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I left Thursday right after school for QRPacificon. It was an uneventful drive up there, and I checked into the hotel upon arrival. The first person I saw was Trevor Jacobs. Trevor is the guy doing the layout for one of our NorCal projects that we talked about at the convention. He proudly showed me the transceiver board that he had layed out, and it is a beauty. He had it packaged in a homebrew case, and I couldn't wait to hear it. Alas, no antenna. So, we decided to go to dinner. I had to pay off a bet to Trev. He layed out the board and it worked the very first time!!. That is amazing. More on the rig later. The next people to arrive were Dan and Vicky Tayloe from Phoenix. It is always a pleasure to see Dan and Vicky, and this year was especially nice, because Dan had 2 more prototypes of the new rig. One on 20 meters, and one on 30. Both of them on the new board. Ok, time to let it out of the bag. Dan has finished designing the Tayloe rig that we have been working on for the past 5 years. It is now on a pcboard, and we are very close to finishing this kit up. Now that we have it on a pcboard, and it works, we can get a final parts list and finalize the packaging. The new NorCal kit that was announced at QRPacificon is the NorCal 2030. It is a high performance CW transceiver with outstanding specs. We are going to package this one so that the user can build it on either 20 or 30 meters. Builders choice. We will be shipping the parts for both bands, so that you can decide when you start to build it which band you will use it on. The rig is full of parts. Over 450 of them. 400 of them are R's and C's, with all parts being surface mount, except 1, the NorCal keyer that is included. We will use 1206 sized parts, and the IC's are SOIC size, so they should not present a problem. The manual will be written so that it will be a build and test a section as you go. With the parts divided into bags for each section. All of the parts to build the power supply section will be in the power supply bag, etc. We will not be taking any orders until we have sourced all parts, and we will then price the rig and take orders when we have a definite delivery date. This way we don't have to keep your money any longer than necessary. Because of the complexity of the rig, we feel that we need to come out with a "training" kit for those who have never built and aligned a transceiver using surface mount parts. So, we have one. Song Kang, has designed a 40 meter transceiver, called the SM40, that has about 80 parts, and is a real, 40 meter transceiver. The board is about the size of the SMK-1 that we did a few years ago. When we did the SMK-1 it was not intended to be transceiver kit, but a training kit to show that hams could build with surface mount parts. This time, we decided to go with a simple, but real transceiver. Song has designed this kit with a superhet receiver that has a 4 pole crystal filter, 1.2 watts of power, a VXO that covers about 12 kilohertz of tuning range, and a NorCal keyer chip included. The rig has sidetone, and will be a board and parts only kit. You supply the connectors and case of your choice. We should be taking orders for the practice kit in 3 or 4 weeks. Friday morning, I got up, had breakfast with Dan and Vicky, and then drove over to the Oakland Airport to pick up Tommy Henderson and Jim Kortge, two of our speakers. Tommy flew in from Tulsa and arrived at 10:30. While I was waiting for him to arrive, I looked up and saw Jim Duffy standing in the lobby of the airport. He was waiting on Darrel Swenson who soon showed up. Darrell and Jim went to get their rental car and Tommy and I headed out to put his bags in my truck. We went out for lunch while waiting for Jim to arrive. Jim's flight was right on time, and we then decided to head for one of the local parts emporeums so that the guys could pick up some parts. We shopped there for a couple of hours and then headed to the hotel. Friday night is our annual NorCal No Host Banquet, with Jim Duffy again doing the honors of banquet chairman. He didn't let us down, and we had a great time at the California Burger restaurant. After dinner, we all headed back to the hotel for a show and tell session. Lots of nice rigs there to look at, but the big buzz was visiting. Everyone had a smile on their face and old and new friendships were renewed. Most of the guys picked up their QRP badges, and they were pleased to see that I had stolen a great idea from Joe Porter of Ozarkcon. I put the schedule for the weekend on the back of the badge. If you are hosting a QRP event, think about doing that. Everybody loved it. Thanks Joe for letting me steal your idea. Dean Davis and his wife from Oregon came down, and Dean did the compendiums for us this year. He did a great job for us, as he put the information from 3 of the presenters on CD. Plus, Dan Tayloe added a lot of information on Class E amplifiers and other talks that he has given. Dan even added a couple of sound files so that you could hear the new rig. Outstanding. We are the first qrp club to do proceedings on CD, and it opens up a ton of possbilities. We did 200 of them, and have some left over. If you want one, send us $2.00 along with a self addressed mailing label. We'll ship you a copy right out as long as they last. Send your order to: QRPacificon CD Paul Maciel 1749 Hudson Dr. San Jose, CA 95124 Trevor even took some video of the pickers and grinners Saturday night, and next year we'll include those files too! Lots of possiblities for a CD compendium, and we can't wait to do it again next year. A great big thanks to Dean and the presenters for all of their efforts. Bob Okas got tied up at work and did not get his presentation done in time to get on the cd, but he has posted it on his website and will be posting that address so that you can get a look at his material too! I mentioned that we had a picking and grinning session, and Friday night it ncluded, Wayne McFee, Darrel Jones, Jim Kortge and myself. We had a great time, but soon it was time for bed. Saturday, we got up and just as the qrpers were starting to arrive, the lights went out in the area, and we had no power!! They came back on after about an hour or so delay, and we started our presentations with Bob Okas the first guy at the podium. Bob gave an excellent presentation on how to develop and write code for pic and atmel chips. He made it seem easy. Bob has been involved with this for years. He brought along an "antique" computer that he had built many years ago using wirewrap technology. Lots of questions from the audience during his presentation. The next presenter was Tommy Henderson from Tulsa, Oklahoma. I have to tell you this, Tommy was the only speaker there who had a normal sounding voice. The rest of them all had accents, grin. Tommy is a very busy and talented qrper. One facet of the hobby that he enjoys is vhf and uhf contesting and building using qrp power levels. He gave a great presentation, and it was very well received. Tommy is a community college professor, and has won the ARRL Instructor of the Year award. It was easy to see why as he was a very entertaining and informative speaker. We took a lunch break, then we had our next speaker. Jim Kortge is no stranger to qrpers. Most of us have had the pleasure of hearing him talk, and Jim Kortge is one of the great presenters. He gets better every time I hear him, and I always learn when I go to one of his talks. Jim gave a super presentation on the 2N2/20 transceiver that he designed. A special treat is that all of the information to build the rig is on the CD!! Pictures, layout, schematics, parts list, it is all there. Jim is a member of the QRP Hall of Fame, and it is easy to see why. He is a great friend of mine, and I love to play music with Jim. I took a banjo and a mandolin for Jim and a guitar for me, and we had a blast. The final presenters were Dan Tayloe and Trevor Jacobs who talked about the NorCal 2030. Dan talked about the features of the rigs, and the specs that it had. This rig has much better specs than the NorCal 30 that Dan had prototyped a couple of years ago. It has been a long wait, but it will be worth it. An interesting side bar is the story behind the temperature stability testing that Trevor did on the PTO for the rig. He tried several materials for a coil form, and came up with one that is very satifactory. He built his test chamber out of a styrofoam beer cooler, grin. The highlight of Dan's presentation was the sound file that he played. He had the actual prototype rig and you could hear for yourself how good the receiver is. The quietness really jumps out at you. We had special guests arrive from England this year. Tony Fishpool and his lovely wife came and it was a delight to see both of them again. Also, Steve Farthing, Jan and I can't remember the third gentleman's name also made the trip. Hopefully Tony will see this and help me with the names. Steve is our agent in the UK, and it was a delight to see him again. Saturday night was a real qrp moment for all of us at QRPacificon. Steve and Jack Cates, Jim Cates' sons, decided that they would like for Jim's NorCal QRP friends, the ones who came to Pacificon every year, to have an opportunity to own part of Jim's collection. They selected 27 rigs from his collection, and had us auction it off for them. The stuff went very reasonable, and there were some great deals. The best part was seeing the smiles on the faces of everyone there. It meant something special to all of us to get the opportunity to own something of Jim's. In true NorCal spirit, I was the auctioneer. I am not anywhere near a professional auctioneer, but I got through it. The only person I raised their own bid on was me!! I was bidding on a MFJ 40T, and was at $25 and raised my bid to $30!! Steve and Karen Cates had made reproductions of the cover of QRPp that had Jim's picture on it, and gave a copy to every winning bidder. Plus, they had a certificate of authencity that went with each piece of gear. Kathy Long and Vicky Tayloe were our auction clerks and did a fantastic job. I would like to thank them for their help, along with Paul Maciel who was the cashier, and Steve Cates who helped with the identification of the kits. The sale went well, and I know that Jim was watching and would have been pleased to see all of his friends that were there sharing in a celebration of his life. After the auction we got together and played some more bluegrass. We had the same guys as Friday and added Bob Okas on mandolin, and Doug Wilson on harmonica or should I say harmonicas. Doug is a great musician and can play anything that you can name. He had a whole case of harmonicas, and was a delight to play music with. Doug is a very young 82 years of age and is from Grass Valley. It was a delight to meet him. Dave Yarnes also made it to sing the MTA song again. I love to back him up on that song, because he really gets into it, and does a great job. I always get surprised by seeing someone that I don't have a clue is coming, and this year it was Jim Stafford, W4QO, former ARCI President who is out in the area on vacation and stopped by. Great to see him again. I would be remiss if I didn't think Jeff, who ran over to Target to get an extension cord so that we could tap into the emergency power when the lights went out. Of course, just as he returned, the power came back on!! Thanks for your help Jeff. Finally, I would like to say that it was strange to go to Pacificon without Jim Cates. I miss him terribly, as everyone does, but somehow, he was with us this weekend. I enjoyed the weekend, and every time I thought of Jim, and it was many, many times, I felt that he was smiliing and happy that we were all there, and that he was just a little bit embarrassed that we were talking about him so much, but he was pleased to be remembered too. I had a wonderful time with all of my friends, and they are what makes QRPacificon, and all of the QRP events so special. Thanks to all who came and made it what is, which is a great time!! See you next year. And let's see, the next one on the list is? Atlanticon in March. Make plans to attend, you'll have a great time. Finally, Paul Maciel and I want to thank everyone who helped us do Pacificon. The presenters, the audience, Vicky and Kathy, the guys who worked the booth, James Bennett and Vern Wright who donated antennas to the event and anyone else who we have not mentioned. Thanks for a great time 72, Doug. |
