I plan to make a couple of contacts over the weekend using either
my modified Ramsey Laser Communicator kits, or an IR based SMS text
messaging child's toy that we "beefed up" with some lenses to increase
the range a couple of years ago.
(Nice way to add a band. The toys cost less than $10 bucks for the pair
on ebay. Found the lenses at a yard sale. Cheap tripods at the flea
market. Total cost was under $50 bucks! Range was out to about 1/2 mile
when we stopped testing)
You can even program in macros to speed up the exchange. It's fun to
point them at someone that you have to squint to see and then watch the
LCD screen as the callsign and grid exchanges mysteriously appear. The
hardest part was removing the LED from the printed circuit board, and
figuring out how to make the mechanical support to place it in the focal
plane of the lens. It isn't pretty, but it works.
Just wondering if anyone else will be active on either Laser or IR for
the contest? I keep hoping someone will make a kit or low cost device
that would encourage more hams to experiment with these "bands". The
Ramsey kit isn't high performance, and everything else falls into the
category of homebrew.
I searched eBay for hours looking for some kind of child's toy that
would allow you to "talk on a beam of light" or otherwise communicate
with laser or IR. My hope was to find something to modify for ham use.
That's how I found the IR based SMS Text messengers. Cheap, but again
the performance is poor. Other than that, I found a 1950's toy called
"Astro-Vision" and the Ramsey kits.
Anyone else know of other devices that I may have missed? It would be
great to find something off the rack that offered performance out to a
mile or so.
See you in the contest and if you're in the neighborhood shine a
light---maybe someone will answer!
--
73,
*Les Rayburn, N1LF*
EM63nf
121 Mayfair Park Maylene, AL 35114
6M VUCC #1712
Grid Pirates #222
Life Member Central States VHF
WPC4LF Popular Communications Monitor ID
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