So I’ve worked several different Egypt stations in the past couple of years, but none have participated in LotW. That changed when I got confirmation for a SSB QSO with SU1HZ on May 5th.
That brings my confirmed total to 185, with 714 Challenge points. I have 7 to go on 10 meters and 27 remaining on 80 meters for 5BDXCC. The Clipperton DXpedition will bump all of those numbers up as I have worked them on all bands and modes — I understand cards are being mailed out this month.
My club, Newport County Radio Club, has been teetering back and forth between being the largest or second largest club in the state. This year we decided that we wanted to undertake a plan of serious growth, to clearly distinguish ourselves as the largest club in the state. Our club had a long history of offering VE sessions, but it was rare for someone who passed the exam to join us despite some attempts at marketing the club. They simply got their license and disappeared. And with the general population of the state in decline, and the ham population in particular, finding existing hams seemed to be a stretch. The best approach seemed to be to grow our own, but in a holistic way. To that end we developed the following list of action items:
The first two items were the easiest, and by the end of last year we had accomplished both. On April 1st we offered our first Technician Class in quite a number of years. As the cost of teaching materials had risen ($20 to $30 per student), the club decided to offset the cost of the materials by charging the student $10. This way the cost was not a barrier but the students still had some skin in the game. Our class was marketed to the various EMA agencies and public service groups in our region.
When April 1st came around, we had 13 students enrolled. With classes set to run six sessions from 7 PM until 9 PM (a couple lasted until 9:30 PM), we were able to cover all the Technician Class material. In addition to the “teaching” aspect, the students had a chance to see and answer (as a group) ever single one of the Technician Class questions. As homework, they were asked to read the next sections of the book and to begin taking online exams.
Several weeks into the class we announced the second part of our plan. Students that passed the exam and agreed to join NCRC for two years would be offered a “free” dual-band HT, pre-programmed with various local repeaters (with W1SYE, our own repeater, in slot #1 of course!). While the Yacomwood seem to have established price points of HTs at $150 (2m only), $300, or $600 depending on features, several Chinese vendors offer their HTs for $40 to $100. In the end, the cost of the HT we chose was more than covered by the dues that were brought in.
The HTs will be delivered to the students on Field Day after they attend a live training class on operating practices and the use and programming of their new HT. Of course they will be trained on the operation of the GOTA station and encouraged to participate in that activity, as well as join the club at our picnic dinner during FD.
Our exam was this past Monday. After hearing from the state SM about the dismal pass-fail rate of a recent VE session, I was pleased when 9 of 11 students passed the exam. All 9 immediately joined NCRC, making us solidly the largest club in the state. Other students will take the exam on June 8 (or retake the exam), so we may have additional new members before Field Day as well. We will hold other classes in the future.
Of course, we will only know for sure two years from now when it is time for renewals, but we feel that by taking a more whole approach, by growing our own hams, mentoring them, and engaging them quickly with club activities, we have found a technique for growth that is repeatable and be scaled to any size radio club.
Edited to add that RI had a total of 28 new Technician licenses added in the past 365 days, so adding 9 more is quite significant. New calls will be in the KB1ZZR-KC1AAx range.
Solar Cycle 24 seems destined to be a double peak (the first occurring in 2011), and solar activity has been up substantially, which is good for DX.
I just completed 700 LotW band-countries yesterday with a confirmation from Maldives. That also brought my LotW confirmed count to 182. By this morning, a contact from the Southern Sudan had also arriving, boosting that number to 183 (plus one in QSL form). There are a few more DXpedition QSLs yet to arrive. A total of 200 by year’s end is sounding possible. I began the year with 154 confirmed countries, so the total is up by 30. My worked country count hasn’t risen as much. It stands at 219, and was 202 at the start of the year.
I also completed my first 60 meter QSO with 4Z4DX. As currently configured, 60 meters is almost useless, however it has interesting propagation characteristics.
I had been using a Diamond X510 antenna mounted to a six foot pole attached to my deck (10 feet above ground) and had pretty good luck with 2m and 70cm repeaters. However, when I used it as an antenna for my scanner, decoding about 60% of the packets on the statewide trunking system. So I replaced the Diamond X510 with a Comet DS-150S Discone antenna.
My initial tests were done using a 9 foot mast in the same location. While the 2m and 70cm machines appeared to be about the same signal strength, the 850 MHz trunking system was substantially lower than before and the decode rate had dropped from 60% down to 40% — odd given that the discone is wide-band. I also checked the SWR on 50.1 MHz and found it to be about 4.5:1 and much worse at higher frequencies.
On a whim I swapped out the 9 foot mast for a 12 foot mast. This brought the 850 MHz trunking system up to full strength and 100% decode — much better than it had been when using the X510. Pleasantly, the SWR on the 6 meter band became more manageable with an SWR of 2.4:1 at 50.1 MHz and 1.2:1 at 52.0 MHz.
What a difference 3 feet can make!
After shopping around a bit, I decided to use a Tenergy 10 Amp Charger for 4S LiFePO4 batteries. The charger output cable is a pair of alligator clips just begging to be shorted out, and I wanted to replace them with Power Pole connectors, but not before testing the charger to be sure it was working.
I found that the charger produced 14.67 volts under no load, a reasonable maximum output voltage. It then produced 14.17 volts at and 8 amp load, and 14.07 volts at a 10 amp load. By 10.25 amps the output voltage was decaying to zero, proving that the charger is a constant voltage output until it reaches the current limit of 10 amps.
Tenergy 10A Charger for 4S LiFePO4 battery
I finally found the time to complete my 60AH LiFePO4 battery by building it into a box this weekend between sporting events for my daughter.
I had checked the size of the four battery cells prior to ordering them and they seemed to fit into a Plano 1612 Deep Water Resistant Field Box. I toyed with the idea of putting the Power Pole connector into the compartment on the top cover, but it seemed to put too much stress on the 10 AWG wiring when the cover was open, so I cut a small rectangular opening in one end of the box and used a pair of Mounting Clamps to mount the Power Pole connector. The clamps were affixed with 3mm diameter, 6mm long self-tapping screws for plastic from screwerk.com. Due to the metric size, they required a #44 drill bit.
The battery was form fitted to the box using some closed-cell high density foam pads cut to size. Finally the Power Control Module was isolated from the battery and the plastic box (it gets warm during charging) with a couple of pieces of 6×6 inch vulcanized fiber board (this is a UL rated high-temp insulating material). This sort of material is commonly used in the fabrication of electric guitar pickups so it can be found cheaply on Ebay.
The small compartment on the lid holds a watt-hour meter and Power Pole six outlet power tap and spare fuses.
60AH Battery Pack in a box
The PCM LO4S30 Power Control Module that I used with the the four-series 60 AH LiFePO4 battery (LFP-G60 cells) is doing a great job keeping the cells balanced on recharge. After the 3rd PCM charge, the largest difference is now 12 millivolts. Recorded cell voltages, 12 hours after completing the charge cycle are:
Following the initial charge, which was performed on individual cells, the largest cell voltage differential was 68 millivolts. The first charge using the PCM was 56 millivolts, and the next was 24 millivolts. It appears that the differential is decreasing over time.
Since the largest recorded voltage differential following discharge has been 14 millivolts, it appears that the PCM is doing its job well — reducing the risk that any individual cell might become over discharged or overcharged.
And the Test Results are in…
65.78 AH capacity from 14.35 volts down to 12.00 volts, at a C/10 rate of 6.00 Amps. This is 9.6% more than the name plate capacity.
Measured individual cell voltages were very close, ranging from a low of 3.022 to a high if 3.036 (total greater than 12.000 due to cabling and controller board loss).
C/10 (6 A) Discharge Test shows 65.78 AH Capacity after 10 Hours 58 Min of testing.
