Thursday, October 7, 2010

How Nifty is that

On Sunday Julie and I were watching the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills playing. We have one of these nice flat screen TVs and Julie thought lets put the TV in sport mode. It makes the greens greener and sound is better and so on. The button pushing started and well no greener greens instead no sound and a picture of snow. Bye bye NFL game and hello NOTHING!!!  Now begins the "what the @#$%@& went wrong. There was TV remote button pushing, combination's of remote button pushing, cycling the TV on and off. Then desperation settled in and we thought about looking for the manual.
As hams how many times has this happened to you and your rig? You come into the shack turn the radio on and sometime during the night the radio gremlins paid you a visit. Your sure you left the settings alone but for some reason your memories are not there......or the rig only tunes in megahertz segments, how about  the rigs electronic keyer has reversed the dit and dah on the paddle!!!!  All you wanted to do was get on the rig for some relaxation  and get some QSO's in.  You think you remember how to fix things but at the same time your not really sure, heck your a ham so you start to push what you think are the right buttons. Hmmm things are now worse as you have somehow also changed other setting you never intended to. Not only have the  radio gremlins paid you a visit but on top of that Murphy has you changing things you never intended to while not getting the original problem fixed, you are proportionately digging your hole deeper as you try to dig your way out!!! At this point crazy thoughts are going through your head like "lets dig out the owners manual".
But wait..... this is were N6FN's Nify Mini Manuals come in very handy! I have there operating guides for my Elecraft radios and have used them many times. Not to put down the owners manuals as they are very useful and have loads of information in them. But there are times you can get bogged down with information while looking through them for a quick fix. This is were the Mini Manuals I find shines, they have a very easy to read table of contents on the front page. Here you find a list of most if not all functions you will want to use. From there you are taken to a page with red lettered headings followed by fast and concise   steps guiding you through what has to be done. For example the other day I turned on my K3 and for some reason on 20 meters CW the rig was in CW REV. I tried to be a hero ham and just push some buttons...nothing....grabbed the Mini Manual. Found "CW operation and keyer setup" in the front page table of contents, turned to page 11 skimmed over the bold sub heading" Using CW REV". There I was told to press and hold ALT key.....did that and I was back in business.  I have the Mini for my KX1 it is just larger than a business card and it is tri-folded. Easy to pack with your KX1 and again I have used it many times to refer to.  N6FN's Mini manuals are laminated for durability this allows them to be brought along for outdoor operation. The spiral binding allows them to lay flat for easy reading. These are a great "Mini" product.


  1. I know what you're talking about. I happen to me numerous times. Those damn gremlins....never saw them of course. They always take a invisible pill. Anyway, did you fix your TV in the end??
    73, Bas

  2. Good morning Bas, yes we did fix it by doing a hard reset of the TV. We lost all our settings but it was NFL time once again.

  3. So have you installed the sub-rx into your K3 yet? I'm hoping for a long, informative post from you on the topic!

  4. Yes John the KRX3 is in and I'm planning on giving it a work out this long weekend. I really have not had much time with the K3 been working a lot.

  5. hello Mike, I know the problem when settings are spontaneous changed in the opposite setting. Very annoying. Sometimes I think the PC has a life of its own. ;-) 73 Paul