[PaQSO] NK8Q Summary from Clinton County

[Bob Schreibmaier]

First of all, excellent QRP score, Mark!  Congratulations!

Regarding the laptop power supply...

I had a similar problem with the 19-volt power brick
for a Dell Latitude D510.  It turns out that an
Astron RS-7A will power both the D510 and an IC-703
at the same time!  That seems to cure all the tweets
in the receiver that come from the power supply.

It's a little strange running the D510 from a 13.8-volt
analog supply.  You have to keep the 11.1-volt Lithium
Ion battery pack in the laptop or it won't work!  And,
if you start it with the Astron supply connected, it
boots up with some message about not being able to
recognize the power supply, hit F1 to continue.  On the
other hand, if you boot from the LiIon pack and then
connect the Astron, it has no problem.  Other than the
laptop still thinks it's on batteries and has 3600
hours of battery power left.  :-)

You might be able to do something similar.

72/73,
Bob
K3PH

 >I had plenty of problems, mostly related to Windows 7 with my new
 >laptop, USB-Serial adapters and drivers for K1EL WinKey.  Eventually I
 >resolved those problems (after another trip back to State College), but
 >then found that while there was a little extra noise on most of the HF
 >bands, the extra noise on 75/80m was TERRIBLE, and eventually related 
 >to the 120 VAC to 19.5 VDC power brick for the laptop.  My eventual
 >work-around for that was to either unplug or turn off the brick to
 >reduce the noise, which gave me about 2 hours of operating time.  I 
 >also found I could call CQ with it plugged in and then unplug to 
 >listen, but
 >that was a PITA (maybe next year I'll devise a relay driven off the K1EL
 >keyer such that while transmitting it switches the power supply on and
 >turns it off when receiving.  If anyone else has a better solution
 >please let me know (Asus G73J laptop, adapter model ADP-150NB, made in
 >China by Delta Electronics, no FCC certification noted).

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| Bob Schreibmaier K3PH | E-mail: k3ph at ptd.net |
| Kresgeville, PA 18333 | http://www.dxis.org  |
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