InterRadio Exhibition (Hannover) part I

In the beginning of September my clubmates proposed to go to the annual amateur radio exhibition in Hanover, buy some spare parts for radios and to taste lokal beer (hi! hi!). I missed exhibition in Fridriskhafen in the last couple of years, so I gladly agreed and started to make a shopping list.. We started our journey on Friday morning last week and in the afternoon we were there.

James Bond's 9V QRP Transceiver

Jeff (K6JCA) made his own version of transceiver for secret agent. As he said: "OK, perhaps it's not quite as elegant as a "Q" creation, but hey, I can see Sean Connery pulling this little gizmo out of his pocket for some quick QRP action whenever there's a lull between seducing women and saving the world."

With 9V battery the power out is about 300 milliwatts on 40 meters. Or 900 mW with a 12V battery.

ISS flight engineer speaks with students

Expedition #32 Flight Engineer Joe Acaba speaks with high school students participating in a summer program called Women in STEM High School Aerospace Scholars, or WISH, using the station's ham radio. The students, selected from across the country, are attending briefings and engaging in competitive hands-on engineering activities related to space exploration and research.

UT/SA7BOA

18MHz

Poqet PC - The QRPer's field computing dream

"Small, battery-powered "palm top" computer that runs the DOS operating system and has an RS-232 serial port and non-volatile SRAM cards for disk storage. These little computers are absolutely perfect for use out in the field with battery power (like during Field Day) and in portable operating events: contest logging, serial terminal for control of rigs, note-taking, data gathering, etc.

Powered by 2 "AA" bateries, the Poqet PC has a flip-up 80 char x 25 line LCD display and a pretty usable keyboard. The 1 megabyte removable PCMCIA SRAM cards can also plug into your full-blown laptop in order to transfer files between the computers, and the built-in software (editor, calculator, scheduler, address book and terminal emulator) allows you to use this 8088 XT-compatible computer for many purposes around the radio shack."

I have one for sale so if you're interesting in buying it - just let me know. Good condition, no mods, no warranty.

Open season 2012

Visit to the nearest place available for winter operations was very short. Strong wind and snow convinced me to postpone tests of Vertical for 20-17 meters until the next time.

Nevertheless, I heard a lot of stations on 20 meters. Antenna was veery simple, 1/4 Vertical for 20m, steel guard used as a counterpoise. With 20W I worked several EU stations and even caught two memorial ctations: EK85GM and EM1000USK.