Radiation pattern after adding radials.

 The other day, I battled the heat and installed more radials for my Hustler 4BTV. I have an extra 14-gauge wire left over from when I first installed the radials, and for some time, I was planning to install the remainder, but never got around to it. Well, it is now done, and I am about 15 radials richer, bringing the total to close to 40. After the install, I was wondering if my radiation pattern has changed at all? I connected my WSPR transmitter over the period of 24 hours. For some reason, when I set it up, it was only sending signals out on 20 and 40m. I found out I neglected to save the settings, and the 20m and 40m setup was from the last time I used it. So I only have at this time data for those two bands. 

Below are the patterns before the radial additions. 

 



 

After the radials upgrade  



 


Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 388

Amateur Radio Weekly

2025 ARRL Field Day a success
Tens of thousands of Hams are celebrating a successful 2025 ARRL Field Day.
ARRL

Ham Radio enthusiasts gather in township for Field Day activities
The group was one of more than 10,000 Ham Radio operators across the United States and Canada taking part in Field Day.
Franklin Reporter & Advocate

Field Day 2025
Once again the Plattsmouth Amateur Radio Club held annual Field Day operations at Young Park in Murray Nebraska.
N8VCL

The antenna that won Field Day 2025
My quest for the best vertical delta loop antenna.
KB9VBR

Registration for ZRDC 2025 now open
Registration offers in-person access and virtual attendance options to attend the inaugural Zero Retries Digital Conference 2025.
Zero Retries Digital Conference

Why I started an Amateur Radio club in my school
Amateur Radio can open up a new world of opportunities for students, says teacher Chris Aitken, who shares his tips on how to start a club.
tes magazine

Traveling with Meshtastic
My device saw quite a few others along the way.
marxy’s musing on technology

Roger Smallwood (N8EKG) of R&L Electronics SK
Mr. Smallwood supported Hamvention and was a life member of the Dayton Amateur Radio Association.
DARA

Z-Sat VHF transmissions
Z-Sat carries an amateur radio payload that was coordinated by IARU and which consists of a BBS (bulletin board system) with a 145.875 MHz downlink and 435.480 MHz uplink.
EA4GPZ / M0HXM

HamSCI Meteor Scatter QSO Party
Work the rocks, decode the pings Aug 11-12 and Dec 12-13, 2025.
HamSCI

Youth Ham Radio insights
A Visit to the 2025 Friedrichshafen Ham Fair in Germany.
OnAllBands

Video

Titanic’s lost radio room found: What’s still inside?
Imagine hearing Titanic’s distress signal after 113 years.
History X

How much trouble did we have with 2025 ARRL Field day as a QRP station?
This is the one event that is deliberately geared towards informing the public about Ham Radio in an outdoor environment with a light hearted attitude.
Ham Radio Today

HAM RADIO 2025
This is a video of a visit to HAM RADIO 2025 at Friedrichshafen. The largest and best Ham Radio event in Europe.
MaltbyRadio

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Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.

LHS Episode #585: SDR++ Brown Deep Dive

Hello and welcome to Episode #585 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts review the SDR++ fork known as the "Brown" edition. Topics include installation, basic configuration, features and more. Focus is also on special features of the fork including audio filtering, KiwiSDR and WebSDR support and more. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew


Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Ham College 126


Ham College episode 126 is now available for download.

Ham College 126
Technician Exam Questions Part 13
T4A – Station setup: connecting a microphone, a power source, a computer, digital equipment, an SWR meter; bonding; Mobile radio installation.

Download
YouTube


George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].

Can you see the issue?

 


Have a look at the above picture and see if you can see an issue? I operate SO2V in contests now, and this shot was taken during the RAC Canada Day contest on July 1. Operating SO2V is new to me, and I am still getting used to things. If you are familiar with the Icom 7610, you may see the issue in the picture. 
Now that you have looked at the picture, let me tell you what I did.....Since I am new to SO2V, I have been trying to get used to VFO A sound in my left ear and VFO B in my right ear. At this time, I had been listening and operating on 15m but just had 20m up on the screen with no audio. Things started to pick up on 20m and drop off on 15m. I then pressed a key on my keyboard (Pause key), and this put me back on 20m and set up N1MM+ to log contacts on 20m. 


The odd thing was I was calling CQ contest on 20m for about 5 minutes and no answers. I could hear a noise floor, but I was not getting any replies to my CQ. Then it clicked, I looked at the radio and forgot to take VFO A off mute! The orange light you see in the picture on the main VFO AF/RF control means the audio is muted for the main VFO. I was hearing VFO B in my right ear but I did not click into that. Who knows how many ops called me, but I just could not hear them as the audio was muted. Live and learn, I guess.  


Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Hustler 4BTV cleaning event.

My Hustler 4BTV has now been up for 5 years and is serving me very well, I might add. I felt it was time to take it down and clean it. I know, as Murphy would have it timed that something went wrong and it would be the middle of winter on a very cold and windy day. The items I used were a wire brush to get inside the tubing to clean, 99% alcohol for cleaning and a roll of 3M 33+ tape. This tape has a good temperature range. Finally, a Scotch Brite pad....which I never ended up using. I had read online that it was great for cleaning the aluminum tubing....found out not so much. It has been retired to the kitchen for pots and pans. 



My plan was to take each section apart and clean it, and then back together again. I did not want to get too far ahead of myself by taking the whole antenna apart. Before taking a measure section of tubing apart, I measured it and also marked the tubing with a Sharpie marking pen. I wanted to take a measurement and mark it down just in case I removed the Sharpie mark while cleaning. Oh, speaking of cleaning, I thought the wire brushes would be great for cleaning the inside of the tubing, BUT....the 4BTV tubing is 1 1/4 diameter, and I used the 1 1/4 wire brush. The brush went into the tubing just fine, but the bristles refused to go in the opposite direction to bring the brush out! It did take me some time, but I did get the brush out and lesson learned. I used the 1-inch brush instead, which did a great job. All the traps looked great and were still nice and clean. The lower section of the tubing support needed some cleaning, as well as the section of tubing. Overall, for being up 5 years in the ocean air, the antenna looked great. The spider arm required the most cleaning, and I did find a broken spider arm. I do have replacements that I needed to drill a hole in, as I figured some time ago, the spider arms are the weak point of the antenna. 

Top of spider arm
Bottom of spider arm 
I put each of the sections back together according to the Sharpe marks, and I used the 33+ tape around all the joints, along with using my anti-seize on all connecting parts. I then used my NanoVNA to check the SWR, and all was basically the same. I am pleased it has been cleaned and is ready for many other seasons.  

Example of clean trap

Damaged spider arm 

Inside tubing 

Base section before cleaning 



Read the rest of this post

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

The Communicator July – August 2025

A Big One to Last the Summer

We're coming up to our club's 50th Anniversary and this is another big issue, with a look back at our history, great articles, and our regular columnists.

Now read in over 165 countries, this issue brings you 130 pages of Amateur Radio content from the Southwest corner of Canada and around the globe. With less fluff and ads than other Amateur Radio publications, you will find Amateur Radio related articles, projects, profiles, news, tips and how-to's for all levels of the hobby.

Download the July - August 2025 Communicator in 
LARGE or SMALL format, or r
ead it on-line like a magazine

Previous Communicator issues:

Search for past Communicator issues

We now have a comprehensive searchable index back to 2007
HERE.  

As always, thank you to our contributors, and your feedback is always welcome. 

The deadline for the next edition is August 15th.

If you have news or events from your club or photos, stories, projects or other items of interest from BC or elsewhere, please contact us at [email protected]

73,

John VE7TI
'The Communicator' Editor


The Table of Contents for the July - August 2025 Communicator issue:

  • The Unsung Pioneers - Some lesser-known early Amateur Radio experimenters and the dawn of wireless communication 4
  • Some Early Surrey Amateur Radio Club History 7
  • Telus Donates Tower/Trailer to SARC! 10
  • News You Can’t Lose: The Centennial Gleissberg Cycle 12
  • Page13—News You Can Lose: The Lighter Side 13
  • Amateur Radio History In the Province of British Columbia 15
  • Radio Ramblings: The Grab Bag 18
  • Amateur Radio Contesting... But is your log accurate? 27
  • Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications 30
  • Remote WAN Operation and the Perils of CG-NAT Drive 32
  • Six Meters: The SARC 50.070 MHz beacon 34
  • Spooltenna Product review 36
  • (ISED) Releases New Documents for Amateur Exams 39
  • You’ve got the Power!! Monitoring your voltage 40
  • Reinventing Spark Gap Radio 42
  • 7300 SIG: Efficient SD Card Management 48
  • Antenna Adventures: A compact 2m/70cm J-pole that wasn’t 52
  • Fence Solar - Add a back-up power source 54
  • The first interstellar software update: Voyager 1 58
  • Update on the VE7NFR Pico Balloon 60
  • AMSAT Designates SO-125: A New FM Repeater Satellite 61
  • SkyRoof: New Amateur Satellite Tracking Software 62
  • CQ: International Dog & Cat Days Special Event 63
  • A Comprehensive Guide to Crafting an Engaging QRZ Bio 64
  • Ham Radio Outside the box: An Improved Tank Circuit 67
  • Top Ten Steps For successful portable QRP operation 70
  • Small Pistols of Ham Radio Contesting 73
  • The RSGB Looks at Morse Code 73
  • "Too Many Antenna? What You Talking About Willis?" 74
  • The World of CW - VE9KK Looks at a Contest Keyboard 76
  • Zero Retries: Repeaters Are For Voice, Digipeaters Are For Data - NOT! 78
  • KB6NU: What’s In Your Rubber Duck? 84
  • Foundations of Amateur Radio: What's really happening at the IARU? 86
  • Back to Basics: The Common Mode Choke 89
  • No-ham Recipes: BBQ Chicken Marinade 93
  • Profiles of SARC members: Fred Orsetti VE7IO 96
  • Another SARC Founder: Ralph Webb VE7OM 100
  • Here is a great new callsign search site 103
  • SARC-SEPAR Field Day 2025: 3F at our Training Centre 104
  • The RAC Canada Day Contest: Celebrating Canada’s 158th 107
  • I have switched PDF readers! 108
  • CQ WPX (CW) Contest: Using VB7MAN 109
  • The New Look of Our Website 110
  • Friends Lost... 111
  • SARC General Meeting Minutes: May 2025 112
  • SARC Annual General Meeting Minutes: June 2025 115
  • The SEPAR Report: Field Day 2025 120
  • QRT: OM, YL, and XYL: Are they still appropriate? 124
  • Ham Leftovers... 127
  • A look back at the Communicator—July 2015 128









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