Got my new MK-60 Whiterook mini-keyer today, which started a mini-adventure:
Open package, get out instructions, lay them aside, get out keyer. Plug in paddles, turn on keyer. Nothing. What's the deal? Look at instructions: "acquire and install two CR-2032 3-volt coin cells". D'oh! Batteries not included.
Before leaving for Wal-Mart to get batteries, note that output jack is suspiciously small, check instructions. "2.5mm mono jack". WTH??
Okay batteries at Wal-Mart, $3.25 for two. 3/32 to 1/8 adapter at Radio Shack, $2.99. 12-inch 1/8 stereo to 1/8 stereo cable (it'll work), $4.29.
Plug everything in, try it out ... It works! Now we're in business, but what's the deal with the sidetone? Can't hear a thing.
Take the key inside to play with it. I can hear the sidetone if I hold the keyer up to my ear. Sort of inconvenient, but why not. So I am practicing some character groups with the keyer against my ear, when my son walks past on his way to the kitchen, and says (he's 10 feet away, mind you) "You got something that will let you hear your code?"
"You can hear that?"
"Of course. Can't you? It's loud."
Sigh.
I actually participated in the F.I.S.T.S. Fall CW Sprint yesterday. It ran from noon (local) to five P.M. but other commitments required me to leave at 3:15. In that three hours, running either 2 (20 meters) or 4 ( 40 and 15 meters) watts, I managed 18 contacts in 14 states and Canada. This was at a relaxed pace with several breaks. My goal was to get over 1000 points on my 1st time, and I got 1350.
Not a bad experience, and the new keyer made it a lot easier.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell visited a BPL demonstration site in Manassas, Virginia just Two days before the Commission meets on a Report and Order on BPL, in violation of the FCC's ex parte rules.
Powell has been a big booster of BPL from the beginning, ignoring all evidence that it will be (and is, in those "demo" locations) a massive source of interference to users of HF spectrum. Other Commissioners have made embarrassing pro-BPL appearances and statements as well.
The whole thing stinks of corruption. Has money changed hands here? BPL is a marginal technology at best, and will undoubtedly be obselete before it can be fielded in any meaningful way. But Powell and his Commission cronies keep flogging it anyway, and have apparently made sure that evidence that contradicts their rosy view of BPL will not be heard.
Not a lot happening, as you might suspect. I have received a few more cards (posted to the right), and picked up a new toy on eBay: an MFJ-207 SWR analyzer. I was able to get it for a little over half the retail price, and it works fine. It has already shown me some interesting things about my mobile antennas, so I expect to get some beneficial use from it.