Here is the paddle base with the final coat of paint. As stated in the last post, I am not very good at painting things, but I think it came out very well. The red color is going to look great with the polished brass parts on it. After the brass pieces were cleaned and de-burred in the shaker (see part I Post) I wanted to polish them to a mirror finish. I tried Brasso on a cloth, but that didn’t work. I tried Brasso on a Dremel tool buffing wheel. That did nothing more than make
Continue readingAuthor: Jeff
Norcal Paddle Kit – Part I
I have had this paddle kit for about ten years, but have not done anything with it until now. I have a station set up again, and am operating again on CW. Also, I bought a MFJ keyer at a recent hamfest. For these reasons, I needed paddles. I’ve had some vacations days this week, so I started work on the paddle kit. The parts in the kit are machined very well, but are in their raw form. They have tool marks and very sharp edges. I took the parts to a friend of mine that owns
Continue readingFt. Wayne IN Hamfest 2015
Murrell (W9ISP) and his son Austin, Kevin (K9HX) and I attended the Ft. Wayne Hamfest on November 14, 2015. This is an annual event for us, and the last hamfest we attend for the year. This year was a bit larger than last, which I’m glad to see. Years ago, this hamfest encompassed two floors of the Colosseum. It was the largest hamfest in Indiana. Over the years, it began to decline. It went from two floors, to one floor, and then about four years ago, it was one half of one floor of the
Continue readingNotes from Portable Operation
Even though I’ve been a Ham for 44 years, I have not done a lot of portable QRP operations. I have built numerous home brew QRP radios and several QRP kits, but have never taken them to the field. I guess I like to build radios more operating them. My recent QRP operating from the vacation cabin was the first time I’ve set up in the field since the 70’s, when I operated with a Heathkit HW-7. I’m very familiar with all the problems that can be encountered in QRP field operations, but I didn’t realize how difficult some of
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