A nod to Halloween — the QRPer’s Zombie Shuffle

It happened Friday night.

A light breeze tickled the few leaves that clung desperately to branches.  The sun had dropped well below the horizon when zombies started to rise out of the atmospheric noise that rustled in my headset like dry leaves tumbling and sliding across pavement. On a really windy day. With a lot of leaves.

Not many zombies appeared, to be sure, but enough to make this op’s first Zombie Shuffle a memorable event. Not so much for the very distant stations contacted (there weren’t any). And not so much for the large number of contacts between yours truly, Zombie No. 849, and other putrefying brass pounders (there weren’t many).

No, it was memorable because out of the various operating events I’ve participated in over the years, this is the only one I know of where a measly nine contacts over six hours still nets a mid-ish five-digit score (all digits to the left of the decimal place).

The co-hosts, Paul (NA5N) and Jan (N0QT) Harden, started this Halloween-season gig 12 years ago. They call it the shuffle because, well, it’s what zombies do.

With a six-hour operating window, you can afford to take time to walk your zombie dog, brew a pot of coffee, and have a transcontinental telephone chat with an undead offspring, and still rack up the points.

As Paul and Jan, the Dos Horribles from Socorro, NM, explain:

There is no point to the Zombie Shuffle whatsoever except to get on the air and have fun with fellow Zombies and QRPers.  Even with only 2-3 QSOs, you can earn a fairly large score to brag to your co-workers and QRO buddies, or your ARRL Sweepstakes (SS) friends next weekend!

To be sure, atmospheric conditions — what radio geeks refer to as propagation — were ugly. Over at W2LJ’s blog, QRPing wordsmith Larry Makosk got the tenor of the evening about right: A few managed double-digit contacts, while others of us, well, I won’t go there.

After reading Larry’s post, I found that we may share a common hypothesis: When conditions inhale sharply, a.k.a suck, it helps to be in the middle of the continent. You have hams to the east and west of your station (north and south, too, but we won’t get into radiation patterns).

Your signal may not get far, but at least it’s landing on antennas at a large number of points around the compass (remember those?).

Here on the East Coast you have hams to the west and fish to the east and, for us Northeasterners, to the south as well. To my knowledge, SpongeBob Squarepants has no amateur radio license.

That said, I enjoyed my hard-won nine contacts. When they’re worth some 40,000 points, and your scores for other events hover around a couple of thousand, why not have one night of good-natured self-delusion? And the coffee  was delicious!

FT-817 stand: Old CD cases work, but how ’bout legs?

Yep, the FT-817 has legs -- and not just in the longevity sense! And that hunk of metal at the upper left? That's the chimney for the homebrew wood stove I installed in lieu of the temp-compensated crystal oscillator.

Not long ago, I came across a way to convert an old CD case into an FT-817 stand. I (as have others) copped it for my Elecraft KX-1, and it works like a charm.

Except…

As I’ve  taken to the field more and more with QRP gear in tow, particularly my Yaesu FT-817ND, the CD case/stand has started to show its fragility. It’s chipping and cracking. I could build another, and another. But at some point, the value of the time I’ve spent building two or three stands more than pays for something a bit more rugged and permanent.

Which led me to Google, and thence to Morse Express’s website. The company sells Palm Radio’s peg legs for the FT-817.

Yeah, I know. Where’s the ham homebrew spirit in a store-bought solution? Well, er, um, the legs come as a kit of sorts. Does that help? And they sure looked to be the more robust than the CD case. The cost: $20.00 plus postage. Holiday mini-gift anyone?

The installation instructions must have been written by a student of Marcel Marceau — all pictures, no words. But the instructions are clear, nonetheless.

Palm Radio's Peg Legs for the FT-817 -- just enough elevation.

I’ve found that the legs give just enough lift to provide increased visibility for the front panel and display. If you need more elevation? How about a narrow piece of wood running from one leg to the other, with a small indentation drilled in where each foot comes to rest, for stability.

If you elect to go this route to elevate your 817, a thought: Order some extra case screws from Yaesu. I learned this the hard way when I installed the 300 Hz CW filter for the radio. Fresh out of the box, several of the 817′s cover screws and those securing the brackets for the shoulder strap were over-torqued.

I used the correct phillips head screwdriver. But I still ended up stripping the crosscuts in several screw heads as I tried to extract the fasteners. Most annoying.

In one instance, I had to carefully drill into the screw head to so I could slip a star-tipped screwdriver into the hole and finally extract the balky screw.

The stainless-steel screws that come with the peg legs might seem to obviate the need for spare screws for the strap brackets, but you never know. I ordered a half dozen of each — the case screws and bracket screws — just to be sure.

If you order some, the parts number for the case screws is U31205007 and for the strap bracket it’s U20205007.

And when you want to store the 817 for travel? Just fold the legs forward!

Legs doing the high kick for easy packing.

I still keep the CD case-cum-tilt stand available for my Elecraft KX-1. But for the 817, I’ve found the peg legs a more-rugged solution to the visibility issue.  Your mileage may vary.  But I doubt it!

Crisp fall day, a QRP radio, and USMA003 is in the bag

Operating spot during my QRPxpedition to Nickerson State Park on Cape Cod

Another gorgeous fall day to be outside, and a new state park added to the list for Parks on the Air — not a bad way to spend a breezy October Saturday!

It’s fun to watch Parks on the Air grow and the list of activations grow with it.

And, heck, I’m trying to do my part. Happily confronted with a three-day weekend, I made sure to devote at least one day to activating another park.

Having only a couple of hours on a normal weekend means the activation — even with a five-contact minimum — can seem a little rushed. Devoting most of a day to the activity is a luxury.

You can dawdle over a DX pile-up, trying to get through, without feeling rushed by the inexorable tick of the clock.

But to be successful, you have to remember a few things!

Breathing new life into an old Bencher keyer paddle

 

When (a) spring has sprung, it's time to hit your favorite hardware store for a replacement

 

Wherein a couple of bucks, some screws from the ‘junk box,’ and a pair of hardwood finger pads help a not-quite-antique iambic keyer paddle shed its scruffy look and feel.

I bought the Bencher BY-1 iambic paddle in the late 1970s, at a time when the big-buck ‘artisnal’ keyer paddles weren’t even gleams in their designers’ eyes.

The Bencher served me well, until the ham gear disappeared into boxes with the arrival of babies, which began in 1983.

When I rummaged through the boxes four years ago during my return to ham radio, the Bencher was one of the few hunks of metal and plastic I kept.

But it was in sad shape. The finger pads were triangles of scratched plastic. Their mounting screws were rusty. And the spring that provides tension for the paddles was more than sprung.

A visit to Gregg Mulder’s website — he of ham-radio woodworking fame (and if he isn’t famous, he should be!) — opened my eyes to new possibilities for the old Bencher. And so…

Parks on the Air: Borderland SP now USMA002

'Hey, Mister! Can I try that?' Robert Murphy, along with his mom and their friends (off camera), stopped by the W1PNS picnic table today during a successful qualification run for Parks on the Air. Robert takes a turn at the keyer paddle -- off line, but sendin' fine.

Add one more state park in Massachusetts to the Bay State’s roster for Parks on the Air.

It’s Borderland State Park, which straddles the boundary between the towns of Easton and Sharon, MA. It was a great place to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon.

A sizable number of other people thought so to — hikers, mountain bikers, participants in a disc golf tournament, and folks running “Walk ‘n’ Wag,” a pooch-intensive fundraiser for German Shepherd Rescue of New England.

The early fall day sported clear skies, a light breeze, temps in the mid 60s F., and lots of curious folks.

Take Robert Murphy, for instance. Robert, his mom, and another  mother-son duo they were with stopped by my portable station near the end of my operating time. Robert was aching to get on the air. The only problem: I was operating Morse code-only today, and, well, Robert is just a few requirements shy of his Boy Scout Second-Class rank. Learning some form of code is among the requirements for First Class.

Note to Robert: Learn Morse code, and I’ll let you take a turn at the key!

Robert was not the only person curious about the story behind the 31-foot-tall bright orange pole that vaulted from my picnic table — the support for my random-wire vertical antenna.