Author Archives: WY2E

05.28.11
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Mike Koss W9SU (SK)

 

Owner of Industrial Communication Engineers Mike Koss, W9SU (SK)

Mike Koss, W9SU, of Indianapolis, Indiana, passed away Monday, March 28. He was 57. According to his friend Brian Smith, W9IND, Koss was found on his workshop floor and paramedics were unable to revive him. Industrial Communication Engineers (ICE) is well known in the amateur community for surge protectors, line filters, RF switches and more.“Besides being the heart and soul of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Amateur Radio Club, Mike was also the proprietor of ICE,” Smith told the ARRL. “He also owned, designed and maintained one of the best Amateur Radio stations in the Midwest — the one responsible for cranking out the big signals of Indy 500 Special Event Station W9IMS. Mike was also the driving force behind Special Event Station W87PAX, which commemorated the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis. The station logged more than 23,000 QSOs.”

Koss was also an accomplished DXer, with 326 confirmed entities. Smith called him a “first-rate contester,” saying that his 10 meter CQWW record for the 9th Call Area, set in 1989, remains unequalled.
 

Smith told the ARRL that Koss was also extremely involved in public service activities: “Just last year, Mike spearheaded a volunteer project that cleaned up and repainted the USSIndianapolis Memorial in downtown Indianapolis, just in time for the survivors’ reunion. The ship was torpedoed in 1945, and only 317 of the original 1196 crew members survived the sinking and subsequent shark attacks, exposure, extreme thirst and other problems associated with spending nearly five days in the Pacific Ocean.”

On March 31, ICE released the following statement concerning the company: “Industrial Communication Engineers (ICE), Ltd, its employees and the Indianapolis Amateur Radio community mourn the passing of company founder Mike Koss, W9SU, on March 28, 2011. Due to Mike’s sudden and unexpected death, ICE has temporarily suspended accepting new orders. We are in the process of reorganizing the company, as well as identifying and fulfilling current open orders and products returned for repair.  We appreciate your patience and understanding during this transition period.

Questions may be directed to info@icemfg.com.”

05.22.11
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DX Dinner has 2 winners!!!!

This years DX Diner  at the Dayton Ham fest Friday night announced that the DXPedition of The Year would be shared by 2 operations; VP8ORK and ZL8X… Both had an out standing end result and both worked very hard to make the call available in all areas…

05.19.11
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Elecraft K1

Here’s my newly constructed Elecraft K1 for 40, 30, 20, and 15 meters.  It’s a remarkable little package!  The K1 puts out as much as 7 watts or as little as 100 mw – operator’s choice!  The receiver is impressively quiet and sensitive.  It could hear the same weak signals as my K2 and K3.  The K1 has a very extensive menu of features yet remains among the most user-friendly rigs on the market.  It is different from the KX-1 in that the receiver is more sensitive with a lower noise level, the transmitter is twice as powerful, the internal ATU matches a much wider range of impedances, and it has a very effective noise blanker which the KX-1 does not even have as an option.  Although the K1 is  marketed as a “portable” transceiver, it could very easily be the one and only fixed station rig for the ham with a limited budget but a discriminating taste.  Putting it together was straightforward.  It is a densely populated package once built but since the top, bottom, sides, and front come off there is actually plenty of room for fat fingers during actual construction.  My first contact was with Gene, UA1CE, in St. Petersburg, Russia at the 5 watt power level with a RST 559 on 20 meters.  Later that evening, the K1 proved its mettle as I used it for the 2 hour NAQCC Sprint.  Overall, a very high quality transceiver for the money and cute to boot!  Here are a couple of pictures showing the layers of circuitry and the size relative to my hand.  Anyone interested can visit www.elecraft.com  .