This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
by Tower Electronics. For connectors, cables,
and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit pl -259
.com. And by ICOM, heard it, worked it, logged
it. Visit www .icomamerica .com slash amateur
for more information about ICOM radios. Here
we go, welcome to Amtok Live Call in, let's talk,
Neil's your guy Hey everyone, it's time for ham
talk live. It's episode number 306 new tools
and new kits recorded on Thursday October 6 2022
live actually I'm your host Neil rap WB 9 VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of ham talk
live tonight. We're joined by Joe Eisenberg K
zero in e be And last time here on the show Bill
Stearns. Ne4RD was here to talk about jamboree
on the air and jamboree on the internet So if
you missed that show you can listen anytime at
hamptalklive .com or on your favorite podcast
app or on YouTube and you can catch the rebroadcast
of this very program on WTWW that's 5 0 8 5 a
.m. Saturday afternoons at about 3 30 p .m. Eastern
time so We have some some news just in and some
things to talk about with Joe so we'll be back
to talk about those right after this word from
Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk Live.
His two cents is worth $37 in change. He once
ran a marathon because it was on his way to Dayton.
He works FT8 by ear. He once worked North Korea
on every band in one minute using only a microwatt.
He slowed down his code speed to work a de -expedition
to 200 words a minute. He is, indeed, the most
interesting ham in the world. I don't always
put on my own PL -259s, but when I do, I prefer
them from Tower Electronics. Stay resident, my
friends. Tower Electronics has all the adapters,
cables, connectors, and yes, PL -259s you need
at a ham fest near you. or visit PL -259 .com.
And the Tower Electronics AmFest schedule will
be at Crestview, Florida October 15th, then Chickasaw,
Alabama October 22nd. That's in North Mobile,
Alabama, then Lawrenceville, Georgia, better
known as Stone Mountain November 5th and 6th.
and Montgomery, Alabama, November 11th and 12th,
but you can visit them anytime at PL -259 .com.
HamTalk Live. The longer you listen, the later
it gets. And welcome back to HamTalk Live. Tonight,
Joe Eisenberg, KZeroNEB, joins us on the Orlando
Amateur Radio Club and hamcation Zoom line. Joe
is from Lincoln, Nebraska, and is the kit building
editor at CQ Magazine. And we'll talk about some
of the hamfests and conventions and club meetings
he's going to here soon to do some kit building
activities. He's also known for his picture shows
at Hamvention and his Dr. Seuss hat at Dayton.
So Joe, welcome back to the show. Well, good
evening and great to talk to you again, Neil.
And there's been a lot of talk. Somebody's been
asking me, well, why don't you bring your hat
to this ham fest or that ham fest? And it might
take some thinking since the tradition is over
20 -some years old and maybe it's time that it
should appear at other places besides Dayton.
Start branching out a little bit, huh? So we'll
see about that. It does make it easy to find
you, I will say that. Yes it does. It does help.
Especially in the crowd, you know, and Orlando
I wear my Mickey Mouse ears. I don't have anything
special for Huntsville other than my red ball
cap, so I don't know. We'll figure out something.
Maybe the hat's going to become the symbol of
all the hamfests I go to. We'll see. It does
make it easy to find you. That's for sure. Well,
before we start, we do have some breaking news.
So the Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting
is now open noon to five on Saturdays and Sundays.
So you get an extra hour, although they usually
opened up before noon to start with anyway. But
now it's official. They're open noon to five
on Saturdays and Sundays. So if that's more convenient
for you to come visit, they are They are open
and they also are in the middle of a five -part
series with the Voice of America office in Washington
DC. The next one is Thursday, October 20th from
7 to 9 p .m. There's another one on November
17th, December 15th and January 19th. And it's
the VOA Director Yolanda Lopez and the VOA East
Europe Chief I'm going to try to pronounce this.
Myroslava Gondazi, I think. But these are distinguished
journalists that report accurate news and stories
from countries lacking a free press. And so they're
talking about Some Ukrainian stuff actually.
Lopez describes the challenge of managing an
international news organization in multiple war
zones. And Gungazi shares highlights from her
recent trip to Ukraine. She's an award -winning
correspondent, awarded the Order of Princess
Olga Third Class, which is a Ukrainian civil
decoration. bestowed on women of outstanding
personal merit. So check that out voamuseum .org
and you can check out this five -part series.
So Joe, if you have some time on an airplane
going to some of these hamfests, maybe you can
catch one of those. That sounds good. I'll have
to download it into my little iPod and take it
with me. It's really good to be back on the show
and actually be back in circulation. I did catch
COVID at my high school reunion about three or
four weeks ago and been testing negative now
and so I'm back out into the real world again
and fortunately it was pretty mild. And we're
moving forward again. So, of course, while we're
stuck home, we do things like order new tools.
Order new stuff, yes. That's right. It does not
stop the Amazon truck from coming to the house.
Oh, yeah. And so let's talk about something.
We've had more and more kits that have one or
two surface mount parts in them. sometimes a
little more and this is a little soldering station
it's digital temperature controlled but it has
dual controls because it has both a temperature
controlled soldering iron that has cool off and
everything and full temperature precision but
it also has a heat gun they call it a rework
tool and what that's used for is to heat up little
spots on circuit boards that have surface mount
parts and so a rework obviously would be to remove
one but also it can be used with solder paste
and putting parts on a circuit board as well
and so with a kit that I should mention here
real quick, and that is the four -state QRP surface
mount dummy load kit. And what it is, is it's
a circuit board, very, very simple, but it's
got surface mount parts. Now these aren't tiny
surface mount parts. These are bigger than a
lot of the resistors you're used to working with.
And it's because they have to be powerful enough
to act as a dummy load when hooked up the way
they are. And so it has four LEDs on it. And
so it will read your power at 0 .5 watts, 1 watt,
2 watts, and 5 watts. So you can use that to
tweak up a QRP kit and measure it. And of course,
all powered by the RF. So no power supply is
needed. And it's a nifty little kit. And there
are the STL files linked on the four -state QRP
site as to where you can download the STL files
to print the case for this kit if you want to
put it in the case. Now, we would be remiss if
I didn't give the model number of this soldering
station that's also got the heat tool. And it's
an LRT8868. Once again, LRT8868. eight eight
six eight and it says like thirty nine ninety
nine so i just say forty bucks for the thing
it's not that big or heavy or anything it's i
pretty sure it's got a switching supply in there
and it is grounded for esd and the heat gun puts
out plenty of heat so that you can melt solder
paste and put parts on a surface mount board
that way. And the solder paste method is something
that maybe sometime I'll go into more detail
on another show. But it's a very, very effective
way of mounting surface mount components at home,
and it looks absolutely perfect. It looks just
like it was done professionally. Yeah, you showed
it to me here. We're on skype and we have our
video going here tonight so I can see that but
It looks like you know your your usual nice digital
Soldering station and then a little wand on top
that sticks out And that's your your heat gun.
So and it comes with like different tips with
it, right? Yep Yeah, it's got three different
size nozzles, so I can concentrate the heat on
smaller areas if I want, so I don't melt other
parts that are already on the board. And the
heat tool, as well as the soldering iron, when
you hang them up, they cool down. So it's, you
know, when you're talking about a solder station
that has both tools, and it's 40 bucks, you can't
beat it. And it seems to be pretty reliable.
And the soldering iron comes with like four or
five extra tips, different sizes and shapes and
there's solder wick also and it's a total rework
kit and very, very good for a beginning kit builder
because it has both the tool for surface mount
as well as a good sharp soldering iron. So. And
that's found on that's an Amazon find, right?
Yeah, that's on Amazon. and the kit that I use
this with, the 4State QRP surface mount dummy
load is at 4sqrp .com and I think it's like $35
for the kit. I'd have to look it up though. Might
be less. But it's a very good kit and like I
said, if you have access to a 3D printer, you
can make the case for the dummy load although
you don't really need it. as long as you're not
putting it down on something metal. Okay, well
sounds like a great tool and a great kit. So
we've got a couple of things and we're going
to take a break and when we come back we're going
to talk about a bunch more kits and some of Joe's
travels coming up. We'll take a look at all of
that when we come back right after this word
from ICOM America, right here on HamTalk Live.
Keep your competitive contesting edge with ICOM,
our high -powered base stations cut -through
pileups letting you work the bands and record
those contacts. Contest from the comfort of your
own home or remotely with the RSBA1 app. Heard
it, worked it, logged it. The IC7851 gives you
a new window into the RF world and is HF excellence
unparalleled. With faster processors, high input
gain, high display resolution, and a cleaner
signal, it is truly the pinnacle of HF perfection.
It has dual receivers, digital IF filters, memory
keyer, digital voice recorder, spectrum waterfall
display, and an SD card slot. The IC7610 is the
SDR every ham wants. This high -performance SDR
can pick out faint signals in the presence of
stronger adjacent signals. The IC7610 by ICOM
is a direct sampling software -defined radio
that has changed the world's definition of an
SDR transceiver. It has 110 dB RMDR, dual digit
cell, dual receiver, and RF direct sampling.
Create your own band opening with the IC9700.
This transceiver radio brings direct sampling
to the UHF -VHF week signal world. It's loaded
with innovative features that are sure to keep
you busy. Faster processors, higher input gain,
higher display resolution, and a cleaner signal.
With a 4 .3 inch color touch screen, real time
spectroscope and waterfall display, dual watch
operation, full duplex in satellite mode, and
smooth satellite operation with 99 satellite
channels. The IC7300 is a high -performance innovative
HF transceiver with a compact design that will
far exceed your expectations. The innovative
transceiver digitizes RF before various receiver
stages, reducing inherent noise in different
IF stages. The IC7300 changed the way entry -level
HF is designed. It has 15 discrete bandpass filters,
the large color touchscreen, spectrum scope,
SD car slot, and RF direct sampling. Real HF
fun starts here. Visit IcomAmerica .com slash
amateur for more information on Icom radios.
You're listening to Ham Talk Live, the most popular
podcast with the words ham, talk, and live in
the title. Here's your host, Neil Rapp. And welcome
back to HamTalk Live. Be sure you check us out
on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and we'll
be back here with Joe Eisenberg, KZeroNEB, to
talk about some more kits here in just a moment.
But first, it's time for the N9GSU Joke of the
Week. Now it's time for the HamTalk Live Ham
Radio Joke of the Week, the part of the show
where Rick tells us a ham radio joke. The HamTalk
Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week is brought to
you by QRM Labs. Now, here's Rick Garrett in
9GSU with today's HamTalk Live Joke of the Week.
I decided to take my friend who had never been
out of the big city camping for an overnight
parks on the air activation. Well the mosquitoes
were the worst I have ever seen them. We kept
lathering on bug repellent and still they came.
Finally we saw lightning bugs my buddy says I
give up. Now they've got flashlights. This has
been the ham talk live ham radio joke of the
week with Rick Garrett in nine GSU Tune in again
next week for another joke from Rick Those mosquitoes
and those flashlights Were those kit with the
flashlight kits you gave them Joe or no, but
you know what there is a real good one out there
I'll have to talk about some time All right.
Well, Rick, thanks for the joke. We'll, uh, we'll
have another one next time here and, uh, we'll
get to talking to Joe Eisenberg, KZeroNEB, the
kit building editor at CQ Magazine. And, uh,
we'll talk about some new kits here, but, uh,
Joe, you're, you're making a trip someplace you've
never been before. Yeah, that's right. Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I am leaving for. Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Now you say, well, this is the next state over.
Well, from here, it's six and a half hours at
75 miles an hour speed limit. So it is definitely
west of Nebraska, not very far, but six and a
half hours west. And like I said, I've never
been there before, so that's going to be a new
one. It is the Rocky Mountain Division ARL Convention.
And I'll be giving my kit building seminar there.
And then I might be visiting Sedalia the weekend
after, not sure yet. And then in November, I'm
going to be in Enid, Oklahoma. And I'm going
to be doing a live kit build there. And we'll
have room for, I think, up to 20 kit builders.
and we'll be building the FM radio kit, same
one that we just recently did at the combined
Hudson Division and New England Division Convention
in the Boston area I did a little over a month
ago. And that was a lot of fun. And we had 28
builders walk out with working radios. And it
had a surface mount part. So we got to demonstrate
solder paste. And so that's a fun one that I
like to do as a group kit build. But first off,
let's talk about real - And then you're off to
Georgia, right? Yeah, yeah, that's right. A week
after that, I'm flying down to the Hotlanta area.
I will be in Alpharetta and I will be at Ham
Jam, which is a week after the one in Stone Mountain.
It's more of an educational one and I will be
giving my kit building seminar there and showing
off a few different kits. So it'll be fun to
get down to Georgia. Hopefully be a little warmer
than it is here because tomorrow they're talking
about thirties in the morning. So it's going
to be chilly. It's hitting here too as well.
But yeah, ham jams one it's been on my list.
So I'm one of these days I'll have to have to
get down there for that one because they do a
lot of cool stuff with youth and education and
I do a little bit of that stuff every once in
a while. So I need to go, need to go check it
out. Well, you've got some more new kits to tell
us about. So, you know, now's the time, the temperature's
dropping. So that means you spend more time indoors
and build some more kits, right? Yep. And, and
also reading CQ magazine, which is coming out
the last seven months, I think, uh, seven or
eight months. It's been coming out right at the
beginning of the month. So, Make sure you update
or subscribe to CQ Magazine, both digital and
in print. What we're looking at here is a, they
call it the KX Mini Paddle. And what it is, is
it's put out by qrpbuilder .com. Now if you haven't
heard that name, it is a new one. but it's done
by one of the guys that's worked previously with
qrpguys .com and it's strictly made out of pc
board material that's all soldered together and
it has a paddle and they have it iambic and they
have it dual you know and they have single lever
paddle and What it does is it bolts to the front
of an Ellicraft KX2 or KX3. But if you don't
have one of those radios or even if you do and
you want to use this pedal on another rig, you
can get this adapter for I think it's like $10
or $15 extra and you can either solder a cable
or plug the cable into the back to that and it
mounts onto there. And the whole thing shouldn't
take you more than an hour to put together. It
is a little tedious at times getting it exactly
straight and so forth but it pays off in the
end because it's very very strong and it's a
great little paddle and like I said I can bolt
it into the front of my KX -2 and I have an instant
paddle or I can plug it into this base and plug
it into any QRP radio I have. But it's a simple
iambic pedal. There is no electronics or key
or anything. It's designed for the rigs that
already have the keyer in it. And the whole thing
is not very expensive. I think it's like $25
if you get the full options on it. Another kit.
Let me see here. And let you take a little peek
at that. What this is, is it's a power supply.
and it is a dual bench top type power supply.
Now what we mean by that is it has two basic
power supplies in one box and they are separate.
They run off the same transformer but each one
has separate electronics and they are adjustable
from about 5 volts up to about 16 volts. They
put out about an amp and a half on each side.
And so that way, if you're powering a lot of
kits, don't run more than an amp or so from the
power supply. And you can power two different
things that run on two different voltages with
this very stable, highly regulated and filtered
power supply. And so I've already used it testing
some kits and so forth. And it's really useful.
It has two separate digital voltage displays.
and two separate switches to turn on and off
each side of it and a master power switch. And
it's got the power cord and the case and everything.
I think it's gonna sell in the range of $70 or
$75. And it's gonna be available by the Joplin
Amateur Radio Club. And they just had their ham
fest last weekend in Joplin, Missouri. And I
did not get to go, but they tell me that anytime
now this fall or winter, they will be putting
this kit out and making it available for purchase.
And it's a good deal for a benchtop power supply
with digital displays. Something very, very,
very useful for the shack. My one trip to Joplin,
Missouri, I remember. Was a 10 -way stop ah I
think we're going down the street and all of
a sudden we get to a 10 -way stop That was the
craziest intersection. I think I've ever seen
Yeah, I don't know where in town that is, but
I think I've seen it But the Joplin Club also
still puts out the antenna launcher, which is
made out of PVC materials And you got to buy
your own fishing rod Line and so forth and It
launches a projectile that pulls the fishing
line like through the tree or whatever and and
you can Put up antennas with that and they still
make those and I remember reviewing it and they
were just surprised how many orders they got
and it does work. I still have it in my garage.
Kind of a non -kit project I'm working on right
now. This is a control pad and what this is for
is to access the eight memories for voice or
CW or RTTY or PSK in the 7610, the ICOM 7610.
And the button is the mute button that mutes
everything. And I designed and 3D printed the
holder that holds all the buttons. And I'm working
on the base of that now. And I'm starting to
wire the buttons. And that will allow me to just
tap a button trigger off a automated sequence
either like I said on RTTY or CW or sideband
like for sweepstakes so it'll call CQ for you
instead of touching the screen all day or something
on the radio you can just tap the button on the
keypad and so that is one of my latest projects
and let's see what else and this piece happens
to hold up a circuit board in the kit that we're
going to talk about that is probably the most
one of the most advanced kits out there. And
it's called the T41. And the T41 is a all mode
SDR transceiver. And I'm pretty sure it's most
of the HF bands. And it uses a five inch touch
screen to control it as well as a whole row of
buttons and I mean it's got a lot of buttons
on it that's a whole circuit board full of buttons
and the case is made partly 3d printed and partly
PC board and this kit is surface mount pre -mounted
and the rest of the parts that you will mount.
And there's a lot of kits that do that, like
the QDX and several others from QRP Labs, that
have the surface mount parts already done for
you. And then you're just expected to do the
through -hole parts. And the T41 is like that,
but there are several boards. I think there are
seven or eight different boards in the kit. I
could be wrong there. I've been getting boxes
in the mail the last two weeks, and I'm anxious
to get started putting it together. And I'm doing
a beta build right now, and once we've cleared
it through the beta process and we can start
getting parts, the four -state QRP group is going
to start distributing the T41. So if you look
up T -41SDR online, you're going to find out
that there's even a book about this thing. It
looks kind of complicated when you look inside.
It's going to have several ribbon cables, some
SMA type Teflon coax jumpers in there, and things
like that. That means that each board can be
separated out and upgraded as things go on. They
might come out with a new improved RF deck or
a new touch screen thing or board or whatever.
And there's at least a couple of megs or more
of spare memory on the CPU that you can even
take the open source firmware and you might be
able to write routines to add more features to
it. And so this is really an incredible software
-defined radio, a experimenter's SDR more than
anything. And so it's not going to be tiny and
compact like your true SDX or things like that.
It's going to be more a larger thing that you
can work with and Do updates to and things like
that. So something like your true SDX or something
which is real small No, it's not going to be
that way, but it's going to put out a lot more
power I think it's going to be about 10 to 20
watts and It's going to have a pretty full featured
screen like you'd expect on an SDR. And so the
T41, like I said, look up the T -41 SDR transceiver
online and you'll see a lot of stuff written
about this. It was designed by a couple of guys
who have shared it with the QRP community and
the four state QRP group is working diligently
to get that. put together in kit form so that
all you need to do is put together the through
hole parts and you won't have to worry about
the surface mount. But you're going to have a
lot of jumper cables to deal with. But that's
part of the kit and makes it modular so that
we can update a piece at a time. Yeah, that's
always cool because, you know, if you come out
with a new one, then you got to start all over
again. So that's That's a good way to go with
all the modular stuff. So very good. Well, Joe
got anything else for us here tonight? Well,
I enjoy seeing people at group kit builds and
I'm already booking my calendar up for next year
and we'll come out and we can do group kit builds
or seminars and It doesn't have to be a ham fest
necessarily. We can arrange for club meetings
and because I'm mostly retired I can even do
them during the week even if I have to fly somewhere
as I can go in the middle of the week as well.
So the calendar is filling up and let's see if
we can get some more clubs involved in kit building
and get you started. putting some solder to circuit
board and making your own radios. Yep, that's
some cool stuff and there's a lot of kits out
there from the very beginner to this big SDR
that you're talking about. I know that I was
looking at one down at Huntsville that had some
humongous solder traces on there for the kids
to kind of get started. Doing some soldering
and I'm going to be taking a look at some of
those from mad labs. I think it was And just
you know getting some some soldering experience
for them. So all kinds of stuff and Joe knows
all of them so Thanks Joe for being here and
filling us in filling us in on the new ones so
and have a good trip to Cheyenne and If you if
you run into into AJ or RJ sorry, not AJ RJ Tell
him I said hello and Enjoy your trip. I Sure
will and thank you very much for your wonderful
program All right. Well, that is a wrap for this
edition of ham talk live. Thanks to my guest
Joe Eisenberg K0neb and everybody out there in
cyberspace for listening and invite you back
next time For a list of all of our upcoming guests,
go to HamTalkLive .com. So for now, this is Neil
Rapp, WB9 VPG, saying 7 -3, 7 -5, and may the
good DX be yours. It's hard to believe that you're
into OD, cause you sound just like a local up
here.