I'm grounded now...

I am well grounded now!  I decided after my "scare" and faulty gear that I needed to have a way to switch all my antennas to ground when I'm not using them.  After talking with a few folks, some of which had multi-thousand (yeah, I said THOUSAND) dollar switches - I decided to go with the Alpha Delta switches.  Wish me luck :)

Every green wire is a ground and goes directly to my ground bus.  In fact, every piece of equipment in my shack is grounded to the same ground bus - no loops for me!

73 de KJ4WLH

Alpha Delta Switches

Gear, Switches, and misc stuff...

9100 is home!

I can do nothing except say thank you to Paul Hansen, W6XA.  Paul is ICOM's man on the east coast for repair...  Fast, fast, fast repair - so fast, I had no idea that the 9100 would be home when I returned from my business trip this week.

You would have thought that a kind XYL would have let her hubby know that a SERIOUSLY large and heavy package had made it to the front door - but NO!

Oh well, I'm planning on getting it out to the shack for the test run tomorrow (Friday) sometime.

Oh, no lighting damage (or customer damage!) - "replaced defective RL501 on CTRL unit" - whatever that means...

Thank you Paul!

Sincerely, KJ4WLH

Great D-Star net last night!

I ran the RARC D-Star net last night from my hotel room in Maryland and it went very well.

I brought my DVAP with me and had a REALLY poor wireless network connection in the room. I am very pleased with how well the DVAP performs, it just continues to make my HT a wonderful transceiver.

I only had 1 person who wished to check in that I wasn't able to hear (RPT2 setting issue). It just worked great.

The D-Star digital packet requirements are very forgiving, I am much more pleased with its operation as I've learned it's pros and cons.

5 Watt HT - My Net Control Station

So, the saga continues! But this time good things happened!
I hooked up my IC-92AD to my 2m vertical out in the shack last night. Wednesday night is my dstar net and I needed some way to run it...
Yeah, I have a DVAP - but using the DVAP means that everyone who wishes to participate in the net must have a properly configured RPT2 field. If not, then I would not be able to hear them when they transmit. I planned on using my DVAP as a last resort!
What I was REALLY hoping was I could consistently hit the 2m dstar repeater with 5 watts from my HT. I was also somewhat concerned about the temperature of the HT when transmitting at full power for the duration of the net.
It worked out great! I ran the net using only the HT, 5 watts of power, and no DVAP :)  The HT did get pretty warm, but certainly not smoking hot! I now know that I have a good way to run the net using other gear.
73 de KJ4WLH

RATS Meeting - 1st Time Attending :)

When I started down my path of Amateur Radio, I decided that part of the "path" was helping support those organizations which are an active part of the hobby.  I looked around and decided on the easy calls - MRA Repeater Association, Richmond Amateur Radio Club (RARC), Richmond Amateur Telecommunications Society (RATS), SouthEastern Repeater Association (SERA), and ARRL.  The part that made it really easy is that most of the dues were all very inexpensive ($15 or so...) - except ARRL :)

The RATS club meets in the West End of Richmond which puts it about 15 minutes further away from me than the RARC club - so, RARC became the "default" club for me to attend.  It is also the club that I passed my Tech, General, and Extra exams through - well, I guess in reality it was the ARRL VEC relationship with RARC that did the testing.

I have, for all the time I've been in the hobby, wishing to attend a RATS meeting and visit the "other" radio brethren in the Richmond area.  I could go on and on (and on and on) about time commitments and other excuses - but I made them and just never took the time to go.

Last night I made it; it was great!  I was so glad to meet guys I've talked to many times and put a name to the Callsign :)  The other thing I (knew) but only really realized is that I already knew some of the guys at the meeting!  I looks like I'm not the only Richmond Ham to have dual membership in the local clubs :)

What a nice way to support the hobby!

Ham Radio Outlet - Woodbridge - Excellent Customer Service! +1

I called HRO this morning and talked with a gentleman named Joe; I couldn't be more pleased.  I explained my situation - received my Mirage BD-35 DOA, etc., etc., etc..  Without any issue, Joe completely resolved my issue to my satisfaction!  Very nice - I very, VERY infrequently receive customer service as good as I received today.

While I might not purchase Mirage/MFJ gear again, I will DEFINITELY purchase from HRO again.  No doubt about it :)

Mirage BD-35 - I'm very disappointed

Well, I got my Mirage in the mail today.  It didn't work. I don't mean it didn't hit the repeater as I needed - I mean it didn't power on. :(

I have been nervous about purchasing products from MFJ, I'm not nervous anymore. I am just not purchasing ANY products from MFJ.