Getting Owen KJ6AKQ/VK3EAR on air

September 2018: I ‘met’ Owen KJ6AKQ on Twitter, I cant recall exactly how or when, maybe 6 months ago. He was a KJ6 who had landed (with family) for work in Melbourne, with a KX3, a real ‘ham sensibility ‘, and an obvious desire to get back into the hobby. But living in an inner city townhouse was going to cramp his style somewhat. After finding how to take out a VK3 callsign he registered VK3EAR. Callsign, rig, but no antenna. I knew he was itching to get on air when he started calling CQ on Twitter.

Arduino CW keyer for a BiTx or other homebrew rig

It’s been 3 years since I got my MST400 Mk 1 40 meter SSB transceiver going and started using it for SOTA activations. For those not familiar with it, it’s like a kit version of the BiTx40 from 2013. It has a similarly spec’d monoband superhet receiver, 10MHz IF, and IRF510 5 watt power stage. The circuit on a page is here. It’s been with me for nearly all of my 65 activations (over 400 SOTA activation points) around VK3. Now, with HF propagation approaching cycle lows, it is time to do what I should have done ages ago… add CW.