Notes from spending about an hour all told tonight doing radio, with the Washtenaw Amateur Radio Public Service Corps (ARPSC) net. We started with the usual net on the 145.15- N8DUY repeater.
After the net there was a simplex net to test simplex sending and receiving. This was my first time doing simplex through this new rig, an ex-railroad Kenwood TK-790 acquired and programmed via Thom W8TAM (45 watts on 2 meters).
Happily the rig was programmed with simplex channels, so I didn't have to do anything more than pick the correct one for the exercise.
Less than ideal: I could see some of the signals on the waterfall for my OpenWebRX+ SDR, but the signal was not strong enough to break squelch unless it was a station that was very close by (Matt WS8U) or that had a very good antenna position (Don AC8TO, Steve KB8AY). I need to figure out how to adjust squelch here to open up the channel and just listen when there's simplex nets.
Much less than ideal, I had a dickens of a time getting the microphone plugged in and recognized. (Maybe a stuck pogo pin?) In any case it eventually all worked well enough that that was not the issue, and I'm not detaching the mic from the rig unless and until I need to.
All in all a very good exercise, and an excuse to get an outdoor antenna for this radio.
Previously, park operations (through a repeater) with this ex-railroad Kenwood TK-790, a 45 watt 2 meter monoband rig operating bicycle portable.
