Planet Ham (English)

My friends K1LWI, NG1Z, and K1JZP took a tour of the WBZ 1030 AM transmitter station in Hull, MA several months ago. I wish that I had the opportunity to take the tour with them. The station engineer is also a ham. They had a great time over there. They also learned that the coyotes stay nice and toasty by loitering around the transmitter site in the marshs of Hull during the winter. It really gets cold out by Nantasket beach, so why not stay by the 50,000 watts of RF floating in the air? Cancer? I do not think so.

K1LWI took a whole bunch of pictures that he sent to me for inclusion on the website. They have a really nice facility. Plus, they are historic in operating one of the first broadcasts, which featured simultaneous transmissions by two different stations in conjunction with sister station WBZA. They are one of the oldest transmitting sites in the country. The studios are elsewhere, but the verticals and the transmitters are located in Hull, which is a peninsula surrounded by saltwater.

N1EY

Would you believe we have still not moved into our new home. It was due for completion at the end of May and now it looks like we will be in sometime in mid July.

We have moved out of the rental property (landlord already had new tennants moving in) and we are now living with my parents. There are four of us living in the one bedroom (enough said).

I have purchased a domain name (vk4vcc.com) and will eventually move my blog across to the new domain. The new email address is laurie@vk4vcc.com which is now up and running.

As I am in temporary accommodation, by blogging has been and will remain very infrequent until we have fully moved in the new home.

It's the European VHF Field Day this weekend. If you're active on 50, 70, 144, 432 and 1296MHz - then it's a great weekend to either take some gear out on the hills with your local group, or even a simple station on your own and make some contacts.

If you're at home, then have a tune around and see who you can hear. There should be plenty of portables around.

The contest starts at 15.00 UK local time and runs for 24 hours.

I'll try and get on and see what's around in our part of the world.

I am fortunate to live in the area known as "The Crossroads of the Revolution". This part of New Jersey was the host to more skirmishes, battles and military action during the Revolutionary War; than any other part of the original 13 Colonies.

Indeed, just down the road from me is the historic Oak Tree Pond, which was the site of a skirmish between the NJ Militia and the British Regulars that put an end to a flanking maneuver that the British were trying to accomplish in an effort to win the Battle of Short Hills.

In the next town over, in Piscataway, NJ, resides the historic Indian Queen Tavern which used to sit on the waterfront in New Brunswick. It was in this very inn that John Adams and Ben Franklin stayed when they came to "inspect the troops" in New Brunswick on behalf of the Second Continental Congress. George Washington was a guest at the inn numerous times; and it is belived that Thoma Jefferson compsed the bulk of the Declaration of Independence while staying there.

Which lead me to wonder sometimes, that if Jefferson, Adams, Washington and Franklin were to fall asleep at the Indian Queen on a night in 1776 and were to awake to find themselves in the United States of America in 2008 ..... what would they think?

After the initial shock and awe, which would take a long time to overcome, I think that they would have mixed reviews as to what has become of their dream, their "experiment".

I think they would be proud of our ingenuity, our technological advancement, our nation's character (for the most part). I think they'd be proud that we expanded to include 50 great States; choosing not to rest and be content to remain a Union of 13 States. I think they'd be proud that we survived the Civil War and became a stronger Nation for it. I believe that while our Founding Fathers were isolationists, preferring not to become embroiled in Europe's politics, that they would be proud that the United States was behind the voice of Liberty and Freedom that carried through two World Wars and various other times of conflict.

I belive that the Founding Fathers would be proud that until this day, we remain for the most part, "The Breadbasket of the World", feeding millions besides our own. I believe that they would be unbelievably proud that our flag, The Star Spangled Banner, flies on the Moon and is on the sides of spacecraft that have left our Solar System to explore the deepness of space. I think as a whole, they would be delighted with the character and diginity of the people that today, we call Americans.

On the other hand, I am sure there are MANY things that they would shake their heads at; and hold in contempt. I am sure they would deplore the lack of personal responsibility that seems to be so prevalent today. They would certainly abhor the desire of so many for a type of "Nanny State" government that would take care of everything FOR the people. Indeed, they saw such as a throwing away of personal liberty which they regarded as man's most sacred possession. In their minds, government was supposed to exist at the will of the people. It's not supposed to force people to do things they wouldn't otherwise want to do; or interfere with their personal lives and liberties.

The would be very sad with the Judicial Branch of our government, who feels it is their responsibility to make laws instead of interpret them - "legislation from the bench". And they would probably be angered to the point of apoplexy by politicians who spend too much time trying to hold on to their jobs instead of DOING their jobs.

I think the concept of "political correctness" would smack too much of "European delicacy and gentility" and that they would stay away from that like a cat from water.

I think they would look at our current system of taxation and would wonder whatever became of the idea of "taxation without representation". This inflation of the size of government and the plundering of the citizen's personal wealth to keep it all going would be very distasteful to them, indeed.

Lastly, I think they would have a terrible time with the concept of abortion; and how the Supreme Court could have so badly misinterpreted the Constitution as to think that somehow murder (yes ...... murder) would be protected by that Document.

So ....... the question remains ....... would they be proud? I am certain that for the most part they probably would be; but at the same time they'd also be very sad to see how their legacy was mishandled by succeding generations.

In any event, the Nation remains strong, prosperous and proud. Happy Birthday, United States!
To all of you out there, have a wonderful, safe and happy 4th of July weekend.

And may God continue to bless America.

73 de Larry W2LJ

I set out a little earlier than normal for the station today and GB3WH was quiet. For a change, I concentrated on 433MHz and was listening on 433.075, the frequency of the Swindon repeater, GB3TD.

As I was leaving the village, on the little ridge, I heard GB3NH, the Northampton 70cms box pop up at good strength and ID itself. Around the same time, I had poor to partial copy of GB3HS (Humberside) on 145.650 for the second time this week. Conditions were obviously a little above normal.

Had a nice QSO with Andy, G0BEQ on GB3TD discussing some D-STAR possibilities.

In this week’s Surfin’, we consider Google Docs as an online Amateur Radio application. After you read that, come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Darek, SP6NVK who runs the ham-atlas website, provides a layer for Google-Earth which display the DXCC entities. He offers a set of layers for download. Currently the following layers are availabe: all DXCC entities DXCC entities by continent: Africa, Asia, Antarctica, Europe, North & South America and Oceania DXCC Layer for Google Earth with focus on the Caribbean. Source: [...]

I took some time off to build my first HF antenna using the plan I’ve obtained few months ago. I chose moxon as my first 10 meter HF antenna as it is small and compact and it is directional, allowing me to focus it into a single direction for a pretty quiet QSO, without much interference.

The material I used in building this moxon are :

• Green ground (12 Gauge ?) wire, it has 7 copper wire inside it.
• PVC pipe (3/4″ diameter) as necessary to hold the wire in place, you can use other materials too, as long as it formed the basic dimension of moxon antenna

Antenna Plan and Results
I use the plan described in this post; 10 Meter Band Compact Directonal Antenna and started building it immediately. The result of the antenna can be seen here :

Performance
Although I build it only as a temporary antenna (thus its flimsy), it performed rather well when compared to other types of popular 10 meter band antenna in my place (Delta Loop, Inverted-V) as the antenna is directional and it does not requires the use of transformer balun.

I’ve managed to make contact with 12 stations in 6 days since it has been erected.

Some tips working on 10 meter band

• Use a good low loss cable such as RG-8 or Belden 9913
• Make sure you know where you point your antenna, the direction of your antenna is crucial if you ever to make contact with distant station.
• The propagation is pretty good during daytime between 3pm - 8pm by my observation, use that time window wisely.
• Use directional antenna like Moxon or Yagi as they allow you to focus your transmission to a certain direction and eliminate excessive interference on the band.
• Be patient

That’s it and good luck!

p/s:
I wouldn’t recommend PVC pipes if you are planning to erect a permanent antenna as they are flimsy. Use aluminium pipes or copper tubes as they are more durable and offers best performance.

I upgraded my website to Blogengine 1.4.

This version is suppose to fix an issue I reported with the Date of the post was off from RSS feed.

It also is suppose to fix an issue others reported where rss readers kept getting the same post over and over.

It still should have mobile support from 1.3. 

I'll keep an eye on it!

This is a very quick blog update, sharing the news that my new K2 #4620 has arrived and is now fully operational. First impressions are that I’ve made the right choice, receiver is outstanding and transmit audio reports are extremely encouraging

Now for the bad news, it’s good to have ‘true’ knobs and buttons again, but my fingers are too big! I’m sure I’ll get used to it very quickly, the bad news is (and I really hope my XYL doesn’t read this), I’m still not fully happy with the user interface, so I am going to build yet another rig, a high performance analog radio based on the work of Martein - PA3AKE’s designs, but will spend a lot of time (and learning) developing my own interface using a large graphic LCD with a touch panel interface! This is going to be a very slow build and the K2 is definitely STAYING!

End of update.

Tomorrow night Kev and Ian's students will be taking their radio exams. Good luck to Faris, who will take his Foundation exam and to Matt, Mike and Sam who will be taking the Intermediate. Anyone who is interested in any of the three levels of the examinations and wants to be tutored can contact Kev G6FKE, his contact details are available on the RSGB website and on QRZ.Com. Potential students must be willing to travel to Morecambe, Lancashire.

THE GARDEN CITY CONTESTED WILL BE CONDUCTED ON HF 40 METERS FOR VUHAMS AS PER PLAN. ( PHONE CONTEST)

DATE: STARTS AT 06.00HRS 1st. ON 26th. JULY 2008 ENDS AT 18;00 HRS 27 th. JULY 2008.

THIS CONTEST IS FOR VU HAMS AND 4S7 HAMS.

EVERY CONTACT COUNTS ONE POINT. NO DX CONTACTS.

THOSE COMPLETES CONTACTING 100 VU STATIONS IN THE CONTEST WILL GET A SEPARATE CERTIFICATE.

THE LOG SHOULD REACH BY 15 OF AUGUST 2008.

SEND THE LOG TO P.O.BOX 1927. BANGALORE 560 019. ( I.I.H. POST BOX).

ALL ARE REQUESTED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CONTEST AND FORWARD THIS INFO TO ALL HAMS.

REGARDS
VU3ITI (VARADAN)

source: ARSICOM

A new episode, no. 105, of the AUSTRALIAN DX REPORT audio shortwave news magazine is now available. It has lots of news about frequency and schedule changes in the A08 transmission period! It's 13...

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BONAIRE Radio Netherlands Intl relay 15540 2215 Dutch 444 June 29 OM with an ID at 2215, then a YL with comments followed by an OM at a sports event 2216. Mackenzie-CA. BRASIL Radio...

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** CUBA. CRI relay back on usual 13740, with open carrier July 2 from *1347, 1400 English program, while RHC was on 13760, still past 1440. The day before, CRI was on 13760 and no RHC (Glenn Hauser,...

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It didn't start out all that great. First, my boss decides that I need to be in Scotland the week before the contest weekend. I have nothing against Scotland, I just preferred to not be there right before the biggest VHF contest of the year (ARRL June VHF QSO Party). I needed to be home putting together antennas, repairing cables, loading software, etc. ahead of the contest weekend.

At the last minute, I piled all of the gear (well, most of it) into the SUV and we head to the mountains. I planned to set up my portable station at our antenna-less cabin in the western part of grid DM78. (Gotta get that tower up for next year.) My station consisted of an FT-847 on 2M and 70 cm, driving decent yagi antennas on those bands. On 2M, a linear amplifier boosted the output to 170W, so I had a decent signal on that band. For 6 Meters, I used an FT-100 running 100W to a 3-element yagi and on 222 MHz I just had an ICOM FM transceiver feeding a small yagi.

I downloaded N1MM logging software at the last minute and attempted to install it on my new Windows Vista PC. Turns out that Vista doesn't seem to like N1MM or vice versa. (I am bumping into this on occasion where some software aps are not fully checked out on Vista.) I bailed on N1MM and grabbed VHFLog by W3KM. It was the first time I have used it but it worked well for me.

There was very good sporadic-e propagation on 6M for a large portion of the contest, occasionally extending to 2M. This is the way the June contest is supposed to be! Six meters kept me quite busy and I am sure I missed some good rover contacts on the other bands. This is the downside of a single-op station when six is open. Most contacts were on SSB but I did use CW to grab a few grids on 2M and 6M (N0KE in DM69 and K0YW in DM67). Wow, my CW is getting rusty and it was tough going but I made the contacts.

I had 206 contacts on 6M, which I thought was quite good until I saw some of the other guys scores on the local email reflector....many of them did a lot better. Worked XE2YW in Mexico and a number of VE's in Canada. I was happy with the 15 grids on 2M, including a new grid via sporadic-e (W4VC EM81). I snagged KB0HH up in EM06 and N0YK in DM98.

  Band       QSOs X pt =  QSO pts.  X   Grids   =     Points
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
  50         206    1      206           125           25750
  144        34     1      34            15            510
  222        1      2      2             1             2
  432        12     2      24            6             144
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
  TOTALS     253           266           147           39102

  Claimed score =  39102

This contest has reinforced the notion that for me, VHF is all about 2M and 6M. The Magic Band provides the excitement and 2M provides the challenge (with enough local activity to keep some interest going). The practice of moving on up to 222 MHz, 432 MHz and higher and just working the same guys over again doesn't seem as much fun. It definitely generates contest points but I am thinking more about VUCC and grid chasing. I will be optimizing my station to do better on 2M and 6M....upgrade the antennas, amplifiers, transceivers, etc.

73, Bob K0NR

Amateur radio operators test skills and equipment Indianapolis Star - United States More than 700 ham radio operators in Hamilton County are available to provide backup communication in emergency...

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Happy Birthday SOS!

"SOS", the distress signal that saved thousands of lives, turned 100 on 1st. July,2008.

"SOS", which is commonly used description for the international morse code distress signal containing three dots, three dashes and three more dots (... --- ...), was first adopted by the German government in the radio regulations on April 1905.

It became the worldwide standard when it was included in the II International Radiographic Convention which was signed on 3rd.November, 1906, and became effective from 1st. July, 1908.

The call actually became famous when one of the radio operators of the ill-fated Titanic had supposedly said to his colleague: "Send SOS". The tragedy revealed just how vital a universal system was. They soon learn otherwise, as international headlines told how Jack Phillips, Titanic's first radio operator, and 1,500 others had been lost along with the "unsinkable" ship.The new "SOS" distress signal was rarely ignored after that.

Of course, technology has moved on dramatically since 1908 and only very occasionally are the telltale dots and dashes that have saved countless lives employed today.

So, it seems "SOS" is the safe for 21st. Century too...........

• Computer logging and record-keeping
• DX Cluster
• Read the DX Bulletins
• Get on in the little contests, even if just for a couple of hours
• LoTW
• Listen, listen, listen

My holidays have finally started; spend time in the shack, do the garden and visit a barber.

Time to do the Icom 746 alignment

Goal: check/optimize receiver adjustments.
Some 5 years ago this rig has been upgraded with INRAD SSB and CW filters and the RX gain setting was changed.
The master LO is dead on 60Mhz, showing 8Hz offset. The Philips PM6615 frequency counter (incl txco) was calibrated >5yrs ago. It is within 10Hz from the Marconi 2955 which was calibrated when I bought it in Germany in......ooh well!




What settings were re-aligned?

- LPL VCO Lock voltage; level at 1.84V instead of 2.0V
- RX peak L241
- Receiver total gain; setting from '38' back to '32' (about 30deg. on the potm)

All other adjustments proved within specs.
The software menu adjustment procedure was skipped; s-meter settings and stuff do not make QSO's.
Hooked up the 746, just in time to work TO5E (st Barthelemy dx-pedition), COOL!
Pity my logging software(DXBase 2006) is so difficult to upgrade with new countries; already 3 not recognized: E7 Hercegovina, 4O3 Montenegro and the TO5.

Time to collect stuff from my garden-house:




From left to right:
- 5el +boom parts 6m DK7ZB home made yagi
- 10m fibreglass DJ6NI pole for K9AY setup
- 10m Alu mast (70mm bottom, 35mm top)
- Comet GP3 2m/70cm packet antenna
- Rotor cable
- 'Tool' to find clear HF frequency, manage pile-up etc. :)

Good propagation today on 6m!

This morning, while eating my cereals, I worked Man JL8GFB on 50095.5 He was in and out the noise but very LOUD. I touched him on a few occasions but due to QSB he copied my callsign only partly. With some patience I wkd him during his peak some 20 minutes later. Check out his breathtaking setup at:
http://air.ap.teacup.com/jl8gfb/


6m band is exploding today; zillions of signals calling asia and many other directions. Just wkd CN & CT3 which brings the country total at 46 for 2008.

1. Listen with care. Avoid distractions in your radio room. Make sure your radio is operating on the proper frequency.

2. Monitor the frequency you wish to use. Call only when a frequency is free. Make sure the station you are calling is available for contact.

3. Make short calls, with a break to listen. Speak clearly, at a steady, moderate rate. Three short calls are better than one long one.

4. Speak near the mike. Keep local background noise to a minimum.

5. You must consciously learn to push the microphone button, pause slightly, and then begin speaking. If you push the button and speak simultaneously, the first word or the first part of a word may be cut off.

6. Talk as you would in person. If you need, notes will help avoid mixing up subjects. Try to keep your language polite.

7. Speak naturally. Make QSO’s interesting. Use proper operating form to promote efficiency in communication and add respect and prestige for your station.

8. Always keep a pen and a paper handy to note down the station info. you are talking to.

9. Try using Headphones, if there is a local QRM within the shack.

10. Maintain your log book.

There's been some controversy in these parts about the amount of gear that some people are using in the Backpackers contests. The idea is that it should be possible for the gear to be carried, by hand, to the summit.

With that in mind, the following blog post from Steve, N0TU made me smile. During the recent ARRL Field Day, his equipment was carried to the summit by his two goats; Rooster and Peanut.

Look and enjoy

Philadelphia Area Hams Nail Rogue Radio Signals Reggie Leister, N3KAS (left), and Bob Rex, K3DBD (right) — both members of the Pottstown Area Amateur Radio Club — helped Philadelphia news reporter Lu Ann Cahn find out just why remote car door entry devices wouldn’t work in the parking lot of a local department store. When [...]

AUSTRALIA CVC Relay via Darwin 17830 0430 Chinese 333 June 27 Two YLs with comments. MacKenzie-CA. AUSTRALIA Radio Australia via Shepparton-RA 15515 0440 English 444 June 27 YL...

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DX Listening Digest 8-075 has now been posted at http://www.w4uvh.net/dxlatest.txt or http://dxld.worldofradio.org and now also without delay at http://www.w4uvh.net/dxld8075.txt CONTENTS: WOR 1415...

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** BIAFRA [non]. V. of Biafra International, weekly clandestine show via WHRI, Fridays 20-21, still on 17650 when checked June 27 at 2053 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST) ** CHINA. Firedrake,...

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Amateur radio operators celebrate Field Day Huntington Herald Dispatch - Huntington,WV,USA Amateur radio operators from the Tri-State Amateur Radio Association (TARA) set up and operated an outdoor...

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SB KEP @ ARL $ARLK050 ARLK050 Keplerian data ZCZC SK50 QST de W1AW Keplerian Bulletin 50 ARLK050 From ARRL Headquarters Newington, CT July 1, 2008 To all radio amateurs SB KEP ARL ARLK050 ARLK050...

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