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Project TouCans: Slims Down to a Single Power Supply

 Up until yesterday, Project TouCans required two battery packs, one in the rig itself to power the Rockmite and Tuna Topper amplifier and a much smaller external one to power the Pico-W that controls the rig's keyer and straight key. I tried bringing a USB A cable directly from the Imuto power bank in the rig out to the Pico-W, but the RFI was too much for the Pico-W causing it to reboot, or just turn off. That led to the two or three AA battery battery pack, which frankly was a bit to much extra weight, and a bit unwieldy. Thant's all fixed now! I added as second Adafruit USB-C power adapter to the rig and that provided enough filtering that the Pico-W is happy as long as I make sure the rig doesn't transmit at all until the antenna is completely unfurled, which is a pretty reasonable expectation. When/if the rig does transmit with the antenna bundled up, the Pico-W reboots, then it presses the straight key which upsets the rig, causing the rig to reboot, except on re
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Things I Learned: The Pico-W Receives More Reliably With Its Legs Pointed Up

 I don't use the nascent straight key mode of the Project TouCans 20 meter ham radio as much as I could because the onboard Pico-W that serves as the control center and keyer of the rig, historically, has had unreliable Wi-Fi performance. (Alas, I partially blame the Windows laptop that sends the straight key signals as well.) Sadly, this can result in the key being stuck down which requires me to lower the radio and reset the keyer. While I've marveled at the fact that a laptop could be 20 feet from the Pico-W and have just adequate communications, and a signal level that showed as medium to weak. That's all, apparently, been fixed with a simple flip of the Pico-W. Literally. The Pico-W had power supply connection issues when mounted in a plug board directly on the rig like so: It's not too, too hard to see why. The battery leads are smallish, and were by no means a compression fit into the plugboard. I fussed fussed with this configuration, but to no avail. Also?

To Use /QRP or not to use /QRP on Low Power Ham Radio Calls

 I mentioned the CWops scholarship yesterday beacuse I was looking at their site for an entirely different reason. The (seemingly?) old saw of whether or not to call /QRP as in KD0FNR/QRP had come up again in a ham radio forum. This time, the converstation on GQRP revolved around whether or not the /QRP designator should be removed from RBN calls. Someone remarked that /QRP might already be filtered on the RBN. I tired this morning wiwth Project TouCans. /QRP is still very much a thing on the RBN. I'm trying to understand what all the fuss is about. So, if you have clarifying remarks, or even an opinion, please comment!  Here's what I've got so far: The people that feel you shouldn't do it feel very strongly that you shouldn't do that. Also, the people that feel very strongly about it seem to only mention it in regards to DX pileups.My fifteen minutes of internet ham radio research led to a SOTA forum post where some (one?) ops revealed they would never respond

Thing I Learned: CW Scholarship

There's a scholarship available for CW ops! When I wrote the Sprat article on our keyer, I thought I was kidding, but I guess the keyer actually is for kids... er students... ummm not that students can't be older than kid age... Anyway. :) The CWOps club offers a $1000 scholarship annually for students who operate CW on the ham bands . Here's what a student needs to do to prove they operate CW "CW Ability: Demonstrated CW operating ability within the last 24 months by providing a copy of a certificate,listing in a magazine showing results or a letter from a person responsible for membership. Examples include but are not limited to the following : i.  ARRL Code Proficiency certificate at 15 wpm or higher; ii. Successful completion of CWA Basic Level or higher; iii. Membership in CWops or HSC or other club where some level of CW proficiency is a requirement for membership; iv. Participation in a CW contest where the results have been published (participation in a multi-o

Week Notes: TouCans Noise Improved, 3 QRP Ham Radio POTA Activations, an NAQCC Sprint, and Camping and Programming

 Project TouCans was featured in the qrper.com field kits column!!! I forgot to mention this when it came out a few months ago, but it's there !The noise issues for TouCans are much improved, and getting better. I'm still learning what should go where, but my learning curve seems to be accelerating a little bit at least. The most recent improvement—as of this afternoon—is that it helps to tape the transceiver to the back of the rain shield. Wireless TouCans enabled me to do something I've never done before. I activate, not one, not two, but three parks in New Mexico last weekend! I activated  US-4551 Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, US-4516 Lincoln National Forest, and finally,  US-7877 Valley of Fires National Recreation Area. (Notice the new US designators in place of the Ks.) From the Organs, my first QSO was with Spain ! Given that I haven't published a 'week notes' in about a month, I should also add that I have a very rudimentary straight

Noise and Reboot Improvements

 Just a quick note. I mentioned yesterday that the rig has been rebooting when the keyer is run to quickly. This appears to be related to a design choice I didn't mention. I'd moved the headphone plug's ground wire directly onto the USB-C power adapter ground port. Moving the wire back to a ground connection at the keyer relay has solved the reboot issue, at least for the morning. At the same time, I also routed the ground wire across the bottom of the battery pack, keeping it even further away from the USB-C power adapter. Speaking of mornings

NAQCC Sprint Results, A Closer Look at the Rig

 Only one QSO for the sprint. Still, TouCans did well with respect to noise and was spotted in Northern Europe! Also, I had a great QSO with an op new to CW, and that's one of the points of NAQCC, so I'm calling this a win. As the sprint was winding down, I made a video of the rig suspended above the back yard. You can see the arrangement of the Bluetooth transmitter I've been talking so much about lately . You can also see the edge of the Pico-W board that's handling the keying functionality for the rig. The rig made its first QSO of  the evening out to Utica, NY followed by two more QSOs into Colorado. The QSOs to Europe happened right at gray line