Tag: qso

gerryk – Bringing tech to the West

http://blog.gerryk.com/

Nice new blog… and I really enjoyed this post:

First proper HF QSO
July 21st, 2007

Now I have a proper dipole up, albeit not all that high, at about 15ft, signals are coming in very strong on all HF bands. Now that could mean a great antenna and matcher on my part, or, is more likely, a mediocre antenna system but huge signals from stations with massive beams and amps in the 100w plus range.

Going on what I was hearing today, though, it seems to be a combination of the two. I heard plenty of 100 watt, G5RV at 60ft people, as you might expect, but also a few putting small powers out, like one gent putting 30w into a random wire who was chatting to another putting 5w into a resonant dipole. Both were 5/6 to 5/8 which boosted my confidence no end, given that my max output with the FT817 is 5w. I listened around the 40m band and, ok, it wasn’t completely crowded, but there was plenty going on all the same. I listened into a few chats and whenever I heard one wrapping up, got ready to pick up the open station after the other went QRT.

Time after time, I waited for a QRZ or CQ and went straight back with my call, but when I unkeyed, generally heard a booming 5/9+ signal, or, more commonly, a few, coming back to the calling station, drowning my little signal completely. Frustrating, you might think, but, to be honest, I enjoyed tuning up and down the band, listening not just to people ragchewing or notching up QSOs, but the atmosphere too. The weather has been almost tropical of late, by which I mean tropical rain rather than tropical sun, and that sort of weather means thunder. Not thunder I could hear with my ears, unless you consider the added hearing aid of about 66ft of wire hanging about 15ft in the air. With that to pick up the discharges, the thunder sounded like feet crunching in gravel, in amongst the ever present hiss.

I didn’t spend a couple of hours throwing rocks into the branches of trees just to listen to clouds blowing off steam, though, I did it to talk to people far away with a tiny amount of power, and in among the big guns it just wasn’t happening. I tried tuning down to the 80m band, but apart from some very weak signals, it was dead as a morgue. I tried 20m. Not anywhere like 40m, but a few here and there. I tried catching loose stations at the end of a QSO, but again and again was rendered inaudible by what one QRP op called a pocketbook op. Those with deep pockets rarely have problems being heard, but, a well placed whisper can be like a shout, so I stick to my rather small guns on the power output. I tried 15m, and it’s pretty silent too, until, up at 21.190MHz I hear a clear voice calling CQ 15! He repeated his call a number of times while I frantically rematched the dipole with the Emtech ZM-2. Finally got a nice low SWR, switched back to USB and heard him still calling CQ. I keyed up, and as slowly and clearly as possible gave my callsign. “QRZ? QRZ, that station.” he said, and I was in. I repeated my call, almost shouting it into the mike. “Echo India 8 Delta Foxtrot Bravo?” he replied. I reread my call, “Echo India 8 Delta RADIO Bravo, Echo India 8 Delta ROMEO Bravo” and this time he got it. “EI8DRB from Charlie 3 3 Portugal Panama” he returned, mixing up the phonetics as hams often do. He gave his QTH as Andorra and his name as Pedro. Andorra! That’s nearly a thousand miles away! On 2.5w and a dipole 15ft off the ground, surrounded by trees, that’s not a bad achievement.

He gave me a report of 3/5 and I gave his as 5/5, we bade each other good DX and 73 and went about our business. He also said I could QSL via QRZ.com, and within the next few days, Pedro in Andorra will be getting a postcard from Galway confirming our brief QSO. I don’t think he fully realises the significance of this to me. To him, I was just another weak station for him to log, for me, it is the beginning of an adventure.

Hampton, VA to Cleveland, OH

I left yesterday at about 10:20am, having done a poor job packing and generally having any semblance of organization. I ended up dumping a lot of extra stuff in a footlocker, piled everything in the backseat of the truck and headed out. Not more than a few feet out of the driveway I answered a CQ from Andy, W2QIQ. Andy has been a ham for 66 years (as opposed to my 6 years). He served in the Army during WWII in Europe, starting in Egland, making his way through France and ending up in Berlin.

My radio started acting up on 40M. I was using my Workman Hamstick tuned for the 40M phone band. The Icom AT-180 gets a good match right away bringing the SWR down to a 1:1. But then after I’m transmitting for about a minute, the Tune light flashes for about 10 or 15 seconds and then the Tune light shuts off and the power drops and SWR goes up. My first guess is that the radio and tuner need to have a better ground. But the matching impedance range for the AT-180 is only between 16 and 150 ohms, so that could be the problem. This is only a problem on 40M.

My TH-D7A APRS kludge seems to be working well when there is a digipeater. When I was on I-77N coming across the West Virginia/Ohio border, I accidentally pulled one of the power leads. I didn’t really notice it because all through the Smoky Mountains the APRS coverage was nonexistent. I got a few hits through Charleston, WV and then it (maybe) tapered off after Charleston or maybe I had pulled the power. When I was approaching Canton, OH, I knew something had to be wrong, because it was such a large area it would have to have a digipeater. That’s when I noticed the power was disconnected. I reattached the power and there was tons of APRS traffic.

Had some nice QSOs along the way: KL7GKY, EB7xx, YU1XA, and KB5YAY.

Monday ham radio

I made the trip over to Ft. Story this morning to activate the Old & New Cape Henry Lighthouses (USA 122 and USA 121). I wanted to accomplish a couple things:
(1) activate the lighthouses. I’ve activated them in the past with limited success and wanted to give ARLHS members a chance to earn the USAARS Lighthouse award.
(2) test out my mobile setup using my different antennas.
(3) attempt to use a logging program on my Palm Pilot.

I ended up having five contacts – all on 40M even though the noise level was pretty high. I called CQ on 20M for quite some time but didn’t get any takers. I think I had two or three ARLHS folks qualify for the USAARS award. For the antennas, I started off with a trio of Hustler coils. The antenna went up quick on the 54″ mast and I had already tuned them to be a good match for the ARLHS calling freqs. I then switched to the Hamstick-like Workman antennas, first for 40M then 20M. No real difference in results. I’m going to stick with the Workman Hamsticks when I’m actually mobile and use the Hustler coils when operating from a fixed site. Using the Palm Pilot for logging is not easy. Adding headphones with a boom mike might help. Using the Palm Pilot takes two hands so it requires setting down the handmike, inconvenient for fast paced operation.

Back at the home QTH I rolled up on 20M CW and got an answer to a CQ from DL4SEW, Stefan in Stuttgart. There was a lot of fading but I was able to get most of what he sent. This was my first QSO with Germany and my second with Europe.

Back in the mobile and heading to Fort Monroe, I answered a CQ on 20M from YU1XA in Serbia. He gave me a 59 plus and was surprised I was mobile. It is just pretty cool talking to Serbia while driving down the road.

Getting back up on that CW horse

After being away from my CW paddle for quite some time, I’ve been trying to get back into CW. Over the past few days I’ve been having success with a few QSOs. Tonight I went down to 80M and had a QSO with Ed, AB8DF, from Michigan. Ed was operating QRP with an Elecraft K2 – a very cool rig. I’m going to keep working on my CW… eventually I’ll work my speed up to something I can be proud of.

40M mobile

I played around with the Opek and Workman 40M antennas this morning. The Opek tuned from about 7.150 to 7.290 and the Workman tuned from 7.040 to 7.250. I noticed a difference in the receive – the Workman was doing a better job. I have an extra stinger for the Workman, so I’m going to shorten it a bit allowing me use of the upper phone band on 40M (good for lighthouse work on 7.270). I can then lengthen the existing one just a bit to allow me to cover all the CW area of 40M.

Had a nice QSO with Frank, AC9T, located up near Chicago. He served in the Navy aboard the battleship USS Iowa and told me what it was like sailing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

More on the mobile install

I spent some more time on Sunday improving my HF mobile install. After completely removing the rear interior panel of the cab and finding no grommet or any other easy method of passing the feedline into the cab I was able to find a nice sized grommet under the passenger seat. I was able to keep the feedline to a length of 10 feet, ran it through a plastic covering for protection, and then tied it off underneath the truck at multiple points using zip ties. For the antenna mount support, I found an L bracket at Home Depot that I was able to securely bolt to the bed of the truck near the cab. I ran a short length of braided grounding wire from the other side of the bolt (inside the bed frame) down to the frame of the vehicle underneath the cab. For the antenna mount, I’m using a 3/8 inch X 24 Radio Shack base fitting – standard for use with Hamstick, Hamstick knock-offs, and the Hustler varieties. The base fitting fit neatly through a pre-drilled hole through the top of the L bracket.

In the past when I operated portable HF from the truck I used one of the 12v convenience outlets (aka cigarette lighters). I have consistently failed to locate any easy access through the engine firewall for a power cable. Now with finding the grommet under the passenger’s seat, I decided to use that for the entrance for 12v power. I used 10 gauge wire from the truck’s battery terminals (both with in-line fuses), routed the cable around the engine and down the passenger side to the grommet. I terminated the line using Anderson PowerPoles and am using a Saratoga Amateur Power Panel for distribution.

I took advantage of the IC-706MKIIG’s detachable faceplate, using the mounting kit to attach it to a Belkin iPod/PDA holder that secures into a cup holder. This allows me to easily tune around the band with my right hand without any reaching. The handmike attaches to the faceplate.

I haven’t found a great place to actually secure the radio and auto tuner. Right now they’re tucked under the rear of the front passenger’s seat. The seat immediately behind the passenger’s seat folds up towards the front of the truck and provides protection (and shade) for the rig. If I can find a way to mount the radio that still allows me to quickly and easily remove it for portable use, I’ll do it.

For antennas I’m using a two Hamstick knock-offs made by a company called Workman. One is for 20M and the other is for 40M. They easily screw into the 3/8 inch X 24 base fitting. Both work well, the 20M tunes the entire band and the 40M tunes nicely below 7260. I also purchased a cross between a Hustler and a Hamstick antenna (also for 20M and 40M) made by a company called Opek at the Virginia FrostFest last month. The 20M antenna is worthless. It won’t tune anywhere in the 20M phone band. The 40M antenna does a nice job covering the 40M band and tunes up to 7290 without issue. I also have a 75M Hamstick (can’t remember where I bought it) – with a little trimming of the stinger I was able to get the stick to tune the upper portion of the 75M phone band. The tuneable bandwidth for the 75M stick will be narrow, no way around it. But I can cut a few different length stingers to provide coverage down into 80M.

I’ve had successful QSOs using the Workman 20M and 40M antennas as well as the 40M Opek antenna. This evening I had the 20M Workman antenna mounted and first had a QSO with PS7JS in Brazil. There were several stations calling, but PS7JS came back to me after my second call and gave me a 59 report. Ten minutes later I had a QSO with Pedro, XE1REM, operating from Mexico City. Pedro also gave me a FB 59 report. Earlier today I had a QSO with a station in Slovakia, receiving a 57.

A couple of notes on operating mobile:
(1) I need to get something to take notes with. I need to be able to jot down callsigns, freqs, and times.
(2) I have to remember to include “mobile” after my callsign.

Already the 19th of November!

I’ve been falling behind on my updates…

(1) W4V – Veterans’ Day Special Event Station. I got a late start on Saturday… took a while to pack the truck. Setup at Fort Story took longer than expected – my biggest challenge was tying down the center mast after I’d gotten it vertical. It’s really a two person job and hard to do alone. But once I got the antenna up, the rest was easy. A beautiful day as well, low 70s and clear skies. The QSOs rolled in, as long as I was calling “CQ” I was getting QSOs. Sunday was a different story. The forecast called for rain, but I thought I could weather it out. I arrived at Fort Story but the winds became too extreme – no chance of getting the center pole up. I threw in the towel for a portable operation and headed home to operate. Not the same satisfaction running a special event from home, but I still enjoyed the QSOs. Even got Wyoming… which completes my Worked All States Award!


(2) Kenwood TS-930S…. my “new to me rig”. I picked this up from a local ham at a bargain. What a radio!

This piece of electronics perfection is over 20 years old, but it performs like a dream. The receiver is amazing. Also getting great reception reports on both SSB and CW. This rig is now the centerpiece of my shack.

(3) I didn’t work the Sweepstakes this weekend, but did have a QSO with a special event station celebrating Oklahoma statehood. However, I did work a sweepstakes station on 15M who was operating from the Santa Clara Valley.

(4) Also a few CW QSOs – I’ve hooked up my Logikey CMOS4 Keyer. Amazing little device, lots of features – but does a great job as a basic keyer.

The Last Frontier – QSO with Alaska!

I turned the rig on during lunch yesterday for a quick spin around 20M and ran into the Alaska-Pacific Emergency Preparedness [http://www.alaskapacificnet.org/] Net run by Will, AL7AC, from Sterling, AK. I heard the traffic net taking Alaska station check-ins… passing their callsigns, locations, and a brief weather report. I was excited because I was hearing Alaska! I’d never actually heard them before, so this was a first. And I wasn’t just hearing one station, I was hearing almost all of them… at least a good dozen. Then the NCS asked for guest check-ins. I grabbed the mic and figured I’d toss in my callsign, not expecting a reply. But Bill came right back to me with a nice signal report! So I thanked him, checked into the net, gave my QTH, and “no traffic”… 1st QSO with Alaska complete!

The quest for Worked All States (WAS) is almost complete… one state to go: Wyoming.

Lunchtime CW QSO

Had a lunchtime CW QSO with John, KA9DVX in the 40M Novice sub-band. John was operating from Port Richey, FL with a fair about of QSB. When I’m operating CW, I turn off my computer monitors so I’m not distracted – so it wasn’t until I put John in the log that I remembered that I had had an earlier QSO with him that was cut short. John was operating a Ten Tec Omni. Ten Tec has a very distinct CW sound.