Getting Ready for Winter Field Day

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Bob Beatty

The good folks that manage the Winter Field Day program, have made some changes that make the contest more appealing to folks that are remaining home, or in their backyards this year due to the pandemic.  With that in mind, I plan on participating as 1H RI.  The contest begins this Saturday Jan 30 at 2 PM EST and ends on Sunday at 2 PM.

The contest gave me an excuse to dust off my satellite gear which has been dormant since March of 2020.  Not much after I hooked up the antennas, computer and rig, I had passes for CAS-4A, CAS-4B, and RS-44, and was able to make contacts on all of them.  Amazingly enough, the LotW confirmations came through in minutes too.

Nice to be back on the birds — now to figure out any new ones to try.

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10 year old LiFePO4 battery still going strong

Posted on January 21, 2021 by robert

I purchased my first LiFePO4 battery a decade ago from a company called K2 Energy (still in business today).  It was the same size as a 7 AH Lead Acid battery, but 1/3 the weight with a 9.6 AH rating.  It quickly became obvious to me that this was an outstanding battery technology for ham radio use (voltage above 12.0 volts for more than 90% of the battery capacity, and thousands of charge-discharge cycles of life).

After ten years of use, with hundreds of charge-discharge cycles under its belt, it still has 8.8 AH tested capacity (92% of its original 9.6 AH capacity).  This was based on a constant current C/5 discharge (1.92 Amps).  Under those conditions the battery remained above 12 volts output for 96% of its capacity, and had a total run time of 4 hours and 35 minutes.

BOTTOM LINE: LiFePO4 batteries, from a credible vendor, will serve well for more than a decade!

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An inexpensive LiFePO4 battery for POTA Activations

Posted on January 20, 2021 by robert

I’ve been a HUGE fan of BioEnnoPower LiFePO4 batteries and have been using three of their devices for many years.  I had put together a presentation for my radio club (Newport County Radio Club) suggesting a couple of configurations of radios and antennas that would be useful for park activations.  Part of that presentation was a suggestion to use a 16 AH BioEnnoPower battery, which costs about $150 (without charger).  I still know that is an excellent vendor and fine product.

I did run across a vendor selling a 16 AH LiFePO4 battery on Amazon for $55 (free Prime shipping).  Since this was 1/3 the price of the BioEnnoPower battery, I felt compelled to buy one and test it out.

Yesterday I ran it through my battery tester to confirm the capacity rating.  It tested out at 15.2 AH (95% of capacity rating), and maintained a voltage above 12.0 volts for 90% of its capacity.  I note two things:

  1. The battery was fully charged prior to the test, but I had never cycled it before — sometimes a few cycles are needed to achieve full capacity (and at the price 15.2 AH is certainly close enough)
  2. The charging process presented a somewhat unusual condition.  After reaching full charge, the current dropped to zero, then remained off for about 30 seconds, then turned back on at full current for 30 seconds.  That pattern continued for several hours, with the amount of “on” time growing shorter, and the “off” time growing longer.  My best guess is that this was the internal battery management board equalizing the voltage on the internal batteries.  Every other battery I’ve owned just slowly tapers off the charge current.

The key specifications are: Charging voltage 14.6 volts, typical charge current is 0.2C (with C determined at the 5 hour discharge rate).  So a 3 AH charger would be ideal.  But they also say you can use up to a 10 amp charger.  Maximum discharge current is listed at 42 Amps

A second test yielded 15.253 Ah capacity

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Goals for 2021

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Bob Beatty

What a great way to start 2021 — I was on the air from the Charlestown Breachway State Beach, POTA K-7717, this fine New Year’s day.  Parks On The Air will be a major goal for me in 2021, but here is the full list:

  • Teach a Technician Class
  • Reach 1500 Band-Points in the DXCC Challenge
  • Complete DXCC on 160-Meters
  • Reach a total of 50 park activations in RI (that’s all the current ones)
  • Add 1,500 QSOs to the log

I believe both the DXCC Challenge and 160-meter items will be a stretch.  Hopefully the others will be in the bag.  At some point I need to get back on the Satellites as well.

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Goal Review 2020

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Bob Beatty

Despite the lingering smell of a burning garbage, 2020 is finally behind us.  Like most of the planet, I found myself wishing the year would just end.  In my case, I’m quite blessed, as my immediate family is healthy and safe, along with my friends, although the number of people I know personally with COVID has grown far too large.

Despite global woes, 2020 was a pretty successful year for me in terms of ham radio.  The goals for 2020 were:

  • Teach a Technician Class
  • Reach 275 Confirmed Countries in DXCC
  • Reach 90 Confirmed Countries on 160-Meters
  • Reach 1450 Band-Points in the DXCC Challenge
  • Reach 40 confirmed states on satellite

All but the final one was accomplished.  While completing a physical class that began the prior year, I also held two online classes in 2020.  They were actually much more popular than the in-person classes.  Over 60 new hams were minted.  At this point, I’ve personally instructed over 15% of the ham population in RI.

My DXing was down somewhat this year due to other interests and simply waiting out the bottom of the solar cycle.  That said I did complete my goal of having 275 confirmed DXCC entities, as well as 1,452 points toward the DXCC Challenge.  I also finished with 93 confirmed countries on 160-meters.  I’m hoping I will complete this for 9-Band DXCC by the end of 2021 (I already have 9-Band WAS)

Where I fell short this year was Satellite operation.  This was partially due to the pandemic as it was not possible to setup my gear in a park this year, so I missed my goal to have 40 states confirmed via Satellite (I’m at 37).  I did manage to convince a friend of mine, Kurt K1SEA, to get active on the birds, and gave a couple of presentations virtually as an AMSAT Ambassador.

While I wasn’t as active as some years, I did finish 2020 with 12,000 entries in LotW (exactly 12,000).

That’s a pretty good confirmation rate, too, of 71%.  Of course the LotW thing is sort of silly, as I have a few duplicate contacts in there, but I still keep track of it (my actual log stands at 11,924, so I guess that is 76 duplicates).

Other things that stand out in 2020 was my introduction by John K1JSM, and Willy W1LY to Parks On The Air.  I’ve been bitten hard by that bug (so hard that it will put other 2021 goals at risk).  I activated 13 different parks in RI and managed to work 129 unique parks as a Hunter so far.

Thank you radio gods for a fine 2020, along with the many wonderful folks I’ve met during the year.

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Still loving POTA

Posted on December 16, 2020 by Bob Beatty

I’ve been blessed to be part of the Amateur Radio community during this insane year.  What a perfect pandemic hobby!  Parks On The Air have made it even more enjoyable and gives me a good reason to leave the house from time to time and get on the air from one of RI’s 50 different parks.

It’s our first snow storm of the season, and we are due to get about a foot.  If so that is more snow than we had all last year!  We shall see in the morning, but I plan on being at a park on Friday in the sunshine just to get a photo of an activation in the snow!

I’ve managed to work 100 parks on the air as a Hunter in the past two months.  MANY more to come this winter, I hope!

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Random Musings on POTA

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Bob Beatty

I started my Parks On The Air journey on October 2nd; my first activation with John K1JSM, Willy W1LY, and Richard KC1ARO at Brenton Point Park.  I quickly caught the bug, and have worked with them and other Newport County Radio Club members to form a POTA group.  We try to coordinate activations, somethings having three or more stations on the air (sort of like a mini Field Day), or simply to let folks know where we will be if operating by ourselves.  My wife (not a ham – and usually turned off by anything radio) has even asked to join me at future activations so she can explore the areas with our dog while I make contacts.

In the six weeks since my first activation, I’ve put ten parks on the air, earning a “Bronze Activator Award”, and have worked more than 50 Parks On The Air as a Hunter from my home station, earning the “Diamond Hunter Award”.  That represents over 300 contacts in my home log, a big boost to my activity.

I have some random musings from my activities:

  • My 20-meter hamstick (by which I mean a MFJ-1620T class of antenna) was silly long out of the box, and I had to grind off about 4 inches (leaving another 4 inches sticking out for future adjustments).  That resulted in a perfect SWR across the 20-meter phone band when mounted on my truck roof.  The 17-meter hamstick was spot on when mounted on my truck roof.
  • That same 20-meter hamstick, when mounted on our minivan, was badly detuned.  The 20-meter antenna was resonant above 14.350, so it was now too short.  Hopefully I have enough adjustment room left to make it useful with both the minivan and truck.
  • I tried a 30-meter hamstick on my truck.  I was able to adjust it to about 2:1 SWR, but no lower.  It turns out that the connector/rig end of the feedline was presenting a very high voltage, causing me to receive RF burns when using my keyer paddle (carbon-fiber finger pieces).  I note that the rig is isolated from the truck body as I power it from a separate battery.  Likely tying some braid to the truck frame will eliminate the problem.  That wasn’t an issue on 20 or 17-meters
  • When operating in one park with the rig on my tailgate, I received several comments concerning RF feedback on the mic.  I suppose no longer having the rig inside the truck interior led to that issue as I was certainly inside the near-field of the antenna.  I suspect some ferrite clamps will solve the issue.
  • While other simple antennas have been VERY effective in the field (end fed half wave and end fed random wire), nothing beats the simplicity of popping a 20-m or 17-m hamstick on the roof and getting on the air from inside the vehicle.  From drive-up to on the air is usually less than 5 minutes.  Doesn’t really matter how wet or cold it is outside either.
  • Once spotted, most of my activations with hamstick and IC-7000, have produced a QSO rate of about one a minute.  In other words, if you don’t want to spend a bunch of time, you don’t need to as you can have the required minimum ten QSOs in about 15 minutes or less.
  • A one QSO per minute activation requires about 7.5 AH of capacity from a LiFePO4 battery.

 

Posted in Antennas, Awards, Battery, Gear, POTA | Leave a comment

Typical LiFePO4 Battery Use for 100-watt SSB

Posted on October 25, 2020 by Bob Beatty

Because of my POTA activity, I’ve been able to keep track of my current consumption as I run my IC-7000 in SSB.  It is a fairly typical 100-watt rig, pulling about 1.4 Amps in RX at listening volume, and specified at 22 amps in TX.  What that translates into actual consumption requires measuring the consumption over time.

In a pile-up or contest mode, which means about 1 contact per minute, my rig used 9.1 AH over 74 minutes, which is 7.4 AH per hour of operation.

In a casual operation mode, about 1 contact per 5 minutes, my rig used 7.1 AH over 74 minutes, which is 5.8 AH per hour of operation.

So I should expect about 4 hours of pile-up capability out of my 30 AH batter, or just over 5 hours of more casual operation.

Given my POTA operation time durations, I would think a 15 AH LiFePO4 battery would be more than sufficient for a single park activation.  Something like the ABS-encased Bioenno BLF-1215AS, which can withstand some knocking around, and weighs 4.3 pounds.

By the way, my 30 AH Bioenno Battery was purchased back in April of 2014 and has been in heavy use for more than six years.  It still meets its nameplate capacity.

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POTA Activation K-6979 Arcadia Wildlife Management Area

Posted on October 19, 2020 by robert

While Rhode Island is sort of small (Yellowstone can hold TWO Rhode Islands), it is a beautiful place, and is currently host to forty Parks On The Air entities.  One of them, Arcadia Wildlife Management Area covers a broad area on central west RI, and is the largest recreational area in the state.  Surprisingly, no one has ever activated Arcadia, K-6979, according to ParksOnTheAir.  That changed today!

I drove into Arcadia and parked near Browning Mill Pond.  I was intending to test a couple of antennas, and chose to begin with a 20-meter HamStick attached to the roof of my truck with a 5″ MagMount.  I used an Icom IC-7000, a small all band/mode 100 watt rig (idle since the 2016 ARRL NPOTA).  The HamStick was tuned to slightly favor the SSB portion of the band, with a SWR of 1.3:1 (it was 2.0:1 at 14.001 MHz and 1.8:1 at 14;349 MHz).

On-air operation began at 17:45 UTC, and ceased at 18:59 UTC; that’s 74 minutes.  Oddly enough, I completed 74 contacts in that period, coast to coast and a few into Europe.  Signals were unbelievably strong into the Southeast, with TN and AL booming in well over S9 (these states are a single F-layer hop away from RI).  During that time, I consumed 9.1 AH from my 30 AH battery (or a rate of 7.4 AH per hour of “pileup” use).

In the end, I never did try my new end-fed half-wave antenna, as the pileup was quite deep with just the HamStick.  Thanks to all Hunters who made the activation fun!

Entrance to Browning Mill Pond, part of Arcadia

Rig was an Icom IC-7000, with 100 watts. It was run by a 30 AH LiFePO4 battery

A 20-meter HanStick/MagMount was the antenna, adjusted for a  SWR of 1.3 to 1 on 14.280 MHz

Arcadia Management Area is a stunning collection of trails and ponds in western RI

 

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POTA Bronze Hunter

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Bob Beatty

Since my post on Oct 2 about activating Brenton Point Park, I’ve done another activation at Trustom Pond (K-0517) on October 9th along the southern coast of RI, and plan on going to a park in the Point Judith area tomorrow afternoon.  No doubt activating is fun because you get to be outside and sometime have a chance to see friends in a safe location.

But the other half of the Parks On The Air program is being a Hunter — someone who looks for Activators.  Without even knowing, I had word a few parks in the past year or so, so spent a couple of hours working some parks the past few days.  The award system for POTA is automatic and simple — just download a PDF.  Here is the entry-level award for Hunters:

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