Category — Accessories

On the Tower Talk Reflector, there has been a good discussion on “whole house” surge protectors. I had not seen anything like this until I watched “Holmes on Homes” on the Discovery Channel. The host of the show is now installing these surge protectors — about $500 — on the incoming power to the electrical box.

Supposedly, the surge protector will protect the entire house from electrical surges, though every one that I have read about says to continue to provide good surge protection at the point of the equipment. Plus, of course, power lines are not the only way surges get into the house — wired telephone lines, cable, and others contribute.

Multiple thousands of dollars can be lost without even being struck by lightning; the whole house surge protector seems to be a good investment to make.

Has anyone out there used whole house surge protectors? What’s your experience?

Scot, K9JY

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There are several great things about contesting and ham radio. One of the primary ones in my mind is the ability to test out something new “under the gun.”

Usually, contests will offer a lot of activity across many different bands, giving the ham radio operator the opportunity to try out different things.

This is especially true with testing antennas. Testing antennas is a great activity for a contest:

Activity. Lots of stations on the air gives the operator a way to gauge how well the antenna works in a one-on-one situation. Get through on the first call? The other operator gets the report the first time with no repeats? Sweet!

Pileups. Using pileups to test antennas is a great way to utilize a contest. All the operator has to do is go for the latest DX Spot and head over to the pileup with a hundred other people calling and give the antenna a whirl.

Search and Pounce. Working up and down the band is a great way to determine how well your antenna is hearing stations. Do you hear your buddy down the street calling someone you can’t hear? Or are you hearing stations that others can’t in your area?

Calling CQ. How well can you hold a CQ frequency? What kinds of stations are answering you? Those with kilowatts and big antennas? Or, are you hearing 100-mw QRP stations on a dipole in the attic 6,000 KM away?

Working out the new antenna during a contest is a great test of the new antenna — and a perfect reason to contest.

Scot, K9JY

International Radio is now offering roofing filters for the Icom IC-756Pro line, including the PRO2 and PRO3.

The PRO2 filter is shipping from stock, but the PRO3 filter won’t ship kits until early August of 2007.

CAUTION: The site notes that the PRO3 filter is not for the feint of heart:

This mod is significantly more challenging to perform than our other roofing filter kits and requires removal of some SMT components, cutting of board traces, modifying a shield can, and putting small connectors on two teflon RG-178 coaxial cables. It should only be performed by those with considerable technical skills who are comfortable working around delicate electronics and small surface mount components.

Full details at International Radio.

Scot

One of the most vexing issues for contesting hams can be RFI. The causes of RFI are many as are the fixes. So determining the cause of the overload on other peoples equipment and what a viable solution could be is a difficult task.

Jim Brown, K9YC, has a 60-page pdf file available for download called “A Ham’s Guide to RFI, Ferrites, Baluns, and Audio Interfacing.”

Jim just recently updated the document as well, including “a major update to the Choke Cookbook, based on extensive measurements of these chokes.”

This is a handy reference to have and we should all take advantage of the great knowledge and work being shared from a guy that really knows this stuff.

Scot, K9JY

Yesterday I wrote about having “non-contest” goals if you were just starting out contesting in ham radio. There were four reasons to have goals .

But, if there are reasons to have non-contest goals, then what non-goals should one have?

There are two areas of non-contest goals that make sense to me. The first is personal skill-set goals. The second is station goals.

Skill-set goals

Skill-set goals are about what you as an operator can improve upon or learn about during a contest. For example, you have never really listened to 80-meters all night to understand how propagation works on 80-meters when there is lots of activity on the band. How early can you work Europe? Asia? North America? South America?

Or perhaps you try and work everything in the contest long-path to determine what works and what doesn’t with that mode of propagation.

Another skill set area is to learn about different modes in ham radio. Want to test how well you understand RTTY and how your software program works in that mode? A RTTY contest is a great way to find out. Or improve you Morse code speed. Or increase the efficiency at which you work stations moving up and down a band.

Learning about different aspects of radio in a compressed time frame is a great thing to do as a goal for a contest.

Station goals

Another aspect of goal setting involves station goals. A contest is a great way to test your station while there is lots of activity — and competition to work people — on a band.

Want to test that new antenna you just put up? Try it out in a contest. Some new ancillary device? Try it in a contest. New station layout? A contest will quickly tell you what’s right and what’s not.

Or, in a different station aspect, you could have an objective to work DX on 80-meters to get you to DXCC.

Contests, in other words, isn’t just about contesting. Contests offer a great opportunity to improve your skills or test your station capabilities.

Contests are not to be missed.

Scot, K9JY