Definitely. XIT too. It's easier for me to just tune slightly off freq though. I suppose I could just leave RIT/XIT on while I'm scrolling around hunting, but I honestly didn't think of that until typing this out.
Great video, thanks for sharing. I'm going to try the boiling method of stripping the lacquer off: 1 tablespoon baking soda in 1 quart of water, stir a couple of times, insert the brass into the boiling solution for 15 minutes.
Thanks for watching. I've never heard of that method, but I'm curious to hear how it turns out. Sound much less tedious than my buffing method. The key is still going strong almost a year later. Watch out for the small plastic retention ball thing that's retaining the magnets. It's under spring tension and will launch if you give it the opportunity. Let me know how it turns out!
Hi again. On second thought, I'm going to use your method. Probably NOT a good idea to boil the plastic Parts! I verified, and mine also has the plastic.
@@CoaxAndCampstools lol, I only noticed because that's exactly what I did when I got my license. Except my feed line went all the way across the living room floor across the kitchen to the kitchen table
Hey thanks for sharing. No, you shouldn’t have to speed up your cw. A good operator who answers your CQ should match your speed, not the other way around…
Ngl bro you went from looking like your 401k might fund next week to maybe graduating high school last week with one shave of the stache. I hope USPS treats your stache with the same urgency they did my M7 key and it’ll arrive soon. I want that exact key, with a navy knob, securely fastened to some luxury vinyl plank. I also want your fist. (My straight key sending needs a lot of work). Seventy three yeet yeet deet deet bleep bloop catch you on the flippity fleep skeet.
Sometimes I lay awake at night and think about the fella that guessed my age to be 45 when I was at Mount Rushmore. He accredited his gross over-estimation to the mustache. It had to go. I originally didn't like the J-38, but it's really not bad. What's nice is you don't need the big chunky base like paddles. $3 for samples at Home Depot. Or you can put new floors in your house and snag a scrap. 73 YYDD bleep bloop RDEFHW
great to see a straight key activation-great sending! What word per minute do you think you where sending at? I'm learning with a straight key myself and you seemed very smooth
Thank you! Something satisfying (and stressful) about using a straight key, especially given this key is probably older than I am. Reverse Beacon Network clocked me at around 14-15 WPM, so ballpark around there. Thanks for watching!
Fastest way to get to 18 WPM is get on the air at whatever you can. I started at 14 WPM and had a blast. Sometimes I still only grasp some, lol. Thanks for watching!
I listened for you during your last QMX (RIP Lil Naked Bro) activation, but I think I got to you... too late :( I'll be listening for you though for some Jason 2 Jason CW action!
@@CoaxAndCampstools He was a real trooper. In addition to the antenna disaster, I was overvolting him b/c I didn't have the right battery with me, and turned off overvoltage protection, so I knew I was playing with fire anyway! Hope to get you in the log from the East coast soon!
If you really do shave your mustache (because USPS prioritized me in their distribution queue) you should do so carefully and mail me your stache so I can wear it on my channel. I tried growing one on my own a few months ago but was met with overwhelmingly negative feedback from my subscribers. While I do appreciate you publishing CW content… I did unfortunately have to report this video to RU-vid due to its lack on inclusivity towards west coast operators who are unable to participate in daytime 40m pileups. P.S. I’ll send you some non-organic full-GMO 100-proof deet bug spray.
Unfortunately my video editing delay has caused the hair on my upper lip to be lost forever. There may be a strand or two hiding behind the faucet. While my morals have prevented me from mailing shaven hair to another man up to this point in life, I can make an exception for you. While I respect your sensitivity, nothing prevented my west coast friends from spending 47 cents a minute to remote into a Maine station to hunt my on 40 meters. Therefore, my inclusivity threshold should have been met for RU-vid Standards. I need the good stuff, bro. I may as well have a T-Shirt that says "No Mosquitos Allowed"
Thank you! I'm not 100% which your referring to, so I'll give links to both. The actual thing that I'm zig zagging my wire through is a Wire Antenna Link by K6ARK on Printables: www.printables.com/model/326108-wire-antenna-links What I use as my guy-line winder to tension the overall line is another K6ARK product, his K6ARK Wire Antenna Winder: www.printables.com/model/383037-k6ark-wire-antenna-winder-ul-wireframe-model That winder just has 550 cord around it that I wrap/unwrap depending on how far I need. Thanks for watching!
@@rclewen lol, I linked everything but what you were looking for. Link below. Off Amazon: a.co/d/ezqTR7V They work very well on 550 cord with the internal strands, and good enough on the gutless 550 cord that I use. Certainly well enough to tighten down antenna wires.
OK, I ended up printing quite a few of these so that I could dial in my printer for PETG. Today I got my order of the same type of wire that you used, so I was able to build one. Did the typical 49:1 unun on a stacked pair of FT37-50 cores and a 150 pF cap parallel to the low-Z side. Cut a wire to 66 ft and trimmed it up to a nice match on 40/20/15/10. Works great, thanks! My only small suggestion would be you might want to make the wire holes just a tiny big bigger, as it was a tight fit to get the 24 AWG silicone wire in there. I'll post a make on Printables and have a small commentary on it on my next Substack post.
Beautiful, thank you for the feedback. I'll widen the strain relief holes and drop a V2 on printables. How much power are you pushing through the stacked FT37s? I think I have some that I bought not realizing how small they were that never left the original packaging.
@@CoaxAndCampstools I wasn't planning on doing more than 5 watts, but I haven't even made a QSO on it yet, just swept it with the antenna analyzer. I think 5 watts should be OK, but it might need a size a bit bigger, not sure yet.
@@CoaxAndCampstools There's a couple of popular EFHW unun kit that I'm pretty sure use one FT50-43 core, and advertises as good for 5 watts CW, so a double-stacked core of the same type is probably just fine.
That was our “covid” vacation. Seems like a lot of other people had the same idea. 😆 We liked it so much in South Dakota, we moved there 2 years later. Everyone seems to need SD in cw mode. So that’s fun.
It was a lot of fun activating Idaho, Wyoming, and South Dakota. A few very beautiful states up north. I wasn't too fond of SD once it turned into the plains, but the 80 mph speed limit sure was nice.
If I understand right the capacitor is to bring the upper bands (6m) in to the ham band. Somewhere i thought I learned that capacitors tend to fail shorted so having 2 in series can offer a level of protection. I have not been able to identify that though. de ki7cia 73
Interesting. Maybe that's why I never really noticed a difference only looking at where the 10 meter dip fell. I'll have to take a look at the 6 meter dips the next time I'm playing around with it. Thanks!
My wife said “gross” out loud at that hair tie. But I swiftly corrected her and told her that Mr. 1000 isn’t to be spoken to that way. I’m so stoked I bought a 3D printer and don’t know how to use it and every time it prints it creates a blob of death so now it’s just sitting in my garage. Would love to print some stuff like that but for now I’ll keep paying people on Etsy. Nothin better than homebrew in the field. 73 om es cul MM, de KI7QCF. Dit dit
That's adorable that you and Mrs. KI7QCF watch radio RU-vid together. My wife's eyes glaze over the second I start talking about radio. In my defense, the hair tie seemed pretty new. I don't think there was even that much hair in it when I found it. dit dit.
Hmm... That will either put more bulk there causing more stress on that joint (because it hits more stuff), or it will help keep everything in place and prevent joint fatigue over time. I'm not sure, but that seems like a good idea to try. Now I just need to find a glue gun, lol.
I have some elbows, I'll throw one on and see if it makes a difference. Most times I feel like the bulkhead is pointing right at me when I'm using the antenna and the elbow wouldn't do much. One way to find out! Thanks for watching!
Oh man, I just moved out of Monterey. That would have been fun to have another local CW op. Welcome to the channel! I like the banner photo on your channel. That drive down Highway 1 on the way to Big Sur is absolutely beautiful. Everyone that came to visit would mention the 17 mile drive and I'd be like "nah, we'll do something worth driving" and past Carmel we'd go.
Wonderful video. I mostly rag chew on CW. I would be interested to see the various camping set ups. I operate remote from a skyscraper at 3AM. Would love to get a pile up. I use many of the POTA set ups on the balcony at work. Building antennas and portable operation challenging and interesting. 73 Bill KG4FXG
Once I'm all moved in to the new house I'm planning on doing a video about the various setups I used while crossing the country. Rag chewing on CW is something I haven't done. I'm a little scared to be honest, lol.
“Was that a call sign?” 😂😂😂 I thought the exact same thing! Well I’m never growing my mustache out again… Fun to check off some states on the activation side. So far I just have Utah and Ohio. You’re such a great op getting instant pileups like that maybe I can get a lesson some time. Sorry bro Cali is warm. Utah is way colder come activate this winter with me we’ll go skiing.
If only I could keep the pileups. Maybe my "east coast friends" will help me with a pileup. Happy my wife let me try to activate every state we went to. I'll forgo her calling me Mr. 1000 for a short period of time as a measure of thanks. I think I would not survive a Utah skiing trip. I'd be QRB. Quite Really Broken. My upper lip would be warm though.
Oh, just you wait...after a few 95 degree days with 100% humidity you'll be eating those words 😂 Actually those days are miserable, but I'll take 'em over the cold any day. Every time I see you use that Ashi paddle I have to resist the temptation to buy one. Listening to you talk about chasing a toddler around while driving cross country, camping and POTAing makes me really tired... Nice activation OM! Not sure how much I'll be able to hunt you now, VA is really hard for me to hit. Also, since you'll be an east coaster now, are you planning to hit Hamvention in May?
I'm going strong so far! The only thing I'm already tired of are the mosquitos. Walk outside and they swarm my ankles. They itch as I'm typing this... Rest assured, N6ARA is out of stock for both red and blue, so you can avoid it longer. Yea... Ballpark about 400-500 miles apart is a tad close for most bands. Maybe we'll get luck one day and 40 or 20 will work out. Fingers crossed. We'll see what the boss says about Hamvention. It's an ~8 hour drive from here. I drug her to Pacificon twice and HamConZion once, so she should be used to hamfests by now.
I do listen to CW streams while--yesterday I heard Kentucky do "BK" and today Forrest did "POTA". And I could hear how you did slow down for a newbie, THANKS.
To double tap my lacking mobile park lookup skills, both parks had been activated plenty with CW. I also learned how to properly sort the previous activations based on type. 😅
Welcome to the hobby! Unfortunately, yes. Much more uncommon on CW, but it used to be pretty regular for me on SSB a year+ ago. Some people get upset at how "crowded" POTA makes the bands , so they decide that interfering with activators makes them feel better about themselves. Don't sweat the interference though, it's few and far between now.
Unfortunately I have no clue what these magnets were, just the dimensions. I found them stuck to something and put them to use. Check out the Kentucky Fried Ham short for a better way to do magnets on the putikeeg. Link: ru-vid.comkklvU7c05qk
Geez good thing I didn’t mail you back your QSL card yet 😂. Enjoy northern Virginia I’ve been to Herndon a few times - beautiful area. Stoked for you to do a base station!
Lol, yeah. USPS has forwarded a handful of QSLs to the new address already, so they get to experience some amateur radio joy too. Hope the base station pans out *fingers crossed*
I'm going to have to break my old habit of scrolling right past the New England and East Coast POTA spots now that I'm so close. I didn't even bother listening from CA. Hope to work you!
Great story! I do think it will help others to get started with CW. Admitting your hits and misses lets others know they are not the only ones finding it tough to get on the air. Thanks for sharing...now subbed. 73!
I did the same thing you did. I videoed my first CW activations. I stayed off SSB and focused on CW. I continued to practice with my CW apps, but I got on the air. I got a kilo with CW at Padre Island national Seashore. I like your videos because they allow me to head copy the CW. BTW, I grew up in Santa Cruz. I miss my home.
Thank you for the kind words. The Monterey Bay is a beautiful part of the country. On very clear days I could see the tip of Santa Cruz across the bay from my house. So maybe like 5 times in the two years I was there with all the fog, lol. Thanks for watching!
Amazing journey! The CW community is like no other, and worth the effort and preservation. Enjoy the journey, I am. Your channel is a huge motivation. Its all about giving back and helping others and you do a fine job helping the Ham Community and motivating others to join in the fun. Thank you. 72 Bill KG4FXG
