SRHuston Dot Net

When I’m on the mic, the suckers run.

–The Beastie Boys, “The New Style”

Back when I first started doing DJ type work, I picked up a microphone from Radio Shack. That Realistic Highball-7 has seen a lot, and when I started using a mixing board for amateur radio work I plugged it in and gave it a slider as “Desk Mic” for sitting on the keyboard tray in front of me so I could work hands free without the headset. But since my headset was starting to show signs of wear (the right speaker is “crunchy” due to a broken wire in the crossover from left to right) and I was going to get new headphones anyway, and since not only am I using the mic for radio work but now every day for work I use it in meetings, I decided it was time to upgrade to the Right Stuff.

So I picked up the Heil PR-40 that I’ve wanted for almost as long as I’ve been a ham. A kit from B&H included the mic, an Auray boom, shock mount, and wind screen all for less than the sum of the parts. At the same time I did some research into headphones and found that of the two best ones on the market for general use – the Sony MDR-7506 or the Sennheiser HD-280 Pro – the Sony had a slightly better rating for breathability when just about every other metric measured was the same. This tells me that after a long day of wearing them, your ears will feel more comfortable with the Sony than with the Sennheiser, even though from all accounts they’re almost equivalent in likability. So they went in the shopping cart as well, and now I have a nice pair of studio cans to go with my broadcast-quality microphone. It’s even getting me to make more SSB contacts because I *know* that sounds better than the old Realistic microphone ever did!

I alluded before to a problem with my antenna tuner at home. To not tell the long story yet but get to today’s point, it’s on the way back to the manufacturer to be diagnosed and hopefully replaced. Meanwhile I took the old unun (which is a 4:1 transformer that connects the coax from the transmitter to the two points of the antenna, the radiating element above ground and the ground radials) and mounted it back on the antenna. Kept my homemade RF choke coming off the feedline, and connected the other end of it into the unun – probably overkill but so be it for now. Then managed to crimp two ring terminals onto a piece of 10ga wire I had laying around from an old UPS, and used that to connect the ground lug of the unun to the mounting bracket so it would ground things properly. Finally went to take the positive wire that mounts to the radiating element and put it on the positive lug, only to find the stud is too big for the ring terminal. Well fine, this is temporary anyway – so I literally sandwiched the ring terminal next to the stud and between two washers, then twisted the wing nut down nice and tight. Hey, it’ll work in a pinch right?

Right I was, when I hooked the tuner up in the shack and found I was able to get on the air quite easily. Even turned the power up to 100W with no problems either from the tuner freaking out or from RF coming back into the shack. Did I mention that since this is temporary I didn’t connect a ground line to the tuner either? Today I got a couple 90-degree PL-259 to SO-239 adapters so I can more easily mount the thick coax onto the tuner, and since I had to buy a four pack when I only needed three I used the third on the back of the radio too just to make that a little easier.

So things aren’t how they should be: I should replace that 10ga wire with a better crimped 12ga one (I failed to mention I didn’t have 10ga ring terminals so I spread the 12ga ones out a little), I should replace the other wire with one that has properly sized ring terminals as well, not to mention I should have my actual tuner sitting there instead of this hack, and maybe when that tuner returns I should put a better choke balun at the antenna feed point either in addition to the homemade one or to replace it. But all that aside… I have a working HF station that maybe even works a little better than it did at the previous house. I noticed during lunch today when I hooked everything up and tested quickly that the noise level on 20m was quite low between transmissions, something I don’t remember seeing here previously and may be better than the previous location as well but I can’t recall. So it’s all still not right, but it’s getting better. Just gotta remember that, it’s getting better.

I seem to have formally ended my affiliation with the DVRA today.  This has been on the wall for some time apparently – there’s some who don’t seem to think I, or others that pay dues and help when they can, are doing enough and that we need to do more.  Of course, the problem was that when I brought in a bunch of new folks who were more than interested, eager and willing to do a lot more, they were all met with apathy and indifference, occasionally opposition.  A few times lately I’d get the snarky comments.. “Missed you at the meeting” (which I refrained from replying with, “I had a nice dinner with my family, you were not missed”) and more recently a flat-out “maybe if you showed up you’d know.”  I’m sorry, but isn’t it the dream of an organization, to which membership doesn’t cost the organization anything, to have members who send in dues and do nothing else?  What if that person sends in dues, and maintains websites, email lists, Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts and more?  Apparently, it’s still not enough as some now want to mandate that people must attend other functions, or – get this – give six months notice they’ll be unable to attend, so that other suitable tasks can be set aside for them.  You have got to be fucking kidding me, I thought.  Nope, all seriousness.  Give your money, give your time (or give more money), or you’re out.  Let me think about that.. oh yeah.  Good riddance.

A copy of my “farewell” letter is below the fold, for those morbidly interested in reading it.  I really do feel bad about this, and got a bit emotional writing it.  There’s a select few who appear to be running the organization into the ground as quickly as they can, and if not for the group there’s some very fine people I never would have met.  But some folks are just hell-bent on getting things their way at all costs… I wonder how many will be left in the group when others who have no desire – or ability – to participate in mandatory events take stock of what they really get out of the club, and what downsides there are to leaving it.  I certainly couldn’t think of one.

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