Quick lookup of Latitude and Longitude

If you don't need an exact location this website can give you a latitude and longitude from your
zip code. Which is close enough for most applications.

The output looks like this,

Mailing Name	State Code	ZIP Code	Latitude (North)	Longitude (West)
Wichita	KS	67207	37.6676	97.2266

http://www.zipinfo.com/search/zipcode.htm

Heathkit SS-9000 and PS-9000

This is probably the finest rig Heathkit ever produced I picked these up a few months ago and have been checking them out. Everything seems to work pretty well. I've been checking into the Heathkit net on Sundays and the 3900 Club Trader Net also on Sundays. I've made some comparisons with the K3 and it's really amazing how well the 9000 holds up.

The passband shift works great and used in conjuction with the RF control will allow you to get a good copy on most signals. The audio is wonderful. It has that tube sound and feel to it and by backing off the RF you can get it to where all you are hearing is the station you're wanting. The receiver is very quite and the audio just seems to pop out. An outstanding rig, it's just too bad it came too late to really help Heathkit. If you ever have a chance to pick one up, get it! You'll be surprised and you can see how the well to do ops got to live.
It was introduced in 1982 with a price tag of $2795.00 and the PS-9000 Power supply/speaker with dual 12/24 hour clocks was $295.00. That's a lot of money even by todays standard much less 1982 dollars.

If you're into Collins equipment....

If you like the Collins line of radios and equipment you might want to take a look at the Collins Radio Classics. Lots of pictures and good information. The design of the website is worth a look also some thought and effort went into it's design.
Check it out!

The Bands Seem to be Getting a Little Better

Worked 2E0CON in England and F8CHM in France in the last few days. Also Martti Laine, OH2BH at his CU2KG QTH in the Azores. He was unbelievably loud at 20 over. From looking at the DX Cluster it
seems lots of DX is being worked. So don't let the low number stop you there's still some good stuff to work out there.

73,

Things to Remember...this weekend and All Year

Antenna System for the Soviet "Woodpecker"

Back in the 70's and 80's the "Woodpecker" was a real problem for Ham operators as well as commercial radio stations. These guys put out an incredible signal all across the HF bands. Take a look at the site that is abandoned now. It looks like they had a heck of an antenna system. Click the picture to see more pics and information on the site.

73,

New Infrasonic Quartet Sound Card

I just installed the Infrasonic Quartet sound card.
This card has 4x4 channels at 24 bit/192 kHz. I'm using it with the LP-PAN Panadapter from N8LP at TelePost Inc. and the Elecraft K3. It makes a great setup and the card is very easy on system resources.
I'm using 2 channels for the panadapter and 2 chanels for the PSK-31 audio into the K3. You can't run them both at the same time...yet.

Mellish Reef VK9GMW

Well guess it's a rap. Only heard them a couple of times. Worked them on 20 and now they are having problems with the log during the time I worked them. Why am I not surprised...

Hope they find it.

73,

K5D is on a roll, -- btw, He's Listening Up...

I was just down on 75 meters listening to K5D working the US "by the numbers". It was going pretty good Then after a while I noticed there seemed to be more interference. Then came the tuner uppers and the folks sending CW but of course no call signs. How do they make that wawa sound. There used to be a wawa pedal some of the bands would use but I think this is a little different. Anyway pretty soon the noise level was 30 over. You couldn't hear a thing, of course this is all happening in my left ear because I have the main receiver on K5D's transmit frequency and I'm listening up the band to his receive frequency which is also my transmit frequency. So I have a different bunch of noise in the right side of my head. I finally had to just pull off the phones and take a break.

But there is an unbelievable number of bad operators out there today. They don't listen to the station very long before they start transmitting on his transmit frequency. If they would just listen a little they would hear him say he's listening up. And he's even saying where up he's listening. It doesn't get much better than that. And don't even get me started on the frequency cops. Those guys need to get a life, not even a good life just a life. There are some really pathetic folks with nothing better to do than be jerks. In the meantime K5D is racking up the contacts. Today the count is over 60,000 and they still have a week to go. The third group just arrived so there will be some fresh operators to take the abuse.

I was getting pretty aggravated because it seemed like they were not working much into the General portion of the band. Then today on their website they posted an announcement that they would not be working the ARRL CW contest this weekend and they would spend most of the weekend in the General portion of the bands. What a great choice! They should be applauded for this. I'm sure a lot of folks will now get a chance to work them that otherwise would have missed out. Which will probably turn into some extra support money coming in.

So fire up the rig and get on the bands you've got a good chance of "working a new one" this weekend.

Don't forget, he's working split...

Here comes K5D !!

Desecheo Island
Number 6 on the DXCC most wanted list !
February 12 - 26

                           Click the pic to go to K5D website