5 minutes of radio

The title, that's been about the last 2 weeks of radio for me.

I've made a couple of FT8 contacts in the past week:

KB6C in the US via 15m

K2KA in the US via 40m

JI1ALP in Japan via 10m

SP7VTQ in Poland via 40m

Of all of those, I was reasonably excited about Poland.  Not somewhere I often work. 

The only thing I can't recall is which radio I was using at the time. I have a sneaking suspicion that the IC706 with the dipole might have been the go. It has its moments over the vertical. Its efficiency may be helping in terms of how much power hits the antenna too. 

I jumped on VHF briefly on Tuesday, mostly to hear if the local net was on.. just in time for it to wrap up and bounce over to 6m. I'd never heard the 6m net before given I've never been able to get a signal from the repeater some 100km away. I was excited briefly hearing some familiar voices until I realised that I was on the TX frequency and picking up some chaps close enough to see their antennas. For anyone outside of VK, my license level doesn't allow me to use 6m anyway, so it was at best a brief moment of SWL.

I've thrown a few SSTV pics out. Fairly sure I made a couple of contacts that I neglected to log. I did see that a couple of them just scraped in up in Bundaberg QLD which isn't too shabby for middle of the day at 10w. 

In un-HAM related news:

- Kevin the Tiger Oscar who has inhabited a 6 foot aquarium inside the front door of the QTH is finally getting a proper lid after nearly 2 years. He's had 50L plastic tub covers on top since then. He's notorious for slamming into them and the lights bouncing around, so I've been too scared to put regular glass cover over him. He's a big fish. He does bite and fingers do fit in his teeth infested mouth. Trust me. I've found a place to make some 8mm thick clear acrylic covers. My money's on them not breaking and being solid and heavy enough that he may regret slamming into them. 

- I've had a Ford Territory sitting out the front for a year and a half that has gone no where. Batteries ran flat in it and it turns out that the starter has gone. I've just ordered a new starter. Some other issues have been fixed already. Hopefully if the XYL's father has time soon, we'll get that in, get it in a state it can be driven away and will price it to sell. 

- Saturday looks to have sunshine. A good day for firing the smoker up. I've got a pork shoulder fresh from the butcher, some marinated chicken stuff and some pork rashers. I suspect there'll be a lunch time snack and dinner in all of that. The only thing I haven't been able to get hold of is a marinade injector. I may have to resort to using syringes again. I loathe syringes. 

- The Nitro RC car hasn't had any love for at least a week. I put in a small order yesterday for a few new bits - mostly replacement bits for things that are NQR on the car, and a couple of additional bottles of fuel. I suspect there will be few opportunities over the next few months to get it out given the weather, so it seems prudent to ensure that I have adequate supplies on hand for those fleeting moments where the weather turns favourable long enough to burn a tank or two. 

- I've been tossing up automating water changes for Kevin's tank. Getting water in is easy enough (though not cheap). Getting water out is far more problematic. Over on the reef tank, I use a method called the "Triton" method. It is focussed on avoiding water changes, using macroalgaes to export nutrients (ie waste) from the tank and supplementing using its own products. It has saved me a fortune in salt water. Marine tanks do evaporate a lot, especially as they're generally not covered tanks. Replacement water is usually di-ionised reverse osmosis to avoid any contaminants or adding anything that may cause unbalance. Making this water is slow, and it was tedious collecting 40L of it, then having to cart it inside and empty it into the top off reservoir (from there, it's all automated). 

I solved the RO/DI issue simply by putting a pressure valve outside near the unit and running the filtered side up the wall, into the ceiling space and straight down the wall and out into the cabinet under the tank. From there, there is a rather expensive electronic float valve/solenoid set up. That keeps the top off reservoir topped off with adequate water. The RO/DI is always "on" in terms of the tap feeding it is always on. The pressure valve cuts the inlet water should there be adequate pressure on the filtered side to indicate that the solenoid has closed. This stops the filter from continuing to run pushing everything out the waste line. 

I can get water into Kevin's tank in much the same way, except by tapping the unfiltered water instead. That part isn't particularly cheap, but it's doable. What I need to be able to do is get water out at the same speed. Which isn't fast. The most common pumps for this aren't geared towards the necessary head height, and I'm aware of only one device around geared towards doing this that can balance the volume going out with what it lets in. It's an import job. And it's really not cheap. I'm not sure I'm quite that into the idea yet.