The 2m section of my Icom IC-706mkII has finally died. Unfortunately, it picked a wrong time to go out: the moment I hit the interstate to head up to the Belton Hamfest. Helluva time to be without a voice, but oh well. Luckily, I had my Baofeng UV-82HP on hand and a connector for the …
Tag Archives: radio
Winlink 2000 – Email on the Wind
Since I have my ham rig already set up for soundcard modes, I decided to give WinLink 2000 a try. WL2K is an email-over-the-air transport system that can take advantage of many modulation modes and frequencies, and allows a remote station with no Internet access to send and receive email messages complete with attachments. It’s …
Icom IC-706mkII Fan Mod
My mobile rig is an Icom IC-706mkII HF/2m unit that’s been doing me well for months, semi-permanently installed in the car. Lately I’ve been noticing signs of its deterioration, getting signal reports that I’m either cutting out or the audio has a sporadic “electric shock” sound. I’ve been trying like hell to track it down, …
Pinch To Talk
Behold my score from Austin Summerfest: I’ve had an iambic paddle on my ham radio grocery list for a while, and now I have one. I guess this means I have to get better at Morse Code to be able to use it frequently. Right? Picked it up second-hand for about forty bucks. To make …
Fat, Thick, and Dirty
I finally did it. I soldered a pair of PL-259 connectors (screw-on type) onto a 28′ (8m) length of scavenged RG-8 cable. And it works. It really, really works. Of course, they’re really, really dirty. And it took me 2 hours to f’n do it. But it works.