SOTA - Raft River Hat Trick

In pouring over SOTA Maps a couple years ago, I noticed a location where three 8-point peaks were in close proximity:

• W7U/BO-002 - an unnamed peak "9335," 
• W7U/NU-045 - George Peak, and 
• W7U/BO-001 - Bull Mountain

After three attempts and hours on Google Earth, I finally figured out how to get up there. This post is an attempt to make the directions more clear for others--with luck, this can be a 24-point day!

I first activated George and Bull back in 2018. Didn't make it back until ARRL's 2020 Field Day, when I activated 9335 and George the day before Field Day, and participated in Field Day from Bull Mountain (until the wind hit sustained gusts over 40 mph and thunder and lightening "appeared" in the imminent forecast).

The Route

Google Maps and most of the other online maps really don't understand how to get here. Plus, jeep trails and routes on maps in real life end up either 1) completely faded and overgrown or 2) on private land. So finding a safe, feasible, legal way to get up there was a challenge! In short, it's a series of Forest Service roads as you leave Standrod, UT:

1. From Snowville, UT head west to Standrod
2. From Standrod, take FS 005 south
3. At the "T" take FS 011

FS 011 is not for the faint-hearted and absolutely requires 4WD (4L, in fact). At times, I locked my rear diff to get through steep sections with loose rock (rock, not gravel - rock). 

"9335"

As you hit the top of the mountain, you'll see 9335 in the distance. Park anywhere that's safe (there's a lot of undergrowth, so don't take risks and cause this place to burn), and head up to 9335. This is the view from 011 about 1/2 mile south of where I parked to activate 9335 in 2020.

 For 9335, you're above treeline so mostly it's sagebrush, grasses, some flowers, and a whole lotta cow pies. The hike up is just walking over, around or through sage. There is a fence line that cuts the actual summit off - I was on the "wrong" side of the fence line but well within the 250' activation zone, so I activated just west of the actual summit.

George Peak

Your next adventure will be George Peak. You'll still be in 4L for this, for sure! Continue east on 011 until it turns south. It'll connect first with 022 and then with 009.

Follow 009 to the southwest all the way until you hit George Peak. You'll come to a gate (might be closed, might be open) and signs about a private hunting club. You are allowed to pass through but you must stay on the road. 

The route is mostly road, with a lot of grass and sage. 

The views are, however, amazing -- you can see the Great Salt Lake, Promontory Point, even Antelope Island off in the distance.

If you've programmed the coordinates into your GPS, you'll find George Peak easily. On the map, the flat spot on the ridge appears to be the same altitude as the peak in the distance, so it's unclear which is the actual peak.

This either is, or is not, George Peak.

And yet this either is, or is not, George Peak. For the sake of SOTA (and since Bull is literally a drive-up), I activate the craggy peak each time.

One geological survey marker is good, but...

Two must be better :)

Panoramic view from George Peak looking from west to north to east (panning from 270 to 0 to 90 compass degrees). Not a lot of trees up here, but very green.

Bull Mountain

The final "peak" in this hat trick is Bull Mountain. I'm always torn up about this one - honestly, the road literally drives across the summit--how do you consider it activated? It's a moral dilemma but for the purists, you can park somewhere and hike a ways in.

The area around Bull Mountain is incredibly beautiful, with plenty of grassland and some wildflowers.

Not a bad place to watch the sun set!

Bull Mountain itself? Not so much special, just a grassy area where cows like to munch.

This is my SOTA setup for Field Day 2020. I lasted about 6 hours in this spot, after moving here around 10 am. By 3 PM the winds were blowing my antennas down and literally lifting half of my rooftop tent. Tuning into the Weather Service forecast, it was obvious I needed to beat a hasty retreat!

Overall, this 24-point "hat trick" is a fun trip with a couple nice peaks and a flat area that's amazing for propagation. There are other peaks nearby, so the area still has some opportunities for exploration. It's neat to have first activations on all three summits but I hope these directions help other SOTA enthusiasts get out and visit this range. Let's not make it too popular, but more people should have the chance to enjoy the incredible views up here!

- 72 de K7JTO

Winter Field Day Prep Project - Yaesu FT-897 Headset Interface

Clearly it's been too long since I last blogged--plenty of catch-up posts to publish this winter. But with Winter Field Day around the corner (as in tomorrow), I wanted to get this project wrapped up - a low-cost interface for an electronics store headset into my FT-897. Yes - I can get much better sound (TX and RX) with a Heil headset, and I'm saving up for one. I just happened to have this older headset laying around, and I typically just use it for Webex and Skype, so I figured it'd meet my needs: a quiet way to operate radio, easier on the ears, but at a fraction of the cost.

After some research, I found this article, which included a wiring diagram: http://www.n1gy.com/yaesu-headset-adaptor.html



The diagram is nicely designed, with polarity guides for the 47 uF capacitor. I could have built this for less than $15 if I'd only ordered one of each components, but I realized my "junk box" is a bit inadequate, so I ordered 10 3.5mm stereo components, a mixed box of caps, and a mixed box of resistors. All told, this build cost $30, with a bunch of parts left over.

For ease of construction, rather than using the brown wires (as in the circuit above) to splice in the RX audio, I simply paired a 3' audio extension cable to the 3' CAT5 cable I used for the TX audio and PTT circuits.

Prior to committing the build to solder, I set everything up on a breakout board:

As you can see below, my breakout board is a bit small, so I had to use jumpers from the stereo input over to an adjacent space on the board, then to the resistor and cap, etc.

 It all seemed too easy - the PTT switch simply closes a circuit (green and blue wires below), which puts the 897 into TX mode, and then the audio feeds along the blue-white and green-white cables (with the audio jack grounded to the solid blue wire that's part of the PTT circuit), but it worked when I tested it. The PTT, TX and RX audio worked great.

With the circuit designed and prototyped, I laid it all out on a simple breadboard. I spent a couple days modeling the wiring in my head, in an effort to shrink the size of the board (my original goal was to have something small enough that I could heat shrink "inline" to the cables, but the audio cable makes it a bit too large for that). You can see one challenge I overcame in the photo below: the ground from the 3.5mm stereo connector has to pass under the trace from the cap. I put a small bend in the cap's trace, and passed a jumper made from leftover CAT5 wire underneath it.

With everything wired up and tested, I drilled a few small holes for a couple zip ties, tidied everything up, and tested it out - great audio report from my local repeater.

The next step is to either trim the board to the minimal necessary size and heat shrink it, or create some sort of enclosure. For Winter Field Day, I intend to simply cover the bottom with cardboard to prevent accidental shorting, and to make a ton of contacts.

73 and good DX!

SOTA - Frary Peak

Had an awesome afternoon activating Frary Peak (W7U/NU-073, or DN30vx). This peak is located on Antelope Island, in the southeast corner of the Great Salt Lake, in the "Antelope Island" state park. As a Utah state park pass holder, all I had to pay was $2 to drive across the causeway, so it was a cheap way to spend an afternoon.

It being so early in the year, the peak is usually covered in snow and the upper parking lot was closed, so that added about 1/2 mile each way to what's generally a 3.3 mile hike/climb, with 2100 feet of elevation gain. The trail's been rerouted since I last summited, and I really like the new route. It's a lot safer - it passes south along the west side of the summit, just below the actual summit. Then it switchbacks north. So much easier on the knees.

Starting off the climb. It was in the lower 40's with a stiff wind. All the exertion of carrying a heavy pack allowed me to hike in warm pants and a light long-sleeve tech shirt.

The approach is from the north and generally follows the ridge, with some pretty stunning views of the Great Salt Lake, as well as the Wasatch range.

Just in case you weren't paying attention, this is a trail. ;)

Looking west off the lower trail. The rise in the distance is "Elephant Rock"

Looking to the NW across the Great Salt Lake

Again to the NW over the Great Salt Lake.

After a fairly strenuous hike, you traverse about 200' below the summit, headed south on the west side of the summit. This traverse is mostly new - it used to end with basically scrambling straight up, which was pretty intimidating. A local ham who loves the island worked hard to get some Boy Scout crews together to redo the trail. It's very nice now.

Finally, you're there! This is the original survey marker from 1892. There's a round marker in the rocks just to the south of this.

Without further ado, in temps around 30 with a slight breeze (enough to evaporate any warmth in a hurry) I went about setting up my SOTA station.

KX3, with 12v 5ah SLA battery - ugh, so heavy. Picking up a 14.4v 4 AH LIPO RC battery soon, I hope. What I love about the KX3 is that it's half the weight of my old FT817, can output as much as 15 watts, and has a tuner built in. Right there it's saved me a ton of weight!

I haven't taken the time to build my SOTA antenna (half wave wire antenna with a matching box at the end), so I lugged my Buddistick up with me this time. I've only made a couple contacts on this in the past, in spite of owning it for 4-5 years and trying valiantly! I wasn't sure what to think of it today, but it came through right along with the KX3!

This SOTA trip is a big deal to me. It's been (honestly) years since I last made a contact on HF. I've sold all my older gear, and bought an Elecraft KX3 which I recently built. After a week of hammering away on HF bands here and there, I'd started to wonder whether it was my antenna, my coax, or actually my radio but I've not had a single contact. Judging by my logbook today, I do believe I can narrow it down to my coax.

I logged 18 QSOs (threw out two because the call signs aren't showing up in the FCC database - I must have misheard the operators). Great day's work - including an amazing QSO with Heriberto in Puerto Rico, as well as KB3RHR in Pennsylvania.

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
23:30z	KG5PJG	14MHz	SSB	59 to Stillwater OK
23:30z	WA5OBV	14MHz	SSB	10w 59 to Phil in Stillwater OK
23:30z	WB6YOK	14MHz	SSB	4 miles LOL
23:35z	KB3RHR	14MHz	SSB	55 into PA
23:40z	KN8TOA	14MHz	SSB	57
23:40z	W0MNA	14MHz	SSB	55
23:45z	KP4EYT	14MHz	SSB	Puerto Rico - 57
23:45z	W0ERI	14MHz	SSB	55 KS
23:45z	W5AHA	14MHz	SSB	58 into Tipulo MS birthplace of Elvis
23:45z	KD0MQO	14MHz	SSB	3x3 into Missouri
23:45z	K5UQE	14MHz	SSB	57 into LA
23:45z	KI4TN	14MHz	SSB	1x1 hard to copy
23:45z	K1LIZ	14MHz	SSB	2x2

Quick summary and a 360 shot from Frary:

All good things must come to an end. I packed up quickly as soon as the action died down (didn't even bother with 40 meters). The hike down was just as rewarding as the hike up. I've been struggling with knee problems since September, but I've been climbing a lot of local trails lately and the work is paying off - the soft tissue is getting strong, and the hike down didn't really cause much pain at all.

Looking west, about halfway down.

These are the peaks just above my house - there are 5 SOTA peaks right here, hoping to activate them all this summer.

APRS Decoding - Windows

I'm setting up to decode APRS on Windows with a simple RTL-SDR USB dongle. Here's what's needed:

• SDSharp: grab it from http://www.sdrsharp.com
• or alternativeily, HDSDR: grab it from http://www.hdsdr.de/
• Qtmm AFSK1200 Decoder, from http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtmm/
• Virtual Audio Streaming (or another virtual audio connector) from http://www.virtualaudiostreaming.net/

Eventually I'd like this to all be self-contained--seems like a great add-on for SDR#. But that's for a later date... My first step is receiving and decoding APRS, but my next step will be to use my HackRF to actually send encoded APRS packets.

I've been fighting Windows and various Linux OS's trying to make this work. In this article, I'm taking a step back and moving slowly back to the point where it's working successfully. My eventual goal is to use a Raspberry PI with a DRA818* radio chip, in a weather-proof box at the base of my antenna mast. But I digress...

If you follow the steps here, you'll get this up and running quickly. I spent the better part of New Year's Day morning on this.

What You'll Need

1. Install your SDR software of choice
2. Install the RTLSDR USB driver (the HDSDR site gives some good info on installing the driver)
3. Grab Qtmm from sourceforge

What to Do

1. Start your SDR tool
2. Connect to the RTL-SDR dongle
3. Tune up to 144.39 (North America) or whatever your APRS frequency is.

You should start to see signal on your waterfall. It will look something like this:

Note that I prefer HDSDR to SDRSharp. That's just me...

Getting Audio into Qtmm

The trick here is to pump the decoded audio out of your SDR tool into the AFSK decoder. For some people, this will be easy because their Windows sound card chip supports "Stereo Mix" in the Sound Recording control panel. My chip does not, so I had to use "Virtual Audio Streaming," a virtual sound card too. I installed it, and set the "Rec. Play" device to the default device in the sound control panel:

Next, I set "Virtual Audio Streaming" as the output to speaker in HDSDR's sound card selection dialog:

Wide vs Narrow

I had some issues capturing the signal early on when I was using SDR#. Wide FM seemed maybe too wide, but narrow wasn't right. I messed with the signal bandwidth till I had something I liked. In HDSDR, I have bandwidth set to 18,205.

Qtmm AFSK Decoder

Next, just launch Qtmm AFSK decoder and select "Rec. Play (Virtual Audio Stream) for input and click the "Decode" (play) button:

You should begin to see packets streaming in!

Ultimate Telemetry Platform

I have been working for the past 4 years, off and on, on building the ultimate telemetry platform for rockets and balloons. I started originally with a set of stackable Arduino shields - GPS, SD card, etc. Over the years my understanding has grown and the technology has shrunk quite a bit, to the point where I've designed what I think to be the ultimate platform.

Ultimate Telemetry Platform

The ultimate platform consists of:

1. Arduino Mega
2. Mega proto shield
3. Adafruit "Ultimate GPS" breakout
4. Adafruit microSD breakout
5. Adafruit 10 DOF IMU
6. 2m amateur "radio on a chip"
7. 3.3v power supply

I liked the Mega because of the extra size. My vision is that my local Scout troop will start a NOVA team and that the kids will throw additional experiments onto the telemetry platform, and the Mega gives me plenty of pins!

Thanks to my employer, Caliber Security Partners, I was able to stock up on supplies for the project:

Arduino Uno, Mega, and the breakout boards.

My original design focused on ballooning, but I ran into an opportunity to launch the telemetry platform via a rocket. My buddy and amateur radio "Elmer" has a high-power rocket with a payload. Perfect for the Mega!

Here's a shot of the Mega proto shield with the breakout boards:

Mega proto shield with the GPS and IMU. Radio chip and power supply will go in the empty spot on the left.

With the radio chip and power supply, there's not enough acreage for the microSD card, so I put it on the bottom!

This tangle of wires is the 3 sensors on a breadboard, tied to an Uno

Life Is Full of Opportunity

I ran into a number of issues building my platform:

• My buddy had to back out - no motor, his high power license expired, and he's out of time.
• The radio and power supply haven't arrived
• The microSD card draws too much power to use without an external power supply
• ...

So now I have an opportunity! My launch is scheduled for 11/15, and it's 11/11 today. I have to build a solution practically overnight.

Options

Launch Platform

I have an old Estes "Maxi Force" 3-motor cluster rocket that I can launch with. It wasn't made for payloads, so I'm taking a bit of a risk here but at this point I am going to go for it. The nose cone is just exactly wide enough to fit an Arduino Uno:

It's this, or we launch with a kite (and the kite's not all that exciting, especially since we're launching rockets the boys built as part of Space Exploration merit badge).

Telemetry Package

I have a few options on the telemetry side:

• Powered Arduino sd shield, with is big and bulky
• Strip out the GPS and send up the microSD shield and the IMU on an Uno
• Do the same, but use a PC board and solder on a nano

The next few hours will be telling, as I hook the Nano up to the breadboard to see if it can handle everything. I have a number of 3.3v batteries from various cell phones, so I think I can actually use them to power the microSD card. If the nano idea pans out, I just need to find enough power to bring up the Nano and the sensors.

K7JTO: What's Comng

It's been quite some time since finishing my PFR3. And that coincided with work really picking up, so I have been slammed in my life. I've not been out to operate on HF, at all, and barely even on VHF. Good news though: my buddy WB6YOK and I are putting together plans for a local mini DXpedition. We are tentatively looking to activate an old airmail direction arrow north of Salt Lake City. We should be operating Thursday through Saturday noon the week after the 4th (July 10-12). We'll be putting plans together shortly and hope to have some big announcements to make soon.

My main goals:

- operate CW. I completed the CWOps Club class and have hardly touched a key since, so I need to burn some midnight oil between now and July to get my listening skills back. I'd like to leave the weekend copying and sending > 15 wpm and then keep it there by operating weekly

- operate SSB and digital (PSK)

- experiment with a variety of antennas, including a kite antenna

- kit up a couple project radios and make some QRP and QRPp contacts

- one of these projects is a Rockmite I can take when I travel, so I can do CW while on the road

- order and build a 20m QRPp rig, probable a Hendricks or a new Rockmite ][

- run and use WSPR on a Raspberry Pi, to check out propagation

- shoot the breeze with Chuck and anyone else who shows

- I have been wanting a contact from India, so I'm hoping to get that contact on the DXpedition.

- build my SSB and CW contesting skills 

Chuck's got a massive delta loop antenna he built for a Pony Express commemorative station a few years back when I first met him, we'll be using that as our primary antenna for QRO HF ops. Hopefully that monster will pull in Asia. I'll also be putting my Buddistick to use, and checking out (maybe building) a series of other backcountry EFHW and dipole antennas. We'll have a couple video cameras on site as well, and so you should actually see some activity on my YouTube channel. We are hoping to have Internet access and to keep folks up to date via Twitter--we'll see about that.

Want to know more about the arrows? Google "airmail direction arrows" to learn more. We'll maybe have a few write ups and stuff at some point, so keep checking here.

PFR3: Build Complete

I finally finished building the rig about 10 days ago. What an adventure! I last left off having completed Group 2 and started on a group 3. Finishing group 3 was actually pretty straightforward: wind and install a bunch of torroids, and solder in a few more components to complete the transmitter and BLT tuner. The only really tough aspect was winding the monster torroid in the transmitter. Wow--3 interleaving windings, with heavy gauge wire. More on that later...

Recycling an old photo of the board, let me assure you of one thing: random lead clippings that short pins on the programable chip can be quite annoying. I must have re soldered 10 different components before I saw the lead clipping laying there. Assemble, disassemble, reassemble, disassemble... That cost a good 20 minutes. But finally I have the main board complete!

Next, it was time to kit the box. The instructions recommend not kitting until the rig has been fully tested. In retrospect, that makes sense... sigh. Here's how it looks now that it's kitted, though!

The circuit board mounts into the top of the case, with 4 screws which seem to provide ground. That will become important shortly... Kitting everything was pretty straightforward, although I was surprised that the power tap didn't fit. I had to ream out the hole just a bit (nothing a really sharp tempered steel knife couldn't handle). Remember the comment about the external power? Well, if you look really close you'll see I connected the center pin on the external power jack to the ground (white lead), and the outside of the jack to the board's power. Yes, I'm sure you did the math and arrived at the conclusion I overlooked: this causes a short and can really heat up a battery quickly. I'm actually lucky I tested with 8 AA's at 12v rather than a larger 12v SLA battery that could have delivered a bigger punch!

The internal battery pack has sticky tape on it. It needs to be soldered to a wire. This is one of two complaints I have about the entire kit: the plastic battery case melts before the contacts are warm enough for the solder to flow. (My other complaint is about the documentation on T1 and on the monster torroid.) You can barely see it my workaround, but I ended up soldering to the spring inside the battery pack (topmost row, on the far right).

This is the rig, no decals yet. That yellow color is pretty bright--selected to help you find or avoid stepping on the rig while operating in the field.

Connection points. From left to right: power, BNC antenna, switch from BNC to balanced line, and balanced line contacts.

Well at this point I'm pretty happy. My buddy WB6YOK and wrapped up around 10:30 Saturday--another quite long evening and I know my wife will be happy when I'm done disappearing for half a day at a time. I know I will be!

Evidence: it runs on external power. It runs on internal power. It runs!

My preliminary testing was indeterminate--lower power reading on the SWR/power meter, but the antenna was poorly tuned. My Elecraft T1 tuner showed 5+ watts on 40 and 30 (the tuner has LEDs to indicate 1, 5 and 10 watts, so if the rig puts out 4.5 watts it's still not possible to know anything other than the righ puts out more than 1 watt). More testing yet to be done.

Next steps:

1. More output testing: I'd like to buy a few $0.50 50 Ohm resistors, build a dummy load, and test on a matched "line".

2. Install decals

3. Clear coat

4. I'm toying with spraying some reflective clear paint I have on various spots around the rig, to aid discoverability during nighttime

5. I would love to find some small rubber "covers" to put over the 4 switches. The rest of the through holes are actually sealed, but these 4 aren't. We swapped out cable boxes recently, but kept the old remote and it has a few rubber covers which just might work.

6. Build a balanced line and test the BLT

7. QSO! 

I broke this out a couple days ago and tuned around the bands. I was swapping back and forth between my 817 and the PFR. I got a report later from a ham in Oregon that he'd heard me call CQ on 40 but he couldn't get his rig set up in time to answer me (I QSY'ed a bit too quickly). I don't know which radio I was on at the time). 

Between the dummy load and figuring out the "recipe" for my Buddistick, I think I'll have this dialed in shortly.

PFR3 Continues

Just an update: successfully finished group 2, all tests passed (although due to some unplanned massive remodeling at my buddy's, we couldn't get the oscilloscope out). Happy happy! So of course, I soldiered on and started group 3, which begins with a few soldered components and then a pretext. It was on the protest that I completely fell apart. The mistakes?

1. There are two "U8" markings on the board. Pins 1 and 13 are supposed to be at zero volts with the power on and the rig in straight key mode, then 1.2 volts with the key closed. Odd, I was seeing 4 volts on pin 1. Oops... Wrong U8. On the correct U8, I see 0 volts with the key opened and 2 with it closed. The group weighed and said 2 volts is fine--less important the voltage vs. the fact that the circuit is open or closed.

2. Wrong resistors. As I posted to the reflector:

* Manual R6 & R7 should be YEL/VOL/YEL
* Errata: ORG/ORG/YEL
* Installed: YEL/VOL/YEL

Which is right? The errata and the manual agree on 470k, which is YEL/VOL/YEL. Press onward.

3. While troubleshooting the voltage issues, I literally went back to the beginning and checked every single component. Oops, I installed the wrong captor C24. Desoldering, replace, resolder in C56. Oh, whoopsies... Omitted R35 (I remember now I couldn't find it on the board when I was doing stage 2, and apparently I forgot to look again).

Needless to say, I have now checked every component, looked at every solder joint, and made sure everything works. Finally, time to press forward wih L7 to finish the transmitter, so I can start the BLT.

Lessons? Go slow. Mark your questions. Pay very close attention to markings, esp on your caps. If you're tired, stop--rushing won't get it done sooner.

I cannot wait till this is done, if only to put my quirky tom-foolery behind me!

The blue cap on the right side, next to the LCD? Yah, it goes about 5 o'clock from the Dove treat (my wife is the best!). You can see the big trace, right next to the little yellow 104 cap.

See the LCD display? See the conspicuously large resistor spot traced out in white marking, much like a victim's profile at a murder scene? Yah, I don't know how I missed it either!

See the vertical chip just next to the Dove treat? That's U8. Oh, but wait--see the other U8, just below the LCD. Hello, I'm Daryl. This is my brother, Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl. No offense to the boys at Hendricks. I'm sure this is my careless reading of the manual and/or errata. I've made enough dumb mistakes to prove them the experts! And hey, every problem is an opportunity to learn!

American Morse KK2 Paddle

This Christamas had a special treat for me. I told my wife that all I wanted for Christmas was an American Morse KK-2 CW paddle, because in 2014 I have a goal to learn CW. She worked with Santa, and the two of them came through for me!

Background: American Morse is a US-based manufacturing company which builds CNC-shaped precision products. They can be found at www.americanmorse.com Their approach is to keep it simple and build a few things really well. I was looking for a solid base station iambic paddle, and the KK-2 seemed like just the thing. It is!

The folks at American Morse build everything as a kit, and can ship kits or built product. I wanted the kit, of course. "I build, therefore I am..." Assembly was a snap--took about 15 min to prebuild, after which I disassembled, sanded out burrs, and did final assembly. This is the final product:

American Morse KK-2 paddle kit, assembled

The paddle arms are machined brass. It's not visible in the picture, but the arms are actually hollowed. The paddle tips are nylon. Everything else is high grade steel. As you can see, I've done nothing to "protect" the steel base--there are some rust spots appearing. I'm tempted to brush the base with my grinder and put a quick clear coat on it. That would look cool, but of course have no effect on the paddle's performance.

The paddle does not ship with a cable. I was toying with building one from scratch but when I got to Radio Shack and priced options, buying a stereo cable turned out to be cheaper vs buying wire and plugs and building it. In keeping with the garish color scheme of the Hendricks PFR3, I bought a lime green cable.

 American Morse KK-2 with cable

Wiring was simple -- first I cut one end off (leaving a couple inches of factory wire, in case I ever need that tip), then I made sure which wires went where on the plug, then I wired them up based on iambic paddle wiring guides online. The outcome is rather nice, I believe:

KK-2 cable wiring

The black wire holder fit the factory cable perfectly. Everything feels solid.

The real question is, how does it work? I'm an absolute beginner when it comes to CW, so all I can say is that it's been a joy to use during my CWOps "CW Academy" training class. The rubber feet you see in the photo leave something to be desired when using the paddle on a Formica desktop. My buddy WB6YOK recommended I cut a mousepad to fit inside the rubber feet, and while I haven't done it yet, the idea has merit. But keying is precise and the device works great. 

According to American Morse, the KK-2 weighs in at 1.5 pounds (24 oz). I haven't weighed it yet, but that seems accurate. As I will be operating in the backcountry as well as from home, having a "mid-weight" unit was important (although I am seriously considering their DCP or Port-a-Paddle kits for lightweight backcountry use).

You can find this paddle online at http://www.americanmorse.com/kk2.htm