Salmoncon 2012

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Salmoncon 2012

Salmoncon 2012 has come and gone. The weather was overcast and a little light rain, but no one seemed to notice.

There were three days of great presentations, demonstrations and wonderful Ham Radio conversations.

One of many Technical Conversations

On Friday the SOTA group activated Little Mt Si.

The main events were on Saturday and Sunday, but many of the die-hard's were on site Thursday through Monday. I think the sign-in-sheet only listed about 60 attendees, but I think there were more.

Saturday Morning Parking

The long distant traveler was John - N0AR and his family from Minnesota.

John's Family

The following are only excerpts from Salmoncon, there are just too much to report and I may have some events out of order as reported here.

Jeff and I were up early on Saturday to set out the Fox for the Fox Hunt (see below).

Early Saturday,
Jeff with the Fox Hanging Stick

We had planned to set them out late Firday night, but too many late activities prevented the effort.

Saturday Morning was started with Curt - WR5J cooking a wonderful breakfast (with a little help from John's Boys). I remembered Curt's breakfast from last year, so I made sure I was up on time.

Curt Making Breakfast

About Ready to Eat

The Crew is Ready to Eat

After Breakfast and Introductions, the first event was the Fox Hunt - thanks to Jeff - KO7M. The instruction for the Fox Hunt were deliberately vague as scoring was based on the Factoids Collected during the hunt. The hunters ware also instructed to "Expect the Un-expected" for the hunt.

Bob and Ben Team Up for The Fox Hunt

DF Loop and Ready to Hunt

Jacob with the KX3 and a Wire Loop

The only detail that was provided; was the approximate frequency used by the Fox - about 10.1395MHz. It as also shown that the Fox can be heard on simple one wire loop antenna and portable radio (the KX3 and FT-817 receivers were a very good choices).

Doug, Alan, and Jacob
Trying to get the First Fix on the FOX?

After about a half hour, many hunters realized there were more than one Fox, in fact there were three, each sending it's own CW ID in coordinated time sequence with the other Foxes. Jeff and I created the Foxes using the Propeller Microprocessor, therefore anything and everything devious was done in software. Other details of the hunt will be left out of this blog, to encourage others to attend next year.

Wayne and Sandy Getting Their First FIX
A Fox Hunting with one Radio is like Canoeing.

Later that day, awards were given to the Hunters with the most facts about the Hunt.

After the Fox Hunt, Jeff - K07M, gave a presentation on the Propeller Microprocessor showing its architecture and how it could be used in Amateur Radio - the Fox Hunt was a good example.

Jeff - Getting Ready for Presentation

Jeff's - Propeller Presentation

Lyle - KK7P and Rich - AC7MA presented an update on the KX3, Note with at least three, the KX3 was well represented in the Fox Hunt.

Lyle and his KX3 on the Fox Hunt

Bob - AD7PB, gave a presentation on his Homebrew Mag Loops and had several examples for demonstrations. He demonstrated how tuning was as simple twist of the knob near the center hand-hold of the loop. He went through the design process for the loop, picking the dimensions for a particular group of bands. I enjoyed the insight, and now plan to create a Mag Loop for my use.

Bob and His Homebrew Mag Loop

Charlie - N7KN and Roger - K7RXV, gave a presentation on building Tennis Ball Launcher and a demonstration/shootoff followed.

Charlie and Roger - Tennis Ball Launchers

After the Shoot Out

Rich, Roger, myself and Tess

Tess can not wait for the next shot

Jeremy - NH6Z gave a interesting presentation and update on the Open SDR project.

Jeremy Demos Open SDR

There were other presentations, many more short demonstrations and technical discussions that continued through out the weekend.

With John - N0AR's three boys attending Salmoncon, Tess was in "Boy Heaven". She had lots of Ball and Play Time.