AmateurRadio.com

International Ham Radio News & Opinion

Author Archive

Iambic Master

March 21st, 2016 |

In my last blog post I was searching for software I could load on my home PC that would allow me to use my Iambic key to interact with contest software. I was wanting to become more familiar with sending code with my key and not the keyboard. Most if not all the software I came across only used the keyboard to enter QSO information. There is nothing wrong at all with that and I have found these programs to be a great benefit at speeding up my keyboarding skills. I was wanting software that would take me in a new direction using my key. One of my blog readers alerted me to really the only contest simulation program out there that tailored to my request and the program is called Iambic Master. This program allows me to enter contest details with my Iambic key. I gave it a go and it works very well, there are only 2 contests (Sprint and Sweepstakes) this program simulates but that is just fine. Iambic Master presents you with a typical contest response that you have to enter with your key. You are allowed to move on the next line if you….

Pound out all the letters and numbers correctly.
Each group of letters and numbers have to flow smoothly…..for example if the sample text is as follows “ NA4K 49 MIKE ON VE3WDM” and you are a bit slow with a letter or number and your text reads “NA4K 49 MIKE O N VE3WDM” you will not be able to go to next letter group with the space between “O N” You have to repeat the whole line again with correct spacing.

Getting the numbers and letters to flow nice and smooth is where I need the practice and I did email the author of the program to thank him for creating such a program. He did mention to me that it would be mastering the flow that would try my nerves. He was right it can get a bit crazy when you are “tapping” out the code and almost done and then you slow the flow down and that’s it you have to start your line over again!! The only other issue I had was my antivirus software blocked the program, once I added an exemption all was good.

Can this be done??

March 6th, 2016 |

Author: Mike VE9KK

I have been using a PC program called Morse runner and going to the LCWO website to increase my contest cw receiving speed and keyboard skill. I wanted to take it up a notch to what I consider a must have contest skill. The skill I am referring to is the ability to exchange contest info with my Iambic key ( Begali Contour) and not only the keyboard. Both Morse Runner and the tools from the LCWO site have been a great help with improving my keyboard and receiving speed and moving it forward. What I'm looking for and asking my blog readers input on is......a PC program similar to Morse Runner were I can use my key to interact with the program. Morse Runner sends you a call, you enter the call in the program (it checks you have enter proper call) then a contest report comes your way you enter it and the program sends your report. If all the info checks out as correct you are able to move on the the next contact. Does anyone know of a PC program out there were I can use my key and not keyboard to brush up on my key proficiency within a contest environment.

Oh and by the way of a radio report..... I was on the rig yesterday not much going on the CW portion of 20m and 30m during the early part of the afternoon. I ventured back around 22:00 UTC and 20m was sending some DX my way. Some of the stations heard but I was unable to contact were LZ300MSP (that call is a key full), T77CS, EA3AIZ from Spain struggled to hear my QRP signal but there was just to much QSB at his end. All was not lost DL3DXX heard me in Germany and gave me a 559 report.

MFJ 1788 vs Weather

February 28th, 2016 |

Author: Mike VE9KK

As like everywhere else it seems the weather up this way is as up and down as the solar conditions! Up this way we have been breaking records with both high and sometimes low temps. Along with this crazy weather comes conditions that can be very hard on our antenna systems. I have read on many blogs of fellow hams dealing with antenna damage due to wind, ice and heavy snow issues. My antenna foot print is a very small one and so I thought sheltered from many of the issues others have been dealing with. Here is my weather related antenna issue to add to the list of weather mishaps. On Wednesday this week Julie and I came home from work and she announced (as she was looking outside) “your not going to like this”. Not very comforting words as I had a look for myself and saw that the high winds had their way with my antenna! I have an MFJ 1788 mag loop antenna. It’s mounted on a tripod on our balcony of the condo. The wind had toppled it on it’s side and then tossed all around the balcony as well. I understand to most of the other hams out there with weather damaged antennas, mine is a walk in the park. In my humble opinion this is the only antenna I have, it’s not cheap to replace and I am very limited on my antenna choices. As a side note I usually place the antenna off to the side when not in use and that way it is totally sheltered from the elements. I admit I was lazy and figured it had been ok for a week with the antenna in that position………..WRONG! I stood the antenna back upright and there seemed to be no broken parts all was in tacked. I crossed my fingers turned on the K3 and gave the antenna a go, the lowest the SWR would go was 4.0:1 and higher on other bands……not good. Below are the steps I went through to eventually fixing the antenna:

In the above picture the 3rd fin from the left was perfect centre and all others had to match.

1. Since the coax had a good few tugs on it as the antenna bounced around the balcony I wanted to first make sure it was not the coax that was the issue. I put it on a dummy load and (unfortunately) it tested fine.

2 2. I then inspected the PL-259 connector just to make sure it was fine and not on it’s way out due to unforeseen damage. It was ok as well.

3 3. I then brought in the MFJ 1788 antenna into the house and first had a look over of the outside case, SO-259 and the antenna loop. All seemed good this way.

4 4. It was now time to open up the plastic housing and have a look inside, I have had the antenna apart on occasion for routine maintenance so I had an idea of how things should look. There was no obvious signs of damage to any of the major parts.

5 5. It was now time to connect the coax and run the internal variable capacitor to the end of each stop via the control box.

Here is where I noticed two problems:

· A.The spacing between the stationary fins and rotating fins was not equal at certain points along the variable capacitor.

· B. When the capacitor was fully seated in one direction both the stationary fins and rotating fins should sit flush with each other and some on the rotating section were sitting higher.

To fix the spacing problem (which I had to do then the antenna was shipped to me) I used a screw driver to manipulate the fins to even up all the air gap between fins. To repair the fins that were not sitting flush I was able to loosen a nut on the shaft that held all the moving capacitor fins in place. I then was able to adjust the fins that were sitting to high and make them all flush.

It's hard to see but from the left about 7 fins over the next five fins start to look odd, this is because these fins are not sitting flush with the other fins and they had to be adjusted so they were flush.

1 6. It was not time to cross my fingers and try the antenna (with plastic cover off) and see if this was in fact the problem. I was able to turn the antenna to 1.1:1- 1.1:4 on all bands and this was with the antenna sitting on a table in my living room. It seems the problem was fixed!

2
7. I then put the plastic cover back on and again check the SWR on all bands, I wanted to make sure nothing changed……. nothing did change and all was still good.

3 8. I then re-mounted the antenna on the tripod and covered it with my canvas patio table cover….so it does not “look” like an antenna. I then tested the SWR again…it was now 8:1!!

4 9. I then removed the canvas cover and the SWR was fine again…..seems canvas was damp do to the rain that accompanied the wind that day. I put the cover in the dryer and then back on the antenna and all was well. I am now going to purchase some waterproofing spray for the canvas to keep the antenna dry.
Below is one section of the fins that have been adjusted and are back to normal position.

ARRL DX CW contest done for 2016

February 21st, 2016 |

Author: Mike VE9KK

The roll top radio desk

The ARRL DX CW has come and gone and I took a part time approach to the contest. I was operating single op, non assisted and QRP. The setup is an Elecraft k3 and P3 along with Win4K3suite, N1MM+, MFJ 1788 loop and MRP 40 cw decoding software. I have MRP running in the background as when the CW speeds hit 33-40 it's just easier to use the software. A contest policy that I have is to NOT update any contest software before a contest. There was a new Win4k3suite and N1MM+ update and I resisted the temptation to update. I have had some very frustrating contest's when I have updated software just before the event. I was able to get on Saturday morning and Sunday morning/afternoon. On Sunday I thought I would get at it early, so I was on the rig at 7am local time on 15m ...BUT... the band was really not all that active out this way. That's a good sign for me as during the next contest I can sleep in a bit and not really miss anything. Around 8:00 A.M local time 15m started to come alive and things were hoping right up until I had to shut things down at 9:30am due to chores. I was back on again around 1pm local and 15 was good and 20 meters had lots of Eastern Europe booming in. I soon exhausted my contacts on 15m as N1MM+ was telling me "DUPE" for a majority signals on 15m. I was then off to 20m and it was interesting there as the signals were booming in but it seemed I was barely making it, I had to do many repeats. I was off and on until about 3:45 local time and I then decided it was time to shut down. I had a great time making 40 contacts with 33 multipliers for a score of 3960.While writing this post to clear my head head of the dit's and dah's I have Motown booming on the Studio Beat wireless headphones!

The contest desktop

Virtual ham radio…sounds interesting!

January 25th, 2016 |

Author: Mike VE9KK

For the past few weeks I have been up and down the bands in the evening hours looking for some CW activity and with the current conditions signals have been few and fare between. This has forced me to get a firm handle on the digi modes and to be more specific JT-65 and JT-9. As the saying goes "if you don't use it you loose it" and this is my concern due to the lack of CW activity I have been involved in lately, I have worked to dare hard getting my CW speed up to just see it drop off due to lack of activity. Last evening this got me thinking.....what about the internet there must be some interactive over broad band CW happening out there?? In my travels I came across two programs neither are free but they offer CW (and SSB) operating over the internet. Not really ham radio as such but it helps my CW skill stay sharp until the band slump is over. The first program I came across was QsoNet based out of Canada the cost is a modest 40.00 per year and you are given a free 30 day trial which is great. I looked the website over and found the their discussion forum, the last posting was from 2012 and the latest update was back in 2011. This made me wonder if I was just going to be listening to empty broadband due to the fact no one was around. I also wondered if there was active support for the site as well. I then moved on to another site called Hamsphere base out of Europe. This program was 30 EU per year along with a free trial but I was not able to locate for how long. This site seemed to be very up to date and a new version 4 had come out that looked very professional. Their forum was very up to date with postings from 2016 so it seemed like things were alive and well. Hamsphere seemed to be a very in-depth program with such things as a virtual Ionosphere, DX alert system, awards, contesting, multiple antennas to choose from, you can use your own keyer and DX cluster.....and the list goes on! I checked out some online YouTube videos of the program and WOW it sure is a professional program. I was watching one video when the commentator said "these are the antenna selections I have PURCHASED" I thought.....wait a minute what did I just hear and sure enough that's what was said "PURCHASED". I investigated this and found Hamsphere shop and this was the show stopper for me. It seems the 30 EU per year is not the only cost, at this site you can purchase antennas were the price goes as high as 90 EU!! Check out the link and it seems that there is lots of items for the radio that need to be purchased. I was not able to find anywhere on the home page information about extra purchases. It did say you could build your own rig and that there were a 100 antennas to choose from but again nothing about added cost. Another odd thing was you were never asked for your radio license. At QsoNet you had to fax in a photo copy of your license, it seemed not so with Hamsphere. Has anyone out there used either of these programs?? Do you know of any other interactive CW over the internet programs out there??

UTC time on the desktop

January 15th, 2016 |

Author: Mike VE9KK

My new UTC clock on the PC desktop

I have Friday off today and got my running around out of the way this morning, so I decided to flip the radio switch and see what was happening. I was going from band to band around 1600 UTC and there was just stations here and there most U.S stations. Then at 1700 UTC I was listening on 20m and on the Elecraft P3 the lower end of 20m came alive! From only hearing U.S stations to hearing LOTS of European stations and at first I could not tell if it was a contest or not but it had to be. I went to WA7BNM contest site and looked things over to see what contest it was while at the same time listening to the contest to see what the exchange was. To be honest I did not have to much luck with either, I really could not make out the exchanges and the web site was not really clear what contest this could had been. As I was attempting to ferret out the contest an old issue came back to me....UTC time! I have an app on my Iphone that gives local and UTC time but more often than not the Iphone is not close by when I need to reference UTC time. The same issue comes up when logging a contact on paper temporally until logging it on the PC. I was going to purchase the MFJ 108B dual LED clock but it was good I held off. It occurred to me to get online and search for something that was a free download on the internet!! I found a neat little program that sits on your desktop. You can resize it, move it around, when you restart your PC it comes alive in the last place it was left when you turned your PC off and best of all it's free! Have a look at it and see what you think and by all means if you are using another program let me know what it is and I will check it out.

Using WSPR for some band analysis

January 2nd, 2016 |

Author: Mike VE9KK

My wet noodle on 40m WSPR on Dec 30 2200 UTC


30m results at 2100 UTC Dec 30th

Over the holidays I was able to get some time to activate WSPR (at 5 watts) using WSJT-X version 1.6 the latest version which now includes WSPR. I wanted to investigate band activity with relation to UTC time from my QTH using my MFJ 1788 loop from the balcony. I started WSPRing on Dec 30th on bands I thought to be the "good" bands such as 15, 17 and 20m. From the UTC times of 1600 to 2200 I netted zero results on these bands!! It could had been due to poor propagation on these bands as I had very poor results. 30m was my best band of all the test bands for that day. I did confirm that my MFJ loop is just a wet noodle on 40m as I was only spotted by two very local stations on a band that seemed very busy.

17m from 1500-1550 UTC Dec 31

I was on again on Dec 31 testing to see how the propagation gods were treating me that day. It turned out that my faith in 17m and 20m was uplifted a bit with some decent results. and once again 30m seemed to be consistent. It would seem from my limited testing that 30m is the band for me to go to on evenings when I get in from work. Also 20m but it may be more hit and miss. During the day on weekends 17 and 20m seem to be a charm. But then again there is always propagation that plays into the numbers and then just good old luck. I try not to just play these numbers games all the time. In the past (as I am sure most reading this post also have had it happen) there has been times when a band should be shut down and I make an amazing contact against all the odds.

20m from 1600-1700 UTC Dec 31