Dayton Picture…
May 31st, 2010Just found a picture of me working the Icom booth at Dayton. I’m pretty sure this is from Friday morning/early afternoon.
Just found a picture of me working the Icom booth at Dayton. I’m pretty sure this is from Friday morning/early afternoon.
Just pushed the button for our plane tickets for Montreal. Staying a week at the end of August. Need plan for iPhone access now….
So one of the things I got at Dayton was a little flexible solar panel, battery charger and USB port for Rosie. Today is the first time she actually used it in the “wild”. I just had to post the picture of her backpack, it is quite cool. She was able to recharge her iPhone from the batteries, which were charged on the way up to top of the ridge.
In other news, the Field Day site has been checked out. We’ll be returning to Tronsen Ridge this year unless the weather is crap and then we’ll stick closer to home.
Home from family trip to PCC for dinner and stop by REI to spend the rest of my dividend on camping supplies. Now bedtime for Little Man…
Horrible wet and rainy day in Seattle, plus a sick kid and nearly zero motivation to-do anything. Maybe pizza will fix things. :-)
So since I got back from Dayton, I’ve been trying to finish the radio install in the truck. As of this week, I’ve gotten far enough to actually start beaconing on the 9600 ARPS system again with the D700. I got the main body of the radio installed before leaving for Ohio, but still needed to run the cables for the microphone and radio head. (I also pulled a stereo speaker cable) I got the cables pulled the weekend after I got back and then just needed to figure out where to put the control head.
I actually hate this part, since there is rarely a perfect spot. I lucked out with the Pathfinder and mounting it on the window was obvious and easy. I finally decided where I was going to put it and went hunting for something sticky to attach it. This is when I realized I was out of both the double sided tape I’ve used and the velcro stuff. So the whole thing had to wait a couple days until I could get to the craft store. I ultimately ended up using this weird putty stuff. You warm it up by rolling it around in your hand then use it to attach what you want. After a while it ‘sets up’ and hold stuff pretty well. In the process of doing this, I changed my mind again and ended up mounting the control head on the center console in front of the shifter. So far I’m happy with the location, except you really have to take your eyes of the road to see it.
Once the control head was installed, I had to attach the GPS puck. This was the ultra simple install actually. I simply put the little box I built to get the right power to the GPS and used a little double sided tape to attach it in the window and presto, GPS data. I’m quite happy with how it all turned out. When I get the ID-880 mounted and working, I’ll spend a little time wrapping the cables in fancy wire wrap stuff, but for now it looks pretty good.
NOTE: That is my temporary antenna until I run the coax for the real one through the back door. I suspect it might be limiting my abilities to be heard, but oddly enough I am getting into the 9600 ARPS system on 70cm in Seattle just fine. I’m only putting out 1 watt, but my report is getting into the system nearly 100% of the time. Amazing actually. When I’m done, I’ll grab some better pictures. These were just grabbed with my iPhone and in poor light the pictures suck.
NOTE: The white wire that is dangling is for the speaker. I haven’t figured out where to mount the external Kenwood speaker yet, so for now I’m just using the built in speaker. It honestly does a pretty good job from the back of the truck.
I’ve finally caught back up from my trip to Dayton this year, I was gone nearly a week since I flew out on Wednesday to help with setup before the show. It was fun helping with the booth setup. It is crazy wondering around Hara hall on Thursday, since half of the stuff is still in boxes or otherwise empty. It is amazing how much happens between noon on Thursday and 9am on Friday.
General comments about Dayton.
So now on to the important things, what goodies did I buy? It is funny, I generally don’t end up buying a much when I go to Dayton. Generally I come home with most of my mad crazy spending money, but this year was different. I pretty much spent all of my mad money.
So one of the gotchas with going to Dayton on Icom’s dime is that your stuck following their schedule. Typically come about Saturday evening, I’m tired of people and doing stuff and just want to have a nice quiet dinner. This year the hotel was within walking distance of a bunch of food options and I declared myself off duty when we wrapped things up Saturday. I mentioned I was going to skip the parties and just get something to eat close. So Scott and Dan both were in pretty much same boat, so the three of us walked to some horrible Texas steak place.
We had a good time talking about a bunch of different things. Dan is a hoot to be around, the two of us spent the entire evening poking fun at each other. Scott later said he was having trouble keeping track of when we were serious and when we kidding. (For the record, so did I. :-)
Drove 3hrs south and didn’t make it past Tacoma. Turned around and was home in 45 mins. Don’t ever try to go somewhere on a holiday weekend
First time I’ve had a break all week. Walked to fedx office and now getting order of Herfy fries. Yum
Breakfast with Isaac and then swimming, after naptime I’ll be hunting for remote head mounting sticky material for radio installs.