W4KAZ

Rocky rocks softly

w4kaz — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:26:02 +0000

After a lot of procrastination, the dormant Softrock v6.2 project became timely. The job was to convert a Softrock v6.2 from its intended IF usage(IF 9.001?) to something a wee more interesting fer the KazShack main op, namely a 40m Softrock v6.2. The WB5RVZ pages are the place to go for build information. A [...]

VirtualBox

w4kaz — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:42:22 +0000

When I upgraded the dead computer a couple of years back, I stuffed the current machine(Dell Inspiron 545S w/Pentium Dual-core E5300 @ 2.6ghz) with 8GB of RAM, expecting to do some experimentation with running VMware or some such to tinker with PC based VM’s. After looking around a bit, other shiny objects attracted more [...]

The Evolution of a 160m Inverted-L(long version)

w4kaz — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:16:52 +0000

(Updated 02/28/2012 de w4kaz)

TopBand? Wazzat?

The whole idea of operating on 160m started as curiosity. Before 2005 I had never operated on 160m. Ever. I had listened some, but never keyed the transmitter other than to experiment with arcing capacitors and high levels of SWR. But it generally seemed like it would be [...]

2012 CQ 160m CW – Sunday Coffee

w4kaz — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:50:21 +0000

Grinding out Saturday night with low rates…Yuck. Worked more stations from the western US, but not a lot. The path down into TX was much better Friday night, but N/S up and down the east coast was decent on Saturday. New England(ME,VT,NH) probably was not as strong as Saturday, but most were workable. [...]

2012 CQ 160m CW – Saturday Morning Review

w4kaz — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:16:24 +0000

Well, going back to the salt mine after 1:00an local proved to be a waste of time. Conditions had not improved to areas in the Western US/Canada….or to anywhere else.

Actually, the QRN was lower, and the 8′s and 9′s were louder, as well as stations from AL, GA and FL. There just were [...]

2012 CQ 160m CW – Break Time

w4kaz — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:40:04 +0000

Not too shabby. After 6.0 hours of operation, 270 Q’s in the log. Not much in the Western US, but have CA and AZ. Spent the first 30 minutes S&P, then a couple of short runs, another stretch of S&P, and then a nice steady run. Nothing fabulous, but the Inv-L is playing much [...]

2012 CQ 160m CW Pre-game

w4kaz — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:05:45 +0000

Getting the last minute woolgathering in before the contest begins.

Made a last-minute antenna mod to the Inv-L with K2AV FCP. The antenna matching network has been ready for switching out matching capacitors for over a year. The missing piece has been a control box and control cable to the feedpoint. After a bit [...]

NAQP SSB 2012 @N1LN as NC4KW

w4kaz — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:51:14 +0000

DAMN that was a GOOD contest.

N1LN hosted the M/2 operation as NC4KW for both CW and SSB. This years SSB team was N1LN, N4GU, N4YDU, and W4KAZ.

N4YDU led off on the right hand station on 10m. W4KAZ squatted on 20m a few minutes before contest kick off, and worked a few before [...]

2011 Summer Review – Functional, But Maybe Not Esthetic

w4kaz — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:48:47 +0000

One of the things that kept me away from the keyboard was a woodwork project idea.

Several years back, I saw a design for a compact kitchen/breakfast table. The tabletop folded over to convert the table into a bench. The basic idea was used to build two outdoor tables of similar design. They are [...]

2012 NAQP CW – January

w4kaz — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:19:50 +0000

Did not expect to be able to put the time in for this one, but enough things shifted around at the end of the week that it worked out. Murphy showed his face in the form of a broken headphone jack on the homebrew SO2R headphone audio jack, which I broke at 1805z as [...]