Happy New Year! Goal Review

Posted on January 1, 2018 by robert

2017 was a very productive year for my ham radio hobby.  At the beginning of the year I set the following goals:

  • Teach a Technician class
  • 265 confirmed countries
  • 1250 Challenge band-points
  • Successful ARISS contact at BHHS
  • Complete 1 QRP Kit
  • Convert from HRD to DXLABS

The only goal that wasn’t competed was 265 confirmed countries — I only managed 262.  It’s going to be slow going from now on.

I taught a very large (for me) Technician Class in Oct/Nov.  I had over 30 students, 26 eventually took the exam and passed.  23 techs and 3 generals.  19 of them have joined my club, so it was a good year for NCRC as well.

Speaking of NCRC and classes, I was presented with an Educational Award at the end of the year.  While I don’t have an exact number, I’ve taught somewhere around 10% of all the hams in the state of RI at this point, and am marching on (my next set of classes is scheduled for March 20).  The award has established a scholarship fund in my name.  Needless to say, I was VERY touched by the recognition.

The ARISS event at BHHS was successful, although as it turns out I had nothing to do with it (Mike K1NPT did a fantastic job).  It was changed from a direct contact to a Telebridge contact via an Italian ham, so no RF was required here in RI.  That said, I did join the ARISS organization as a Mentor, and have been coaching the Museum of Science and Technology in Syracuse NY through their first ARISS proposal and contact, so I’ll count that as a check mark too.

I did convert from HRD to DXLABS and started using the latter for a few months.  However, eventually I went back to HRD which just seems to work better for my style of operation.  JTALERT relaxed the HRD ban a bit, and a few versions have supported logging which is one of the key reasons I wanted to switch.

I accomplished a few things of note during the year as well.  I worked seven new (to me) Amateur Satellites (XW-2A,B,C,D,F, CAS-4A, and AO-91).  I rebuilt a HP3225A synthesizer that will allow me to participate in Frequency Measurement Tests (FMT) in the future.  I had confirmed contacts every month of the year, and I continued my five year streak of publishing at least one blog entry every month.

My goals for 2018 are:

  • Teach a Technician Class
  • 265 Confirmed Countries in DXCC
  • 1,275 Challenge Band-Points
  • 160-meter 40 DXCC AND 45 WAS
  • Compete in a FMT
  • 3D Print an electronics project case

Happy New Year!!!

Posted in Education, From the OM | Leave a comment

Year-end DX/WAS Summary

Posted on December 31, 2017 by robert

2017 was a slow year for DX & WAS.  I suspect due to a combination of working most of the easy ones and a rapidly declining Solar Cycle 24.  It is hard to imagine how poor things will be for the next three years, until Cycle 25 starts to pick up (If Cycle 25 ever happens!! The magnetic field strength of the sun has gotten so low it is approaching the point where it can no longer sustain spots. Because of the weak magnetic flux, there are some that are predicting we might not have another solar cycle until 2100.)

I’m finally starting to keep track my 160-meter activity, as I’ve made some progress during 2017.  My 160-meter DXCC count is up 9 countries to 38, and WAS is up to 42 from 37.  I have worked every state except AK and HI (I do wish more people would confirm using LotW), and I’ve heard HI, so there is hope that I might someday get 160-meter WAS.

I’ve finished the year with 262 confirmed DXCC contacts, an increase of 4 from the end of 2016, and my Challenge count is now up to 1,262 band-points, an increase of 27.  Getting to 1,500 will be hard.  If one excludes 160-meters, that would be 8 bands requiring 188 countries per band — even with 160-meters, it is 167 countries per band.  Bottom line is I suspect I won’t be getting to 1,500 band-points until close to the peak of the next solar cycle in 2024, assuming Solar Cycle 25 starts around the end of 2019.

12-meter WAS still continues to be elusive, and it would be highly optimistic to think I would work WV any time soon as there has been almost no 12-meter activity.  I’m sure that there are openings, but there aren’t enough people on the band to make it show up on the spotting networks.  So I’ll be stuck at 7-band WAS for the foreseeable future.

My Satellite activity as inched up a bit:  WAS is now up two to 24 and DXCC is up one to 6

Posted in 160-Meters, DX, Propagation, Satellite, Solar Cycles, WAS | Leave a comment

Configuring TM-D710GA for APRS Indoors

Posted on December 20, 2017 by robert

That last word “Indoors”is the clue…

The TM-D710GA has a built-in GPS.  Not surprisingly, it does not receive indoors, and it has no provisions for an external antenna (only an external GPS receiver).

I had setup the radio for A-side APRS, and B-side Club Repeater (also on 2 meters).  Diving into the menus I entered a fixed GPS location and time, since I wasn’t receiving the GPS signal.  Try as I might, I could not get a Beacon out of my radio.

Turns out the problem was the lack of GPS sync.  Turning off GPS resolved the issue, and I now have the radio configured to beacon whenever I press the “BCON” button.  Sweet.

Posted in APRS, Gear, TM-D710GA | Leave a comment

A Few More AO-91 QSOs

Posted on December 5, 2017 by robert

There was another high pass of AO-91 around noon today, from 1716 to 1730 UTC.

I worked Dave NA2AA (FN20/NJ) at 17:23 and Phil W1EME (FN32/MA) at 1726.  I only had audio copy from about 1722-1726.  Even with a mast mounted preamp, my egg beaters are not doing well with this bird (no leaves on the trees either).

 

Posted in AMSAT, AO-91, Satellite | Leave a comment

First AO-91 QSOs

Posted on December 4, 2017 by robert

I’ve managed to miss every pass of AO-91 either due schedule conflicts or incompetence on my part.  I finally set an alarm to go off before a 41 degree high pass today starting at 16:54 UTC.

At first I was concerned that I had programmed SATPC32 incorrectly, as I didn’t hear anything until about 16:58 UTC, at which point the satellite was 18 degrees overhead.  Even then there were long & deep fades.

At 17:02 I had my first contact with Rich WB3CSY in PA (FN10).  Mike WB3JVD in WV (FM19) followed at 17:04, then Paul N8HM in DC (FM18), and at 17:05 Peter W2JV in NY (FN30).

Shortly after speaking with W2JV the bird faded out, when I was showing about 12 degrees above the horizon.  I’m only using egg beaters here, and was only able to work about 3-4 minutes when the satellite was close to overhead.

Posted in AMSAT, AO-91, Satellite | Leave a comment

160 Meter Contest in the Bag

Posted on December 3, 2017 by robert

The contest ended at 11 AM local time, so it’s in the bag.  I finished with 302 contacts (only 17 DX contacts).  I was on for 5.75 hours on Friday and 5.25 hours on Saturday, so 11 total.  Probably spent 2 hours of that deep searching the 1830-1835 segment for DX.  I ran S&P the entire time (with one brief exception, explained below).  On Friday the contest fit in 60 KHz of the band.  Last night it was more like 90 KHz.  I was surprised that there were many new (to me) stations on last night.

Anyway I uploaded my log to LotW when I got off the air last night, and immediately saw 5 confirmations.  By this morning the count was more like 45.  No doubt many logs will come in the next couple of days (only 5 days to submit the log!)

With the objective of adding to WAS and DXCC, I already have to a tiny extent:  two more countries confirmed and one more state.  Maybe a couple of more in each category by the time folks upload their logs.  Signals were good enough that I should, in theory, be able to work all the 48 states, and I should be able to get DXCC between Central & South America plus Western Europe & the Caribbean.  I faintly heard, below the noise floor, a KL7, but I would need another 6 dB at least to be able to copy, and of course that doesn’t mean he could hear me.  Of the lower 48 states I heard all but ID, KS, NB, ND, NV, UT, and WY.  I only failed to work MS, who I heard in S&P mode too.  I even tried to set up a few KHz higher and call CQ, hoping he would come back to my call, but that didn’t work).

So much fun!

Posted in 160-Meters, Contests | Leave a comment

Wonderful Band Conditions for 160 Meter Contest

Posted on December 1, 2017 by robert

I’m only noodling around, running S&P mostly to find new states or countries.  Band noise floor is about -110 dBm, which is pretty quiet.  A few signals are 70 dB above that.  Most are 35 dB above the noise floor.  Band is pretty full from 1800 to 1860 KHz. (Ed:  Sat/Sun the contest spanned from 1800 to 1880 KHz.)

Posted in 160-Meters, Contests | Leave a comment

First Practice FMT Run

Posted on December 1, 2017 by robert

A good friend of mine, John WA1ABI, is responsible for planting the FMT bug in my head.  I’ve been admiring his results in the ARRL FMTs for years — he is constantly an outstanding performer.  John graciously suggested that we spend about an hour today having a mini-local FMT on four AM stations plus CHU.  We would each measure/divine the frequency from data collected over a two minute period, shifting to a different spot ever 5 minutes.

Our results were amazingly close, especially with two stations that are known to be high accuracy/stable:  WBZ when in IBOC mode, and CHU.  In fact we were amazingly close on all measurements except for 920 KHz — I probably messed something up.

Anyway, here is the result table.

Station Approximate WB4SON WA1ABI Delta
Callsign Freq in Hz Measured Freq Measured Freq
WBZ 1030000 1029998.807 1029998.807 0.000
WPRO 630000 629998.301 629998.296 0.005
WHJJ 920000 919999.899 919999.863 0.036
WARV 1590000 1589999.431 1589999.427 0.004
CHU 3330000 3330000.005 3330000.006 -0.001

WBZ and CHU were within 1 milliHertz (1 ppb).  WPRO and WARV were within 5 milliHertz (3 ppb).  My oddball was WHJJ which was 36 milliHertz different (39 ppb).

(ED 12/4: John and I captured the audio data from each run and swapped those files for processing on a later date.  He informed me the next day that he analyzed my audio file and would have called the frequency 919999.863 — in other words he thinks my gear was doing fine, but I likely jotted down an incorrect reading.  I wouldn’t be surprised!  When I get a chance I’ll run the audio file through Spectrum Labs and see if I come up with something different than I initially reported.)

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Can You Trust Your RX For a FMT?

Posted on November 26, 2017 by robert

My go to ham rig is my K3s, which includes the KTCXO3-1 Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator, a device specified to maintain 0.5 to 1 PPM,  One might think that in a reasonably controlled environment that the K3s could be used in CW mode coupled with an audio spectrum analyzer like Spectrum Labs to participate in the ARRL Frequency Measuring Tests. 

While it is useful for ham purposes, the reality of the K3s/KTCXO3 is that the frequency will vary considerably even within a few minutes as oscillator frequency is adjusted by the radio’s firmware.  This is NOT a temperature related thing.

Below is a screen capture from Spectrum Labs showing variability in the the received audio tone (CW mode, pitch 300 Hz) tuned to a Rubidium 10.0 MHz source.  The rig had been powered on for more than five hours in a room that was temperature controlled to 71.5 degrees +/- 0.8 degrees.

The audio tone shown below over an interval of 45 minutes, wobbles from a low of 299.65 Hertz to a high of 300.56 Hertz.  While certainly capable of measuring a frequency to within 1 Hz, it isn’t capable of getting “Green Band <0.1 Hz” FMT results.

The upper half of the waterfall shows the K3s in CW mode detecting a 10.0000 MHz rubidium source.  The detected audio wobbles significantly.

The bottom half of the waterfall shows the K3s in AM mode detecting a 10.0003 plus 10.0000 MHz signal, which create a precise 300 Hz beat-tone.  This indicates that Spectrum Labs and the soundcard in the K3s are rock solid in that mode, recording a signal of 300.000000 Hz for hours.

Posted in FMT, Gear | Leave a comment

So How Far Off is Your Soundcard?

Posted on November 26, 2017 by robert

I am starting my journey into the world of Frequency Measuring Tests.  I decided to use my receiver in AM mode and compare the unknown frequency to a known frequency obtained from a HP3335A (locked to a Rubidium source) that is set to produce a beat note around 300 Hz.

That AM beat-tone approach takes out any impact of the receiver in the process.  However the soundcard being used to measure the audio frequency (with Spectrum Labs software) is subject to error.  In my case a precise 300 Hz tone was reading low by about 39.7 ppm. Not horrible for a standard crystal source, but still a source of error.  After adjusting the 48000 sample per second rate to 48001.904 sps, the audio frequency was spot on.

The source of the precise 300 Hz tone was another AM beat-tone.  I used the 10 MHz output of the Rb source fed through 80 dB of attenuation to a BNC-T on  my radio.  The other side of the T was connected to my HP3335A set to 10.000300 000 MHz at a level of -80 dBm.  Those two carriers produce a very precise 300 Hz frequency.

I turned the PC and rig off overnight, and rechecked things immediately following power on the next day.  The worst case error was less than 50 microhertz (300.000 050) and it improved over time.

Posted in FMT | Leave a comment