New Toy from HRO

I got my order from HRO!!!

UPS Delivery Notification

My package from HRO that I mentioned on Wednesday arrived last night.

Another small hint since I'm not ready for the unveiling just yet: 14.070 MHz.

Shipping Confirmation from Ham Radio Outlet

That was the title of an e-mail I received this morning. Something fun is on its way to Brick's shack.

PSK31 (and Ham Apps for Droid)

For a while now, I've been thinking about playing around with the digital modes - specifically PSK31. Unfortunately, the Small Wonder Labs PSK31 kits have been discontinued:

"The PSK-series transceiver is discontinued effective immediately. There will be a successor- schedule is uncertain."

So that option is out for now. I came across several ham apps for the Droid phone by Wolphi LLC that included DroidPSK - PSK31 in addtion to others like a Morse code trainer, DX beacon, DX cluster, etc. I thought "Great! I can play with that." - until I saw that DroidPSK app was $5. I'm pretty cheap when it comes to nickel and dime stuff that I may not use very long.

That led me to another search that turned up K7AGE's "Introduction to PSK31 - Receiving." He makes it look really easy to start recieving - even without any special equipment. All you need is the DigiPan software, your computer, and your radio.



He also posted a video with some sample PSK31 signals, so you can test the DigiPan install without even needing a radio. As usual, hams come up with cheap ways to do ham stuff.

I still may shell out $100 bucks to get a SignaLink USB, so I can Tx. (I know, I know... I won't spend $5 on the app, but will spend $100 on the hardware. Does not compute. Does not compute.)