Another week of amateur radio has expired. Expired Ham, get it? 🙂
Welcome to another issue of Expired Ham, a weekly newsletter where I discuss the ways I participated in the amateur radio hobby this week.
I hope everyone has gotten their Christmas shopping completed. If you haven’t, then you’re running out of time to get that done, especially if you have to ship gifts to loved ones with the hope of them arriving before Christmas Day. I’m, of course, saying this so I don’t forget to get my mother a present. She’s the last one I must shop for. Then I need to get things in the mail. Someone remind me Wednesday to make sure I’ve taken care of that.
I’m in search of a non-slip pad to place under my CW paddles when I’m using them. I’d like for all of my paddles to be used easily with a single hand and while I’m sure that may be difficult for some of the more lightweight, 3D-printed ones, the heavier ones need to stay put regardless of how heavy my dits and dahs are. I purchased a CWtek CWPad which was described as anti-slip and purposely created for eliminating your CW paddles from slipping around on whatever surface they are on. Sadly, while the pad itself doesn’t move once you’ve placed it, even the heaviest of paddles I own still slide somewhat easy when placed on the CWtek pad. Unfortunately for them, I cannot recommend this pad if you’re looking for an anti-slip solution. I can, however, recommend the pad for use as a simple protective layer between your paddles and, say, a nasty park picnic table or something. I didn’t return the pad that I purchased. They are cheap enough that I decided it would be worthwhile to experiment with it to see if I could find a way to make it actually anti-slip. If anyone has a recommendation for something that is truly anti-slip that can be placed under a CW paddle and doesn’t damage the surface it is placed on, please leave me a comment or get in touch with me to let me know.
While perusing WBØRLJ’s Youtube channel, I came across a video he shares which explains how he adjusts his CW paddles. In that video, found here, Jim uses a tension gauge to ensure that the dit and dah paddle tension is set identically. I have always simply set the tension by feel and was surprised as how asymmetrical my tension settings were amongst my paddles! I found a tension gauge similar to the gauge Jim uses in his video and adjusted every paddle and straight key I own. Pay attention to the tension range the meter is configured to measure. You won’t need anything that can measure higher than 50 grams of tension if you’re just measuring your paddles or straight keys. Sure, these devices can be used for other things though. The one I purchased is rated up to around 60 grams (the needle rotates past 50 in both directions).
I’m getting an ATAS-120a antenna for Christmas and also all the trimmings needed to install my FT-891 into my car. I’m looking forward to having that as another option for mobile/portable operations when setting up at a picnic table isn’t possible.
Perhaps some of you operated in the ARRL 10-meter Contest this weekend. I did a bit of search & pounce Friday evening and most of the day on Saturday before tossing in the towel. Sunday brought snow and high winds to the area, so I was unable to deploy an antenna to get back into the game. My efforts ended with 101 Qs, many of them from DX stations, which is always nice. I’m becoming more skilled in my operation of N1MM+, though to be honest, it’s not all that difficult of a program to use. It’s just different than what I’m used to, so it’s taking a bit of time to figure out what does what and how. I think moving my radio ops to a Windows computer from a MacBook was the right move. You can read about my ARRL-10 contest operations in yesterday’s post.
73 everyone,
Matthew, K2MAS
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