Hellschreibner Digital

Last night was a first for me. Even after all these years in Amateur Radio.

Last week my Friend Mitch K9ZXO gave a presentation on the digital mode Hellschreibner at the Sangamon Valley Radio Club. I'd heard of Hellschreibner or "Hell" as it's affectionately known, but had never given it a try. Well this weekend I made sure my copy of the FLDIGI software was up to date and Sunday evening Mitch and I had a Hell QSO on 20 Meters. Woot!

Unlike other digital modes a decoded Hellschreibner signal is displayed as a picture on your screen as is shown in this Wikipedia image. This gives Hell a unique flavor that is really intriguing and takes advantage of that awesome Digital Signal Processor that sits between your ears under weak or noisy signal conditions.

73,

Tim N9PUZ

Raspberry Pi and Arduino Tech Night

On Thursday, March 5, 2015 the Sangamon Valley Radio Club is hosting a "Show and Tell" evening that will focus on uses of the Arduino and Raspberry Pi single board computers that you've seen mentioned in Amateur Radio and Maker publications. The meeting will be held at 7:00 p.m. The location is:

American Red Cross Building
1045 Outer Park Dr.
Springfield, Illinois 62704-4408

An specific agenda is not yet finalized. There will be a presentation on considerations for applying devices such as these to an application and several SVRC members will be describing and demonstrating experiments they have been working with on their own. If anyone has an Arduino or Raspberry Pi project of your own you are welcome to bring it and share your story as well.

The SVRC will be supplying some light refreshments at the event. As such, if you are not an SVRC member, we ask that you please let us know that you will be coming just so we can get a rough head count.

There is no charge to attend.

If you plan to attend, please send an email to Roger K9LJB at:
president@svrc.org so we can plan for the refreshments.

New Rig at ARS N9PUZ

After several years of great service from my Icom IC-718 I've replaced it with a shiny new Icom IC-7200. I really liked the IC-718. I had added the W4RT dual filters to mine and that made for a nice HF rig that had great performance in a compact, easy to use package. I always said the only way Icom could have improved the IC-718 was to replace the audio chain DSP with a nice IF chain DSP like they have in thier higher end rigs like the the "Pro" series. Perhaps they heard me.

The "Big Brown Truck" brought the IC-7200 yesterday. After only one evening I've decided I really like this radio. The variable DSP filtering simply blows away the mechanical filters I had in the IC-718. You can adjust the bandwidth for CW and USB modes in 50 Hz increments. The radio remembers the "wide", "medium", and "narrow" selections you make for each mode. The display is nice and crisp although a little smaller than the old radio. It is very easy to read.

I'll be writing more as I gain experience. I was able to try this radio and a Yaesu FT-450 and this one seems like the clear choice to me. If you are in the market for a $1,000 class HF rig this one bears close consideration.

The old IC-718? Fear not, I didn't put it out to pasture and it's not gathering dust. A Ham down South bought it and I've already had a note from him that it works great and he's enjoying it.

73,

Tim, N9PUZ