2018 is off to a decent start already, considering that I’ve already accomplished my first personal goal of gathering the “stuff” and setting up to design and build printed circuit boards (PCB’s) in-house. Quite handy for turning designs into actual prototypes and working PCB’s without having to send off the design for someone else to […]
Icom IC-V8000 Repair for KI4KUT
I just finished repairing and testing an Icom IC-V8000 mobile transceiver for fellow ham KI4KUT. The speaker had blown in the rig. This is the first time I’ve seen one of these blow a speaker, and they are pretty hard to come by. There was not one available in the United States, so I wound […]
Thanksgiving Wishes…
Here’s wishing you all a very safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving!
Latest Project — System of Linked UHF Repeaters
I recently acquired a number of repeaters from the owner of a two-way radio business that is closing shop. What I wound up with is a system of UHF repeaters which are all linked via UHF linking repeaters attached to each local/talk-around repeater. These repeaters will be used to (re)build a linked system primarily intended […]
Ultrasonic Detection System – Detailed Article by KK4ICE
I’ve received a lot of emails and messages asking for more specific details on how I built and utilize my ultrasonic RFI detection system. I put together a previously unreleased article which will provide you with exactly that, although it doesn’t include the recently built handheld, clear parabolic dish detector which I’ve built to replace […]
New Parabolic Reflector Built for Ultrasonic RFI Source Chasing
Just a few quick photos of the 22″ parabolic reflector with ultrasonic transducer I built yesterday for locating arcing RFI sources. ~ 73 from KK4ICE
Using the New MiniVNA Tiny to Test Another 6M Beam Building Project
This post is a combination of a review of the MiniVNA Tiny analyzer and the results of using it to test another set of 6 Meter, 3 Element beams I built. I recently added the new MiniVNA Tiny to my lineup of tools here in the KK4ICE shack and workshop. I must say that I […]
Sweep Test of Homebrewed 6 Meter, 3 Element beams
I used the IFR 1600 and the return loss bridge to run a sweep of the 6 Meter beams I recently built, and here are the results. On a 10 MHz wide sweep, the peak resonant frequency shows up at 51.2739 MHz. At that frequency the analyzer is seeing -83.7 dBm coming back through the […]
224.980 Repeater Duplexer Tuning Check/Adjustment
I put the IFR 1600 to work tuning duplexer cavities for the first time today. I went back through the BP/BR cavities on the 224.980 MHz KK4ICE repeater. I’m quite pleased with both the service monitor and the cavities. These screen shots show the pass and reject tuning and performance after I finished tuning the […]
IFR 1600S Added to the Bench
A new tool has been added to the KK4ICE workbench — an IFR 1600S service monitor. The spectrum analyzer and tracking generator functions included in this piece of gear will make the tuning of duplexer cavities, filters, and antennas even easier than before. Add in all the other great features and this machine will serve […]