AmateurRadio.com

Everybody is on 10 meters nowadays! I am no exception, just check out my piece from yesterday. But 10 meters is not my favourite band. I’ll show you why….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70fed-lAcxM

Imagine scanning that in SSB! “Get the aspirin out, honey, I’m going on 10 meters now.” Can it get any worse? Yes, two nights ago someone was singing on 28.325 MHz. And not just for a few seconds, no minute after minute. Amateur radio keeps amazing me.

On a serious note: I can’t make much of the language that is spoken by most of the intruders. It is certainly not Mandarin, but there are definitely Chinese dialects amongst them. Most of what I hear, I think, are from southern Asia, probably the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, etc.

In the mean time I spend more time on 12 and 15 meters than on 10. Especially 12 meters is a fun little band with a lot of the characteristics of 10 meters. Try it out yourself, you’ll like it. See you there.

It has been reported on some sites that the T32C team donated some equipment to Tov, T32TV. That is the real ham spirit and if every DXpedition could do that there would be a lot less “most wanted” DXCC entities.

I have been busy with work and kids lately, so I need my sleep and try to catch as much as possible of it. So why does my daughter have to wake me at 06:00 local time Saturday to go to the toilet? She’s almost 6 and more capable than most other kids her age. Gave me an opportunity to sit behind the set, with the rising sun warming up my face. Even though 10 meters is not my favourite band I did check it out. Guess who was calling CQ? Right, T32TV. He wasn’t strong, but very willing to have a real QSO with me and surprisingly I was the only one answering him. I worked T32C, so Christmas Island isn’t a new DXCC entity for me, but QSO’s like the one with Tov are infinitely better.

The other fun thing that I did – before my battery died on me – was a QSO with Frank W7PAQ. With the rise in sunspots you sometimes stumble upon a “local” QSO that travels half around the world. Well, Frank was having a PSK31 QSO with a fellow American ham. So when that ended I called him. Frank really surprised, but pleasantly. We had rag chew DX session, because signals weren’t a 100%, but we kept it up for 10 minutes before Frank had to QSY to a local net. These QSO’s make me walk around with a smile for at least half a day.

Charging the batteries for Sunday morning now. 73 de Hans

So, after successfully fixing my TS-440S did I enjoy operating it? Not a lot – I’ll write about this later – but today very much so.

I had to come home early because our water supply was cut-off for maintenance on Sunday and it hadn’t been restored on Monday morning. Well, it had in the mean time, so I did a day’s worth of dishes and turned on the radio afterwards to relax a bit. Found some guys talking on 20 meters, so I listened in. It was a VK4 station with a V63 station talking about antenna’s for the school station. The conversation turned to how John – the V63 operator – was teaching the kids, how he brought over toothbrushes and taught the kids how to brush and how ham radio opened their world.

Now I am not really a fanatic ham and I had no idea where V63 is. So when a chance came up I called in and John – V63JB, his home call is KH6DLK – came back. I told him we had the same profession and asked him about his location, which he told me is Federai Island, Ulithi Atoll in the Western Caroline Islands, never activated on the amateur bands before. Wow, impressive. But I was really touched when he put one of his students on air to chat with an operator-friend from Hawaii a little later. This is amateur radio at its best: opening up the world and connecting people with each other.

Later a PY station called in and I believe there was also a States-side station present in the group (signal strengths weren’t great and readability difficult at times), so it was quite a diverse group from half across the globe meeting on 20 meters this afternoon. I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to John, but I hope we’ll meet again and I hope he gets his station over there in Ulithi Atoll well established for his students to enjoy. In the mean time I’m contemplating sending him some toothpaste.

Do you see those numbers on the display? Cool, isn’t it? That means I’m smart. Very smart. Bright and clever too. I admit I’m not too good looking, but I do have something of a genius in me. Come on guys, give me a round of applause. I did it! Finally fixed my Kenwood TS-440S. I feel like a million…..whatever currency is worth something nowadays. So, how did this sharp and brainy fellow do it? Simple: follow the 8 Volts.

After I rebuild VFO#5 last week I measured 8 Volts where I should measure 5. This bugged me for a week: where did those 8 Volts come from? So on Sunday morning I fed the family, kissed them good-bye and locked the door of my shack. With schematics, PCB layout and a DVM in hand I started out on my journey following the 8 Volts. It was a difficult track with many resistors on its path, a conductor or two and inductors to counter them. And then I arrived at a three-way junction called FET. Junction FET is known for regulating those obstinate Volts. But what do you know? Junction FET was tired beyond repair and those 8 Volts were going all three ways, where they clearly shouldn’t be. Now those of you who have travelled similar paths before (or should I just call you “old geezers”) know that you should handle junction FET with care. But until now I got away with rough-handling them. Not this time, so I quickly made amends and put in another junction with loads of TLC and some solder. And my journey ended there and then.

My thanks goes out to my family, the Yahoo TS-440S group, Mr. Liu for the components and to you, my dear readers, for putting up with me. SEE YOU ON AIR!!!

P.S. Your turn. I think I deserve at least 10 comments telling me how great I am, don’t you think?

I understand the reason for split operation when you run a DXpedition. Without split operation you probably wouldn’t be able to hear a thing apart from the big guns shouting for attention. Unfortunately for a little fish like me the split is too wide, most of the time. My classic TS-130V has a RIT of only 2 kHz. Nowadays many operations choose splits of 5 or even 10 kHz, even for CW! Never mind, I’m already glad to be able to hear them.

Today, however, 10 meters was open again and after tuning around I found a 53 signal from T32C. Nice, but I heard them before, so no big deal. But it became nicer when I noted he was working a split of 0 kHz and he was calling out CQ because there were few takers. Out came my mike and with the 12 Watts I am putting out on 10 meters he gave me a 59 report. Yeah, right! I gave him the honest 53, but I don’t think he noticed.

Of course, when my TS-440S is fixed I have a 1oo Watts and wide  RIT/XIT again, but unfortunately that hasn’t happened yet. I got the missing parts yesterday and spent tonight putting the VFO#5 back together again. No luck, still lots of dots on the display saying that the PLL won’t lock and I’m measuring 8 Volts where I should be measuring 5 Volts. The search for the fault continues……unfortunately.

In the year that I was a ham in Europe I found that there was always a fellow radio nut available to talk with. I am not picky, so when I wanted to have a rag chew I did it in any mode available (except CW, because my keying is still painfully slow) and on any band. I found the French and Norwegians the nicest to chat with, despite the language difficulties.

Here in East Asia the bands are rather empty, especially in the day time. A simple wire dipole won’t get you far if the sunspots are non-existent; you need something better. So I do feel a little bit lonely sometimes when I scan the bands and there is no one out there. But with the old CB whip on the balcony, 15 Watts to put into it, I do need some spot on the sun to get somewhere. Tonight I did get somewhere however: 10 meters was open to Europe and I had two successful QSO’s with France and Germany in psk31. Alas, only 599 exchanges. But 17 meters was also open and I had to smile when I heard VK4BX having a QSO in SSB with a German station. After all, I am BX2ABT and my Dutch call is PA2BX. So I called him and immediately felt like I was back in Europe: steady signals, good modulation and we both wanted to chat. Of course we both commented that the combination of B and X is the best in the world, no question about it. 10 Minutes later I felt  like a million dollars and the tiredness of the work-week was totally gone. What a great start of the weekend and all because of a 10 minute chat with Chris. Cheers, mate.

By the way, if you have had contact with BV100 then remember that coming Monday is the 100th birthday of the Republic of China, the reason for the special call. Over here we call it “Double-10 day” and there are a lot of celebrations planned. If you haven’t worked them yet then you have till the end of the year. Zai jian from Taiwan.

Sad picture, isn’t it? For those of you that know the Kenwood TS-440S well it is a familiar picture: VFO#5 covered in “Evil Brown Glue“, or EBG as it is mostly referred to. As I wrote in my last post, I counted my unfinished projects and fixing my TS-440S was highest on my list, so I took it apart yesterday. Mine is actually not covered in much EBG at all, but that is because I already removed a lot of the stuff some time ago. But now that the shroud is off you can clearly see that the EBG has crept under most components. No wonder the VFO was unstable or not working at all.

I prepared everything well, so the actual disassembly of the rig and the VFO was a piece of cake. I put some more photo’s on my website for you to enjoy. I already discovered that I don’t have one of the transistors which needs to be replaced. Will have to get them next weekend when we go up to Taipei. In the mean time I’ll keep myself busy with removing the components and cleaning the PCB, which is a little more work than I anticipated. I’ll keep you posted. 73 de Hans

P.S. lots of rain and wind the last couple of days, which we haven’t had for a while. Apparently it cleaned the power lines of dust and grime…..and the arcing. The bands are nice and clean again.