IC-7300 Stuck in USB-D?

Posted on September 1, 2025 by robert

Yesterday, I headed out to activate a couple of RI parks.  I hadn’t used my IC-7300 in a few months, and the last time I was running FT8 at a POTA demonstration.

I intended to run SSB, which tends to have more potential hunters, but when I set my rig up at the first park, I could only select LSB or USB-D on 20-meters.  I tried all sorts of combinations of button/screen presses with no luck.  So I changed things over to CW, and completed my two activations. (Yet another story trying to find a 1/8 to 1/4 adapter for the paddle).

Today I fired the rig up again, and discovered the “magic” button combination.

  • On the main screen, pressed the Mode button (which was showing CW) – that opened the screen below
  • Pressed the SSB button (which toggled between LSB and USB-D, leaving it on USB_D
  • Pressed the DATA button, which changed USB-D to USB

 

Posted in IC-7300 | 1 Comment

Gold Medal for CWops CWT Participation

Posted on August 24, 2025 by robert

Ever since I joined CWops in late 2021, I’ve been participating in their weekly CWT (CW Contest).  There are 4 potential ones on Wednesday and Thursday UTC (9AM, 3PM, 11PM, and 3AM local time).  I usually do 3 a week and it is rare for me to miss one unless I’m traveling or dealing with medial stuff.  I just received my third Gold Medal, which recognizes at least 120 CWTs during a year.  My first medal was Silver as I joined so late in the year it wasn’t possible to get to the 120 minimum.

My thanks go out to Rob Brownstein K6RB who has to coordinate obtaining and shipping out all the medals, and of course to everyone who makes CWops such a wonderful organization.

Posted in Awards, CWops, CWT | Leave a comment

Technicians on 10-meter FT-8

Posted on August 20, 2025 by robert

Last month I gave a presentation to my club about getting Technicians onto HF using FT8 – My reason for going that approach is that their only HF allocation is on the 10-meter band, and investing in a modern radio can be expensive.  Fairly inexpensive QRP gear, like the QMX+, is fully capable of working FT8 when the band is open.  Also, antennas, like a home-built dipole, are inexpensive, and easy to deploy.

Oddly enough, club members were most interested in the QMX+ QRP rig, and several ordered the kits from QRP-LABS.COM

Here is a copy of the presentati0n

I spent much of the rest of July running my QMX+ on 10-meter FT8

Posted in 10-Meters, FT8, QMX+, QRP | Leave a comment

Updating my QMX+ Firmware

Posted on July 22, 2025 by robert

I gave a presentation recently at my radio club (Newport County Radio Club) that was partially based on my QRM+ Transceiver; a nice kit, inexpensive, and easy to use with FT8.

My version was 1_00_27, pretty old.  The current version was 1_02_03, which has the newly supported SSB mode and took care of some other issues (See “Firmware” partially down the page here: https://qrp-labs.com/qmx.html ).

I had never updated the firmware before, and I will admit that the process is rather simple, but the manual “Section 7 Firmware Update procedures”, leaves some rather important details out.

To begin with, using the Menu button to find the “Update firmware” menu is simple enough, but it doesn’t mention anything about how to select it, or using the TUNE button to confirm it.  Once you do that, the screen goes dead and the Flash Drive appears on your computer (probably need to warn folks to have it plugged in before starting the firmware update process).

Once the drive showed up, it was as described in the manual, with an EEPROM file and in my case firmware 01_00_27.QMX.  Per the manual, I drug the new firmware 01_02_03.QMX onto the drive.  The manual said that dragging a new file would erase the old one.  That didn’t appear to happen, as I now saw three files.  But patience was rewarded – several minutes (3 or 4)  AFTER I drug the new firmware onto the drive, the computer beeped at me and said the USB Drive was no longer available, which was cryptic to say the least.

Losing the drive seemed reasonable, and I suppose it was the result of the new firmware loading.  However, there is no status indication to let you know what is going on.  I waited about ten minutes and the screen was still blank.  I unplugged and re-plugged the USB cable, and nothing was there.  I waited another ten minutes, and finally removed power from the QMX+, waited a minute, then plugged it back in.  At that point I could power the unit on as normal using the VOL knob, and it reported that it had the latest software installed.

The manual does says there are TWO ways to exit the firmware update mode.  The first is simply doing the update, and it claims that the QMX will automatically reboot in normal operating mode.  That did NOT happen in my case.  The second way is to remove power and apply it again.  That worked for me.

I have NO idea how long one has to wait after dragging new firmware onto the drive folder; Seconds, a minute, ten minutes?  But patience did pay off, as did the silent prayer when I cycled power after waiting about 20 minutes.

Posted in QMX+, QRP Labs | 2 Comments

Pre-Field Day IC-9700 Calibration

Posted on June 23, 2025 by robert

Its that time of year again, when I do pass predictions for all active satellites prior to Field Day for my club in Portsmouth RI.  In addition, it is important to confirm that my rig is properly calibrated (uplink offset is adjusted) and it is working on CW and SSB.  Every year is different, of course – 2025 has 7 operational FM birds  (AO-91, AO-123, IO-86, ISS, SO-50, SO-124, SO-125), and 5 operational Linear birds (AO-7B, AO-73, JO-97, RS-44, MO-122)

Satellite AO-73, always problematic, was calibrated on June 23.  My thanks to KB2WNY for a SSB contact (nobody returned a CW CQ despite outstanding downlink strength).

My thanks to K2DH, K4YYL, on CW, and N2FYA on SSB for contacts on June  28 confirming RS44 was calibrated.

John, N2FYA was also on for a pass of MO-122 to help me verify another satellite on SSB.

I haven’t been able to contact AO-7 at all.  My only passes will be for SO-50 and AO-73 on Saturday afternoon.

Saturday
(Sunset 20:23)
Time (EDT) Bird Max El Rise Az Set Az
15:00 AO-7 Linear 11 85 355
15:04 SO-50 FM 1 119 81
15:08 AO-73 Linear 84 165 349
16:38 SO-50 FM 40 193 40
16:45 AO-73 Linear 7 229 316
16:47 AO-7 Linear 47 137 347
18:19 SO-50 FM 25 245 25
18:40 AO-7 Linear 41 185 337
18:42 RS-44 Linear 14 124 24
19:57 JO-97 Linear 4 93 25
20:02 SO-50 FM 5 298 17
20:06 MO-122 Linear 27 24 163
20:31 RS-44 Linear 73 178 10
Sunday (Sunrise 5:14)
Time (EDT) Bird Max El Rise Az Set Az
10:14 RS-44 11 333 243
10:24 HADES-ICM/SO-125 FM 55 157 353
10:28 AO-7 Linear 6 3 293
10:31 JO-97 Linear 85 12 192
10:42 AO-91 FM 5 233 309
10:52 AO-123 FM 1 261 291
11:32 HADES-R/SO-124 FM 36 20 175
11:59 HADES-ICM/SO-125 FM 9 220 321
12:06 JO-97 Linear 7 342 355
13:05 HADES-R/SO-124 FM 14 351 236
13:35 AO-73 Linear 7 102 15

 

Posted in AO-7, AO-73, Field Day, MO-122, RS-44, Satellite | Leave a comment

Resilient Communication

Posted on June 14, 2025 by robert

For the last 4+years, I’ve been running a WinLink VHF Gateway on 145.050MHz.  WB4SON-10 is on 24/7 and has excellent coverage to the entire East-Bay of RI as well as the south coast.

WinLink is essentially an email system with global coverage.  The idea is to use RF to connect to a WinLink gateway station that has the ability to connect beyond your local area of coverage.  The gateway will forward your message via whatever path it has available.  My gateway is normally attached to a commercial internet service.  When things go sideways, the gateway remains on the air thanks to solar power and batteries.  At that point it can connect via a satellite link to span beyond a local impacted area.  If that isn’t working, it can use a HF link.

I purchased a StarLink Mini system that I can deploy in my back yard, or wherever I happen to be, as it allows “roaming” service connections.  At the time, the service could be enabled or disabled whenever necessary, for $50 a month.  I usually kept it disabled to avoid the monthly fee.  Recently StarLink started offering a different “backup” plan for $10 a month with a 10GB per month data limit (you can purchase more data for $2 a GB if needed).  Since WinLink is extremely efficient, it is almost ideal for that purpose.

My backyard is surrounded by large oak trees (perfect for deploying wire antennas on HF), but it is not ideal for a satellite based system.  Nevertheless, the StarLink Mini provided me with very respectable internet speeds, even when more than half the sky was obstructed.

The StarLink Mini Satellite dish deployed on my backyard deck – it is about 1 foot square, and runs off a plug in supply or battery power.

The blue area above is clear sky. The red areas are obstructed by trees, or my house. (the display spins around so you can see a 360 degree view).

Despite the obstructions, the StarLink Mini delivered 189 Mbps down and 8 Mbps up speed. Those speeds would be much higher if I had a clear sky view.

 

Posted in Winlink | Tagged | Leave a comment

HamClock Hits Home

Posted on May 17, 2025 by robert

A friend of mine, Scott WX1X, often messes around with ham related projects like radios from QRPlabs, or keeping is SWAN 500 on the air.  Several times on our club’s HF net, he has mentioned messing around with HamClock, something I was vaguely aware of.

Time is not my friend, as I have little to spare, and while it was tempting to take one of the several Raspberry Pi sets I have laying around doing nothing, and convert it into a HamClock, I did some digging to see if there was a turn-key solution out there.  That lead me to a company in Oregon called Inovato, which was selling a device called the QUADRA4K.  It appears to be a commercial product designed for Kiosk-like applications, with a HDMI output that can run up to 4K, built-in WiFi, and hardwired Ethernet plus a couple of USB-A ports.  But the best feature was that it was already setup to run HamClock out of the box.

There are two ways of setting up the device, one is to purchase it with a cheap keyboard/ USB dongle ($10), which is what I did, and the other is to simply plug the $49 QUADRA4K into a hardwired ethernet connection.  The second would be much faster, but it did not work when I tried it.  I had to plug in the keyboard and HDMI display.  Once I did that, I was able to see the desktop and start the setup program running.  As soon as I entered my callsign, the unit prompted me to allow it to update the firmware (to version 4.17), which I did.  At that point, the ethernet connection came to life, and I no longer needed the keyboard or HDMI display.

After entering my grid square, I was off to the races, and could see HamClock on my HDMI display,  or on any computer on my network, by going to the correct URL.

I was curious to see if there was a power consumption difference between having the HDMI display attached, or not.  Indeed there is, as the CPU runs about 10 degrees cooler without the HDMI display (121F vs 135F).  Without the HDMI display the QUADRA4K consumes about 1.7 watts of power.  Adding the display increases the power consumption to 2.0 watts.  (By the way, if you boot up the QUADRA4K without a HDMI display, plugging one in later will require a reboot to get things going again).

Posted in HamClock | Leave a comment

Have we passed the peak of Cycle 25?

Posted on May 13, 2025 by robert

The above graph from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center certainly hints that we are now on the downward slope of Cycle 25.  Things will continue to be grand until the sunspot number slips below 100, which shouldn’t happen until about 2027.  And, of course, the initial predictions for Cycle 25 were wildly off to begin with.

We shall see!

Posted in Solar Cycles | Leave a comment

POTA Antenna Shootout

Posted on April 10, 2025 by robert

A friend of mine, Jim Sammons KA1ZOU and I had an article published in the May 2025 QST (pp 58-60).  Our club, Newport County Radio Club, with about 150 members, had a fair number interested in Parks on the Air activations.  There were almost as many different antenna configurations used as there were people.  We decided to get together and have an “Antenna Shootout” to see if we could understand which antennas worked the best.

I will leave folks to read the article (linked above) for the details, but we setup multiple stations, each running 100 watts and sending identical test messages out at the same time.  The Reverse Beacon Network gathered information on the spots received, including distance and signal strength, which became the basis of determining the “winner”.  Of course that term is somewhat subjective, as one might be more concerned with the signal strength, or perhaps the ease at which the antenna is set up.

Being lazy, I was more interested in a reasonable performance but minimal effort, and my simple mag-mount Hamstick came in third place.  The best performing antenna was a full 1/4 wave whip on 20-meters (17′ feet), which is what I have been using ever since.

 

Posted in Antennas, ARRL, Portable, POTA, Projects | Tagged | 1 Comment

Why My K4D Stopped Transmitting Digital Modes

Posted on March 25, 2025 by robert

Because I use a dedicated computer for my radio gear, it is very rare for me to ever have issues.  Once something works, it tends to stay working.  Imagine my surprise yesterday, when I decided to check out FT8 and found it was no longer transmitting.

A quick check of the program setup didn’t reveal anything obvious, so I checked a couple of other digital mode programs (WinWarbler from DXLabs and WinLink on HF).  All had similar issue (working a couple of weeks ago, but no longer transmitting).

That pretty much left two possibilities, a windows update messing with the mixer settings, and the K4D itself.  I pulled up the windows mixer tool and it  was clear that wasn’t the issue – I could see the modulation on the level meter.

I’ve had a K4D for a few years now, and it has been pretty much flawless, but that was my last culprit.  Apparently one of the recent software updates (adding remote capabilities) wound up resetting the audio source and levels for digital modes.

Pressing the TX button, then LINE IN button, showed that the SOUND CARD level was set to zero.  Using WSJT-X’s TUNE button to generate some tones and put the rig into transmit, I adjusted the SOUND CARD level until the ALC level was at 5 (last segment flickering).  That required a level of 41 as you can see above.  I checked WinWarbler, and it was generating the correct ALC action for PSK31 as well.

Posted in Digital Mode, K4D | Leave a comment