Use a 2mm Allen Wrench for HamSticks

Posted on October 12, 2020 by robert

I have a number of HamStick antennas that I use with my Truck.  Over time, I’ve lost every one of the little pesky Allen Wrenches that they come with, and couldn’t find the size listed anywhere on the web.

I suspect they were designed with a 5/64″ Allen Wrench in mind, but I’ve noticed that occasionally slips with some of my worn set screws.  A 2mm Allen Wrench is slightly larger (2.000mm vs 1.984mm), and seems to fit more snugly.

T-Handle Allen Wrenches, either 5/64″ or 2 MM can be found for < $4 on Amazon

 

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POTA – Brenton Point State Park

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Bob Beatty

I was lucky enough to get together with a few friends (John K1JSM, and Willy W1LY) today for a Parks On The Air (POTA) activation of Brenton Point State Park K-2870.

John and Willy are avid activators, usually islands, but have changed to parks on the air, so they have a lot of experience and have tried several different antennas.  Today we were using a Yaesu FT-897 with a PAR End-Fedz end-fed half-wave on 20 meters, and it seemed to work exceptionally well.  Willy and John did their activations on SSB, but I gave things a try on 14.060 CW.  I was amazed at the EU propagation.  Within 20 minutes I had worked 12 stations.

My thanks to DL4EAM, EA1ASG, F1BLL, IK2YGZ, IK4DRY, IW2NXI, N5PU, ON4VT, PA1H, SP1JQJ, UA6FZ, and VE4AKI for being on the other end.

FYI: My Location was Brenton Point State Park, grid FN41hk, 41.451094N and 71.351883W

Bob WB4SON at the CW Key

RBN indicated great S/N levels

Willy at the mic, John on the right. Pretty spot! You can see the mast holding up the high end of the end-fed antenna by the park sign

The sky was dramatic for sure, but it was in the 60s with light 5 knot winds from the WSW

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The year that won’t end

Posted on September 19, 2020 by robert

Pandemic, social unrest, political unrest, unbelievable fires, running out of names for Tropical Storms, even a plague of locusts, and there is still another quarter of 2020 to go!  Nevertheless, I’m very grateful to have Amateur Radio as a hobby as it provides many opportunities to keep my brain active and distract me from some terrible things going on in the world.

I set the following as goals for 2020:

  • 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

Good news is that three of the five have already been accomplished.  Not only did I teach a technician Class, but I’m part way through the second for this year.  Both are historically large classes being taught online.  They have lead to historically large VE sessions, and large number of new hams licensed.  At this point I’ve taught between 15 and 20% of all licensed hams in the state!

I did finally reach 275 confirmed countries in DXCC.  Almost everything left is dependent on future DXPeditions.  That has brought me close to another goal, with only four band-points left to get to my goal of 1450.  Two of those came about due to 6-meter openings.

After stalling at 89 confirmed countries on 160 over the noisy summer months, I got back on 160-meters yesterday.  I worked two new countries (Iceland and Anguilla) and heard but didn’t work three more in South America.  By this morning, Iceland had confirmed (thank you TF2MSN), completing my goal of 90 confirmed countries on 160-meters for 2020.

My final uncompleted goal for 2020 is to work 40 states via Satellite.  I’ve been off the birds for months due to foliage, and my usual excursions to parks have been severely limited by the pandemic.  I doubt I will be able to work 3 more states before the end of this year.  So more than likely I’ll finish the year with 4 out of 5 goals completed.

 

Posted in 160-Meters, Awards, COVID-19, DX, Education, Goals, Satellite | Leave a comment

Solar Cycle 25 OFFICIALLY Underway

Posted on September 15, 2020 by robert

NASA and NOAA made the announcement earlier today: Solar Cycle 25 is underway, with Cycle 24 ending in December of 2019.  Their best estimate is that it will be similar to Cycle 24, so nothing to write home about, but by this time next year, things will be opening up and will stay that way until about 2029.  Get those HF antennas up in the air soon!!!

 

Posted in Propagation, Solar Cycles | Leave a comment

MORSERINO Home Run with “Echo Test”

Posted on September 9, 2020 by Bob Beatty

In addition to my usual Technician Classes (a new set starting in a week), I’ve been spending a few hours a week teaching Morse Code to a neighbor of mine, who passed his General this June (Ryan KC1KUF).  Because of the pandemic, we’ve been doing our practice sessions via cell phone.

We started in July.  By the end end of August, we had 16 hours into it, and Ryan was copying the alphabet at 18 WPM with a 5 WPM Farnsworth rate.  Our sessions eventually alternated between me sending words to him, and Ryan sending them back to me to build his paddle skills.  In another month or two he will be ready for on-air tests.

I’m always on the lookout for interesting tools to use.  There is lots of online stuff out there (personal favorite Just Learn Morse Code), fairly good for learning to copy the code, but not usable for sending code.  Enter MORSERINO, an Arduino-based Morse Code Tutor and Keyer designed by Willi Kaml OE1WKL

I learned about the MORSERINO from friends who were using it themselves.  Lots of bells and whistles, including the ability for two MORSERINO users to make a “contact” via the Internet, or via a 433 MHz LoRa 100 mW transceiver.  But the thing that really caught my attention was the “ECHO TRAINER”.  The MORSERINO sends a word (or callsign, or random characters — your choice) at the speed you select.  You copy the word in your head, then send it back using your paddle.   Two different tones let you know if you got it right or wrong.  Even after 50 years of CW work, I find that an amazing effective tool to help exercise my paddle skills and sharpen my receiving skills.

The software is all open source which means you could easily substitute your own list of words or callsigns, and tinker with features.  You can find the open source software here, and you use the standard Arduino tools to make your own version.  Willi has been quite good about keeping the software current and bug fixes.

It isn’t cheap at about $100 including shipping from the EU, but honestly, what keyer is these days?  Mine took a couple of weeks to be produced and another 10 days or so for shipping.  It is a pseudo kit, but only thru-hole soldering is required as all the surface mount parts are already mounted on the PCB.  The kit took well under an hour to put together and worked with no issues.  My only minor nit is that the LiPo battery they built it around uses a MOLEX connector, which is quite rare in the US, rather than the vastly more common JT connectors.  That said, you can easily substitute a cable with the correct connector at build time, or even have two cables so either connector can be used.  You can order a 600 mAh LiPo from Amazon with the MOLEX connector if you want.  That said, you can always power it using the micro USB connector on the Heltec module.

Posted in CW, Education, Instruction, Training | Leave a comment

When Trees Aren’t Our Friends

Posted on August 8, 2020 by robert

A number of years ago, I wrote that hams often view trees as an enemy, preventing us from getting antennas up in the air, or interfering with satellite and VHF/UHF communication.  I suggested that we could alter our perspective and use the trees as a natural antenna support.  For the past decade I did just that, running a 450 foot circumference loop through my trees, and more recently installing a 160-meter Inverted-L

This past Tuesday Tropical Storm Isaias was winding its way into Canada via Albany, about 200 miles to our west.  We had a little wind and very little rain (being on the far eastern side of the storm).  Things changed drastically around 5:30 PM when a narrow feeder band, stretching from Isaias down to North Carolina, cut through the state.  It only lasted about 30 minutes, but it brought very strong winds to the state, knocking out power statewide to over 1/3 of the population.  There were many reports of trees down on top of houses, cars, RVs, etc.  Fortunately there were no fatalities.

In my case, at 5:45 PM, a loud snap with a resounding boom left our house vibrating.  A 150 foot tall oak tree had blown onto the rear corner of our house, splitting and dropping down two sides of our home.  The damage to the house was fairly minimal — the rear part of the roof needs to be replaced, window screens were ripped, and there is some painting to do.  Fortunately we still had power and air conditioning, plus the house appeared to be water-proof and structurally sound.  By the next morning companies had visited to bid on the work, and the tree was removed on Thursday.

An unfortunate side-effect of this was the loss of BOTH of my HF antennas, taking me off the air for the first time in a decade.  The loop was always an annoyance to my wife, who could see the wire snaking into the woods, so it will not be put back up (I will miss its low noise level and ease of tuning on all ham bands).  The loss of the Inverted-L was a real blow.  A good friend of mine, Willy W1LY, who has probably installed more antennas that anyone in the state of Rhode Island, will come by to shoot support lines into different trees later this week.  With some luck I’ll be back on the air for our weekly net on Wednesday at 3.9 MHz (7 PM local time).

Tall oak fell, splitting along the back (seen here) and side yard, taking down both HF antennas.

Posted in Antennas, Weather | 1 Comment

Solar Cycle 25 Prediction

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Bob Beatty

Not all predictions are accurate, of course, but I bet the folks at NASA and the Solar Observatory have a good handle on things.  This was one of their predictions from early last year, based on some new observations of the past 4 solar cycles:

Ouch!  Not very encouraging.  Of course there are always nay-say’ers, including some calling for the largest solar cycle in decades.  But I seriously doubt that.  In any event the board that decides these things issued their official forecast at the end of 2019.  Here is what NASA forecasts for Cycle 25:

Not quite as low, in fact pretty much comparable to Cycle 24.  And there is no doubt that Cycle 25 has begun already.  Two more years from now and times should be MUCH better.

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K2 Energy LiFePO4 going strong 9+ years later

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Bob Beatty

The first LiFePO4 battery I acquired was produced by k2battery.com back in 2011.  It was a drop-in replacement for the standard size 7 AH SLA battery, model K2B12V10EB.  It has served me well, all these years, being the primary battery I use with my KX3 on extended trips.

I noticed that I had not recharged it for 16 months.  That gave me a good opportunity to measure how much energy I put into it to bring it to full charge.  The answer was 0.21 AH.  So in 16 months it had lost 0.21/9.6 AH, or 2.2% of its full capacity.  Granted it was sitting inside my house, not exposed to thermal extremes, but that’s amazingly low self-discharge for all those months just sitting on a shelf. (One of the MANY reasons I prefer LiFePO4 battery technology.)

In a few more months, when the battery hits a full decade, I will redo the full capacity tests that I ran all those years ago.  I’d bet that it remains > 90% of its nameplate capacity.

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Renaming Audio In/Out in Win 10

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Bob Beatty

As I slowly change from older generation radios to newer ones, many of them come with a USB interface for Rig Control as well as modulation In and Out.  The trouble is that the vendors don’t do a good job of identifying which audio device is which (Kudos to FlexRadio which does, by the way — thumbs down to Icom, Kenwood, and Yaesu who do not).

For example,

  • K3s Modulation Output “Speakers USB Audio CODEC”
  • K3s Modulation Input “Microphone USB Audio CODEC”
  • FTDX101MP Modulation Output “LINE USB AUDIO CODEC”
  • FTDX101MP Modulation Input “Microphone USB AUDIO CODEC”

Those names are not very descriptive and leads to confusion when picking an audio device for WSJT-X, FLDIGI, etc.  You CAN rename the devices, after they are installed, using the Windows 10 Control Panel/Hardware and Sound/Sound.  For the Modulation Output, pick the “Recording” tab.  For Modulation Input, pick the “Playback” tab.

As an example, suppose I want to rename the “LINE USB AUDIO CODEC” on my FTDX-101MP to identify itself as “FTDX USB AUDIO CODEC”, I chose the Recording Tab (it is the radio Modulation Output, so that feeds the Windows 10 “Recording” inputs), the scroll down until I find the “LINE USB AUDIO CODEC”. Highlight that device, then click Properties, then overwrite the “LINE” name and change it to FDTX101, and press OK. (Pick a new Icon if you like).

 

 

Posted in FTDX-101MP, Gear, Sound, Win10 | Leave a comment

Another Field Day Completed

Posted on June 28, 2020 by robert

Field Day 2020 is now in the log.  As so many others did, I operated from home, class 1E, aggregating my score with Newport County Radio Club. Good thing I spent a bunch of time on my bonus points, because I only managed to work 80 stations in four hours running QRP on CW and FT8.  I was expecting to work several hundred, so I fell far short of my goal.

I’m making excuses, of course, but this Field Day was vastly different.  Usually a 1D or 1E stations is a rarity, with almost everyone in the field with clubs.  This year, the bands were saturated with them.  Many were obviously running amplifiers and no doubt had access to fine antenna arrays.  That meant the more modest stations had an almost impossible task to maintain a RUN frequency, not that I ever expected to do that as I was running 5 watts to an inverted-L.  The other difference was the skill levels shown on-air were not up to par, with folks often rambling, failing to give proper exchanges, etc.

Still it was a joy to be back on CW again, and I enjoyed those contacts far more than the ones I made with FT8.  The 20 minutes spent copying the ARRL Field Day Bulletin on CW as probably a wash.  It was worth 100 points as a bonus but those 20 minutes likely could have produced a few more points making CW contacts.

Sadly, I was only able to work my club station, NE1RI, on 6-meter FT8.  Never heard them on any other band.  Usually a dominant force in the top 5 or 10 nationally, I know they were struggling to maintain a RUN frequency as well.

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