Yes – the QRO Signal point remote lives. It has been set-up, configured and de-bugged. The remote operating manual is now up-to-date, and available from the club web site or direct from me. Both CW and SSB work fine, and FT-8 is being figured out. K1ZN, W0CG, NA2U, K8ND, and KB7Q have already been operating the new high-power set-up.
This state of the art club resource was all made possible by Jeff, K8ND donating the use of an Elecraft KPA500 watt amplifier, KAT500 tuner, and cabling. That’s about $2.8K of gear folks. Thanks to Jeff, K1ZN also for the gear transport from Georgia to Curacao last March. I’ve made sure that all club members who have tried to set-up and access the remote have succeeded.
Briefly here are the set-up choices available:
The very best way to access the remote is called “K3 Twin Mode”. Get yourself a client side Remoterig RRC-1258 MKII box, cables, and an Elecraft K3/0 Mini terminal unit – when you power on the terminal, the Signal Point remote K3 transceiver fires up immediately. When you turn a knob on the terminal unit the remote radio in Curacao changes the same setting. The terminal unit looks and acts like the front panel of the far end transceiver. If you already have a K3 transceiver at home, you can re-configure that in lieu of a K3/0 Mini terminal. “K3 Twin Mode” rocks.
The less expensive, but more elaborate configuration way is to connect up using “Mode 4”. Just the client side RRC-1258 MKII box, your computer, and a copy of rig control software TRX-Manager will do it. A virtual front panel on your computer’s screen acts as your rig control interface.
We only run the remote when we have a control operator physically present on site, and we don’t run it while operating or prepping for a contest. That said, we’ve been smoke-testing it for the past couple seasons, and members have had tons of great opportunities to use the remote. In fact, K1ZN should have completed his remote DXCC on SSB by the time you read this. Impressive!
One last thing: Members using the remote pay an extra annual fee and an additional per contest fee to defray utilities and wear on the gear. Currently this is a benefit of membership and is not available to ops who have not joined the Caribbean Contesting Consortium. If you would like to join, contact any officer of the club or visit our web site.
73,
Gene, KB7Q – Remote Lead
2 replies on “It’s Alive!”
I have GOT to try this….N5OT
Using Jeff’s amplifier through the remote caused me to have some humbling moments because the CW pileup was really epic. I need to get my skills back up to par, and thanks to this amplifier it’s a great problem to have.