Snake River Amateur Radio Club  

                 Canyon County, Idaho      Grid: DN13

          Tech Day II 2023

Our second Tech Day of the year happened on April 8th at the Caldwell airport Hubler terminal. Along with the usual electrical and electronic fiddling we hosted a license testing session.

^^^ Sometimes it's good to arrive a little early to avoid the crowd. Bob, W7RLS, sets up the soldering station using a 500 watt power station to avoid having to run an extension cord across the floor.

^^^ Our first tech work of the day was also the nicest. An early 1960's RCA shortwave receiver in near pristine condition. The owner wanted us to check it out and see if it would run (It did, after a bit of cleaning and troubleshooting).

^^^ A beautiful example of old style craftsmanship by people who took pride in what they built. Yes, that really is real leather on the outside of the case!

^^^Debi, KJ7QZJ and Mike, KJ7QZI, our VE coordinators setting up the test session and working through the endless paperwork involved.

^^^ Aside from being a pretty good RF electronics technician and a darned good cast iron cook, Steve, WB7VEQ is also a volunteer license examiner. Today he is acting as a third examiner for Mike and Debi.

^^^ Bob, W7RLS, is assembling Anderson powerpole connectors for John, KD7HGS...

^^^ ...who is building power cables for the folding solar panels to plug into his power station.

^^^  as usual with most things electrical, the power cords are not working like planned. The voltage was there but the power station wouldn't charge.

^^^ There were four of us, all experienced with solar and power stations scratching our heads until the "Homer" moment hit. DOH!

   Can you see where the problem is? The panel is in the sunlight from the windows. There is just enough light to create the rated voltage, but not enough to make any useful current. And we can't even blame a lack of caffeine for this one... :-)

   If you want to see what other strange things can happen with this group, come on down to the next Tech Day. We'll have the coffee on. We promise!

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