Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020
The MFJ keyer unit and audio filter unit for my MFJ 9040 40M QRP rig arrived today. Though I know people complain about MFJ being “Mighty Fine Junk,” I have to say that the MFJ add-in boards were well-engineered to be foolproof. If a klutz like me and put them in without a hitch, anyone can do it.
Again, I’m impressed by the engineering and forethought that went into the add-on board’s design. I really could have put them in without reading the instruction sheet. I spent more time looking for the correct size Allen wrench to remove the keyer speed knob that I did on installing either unit.
Long story short, both the keyer and the audio filter are 100 percent solid. The audio filter doesn’t have an adjustable bandpass, but it peaks well on received sigs at about 700 Hz. It sure is a big, big help when there are signals near the one you’re trying to listen to.
I haven’t made a QSO yet, but hope to over the next few evenings. I’ll report back!
WHAT’S IN A CALLSIGN? I overheard some hams talking a few nights ago on one of my usual 80 meter late-night stops about vanity callsigns.
A longtime ham told the others in the group that he had applied for a 2 by 1 vanity callsign that was available. What he didn’t reveal at first was that the call is assigned to licensees living on Wake Island, a U.S. possession.
Wake Island callsigns begin with A, K or N followed by “H9” and the last letter or letters, depending on license class.
This ham is an Extra Class license holder, and wanted to get a 1 x 2 or 2 x1 callsign — which can be hard to locate, particularly in the 4th Call Area. There were no shortage of calls available for Wake Island, so this ham has applied for one of those callsigns.
What he doesn’t realize is that the FCC reserves certain callsign prefixes for U.S. territories. For example, unless you live in Hawaii, you can’t get a KH prefix. And like Hawaii, the FCC reserves prefixes for its possessions like Wake, Guam, Puerto Rico and others, for hams who actually establish residence there.
CALLSIGN FRAUD OR BENDING THE RULES? This reminds me of a couple of hams I know who live here in the 4th Call Area. Years ago when they upgraded to Amateur Extra, the both established “residences” across the Ohio River in Southern Indiana. Why? Because they wanted 1×2 or 2×1 9-area callsigns. At the time, there were no 1×2 or 2×1 4-area callsigns available.
So both of these hams quietly created mailing addresses in Indiana — at least long enough to apply for a 9th-area callsign — which both hams ultimately received.
At the time of course, you could keep your callsign if you moved from one call district to another, but you could only apply for a vanity callsign in the district in which you lived.
And yeah, it raised a few eyebrows locally to hear the 2×1 Extra Class 9th area callsigns, when everyone here knew damn well they never lived a day in Indiana. When the FCC changed its rules to allow you to get callsigns outside your district, one of the gents quietly applied for a 4th area 2×1 callsign and replaced the 9th area call. The other gent still has the 9th area call.
I guess I’m no better … the day my 2×1 4th-district callsign became available, I submitted multiple applications — 51, in fact.
Today, the FCC doesn’t allow multiple applications from a single individual. For a call with multiple applications, they randomly select one application to receive the call.
But back then, the FCC allowed multiple applications. The FCC selected a recipient from the entire pool of applications. There were several who applied for my call, but no one had submitted 51 applications. My multiple applications boosted the odds in my favor substantially — I had a greater than 84 percent chance of getting the callsign. Had I not been successful, this website would be N4SRT.com, HI HI.