ROTA-Radio

I enjoy listening to the Ham Radio Workbench Podcast. The hosts and guests go around the virtual table every other week sharing the projects they’re working on. I recently completed a project that gave me loads of extra space inside my air-conditioned house. With some creative rearranging, purging, and organizing, I suddenly had two bedroom closets to work with. We moved here 7 years ago. I should have done the closet project months ago. Finally, my backup power project has a home. All my projects are interconnected like a sliding puzzle game, with barely enough room to move around. These crowded time-space conditions affect my ROTA-Radio operating time. Lately, “necessary-priority” projects have taken up all my free time and mental bandwidth. I’m scrambling to be ready for the peak of hurricane season. My operating time has suffered as a result. It’s amazing how one postponed project suddenly breaks the logjam and makes way for multiple other things to finally get done as well.

Almost Complete Project

Backup Power: 95% complete

With the free space and time I earned by completing my closet project, I was able to also move the needle on my backup power project. The ingredients included the following:

• Ecoflow Delta Pro 3 – expandable portable power station and home battery generator
• Ecoflow DP3 “extra” battery – doubles DP3’s capacity for a total of 8 kWh
• Zoupw 450w Solar Panels (2) – 900w total charging power for DP3 stack which then stores the power and distributes it via the house wiring
• Ecoflow 4Kw (propane) Generator – charges DP3 stack
• Accessories – DC charging cables for generator and solar panels; generator cable between DP3 and electrical panel
• Electrical Panel Modifications – electrician added manual transfer switch, Main and DP3 stack breakers, and DP3 input port; safely backfeeds 220v to bus bars on panel
• 12,200 BTU Air Conditioner – temporarily installed during grid-down periods (e.g., after we return from hurricane evacuations)

All supplies were ordered, have arrived, and the electrician completed the electrical work this week. The smoke test comes next, and we’ll complete it over the next two weeks. I’ll install the newly-purchased window A/C unit first, then cut the Mains power and transfer over to the Delta Pro 3 battery-inverter stack. This Ecoflow unit supplies 220v split-phase power, up to 4000w, to my electrical panel. This is enough to power all necessary circuits so my wife and I will have access to air conditioning, ceiling fans, TV, Internet, and my wife’s DME (durable medical equipment) which needs electricity. We’ll also have a fridge-freezer full of DIY emergency dinners and breakfast + lunch meal ingredients—enough for 2 weeks of grid-down living. We’ll be testing this system for 24-48 hours over the next couple of weeks. I’ll report the real-world results and compare/contrast the actual with projected run-times as given to me by Gemini AI. My fingers are crossed that Gemmi got it right! If you’re reading this blog for the first time, Gemmi is my nickname for Google’s AI.

Projects on the Bench

I was recently forced to upgrade my laptop, and I chose to also upgrade my Internet. Both of these projects are still in transition. And, because I apparently enjoy chaos, I decided to rearrange my ham shack right in the middle of my computer-internet projects. So, everything is in various stages of completeness. I have a t-shirt that sports a half-full glass of water with the words “half full” printed on the front. These projects are half-done. The other half keeps me up at night, thinking, or gets me up early so I can keep whittling away at the parts that still need doing. As always, everything has to be squeezed between caregiving sessions with my wife.

MacBook Air Transition

I’ve written about this before, and I’ll probably share a final rundown of how this project turned out. Briefly, I’m now writing on my brand-new and improved M5 MacBook Air laptop. My M1 MacBook Air is currently “on the bench” (literally), waiting for some love. If all goes well, I’ll have it restored to its former glory as both a backup computer and a dedicated shack computer that supports my computing needs—exact role(s) TBD—for the next several years. The main progress I can report involves the fact that I still have a working laptop to support all of my personal and ham radio computing activities. More on this project in a future post. 

ISP Migration

I’m probably in the middle of a migration from T-Mobile cellular broadband over to Quantum fiber Internet for our home. I embarked on this upgrade because, well, it’s an upgrade. Instead of 100-300 Mbps (averaging around 200), I can now enjoy nearly 1 Gigabit speeds. I also have some granular control that simply wasn’t possible with a CGNAT cellular home internet system. I’ll be able to forward ports, for example, so my Clearnode will now allow me to use the Echolink mode alongside AllstarLink on this little hotspot. There’s more, but for now I’m using both ISPs. Getting this transition completed is top-of-mind so I can map all my devices to the fiber router’s SSID and be done with it. Not to mention saving $50 a month (going up to $55 next month) when I return my T-Mobile router. Then, I can resume some of my ROTA-Radio projects and do some actual operating from the recliner. It all works now, but things are a bit scattered until I tie the ribbon on this project in the next month or so. Meanwhile, since one is none and two is one, I have a backup ISP. Actually, two backups if you count my Starlink Mini, currently in standby mode.

Shed-Shack Reorganization

The shed, which doubles as my ham radio shack, is in a bit of disarray lately. As I wrote earlier, I got a bug up my butt recently and decided—right in the middle of several other projects—to rearrange my operating desk. A simple 90-degree counter-clockwise turn sure wasn’t simple to implement. Well, that’s done. What’s not finished yet is the left-hand side of my desk. It has a two square foot pile of stuff that needs to be put away. Then, there’s the two or three boxes of other stuff that now reside up the steps into our master bedroom. On the floor of the closet—the same closet where I freed probably 4-5 feet of floor space—sits those boxes, waiting patiently for my attention. Out of sight, out of mind, at least temporarily. That’s why this project made it to my “What’s on your Workbench?” post. If you don’t see an updated/completed post in the next few weeks, do me a solid and send me a reminder email, will you? 

Meanwhile, I’m writing this while sitting on a comfy chair + ottoman combo, moved from our screened porch where it just didn’t fit. All my earlier rearranging freed up around 4-6 square feet in the shed-shack, right next to the steps that lead to and from the bedroom. This is where I retreat to when I want peace and quiet. During the winter months, the shed door will stay open during the day and I’ll be able to sit here and watch the neighbors walk and ride by while I just…sit. I may be the only person in this neighborhood who sits in his shed. That’s because mine is air conditioned, doubles as an office/ham shack, and has a secret staircase that leads into the house. Every neighbor must have a shed. It’s in the deed restrictions. Mine is special. Slowly, surely, I’m getting there… I’m happy to have a place to sit and write, even if messy piles are all around me.

Mega 1: Shack Backup Power System

My foray into backup power for the house led me down a similar road for the radio shack. I can actually power my radios and their accessories completely off batteries now and often do. The main battery is a Bioenno 20 Ah LifePO4 unit that comes with an Anderson Powerpole connector for connecting the radio and a smart wall wart made specifically to charge this particular battery. I’ve since added 12 and 3 amp versions of the same battery. 

I wanted to experiment with a combo battery, inverter, and solar charge controller because of the convenience of an all-in-one unit. My research led me to the Oupes brand. Jason, KM4ACK, swears by these units on his YouTube channel. When his recommendations match up with something I’m researching, I usually end up spending money. I even took his advice on the solar panel I’ve paired with the Mega 1. The panel he features in this video is the 300w version. I now own the 400w and two 450w units. 

Now that I have the Oupes Mega 1 on my operating desk that doubles as a workbench, my solar-backup power experiment is well underway. I use it daily for the 12v ports and charge HTs, laptops, my iPad, and even smaller charging units with the Mega 1. I’ve rarely used the inverter or the four 120 volt AC outlets, but I will be giving my shed-shack’s window A/C unit a test during hurricane season when it’s hot and humid. That’s mainly to see how the A/C handles cooling my shed-shack using backup power. The Oupes is now supplemented by a 400w solar panel, so I’m looking forward to seeing how the input power and the output power of the A/C match up. According to Gemini AI, I may be able to run the air all day with the solar panel connected. That’s something I have to test. If it works, then during a CERT activation post-hurricane when grid power is down I could use the shed-shack for my radio operations while my wife keeps cool in the living room. Checking into hurricane nets and sending health and welfare messages with cooler, dryer air in the shack isn’t an absolute necessity, but it sure would be nice. Otherwise, my CERT operations may move to the living or dining room during these activations. That means I would need to move the feedline to the other side of the house temporarily. I’ll report the results of my solar-battery-inverter cooling experiment down the line once testing is complete. I’ve got to “make hay while the sun shines”. In other words, the time to test all of this is during July-August-September when it’s hot and humid outside. That’s also when we’re most likely to lose power due to a severe storm. If this actually works, I’ll have a total of 9 kWh of solar-supported, generator supplemented backup power that’s quiet, clean, and that keeps me cool under less than ideal circumstances. More to come… Wish me luck! 

Future Project on the Drawing Board

An Actual Radio for Recliner Shack

If you’ve read my main rota-radio.com page or any of the other posts where I describe my journey of operating remotely from my living room recliner, you know that the whole idea was to keep the radio in the shed-shack. The portable “shack” in the living room recliner is supposed to access the radio from a laptop over the LAN. That project is working well at the moment for HF digital modes. I can also operate VHF-UHF simplex and local repeaters using a cross-band repeat rig in the shack and an HT in my hand, VoIP modes like AllstarLink are easy to operate from the recliner, the carport, or screened porch, even the golf cart using my 35 foot dual-band antenna. However, I’ve only listened so far to CW or SSB transmissions from the laptop in the recliner. The other day, sadly, I may have discovered that my IC-7300Mk2’s LAN port is on the fritz. Did I get zapped by lightning? Something similar happened to an RJ-45 port on a router years ago after a lightning strike. I still need to give the Mk2 a closer look, but I’m preparing myself for bad news. I’m not sure I would part with my new radio for upwards of two months just to give Icom time fix this one issue. Everything else seems to still be working just fine.

My ROTA journey actually began much like it is now using VNC to operate the shack rig using two computers—one in the shack, one in the recliner. However, I’ve never successfully gotten CW or SSB to transmit remotely. Now, with this glitch, I’m considering a pivot to something I have tried before, successfully…sort of. While it worked, it wasn’t popular with Sue, my wife. Before I sold it to my neighbor Bill, a new ham, I used my Xiegu G90 in the recliner. I tossed the coax out the window near the recliner and used a portable antenna mounted on a fiberglass mast right outside of the living room. The G90’s main unit went in a drawer of my end table, and the control head went in my lap. I operated CW with no problem because I use headphones when in a CW ragchew. The only issue was that the wire mess was, let’s just say, unacceptable to my wife. Now, that was before she began living in the living room where her bed and all the durable medical equipment now resides. Do I want to push that envelope again? TBD.

If I do, it’ll now be with my IC-705. My 100w HF amp will again live in the coffee table drawer. This setup would likely only be used for CW QSOs. I’ve since decided that talking into a mic in the living room while my wife is napping, reading, or watching TV isn’t gonna cut it. Not for Sue, and not for me. Frankly, I rarely talk on HF using a mic anyway, even when I’m in the shack. Recently while reaching for the mic to start our CERT GMRS net I accidentally grabbed the mic for my Mk2. Nothing happened until I realized I grabbed the wrong input device. So, I have too many mics in the first place. I think my Mk2 and IC-705 rigs may just stay focused on digital modes and CW. If I absolutely must talk on the HF radio, I’ll do that from the shed-shack. This feels a little bit like giving up on my idea of operating all modes from the recliner. Then again, the whole idea is to operate outside the shed-shack and, mainly, in the recliner near my wife. If not there, then on a golf cart ride which, for me, is a break from caregiving anyway. I’m not one for quickie HF QSOs using SSB and a golf cart ride is relatively short, so if I simply must talk, I can do that on VHF or UHF from a hand-held.

So, this project is still on the drawing board. I have all the pieces except the antenna, and I have several of those in my outdoor shed just waiting to be erected, the coax tossed in the window with a pool noodle to protect it. Oh, and I have to figure out how to hide the radio so we don’t need to have a discussion about my wires being stretched across the living room. Needless to say, this one is definitely TBD—to be determined. Until then, I’ll keep working on the other projects that are just waiting for me to show up and get things done.

Signing Off

Until next time, enjoy your summer and, if your QTH is conducive to outdoor radio projects without becoming dehydrated or sunburned, enjoy the opportunity. Me? I’m staying indoors for at least the next 2-3 months.

73, Paul

N4FTD