Short Skip June 2013

June 201 3, Issue 6, Volume 61 Echo Zulu Baker Report Bob Wiberg, WD9EZB

Hello to fellow LCARC members. During this past month we've had a few club activities, The Indiana QSO Party and The Watson Boys Academy ARISS contact. We setup for the Indiana QSO Party behind the EMA headquarters. Strung the clubs new G4RV antenna in the trees and attempted to get on the air. We experienced some equipment problems as you will find out later in this issue.

Then we had the Watson Boys Academy ARISS contact. AG9D and N9CHA provided the necessary equipment to make this successful. K9MQ, N9TZT, KB9HO, and myself, assisted with setup and takedown activities. The kids were very attentive and I think the adults were as excited about this as the kids.

Talking with Roy Gillis KC9JQN, the mentor at The Watson Boys Academy, "We had feedback from hams and others from all over the world (literally) who were able to listen via Echolink. All of the feedback was positive" Hey let us not forget “FIELD DAY” is coming up next month June 22nd and 23rd, and we still desperately need volunteers to operate. Head on over to our website W9LJ.org and signup.

LCARC is also participating in a fundraiser at "Five Guys" in Schererville June 1 3th. This year is a little different from the last, this year you need to print out flyer at the end of the issue or inform the cashier you're there for the fundraiser. One nice thing is there is no time limit, Go in for lunch then come back for dinner. Print it out post it up at work! might just be more money for thr club.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Meeting

Lake Co ARC LC Dept Homeland Sec Bld June 1 4th @ 7:30pm

Fundraiser

Five Guys Hamburgers Schererville June 1 3th

Hamfest

6 Meter Club of Chicago Hamfest & ARCI Radio Swap Meet June 1 6th 201 3

Contests

Field Day June 22-23

Net

LCARC Weekly Information Net Clubs VHF & UHF Repeaters Every Thursday @ 8pm

With that see everyone at the next meeting, which of course is at the EMA headquarters on the north side of the government complex and it, will be on the 1 4th of June.

73, de Bob, WD9EZB, President, LCARC

In this Issue of Short Skip

2. LCARC Meeting Minutes 3. Meeting pictures 4. LCARC Website 5 - 6. W9LJ Indiana QSO Party 7. Invite a kid to field day Time Passes 8. QCWA meeting Info 9 - 1 0. Radios Radios Radios 1 1 . Five Guys Fundraiser Flyer 1 2. Membership Form

ARTICLES N EEDED!!!

If you have anything pertaining to amateur radio that you would like to contribute to, and share with others in Short Skip, we would be happy to include your offering in any future edition. Anything you would like. Hints and kinks, antennas, technical talk, operating tips, public service, classic radio, club activities, etc., would be heartily welcomed!!! All articles must be in by the 20th of every month. Copyright rules and permission apply to all submissions. Please send your submission to: KC9UNS / Short Skip Editor kc9uns@gmail.com I hope you enjoy this month’s Short Skip as much as I did putting it together!

Ed - K9TZT John - W9WY Larry - KB9ERY Kenny KE9TC If we missed your birthday or get it wrong, please let us know

LCARC May Meeting Minutes

201 3 Officers President: .............. WD9EZB

Benjamin Straw, KC9UNS

Meeting called to order at 7:38 PM

Bob Wiberg

Attendance:

Vice President: ....... KB9HO

1 6 members 1 Guest.

Russ McComb

Reading of Minutes:

The minutes of the previous meeting April 1 2th was approved as read.

Secretary: ............. KC9UNS

Treasure Report:

Treasurer: ................ KF9EX Jim Harney Trustee: ..................... WV9O

• Treasurer Report read by Jim KF9EX. Checking $2968.44, Cash: $41 .59, Total $3,01 0.03 • Jim has membership cards for those who haven't got them yet

Committee reports:

• Repeater: Mark K9MQ: Everything going good with the repeater he was asked to re enable the kerchunk filter on the club's repeater, Marv WV9O asked that all members please ID when testing equipment its good operating practices and the a FCC rule, the W9FXT repeater antenna on top of the ema building has been moved 1 00ft away and is on a lower part of the roof. Jim has been contacted by Bartronics and was advised by them that they will inspect the clubs tower with in the next two weeks and said they would let the red cross know one - two days before inspection.

Marv ask about the key to the gate and Mark he might have it in his car Mark thinks he mailed a copy to Nick W9UM. • RACES: Jim advised that the plans for moving the health dept. are going forward, he advised that once they vacate, the ema will be moving once preparations have been made. The TS-50 the club attempted to use for INQP is broken, the power was fluctuating when testing it popped a 20A fuse and so Jim packed it up and is in the ema’s radio room.

• Contest: Ben KC9UNS reported the INQP had 1 90 contacts in 21 states and 58 indiana counties. The clubs G5RV antenna worked great once we got going everything going. It was decided by the board to make the Indiana parks on the air event more sociable and add a potluck to the mix instead of just an operating event.Bob asked that there be more club participation for club events and a signup sheet was passed around.

• DX: Nick advised that there some rare DXpeditions being activated. he also sked if anyone was interested in packet if so he is on 1 45.1 00 • VE: Porter County 1 03 Jefferson St in the Valpo Public Library • Net: Average is 20 check-ins at we hit a record of 22 on April 1 8

Old Business:

Benjamin Straw

Marv Boetcher

Directors Bill Young ................. N9QLS Ken Brown ................ KE9TC Bob Nelms ............ WD9FNY

Mark Skowronski .......... K9MQ John Gianotti ................. W9WY

Editorial Staff Editor-in-Chief ...... KC9UNS Benjamin Straw

(kc9uns@gmail.com)

Club Resources

W9LJ/R ......................... 1 47.000 + PL 1 31 .8 W9LJ/R (St. John) ..... 1 47.240 + PL 1 31 .8 W9LJ/R ......................... 442.075 + PL 1 31 .8 Repeater Nets Thursday Night @ 8 pm: LCARC Weekly Infomation Net

Meetings

June 1 4, 201 3 • Ed K9TZT still has the coffee pot MEETING • Bob WD9EZB reported about the ARISS contact that went over BOARD LCEMA OFFICE, really well 2900 93rd Ave • Ed asked about the 50/50 raffle Marv WV9O has it Crown Point (41 .449555,-87.36893) (Across from Gov. Ctr.) New Business 6:30 p.m.

• NONE

Program:

June 1 4, 201 3

Meeting adjourned at 9:08 PM local.

(Across from Gov. Ctr.) 7:30 p.m.

• Bill N9QLS talked about the right PL259 to use, crimping and CLUB MEETING solder. Bill passed along a All Electronics catalog and talked about 2900 93rd Ave building a voltmeter for 1 .5v NIMh batteries.

Crown Point (41 .449555,-87.36893)

LCARC is an IRS-certified 501(c)3 charitable organization and donations are deductible pursuant to the IRS rules. If you have working radio equipment and ancillary equipment that you can and wish to donate to the club, please contact one of the board members and we will be happy to talk to you about the process. Many companies will either grant or match employee’s gifts to nonprofit organizations like LCARC.Please determine if your com pany is among these and contact a board member so we may help fund and grow LCARC. We cannot accept certain donations, and have to place some restrictions around them (no hazardous materials, nothing we could not sell, etc.). If you are interested, look me, or any other board member up at one of the meetings, or contact us via email (our addresses at the end of this newsletter)

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F R O M TH E M EETI N G

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Meet the THREE newest LCARC Members

Matt KC9YDF (Left), Carter KC9YGU (Center), and Don N9TIP (Right)

Presentations and demonstrations at LCARC are a fun part of our meetings. Come join us! Not a LCARC member?

It doesn't matter you’re welcome to attend our meetings.

No strings, no pressure!

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The New, Improved, exciting, educational and elucidating LCARC Web Page John W9WY

You either know or do not know the LCARC web page (w9lj.org) has undergone a major update. The new site offers easier to read and expanded coverage to all hams and also some specific information just for club members. Let’s take a look at the pages and see what the site has to offer.

The club has participated in at least seven ARISS missions. As I get the time and find the tapes (some of them are on VHS) and convert them I will upload them to this page.

HOME PAGE Well, as the title suggest this is the first page one sees.

On this page is a description of the club, a list of our repeaters, and a map and address to our meeting location.

Want to search for something? Use the search box in the upper left corner to find what you are looking for.

MORE-FORMS Not a government repository, but a listing of forms useful to members. Naturally themembership for m is here, but also things like the Repeater Guide, the club Constitution, Severe WX reporting forms, The latest Indiana Scanner Law and much more.

MORE – AWARDS The club sponsor two major awards. Check them out on this page along with a list of past recipients. The Herb Brier Award is actually sponsored by the club but awarded by the ARRL. MORE-OFFICERS A listing, with e-mail links, to our current club officers.

ABOUT US Written by Joe Cress, now a silent key, Joe was one of the early members of the club and this is actually an article that was written for the club newsletter, Short Skip, many years ago. Newcomers and veterans alike can find out how the club came about.

MORE – RACES This page contains information about the RACES organization, a list of current RACES members, and the RACES manual. If you are interested in being a RACES member, contact Jim, KF9EX for information. Since RACES is tied to the Department of Homeland Security those who wish to join up have to fill out forms for a JOIN US background check. (Federal Regulation, NOT a LCARC Not only contains a downloadable membership application thing). but some of the benefits of membership. One should be able to fill the form in on the screen and then print it out, MORE – NETS read for mailing with a check, to our PO box.

While the nets are listed on the calendar of events, this page gives a little more detail of what each net is about.

NEWSLETTER At the present time we plan on archiving the past 1 2 MORE – OPERATING Aids months of Short Skip on this site. Depending on the “Stuff” that might help an active ham. preferences of the board we may keep additional years on this page for downloading.

MORE- CONTACT US Our mailing address as well as a fill-in form that can be CALENDAR of EVENTS used to contact the club.

Well, it is a calendar that shows what the club is doing.

One can view a week, a month, or an agenda (list) o club MORE – MEMBERS ONLY PAGE activities. Also on this page may be sign-up forms for This page contains “secret stuff” for members only. One activities. As this is written (mid-May) there is a form to thing is a roster of members. Upon payment of dues the sign up for field day. Click on any item to see the details of club secretary will give you the official handshake, uh I the event or copy it to your Google calendar, if you have mean the password. Please do NOT share this with nonone. By using the left and right arrows next to the month members. Passwords will be changed on a yearly basis. (in the month view) one can go forward and back through the calendar.

MORE - CLUB FORUM Currently in the trial stage. If it becomes used I will keep it.

MORE Post questions or responses to topics such as Antennas, Click this link to see the rest of the pages on the site.

DX, Mobile Operations, general radio questions and club news.

MORE-MULTIMEDIA See selected videos and/or slide shows of members If you have any correction or would like to see other participating in club events. information added to the page please contact the webmaster, W9LJ. 73 and GUD DX. MORE – ARISS MISSIONS

If you remember two months ago we told you that R&L Electronics was giving away a radio a week for 1 2 weeks, well apparently it was so popular they decided to keep on giving. R & L is going to be handing out Yaesu’s, 4 FT-1 900R, 4 FT-2900R, and 4 FT-250R. Rules:enter once per week per person and must reside in the USA. Head on over to: www.randl.com/shop/catalog/radioweek.php and enter to win.

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W9LJ Indiana QSO Party Benjamin Straw KC9UNS

May 4th 201 3 was the date of Indiana’s QSO Party, for all those who didnt attend we miss you and hope you attend another upcoming event! Anyway we had fun and thats what it should be.

At 1 0:1 5m I showed up along with Kenny KE9TC and Marv WV9O to start setting the equipment and antenna up. The Friday afternoon before the contest I ran over to the Old Menards in Schererville (Now closed or will be soon) I decided to see if they had any discount rope for the just in case factor. I was surprised that they had one left YEP! I got the last one on all those empty shelves, at 1 00 ft for $2.50, I had to grab it and we needed it!

I brought along my trusty slingshot to get fishing line up into the trees and after a couple failed attempts we got the first side up into the tree. I called Bob WD9EZB to make sure he didn’t forget where he was supposed to be, because he had the other side of the rope! Thank god because he left almost forgot it at the house. BTW did I mention we used the clubs new antenna? yep a G5RV. The other side had about the same amount of failed attempts, but we chose to add more weight to the line because it took forever for the line to come down from the first tree(1 0 min wasted).

Bob showed up just as I got the line into the second tree and up went the antenna... only it didn’t look so hot. We had hit a small branch and decided would be fine and should stay in the tree.

We used Big Blue, LCEMA’s mobile command center, it has everything we need to work a contest or in an emergency, communicate with the world. Power wasn't hard to set up, big blue has a generator that powers everything including AC(not needed on a 70 degree day).

John W9WY showed up late after almost all the work is done, we found the switch to turn off all the flashing lights, pounded in a ground rod, set up the computer, radio, and tuner we were ready to rock and roll, so we thought.

Oh Me!

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Your back bone is connected to your shoulder bone Your shoulder bone is connected to your neck bone

Okay time to make some contacts, only we couldn't transmit! At this point we are about twenty or so minutes into the contest and now frustrated. The Kenwood TS-50 kept restarting every time we tried to make a contact or even said anything into the microphone. We did make a few contacts on 1 5 but got reports saying it was “Distorted Old Man�. On 40 which is where we wanted to be at, was the worst with restart after restart.

We decide the antenna was at fault due to the feedline being almost on the ground. Remember that branch the rope was on? Well one tug and down it went, if one big gust of wind came along it would have caused so many problems for us. Now that we fixed the antenna, we attempted to make a contact on 40. Unfortunately it still had the same problem. Someone decided to read instructions for the G5RV and found the feedline has to be 1 5 ft off the ground and at an angle. After moving the feedline, we can now work a station on 40 for about 3 seconds before the radio fails.

In diagnosing the problem we decide the tuner had to be bad, so Kenny headed off to grab a tuner from home. 1 0 min later and one more person added to the contest, Carter KC9YGU. Back from home and after playing a little John Marv and Kenny(Way too many cooks) have diagnosed its not infact tuner but has to be the radio...

John makes the suggestion that we call it quits and head over to schoops for lunch. Not being deterred Marv and Kenny head over to the EMA office to grab the spare radio and tuner. Its now an hour and a half into the contest, we have 3 contacts to our name, the guys get back and hook up the spare radio and we are on the air!

John started the contest off with a big burst of contacts with about half of the total contacts. Carter takes over the hot seat, and John teaches him how to make contacts during a contest. Bob WD9EZB takes over making contacts, while I show Carter how to log them on the computer.

Now its my turn in the hot seat and Carter and Myself tag team making contacts.

Russ KB9HO and Jim KF9EX show up around 3pm and help us break the equipment down at 4:30.

After going through the log and I tell you what if you have never worked a contest like this it can be a pain.

The rules stated that if you work a person who is on the county line, you count him in two in counties via logging him twice. I didnt know this till I was tallying the totals, which meant I had to go back into the log and edit and edit.

So how did we do? We had 1 90 contacts in 21 states and 58 counties with in Indiana Grand total 1 5,01 0 Points. What does that mean and where do we stand? I don't know yet and might not know till a few month from now.

Well Like I said before we had some fun working in the contest and I hope to see you at the next club event. Ben Straw KC9UNS Photos Marv WV9O & Ben KC9UNS

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Invite a Kid to Field Day Dan Romanchik KB6NU

If you've been around ham radio for any length of time, you'll notice that ham radio operators like to complain. One of the most frequently heard complaints is, "Kids aren't interested in amateur radio anymore." While I'm not so sure that's true, I do know that now is the time for you to do something about it.

How? Invite a kid to Field Day. Invite them to help you set up antennas.

Show them how you power the rigs with a generator, or even cooler, by charging a battery with a solar panel.

Let them sit in front of the rig, show them how to make contacts, and log for them. To make it easier for them, make up a cheat sheet with the callsign spelled out phonetically and the exchange, also spelled out phonetically.

Let them operate for as long as they're interested. When they're done, thank them on contributing to your club's total score.

Answer every single one of their questions.

This may not win them over immediately, but I can assure you that it will make an impression on them. To increase your chances of success, find a kid that's already technically inclined. Invite a bunch of them from the high school's robotics team, for example.

If you don't have any plans for Field Day, then make some. Then, go find that kid. If you don't, then you don't have any right to complain that there are no kids in ham radio. =================================================== When he's not trying to get kids interested in amateur radio, Dan, KB6NU enjoys working CW on the HF bands and teaching ham radio classes. For more information about his operating activities and his "No-Nonsense" series of amateur radio license study guides, go to KB6NU.Com or e-mail cwgeek@kb6nu.com.

Time Passages Jeff Davis KE9V

I joined the QCWA a few weeks ago. I’ve been eligible for membership since 2002 but I didn’t quite see myself as an old geezer back then.

using it like this can be troubling. For instance, given the finite nature of life and the many activities that one can pursue as a radio amateur, does it really make sense to do the same thing over and over again. For 20, 30, 40 or more years?

Time changes your perspective, and the organization recently I was born in 1 959 (you do the math) and figure that if I’m very made dealing with them frictionless. I was able to join and pay dues online — and its publications are now online too. That, and fortunate, I might have 1 5 good years left to enjoy the hobby — and that time will doubtless pass very quickly. the fact that I’m now occasionally given an unsolicited senior discount on coffee at McDonalds caused me to pull the trigger and I’ve never been on a DXpedition. I’ve never had a tower or an HF join the Quarter Century Wireless Association.

Yagi. I’ve never owned a big amplifier. I’ve never bounced a radio And that got me thinking about my thirty-six years in the hobby. signal off the Moon or the ionized trail of rapidly falling space rocks. I don’t have WAS or DXCC on phone. I’ve never been a net control operator. I’ve never spoken at a conference or written an That’s a long time to do anything when you think about. And thinking about it made me wonder if it’s been a worthwhile use of award winning paper about any aspect of the hobby. I’ve never my free time and financial resources, and just what exactly have I invented a new mode or method of communication that revolutionizes the hobby for others. managed to accomplish?

Consider for a moment The Old Man, Hiram P. Maxim, W1 AW. He founded the ARRL in 1 91 4 and was dead just twenty-two years later. He was a radio enthusiast for a few years before launching the League, but only for a few years. After all, radio didn’t really exist a decade or so earlier and it was some years after that before the coming of the law.

That means it’s probably safe to say that I’ve been a licensed radio amateur longer than Maxim, and if that doesn’t generate some introspection, nothing will. A mind is a terrible thing and

Have you?

People often say that these kinds of things are on their “bucket list” — an imaginary list of things to do before they die.

That’s great but if these aspirations remain on some imaginary list and never become reality, what good are they?

Smoke Curls is written by Jeff Davis, KE9V. www.KE9V.net

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STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE CURRENT HAPPENINGS OF THE LAKE COUNTY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB ON FACEBOOK. TO FIND US TYPE LCARC IN THE FACEBOOK SEARCH BOX OR HTTP://WWW. FACEBOOK. COM/LCARC

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QCWA Chapter 36 Meeting Information Stan Vandiver, W4SV

Details of our upcoming meetings, and highlights of past meetings, can always be found at http://www.chapter36.org/meetings.html.

It is not necessary to be a QCWA member to attend breakfast and dinner meetings. All are welcome. Use this link to check on future dates: (http://www.chapter36.org/meetings.html).

73, Stan W4SV Wow, our attendance picked up nicely (36 people) for our April meeting at Suzie's Cafe. Was the food the attraction (which was delicious)? The beautiful spring weather? Or was it that Friday might be more popular than Thursday for our meetings? I guess we will ponder that in the future and maybe try some more Friday evenings too as chance allows.

The membership agreed to upgrade the 1 st Place prize in our current membership drive contest. So now we will award a $50 CASH PRIZE to the 1 st Place winner who recruits the most new members before our August meeting.

I hope you find this a little more motivating! The 2nd Place winner will now get the 201 1 ARRL Periodical CD-ROM and QCWA mousepad, and the 3rd Place winner will get the QCWA mousepad only. We had a couple of new renewals since our last meeting: Don KD9HI and Bill W9OPR... THANKS guys! Remember that your renewals count in our membership drive contest, but only in conjunction with new members recruited . The full contest rules and a scorecard of the current standings are available on the Contest Page.

We had many great show-and-tell items this month. Tom W8FIB brought his 1 937 (or 1 938) McElroy telegraph key and its wooden shipping box, and also a few special QSL cards. You may have recognized one of those cards... its owner was at dinner with us, K9WHK! Bruce W9OTN also brought a telegraph key, an unusual vertical key (and an oscillator so we could play with it). The single paddle still swiped sideways, but the mechanism was mounted vertically on the base rather than laid out horizontally as is normally done. Rich 'Doc' Lochner K9CIV brought his Panama Canal Transit Award for working them on 1 0 meters back in his early days (1 979). Dale AC2E brought a neat little gadget, a mobile digital video recorder (DVR), more commonly known as a dash cam. It has a sturdy suction cup mount for your vehicles windshield, runs continuously off of a cigarette lighter or power accessory socket, and can take high definition video and also very good quality resolution still photos (1 2 megapixel, I think).

This handy little gadget lists for only $35 on the Internet.

You can see it online with more specs here. Also on display were our 2nd and 3rd Place contest prizes. Thanks to all who brought items in for our show-and-tell!

Membership Drive Contest Update: Dennis, K9JZZ, is still our current leader with one new member signed up... himself! But a score of one should be easy to beat, so come on out and play, and get some new members signed up with QCWA! The latest contest updates will always be kept current on the Contest Page. Remember: 1 st Prize is now $50 CASH! Photos by Stan W4SV (Higher resolution photos are almost always available.

Email Stan, W4SV if you want a better copy.)

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Radio Radio Radio Benjamin Straw KC9UNS

I know alot of our members love when I show you what's new and cool and wicked in new rigs we just HAVE to have! Lets start off with the BIG companies first Kenwood released its monster of a rig the top-of-the-range flagship model TS-990S. At just under eight grand the only things noteworthy about the radio is that it features a built-in automatic antenna tuner, built in AC power supply, a serial port, USB ports and a Ethernet port. it also has a nice TFT screen. Icom and Yaesu didn’t show anything new this year at hamvention, I thinking they will wait till the JARL Ham Fair thats being held at Tokyo Big Sight, Ariake, Tokyo on August 24th (Saturday) and 25th (Sunday).

Even though I thought something like that would happen, I was proved wrong 2 hours into writing this... I guess somethings just sneak out or just isn't announced. Just like the Yaesu FT-252 and FT-257. They look a little like an FRS radio but packs the power of an amateur radio. The Yaesu FT-252 is a compact, rugged, easy-to-use, high-performance FM mono-band 2 meter handheld delivering up to 5 watts of RF power(A Lot more than those FRS radios). Receive coverage is from 1 36 to 1 74 MHz and the memory systems boasts 200 memory channels. CTCSS and DCS encode/decode are included.

The FT-252 is water protection to IPX5 specifications. It has a strong 800mW audio amp for noisy environments. a useless ATS (Automatic Transponder System) that "beeps" when moving out of communication range. The FT-252 comes with: Lithium ion battery, I think a battery charger that plugs into the wall(Unknown at this time), a flexible SMA antenna, and belt clip.

The Yaesu FT-257 is a "440" version of the FT-252. It delivers the same 5 watts but for the frequencies from 430 to 450 MHz. Receive coverage is 400-480 MHz. I like what one commenter on radio reference said They look like crappy FRS radios... 'Yaesu has done it again!’. Although looking on Yaesu’s webpage I can't find a reference of them even making this radio but the likes of AES, Giga, and Universal all carry the HT. List Price is $1 35.00 but some have it for $20+ cheaper.

TenTec has been busy as of late. They have a new computer controlled CW QRP radio. Their new QRP radio the TenTec Argonaut VI has not been creating a lot of excitement or buzz, in fact many hams have shied away from it because its a crippled radio missing 6, 1 2 and 60 meters. You would think with all the technology we have, you wouldn't or couldn't limit a product that you know for sure can offer those bands! an also word of not is that TEN-TEC Introduced the Model 506 Rebel: an open-source QRP transceiver. Their are only two things to note about this rig one is that its a dual bander 40 and 20 meter and the other I already mentioned I think this next radio has been on the market before, it just never jumped out and said Hi! Its the LNR Precision FX-2 QRP Transceiver. The FX-2 is a dual band QRP transceiver which operates on the 30 meter and 40 meter bands. It weighs in at only just over 1 0 ounces and is 4.5″ length x 2.375″ width x 1 .5″ depth. This little guy would be great to take with you to a park, hiking, or backpacking. But WAIT in Q3/Q4 LNR Precision will be offering a quad-band SSB and CW QRP radio. 5 watts and very small. This will be really neat and it supposed to be less than $500. Watch for an announcement at http://www.lnrprecision.com.

Palstar showed off its new QRP rig the Palstar TR-30 at Dayton this year. Palstar is wellknown for their tuners and their receiver, but was a welcome surprise to see a well known company bring out something new and possibly revolutionary. The TR-30 has a simple faceplate with a touch screen display, all aluminum, rated for 20 watts PEP, and has an 1 1 pole filter on board. Palstar expects the TR-30 to be available August 201 3 and be priced around $1 ,500-2,000.

As a note Palstar has not released an image of this radio yet so if you want head on over to http://www.palstar.com and complain about it, than head on over to http://qrper.com and have a look. BTW turnoff the ad blocker when visiting Palstar’s site.

I think I should have renamed the title to QRP because here is another one but this time its PSK. Silent System is a tiny Japanese company who is offering a very small QRP PSK transceiver with a built-in display, The name? HandyPSK. handy PSK comes in two models 40 meters and 20 meters. You can operate CW, PSK, QPSK, MT63 without a PC. Just connect the battery and antenna and you can operate anywhere, anytime. The price is under $300. Get more information or order it at http://silentsystem.jp

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You know I wasn't planning on writing this long article, I was just going to show you the Pic’s. Aha hell I’ll keep going but don't blame me if you can't read this issue of Short Skip, you need to get some reading glasses :D Now for all you HT lovers, The Tokyo Hy-Power XT-751 SSB/CW handheld covers 40 meters to 6 meters in both SSB and CW. It will also has an internal ATU. Its to bad this is only a concept radio, but Tokyo Hy-Power hopes to have this radio in production mid year 201 4.

Back to non QRP radios and shifting into my “Jeremy Clarkson voice... you know Top Gear”, Anyway take a look at what's being called the Feitong model FT-808, the new radio is being billed primarily as a Marine Band transceiver, but its published specs read more like a mid-range car... i mean piece of ham radio gear. For instance the FT-808 has a receive range of 500 Khz to 29.9 Mhz and a transmitter that covers 1 .6 to 29.9 Mhz. In other words, it covers all the ham radio bands from 1 60 through 1 0 and goes from 0 to 60 in 1 .3 seconds.

The receiver is a double conversion superheterodyne with both it and the transmitter capable of operating Upper and lower sideband, CW and AM with an amazing 1 00 memory channels. Tuning appears to be a kind of shifter paddles called up and down push buttons with a claimed receiving sensitivity of 1 2 db SINAD and a squelch sensitivity threshold on SSB, CW, and RTTY of less than 5.6uV. One thing of note. While transmitter power appears to be in the 1 00 watt range, according to the public spec sheet there appears to be no provision to lock out transmission on 1 1 meters. This will likely keep it from gaining FCC acceptance for legalized sales here in the US. At least not in its current non locked configuration. Did I forget to tell you the FT-808 doesn't have a steering wheel? Its all buttons with a twist of knob... Makes me want to sob.

Well that said, the Feitong FT-808 will have a list price of only $41 0 dollars, but sources say this radio cannot be made for that price so they think it should sell for about $975.60 the 60 cent is to pay for a fake rap star that comes with it.

Going mobile we have the Leixen VV-808 nothing to big and spectacular to say about this rig other than it comes in two versions 2 meter and 70cm and is cheap. At $1 00 from a US dealer or as low as $69 straight from China its a good buy for a Gokit or APRS. Some people just love these mono band radios and are hoping that they see a 900 1 200 or even a cheap 220 mhz radio.

TYT TH-UVF8D Ok I know you might be going when is this article ever going to stop well this is it with the last radio its a TYT... the TH-UVF8... What a sec Ben, haven't we already seen this radio before? Well yes but look at the new colors! We have it in a halloween orange and turquoise blue. At a low price of $59.80 via eBay or 409shop.com.

Vol. 61 No. 6

Short Skip

10

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