervous, and the presentation went along fairly smoothly.  I suppose one might say it even went well, but I still know there are some things that I would have done differently (and therefore better!)

Two buddies of mine, Armand (WA1UQO) and Tom (KC4CMK), and I re-installed a 20 meter antenna that had fallen a few years previously at the church where the RARC meetings are held.  That was really nice, part of my demonstration was receiving PSK31 on 20 meters while the club members filed in and chit chatted before the meeting started.

Anyway, I enjoyed discussing my experience with Icom's RS-BA1 software package and how I use it around the house and travelling.  There was quite a bit of Q&A and the presentation was very interactive - I guess that's the kind I like best, it keeps folks engaged in the conversation.

Here's a link to the Remote Operations presentation.

73 de KJ4WLH

Icom IC-7000 vs IC-9100 receive comparison

Here's a link to my YouTube comparison.

I was messing around in my shack and got around to doing a side by side comparison of my IC-7000 and IC-9100.  I was curious as to how well or different each transceiver was - the video showed it pretty well.

I was listening to a simplex conversation, the IC-7000 showed no s-meter reading and the IC-9100 show S5 +/-.  Unbelievable!

73 de KJ4WLH

Goodbye 9100! Hurry home!

Sob, sob... I shipped the 9100 to the Icom service center this morning. I sure hope it's an easy (and inexpensive!) fix.

I found my 6m loop problems...

Very disapointing... My loop is fine, my Icom 9100 isn't :(

The 9100 has 2 different HF inputs, input #1 is connected to my Palstar AT2K and input #2 is connected directly to my m2 6m ho loop.

I swapped the antenna and was able to tune it just fine. That was bad news..

I got out my Bird wattmeter and got 100+ watts from #1 and NO watts from input #2.

I guess I will pack it up and ship it to Icom on Monday.

On a positive note, I have my 7000 setup in the shack and it's working pretty well. No dstar, but such is life!