AmateurRadio.com

The 'magic band' has always been associated with 50 MHz and its amazing propagation ... usually unpredictable and often without logical explanation. This past summer saw an explosion of digital FT8 activity on 6m which has, for me (and for others I suspect), eliminated almost all of the enjoyment I have found every year on this band.


With so much of the previous CW and phone activity now gone to FT8, the 'feel' of the band is just not what it once was. What I find puzzling is that so many have embraced this weak signal mode yet most of the two-way QSOs seem to be made between stations that can easily hear each other ... often at the very strong levels produced by 6m sporadic-E!

With FT8's inability to chat about antennas, rigs, propagation, locations or simply to exchange names, for me the magic has gone. Being able to hear signals build, fade up and down, or to experience the sudden arrival of bone-crushing signals from the east coast where none had existed moments earlier, is all part of what attracted me to 6m decades ago. I spent only a few hours on the band last summer, working a number of JA stations on FT8. No particular sense of satisfaction was garnered ... working a JA opening on CW is just way more exciting!

For many, the arrival of FT8 to the magic band has opened a whole new world and from seeing so many unfamiliar call signs on 6m this summer, it seems that FT8 has brought a lot of newcomers to the band. Unlike the JAs' worked every summer on CW, almost all of the FT8 JAs' sent their QSL immediately, with almost all excitingly indicating "1st VE" ... so this has to be a good thing! I suspect, that unless the level of conventional-mode activity returns to previous levels on 6m (highly unlikely), my interest in 50MHz will slowly wane or vanish altogether ... but thankfully, there's still magic to be found elsewhere on the ham bands!

As solar Cycle 24 draws down into its final months, the deep lows that were experienced at the end of Cycle 23 are starting to develop once again. For the past few weeks, propagation below the broadcast band has been the best it has been since the previous solar quieting.

Being just below the bottom edge of the broadcast band, 630m (472-479 kHz) has seen some of the benefits of the recent round of stagnant geomagnetic activity.

While some transcontinental QSOs are regularly being made on CW, most contacts are being completed using the weak signal JT9 QSO mode. Contacts can often be completed just as the sun begins to set and staying up into the wee hours to catch east coast DX is not a requirement. Over the past few weeks my 'states worked' total has climbed to 30 and with a couple of holdouts, the QSLs have been steadily arriving.

My 630m states worked, shown in red. Map courtesy: https://mapchart.net/

Last month's arrivals, in spite of the Canada Post delivery disruptions, are shown below.




The recent great propagation on 630m is well-demonstrated by last Saturday night's activity. For the previous two evenings, my JT9 CQ's (as well as QSOs) were being decoded for hours at a time by Rolf, LA2XPA in Norway. He was also hearing Larry, W7IUV, located a few hundred miles to my southwest, on the other side of the Cascade mountains in Washington state. Both of our signals would fade and trade places in Norway but often reaching audible CW levels! The problem was that neither myself or Larry could see any of Rolf's replies to us ... disappointing to us and frustrating for Rolf.

After an hour of trying, I asked Rolf (via the ON4KST LF chat page) what he was using for a receive antenna. It turned out that his secret weapon was a 1000' beverage pointed this way ... no wonder he was hearing so well. Larry, who was using a shorter, easterly pointing BOG (Beverage On Ground) for 630m receive, commented that he also had a 1000' beverage pointed toward Europe but it was optimized for 160m and doubted that it would work on 630. Just to make sure, he plugged it into a second receiver and soon indicated that he 'might' have seen a weak JT9 trace on the waterfall, close to Rolf's frequency.

One minute later Larry's comment was just "wow!" and the following minute he explained what had occurred. It seems that the 'possible weak trace' had suddenly skyrocketed to a -16db signal ... right at the edge of audibility! Larry and Rolf quickly exchanged signal reports and "RRs" as the first Europe-West Coast 630m QSO went into the history books ... 'wow' indeed!

Rolf reported that at his end, Larry's already good signal suddenly shot up to -5db, an easily copied CW level, before fading away for the night. Larry was pretty shocked at how quickly this strong short enhancement had occurred and we all hoped that the oft observed 'spotlight' propagation seen on 630 would move further west to VE7 ... but for now, it was not to be.

Earlier in the evening I had commented to Larry about some previous quirky 630m propagation and had suggested to him that it was probably just due to "the magic of radio" ... to which he politely dismissed with "sorry no magic, just hard work and dumb luck". Looks like he was right on both accounts, but after Saturday's excitement I think he may now believe in a little magic as well!

After blogging for over four years now, I've covered a lot of topics that have piqued my interest in the ham radio world. I'm going to (once in awhile) select some previous blogs for reposting since they are every bit as valid as they were a few years ago and many new readers will have never found them without going way back! This one is from June, 2014.

                                            
****************************

I haven't yet decided to rebuild the little 630m CW transmitter using Manhattan style or the newer Muppet style being promoted by Chuck, K7QO.

K7QO Muppet Style

The Muppet style seems to be PCB without holes, with parts being mounted on the copper pads directly. Like Manhattan or Ugly construction, changing components is very convenient. I pretty much split final construction methods between Manhattan style or dedicated PCB.

I recently ran low on the pads used for Manhattan and made another pile of various sizes. For those interested in using this style, it's pretty quick and easy to manufacture a good stock of your own pads using a simple hand punch.


These punches are widely available on e-Bay or possibly at your local hardware outlet or craft store. They come with various sized dies but I have only found myself using two sizes, 5/32 and 3/16. The punches have a small point at the center which I filed off so not to create a dimple in the punched pad.





It's also advisable to scuff sand the bottom of the PCB strip as well as to shine up the copper side with some light steel wool before punching any pads. They will eventually be glued to the circuit's PCB copper surface using a small dab of CA ("super glue") glue and the slight scuffing beforehand will ensure that the pads stay put. My usual technique is to place a tiny dab of glue with a toothpick at the spot where the pad will go. I then pick up the pad using an X-acto knife, spearing the pad's copper side and then pressing it down on the glue spot. CA cures quickly once it is oxygen-starved so pressing down on the pad for a few seconds is usually all that is needed. Any time I have run into trouble it was because I used too much glue....just a small dab is needed.

VE7SL Lowfer Tx

There are many good tutorials on Manhattan-style construction to be found on the internet as well as some super examples of what can be accomplished using this method as a "final" version technique.
For me, one of Manhattan's strongest selling points is that even though final part values may have been fleshed out during a rough build, parts can still easily be changed, added or even removed without a lot of fuss....unlike a PCB....but Muppet does look interesting!

PTD - 400 kHz Potsdam, NY

This coming weekend will see another monthly CLE challenge. This time the hunting grounds will be 400.0 - 419.9 kHz.

 


For those unfamiliar with this monthly activity, a 'CLE' is a 'Co-ordinated Listening Event', as NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum.




A nice challenge in this one is to hear PTD on 400kHz located in Potsdam, New York. It's a 25-watter but is rarely logged out west. I have heard it only once, back in January, 2010. Listen for its USB CW identifier (with your receiver in the CW mode) on 401.010 and its LSB ID on 398.984 kHz.

MF propagation this past week has been very good and signals in this frequency range should be propagating well if things stay undisturbed for the weekend.

When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB's CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.

For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmits on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier is tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident can be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone is actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone is 1054 Hz.

Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don't hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.

Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.

All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database.


From CLE organizer Brian Keyte, G3SIA, come details via the The NDB List Group:


Hi all,

Our 238th coordinated listening event starts on Friday.    
This frequency range is not packed with signals for any of us, but
the current excellent conditions should give us some nice surprises.
Do join in, even if you only have an hour or so to spare over the weekend.

     Days:    Friday 23 Nov - Monday 26 Nov 2018
     Times:   Start and end at midday your LOCAL time
     Range:   400 - 419.9 kHz

(Apologies to Listeners ‘down under’ - not much to listen for in this range
at summer time.  Could listen via a remote receiver instead?  See below)

Just log all the NDBs that you can identify with nominal (listed)
frequencies in the range - it includes 400 kHz, but not 420 kHz -
plus any UNIDs that you come across there.

Please send your final log to the List (no attachments and ideally
in a plain text email) with ‘FINAL CLE238’ in its title.
Show on each line:

    #   The Date (e.g.  '2018-11-23' etc.  or just '23' )
    #   The Time in UTC (the day changes at 00:00 UTC).
    #   kHz  - the nominal published frequency, if known.
    #   The Call Ident.

Please show those main items FIRST.  Other optional details such
as Location and Distance go LATER in the same line.
As always, of course, tell us your own location and brief details
of the equipment that you were using during the Event.

We will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email at about 18:00 UTC
on Tuesday so that you can check that your log has been found OK.
Do make sure that your log has arrived on the List by 09:00 UTC
on Wednesday 28 November at the very latest.
The combined results should then be completed within a day or two.

You can find full details about current and past CLEs from the CLE page
http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm  It includes access to CLE238 seeklists
for your part of the World, prepared from the previous loggings in Rxx.

Good listening - enjoy the CLE.
      Brian and Joachim
---------------------------------------------------------------
From:      Brian Keyte G3SIA      ndbcle'at'gmail.com
Location:  Surrey,  SE England     (CLE coordinator)
---------------------------------------------------------------

  (If you would like to listen remotely  you could use any one remote
  receiver for your loggings, stating its location and owner and with their
  permission if required.  A remote listener may NOT also use another
  receiver, local or remote, to make further loggings for the same CLE)

courtesy: Lou, VE3AWA

This Saturday night as well as the next will be the annual Bruce Kelley 1929 QSO Party, otherwise known as the '1929 BK'.





Only transmitters that are 'era-appropriate' are allowed to be used. More specifically, transmitters must employ tubes that were available in 1929 or earlier, and transmitters must be self-excited. No crystals allowed! Crystals were new and largely unaffordable for most hams back in the depression days.

The year of 1929 marked a real turning point in amateur radio as governments finally cracked-down on things such as frequency stability, out of band operations and re-alignment of call districts. In short, hams were henceforth required to behave themselves and to clean up their signals and methods of operation.

courtesy: http://www.arrl.org/

Although the new rules did a lot to improve things when it came to 'signal purity', there was still a long way to go ... but the wheels of improvement had been officially set in motion. The next decade would see monumental changes in both transmitter and receiver architecture, as engineers along with some particularly gifted amateurs, strove to unlock the challenges of this relatively new technology.

If you tune across the CW bands during the next two Saturday nights, you will have the rare opportunity to hear exactly what the bands must have sounded like back in the early '30s'.

For the most part you will hear single-tube Hartley, Colpitts or TNT oscillators along with a few two-tube MOPAs thrown in. Many of them will suffer the same problems encountered by the boys of '29 ... chirp, drift, buzzy notes and frequency instability from antennas swaying in the wind.

Again this year, signals should be a little louder as well, since the previous long-time power limitation of 10W input has been increased to 25W.

The MOPAs will sound much better but some surprisingly nice-sounding signals can be heard coming from properly tuned and optimised single-tube oscillators. I recall being blown away by the lovely sounding signal I heard from such a rig when first tuning into the BK activity several years ago, only to learn that it was a self-excited Hartley using 1/4" copper tubing for the oscillator tank circuit!

The '29 watering-hole on 80m will be around 3550-3580 kilocycles (be careful not to confuse this with kilohertz!) while the early afternoon to post-sunset 40m activity will be found from 7100-7125 kc. There may even be a few on the very low end of 160m. Although many of these transmitter styles were used on 20m and higher, BK rule-makers have wisely decided not to inflict these sounds on the present populace as it would likely keep the 'Official Observers' busy for several days writing pink-slips.

This year I will leave the MOPA on the shelf and set up my Hull Hartley as I haven't used it since building the MOPA a few years ago. If it's very windy (almost assured), the Hartley will really sound like 1929!

My own Hull Hartley

You can learn more about amateur radio happenings leading up to and following the 1929 crackdown in my earlier series of 'Why '29' blogs here:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Those wishing to put something together for next year's event can find everything needed here:

Introduction To Building ... '29-Style

Building '29-Style - Part 1

Building '29-Style - Part 2

Heck, there me even be time to throw something together for the following Saturday if you have a few parts and an older tube or two ... the '27 comes to mind and is readily found in many junk boxes. Maybe you know an old-timer or two with lots of parts that could help you out.

Let's hope for good conditions for this event as the last few years have been adversely affected by geomagnetic storming. Poor propagation or not, I guarantee there will be plenty of '29ers busy calling 'CQ AWA' on the low bands.

Complete BK details are available here.

CLE 237 will be held this coming weekend and will be somewhat different than normal.







'CLE's are 'Co-ordinated Listening Events, and NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum ... but this one is a little different.

This event has been organized around the Maidenhead Locator system and will challenge hunters to log beacons based upon the beacon's FIELD designation. Listeners should seek to log a maximum of five NDBs in each GRID FIELD.

The grid field is actually the first two letters of the grid locator, such as 'CN', 'FN', 'DM' etc., as seen in the map above. Each field itself is divided into 100 GRID SQUARES, but individual grid squares are not relevant for this CLE ... only the fields.

Most amateurs that operate on the VHF bands are very familiar with the 'grid square locator' system and many VHF operating awards and events are focused on working different grid squares. This may all be a new adventure for many non-VHF DXers but it does present a whole new way of keeping track of your catches.

I have always kept track of the grid square locator for all NDB signals that I hear and often find that a signal being heard from one particular square will lead to other beacons being heard (often new catches) from adjacent squares, while propagation is spotlighting that region ... it often pays to keep a grid square map handy while you search the band!

If you are not familiar with the grid square system, it's all pretty simple and this CLE only focuses on the largest part of the system, the FIELD. The first thing you should do is determine your own grid FIELD location, which, for North America, can be found very easily from the map above or anywhere in the world on K7FRY's locator map.

When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB's CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.

For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmits on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier is tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident can be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone is actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone is 1054 Hz.

Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don't hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.

Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.

All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database.


From CLE organizer Brian Keyte:

===============================================
Here are the Final Details for this weekend's DX Listening Event.

We'll be listening for NDBs in as many Locator FIELDS as we can.

Fields are the first 2 letters of the 6 character locators ('Grid Square').

    Days:     Friday 26th October – Monday 29th October
    Times:    Midday on Friday to Midday on Monday, your LOCAL* time
            *(NB Many of us will be changing our house clocks this weekend.
               UTC time, shown in our logs, continues unaffected by that)
    QRG:      Normal LF/MF frequencies  190 - 1740 kHz
    Target:   UP TO 5 NORMAL NDBs IN EACH LOCATOR FIELD (see below)
                    (not DGPS, NAVTEX, Amateur or UNIDs)

Please also log YOUR NEAREST ACTIVE NDB - it will probably be one of
the five in your own Field.

A World map of all the locator Fields is attached.  You can see, for
example, that Field IO includes most of the British Isles.

(click map to expand)

Please post your CLE log to the List in a plain text email if possible,
with 'CLE237' at the start of its title and showing on each log line:

     The full Date ( e.g. 2018-10-26, etc., or just the day number 26 )
     UTC  (The day changes at 00:00 UTC).
     kHz - the NDB's nominal published frequency
     The Call Ident.

As always, put those FOUR MAIN ITEMS FIRST on each log line, with
any other optional details such as location and distance LATER in the
same line.

There is no need to show the locator Fields (the harvester program
will work out all of them and the nearest NDB you logged).

Your log will be easier to read if you leave a blank separator line
between the groups of up to 5 lines for each Field.

If you wish, you could add the 2-letter Field ident (NOTHING ELSE)
at the start of each separator line.

Any UNIDs that you come across will also be of interest - in a separate
part of your log please.

If you send interim logs, please make sure that you also send a 'FINAL'
log showing ALL your loggings for the CLE.

We will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email to NDB List at about
18:00 UTC on Tuesday so you can check that your log has been found OK.
Do make sure that your Final log has arrived on the list by 09:00 UTC
on Wednesday 31st October at the very latest.
Joachim and I hope to complete the combined results within two days.


PLANNING YOUR LISTENING

It will really help you to plan your listening if you go to the excellent
Rxx Database  https://www.classaxe.com/dx/ndb/reu
(Replace the 'reu' by 'rna' if you are in North America, 'rww' elsewhere)

THE KEY PLACE to start entering details of what you want is
'Signal Locations - GSQs'.

Put a 2-letter FIELD id in that box to see all the NDBs in that Field that
have been logged from your part of the World (i.e. EU or NA or other).

You could alter the resulting list in lots of different ways:

Select 'Only active' (bottom right)
Enter your own Country or State in 'Heard Here'
Select a specific listener (yourself?) in 'Logged by' – BUT you might missa beacon that you haven’t   heard so far
Add extra locator Field(s) in the 'GSQs' box, separated by blanks
- In ANY of the above, you can select 'Map' instead of 'List' (top right)

Add your own full locator (6 characters) in the 'Distance - From GSQ' box to see the distances and bearings from your location.
In 'Sort By' (bottom line) select GSQ

Getting cleverer (!) you could use the wild card _ (an underscore) to see details of all Fields with the same column of Longitude or row of Latitude
e.g.  I_  selects all of locator column I (0  to 20 degrees west),  _O would give all of row O (50 to 60 degrees north).

Good Listening

73    Brian
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Brian Keyte G3SIA                ndbcle'at'gmail.com
Location: Surrey, SE England          (CLE coordinator)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

(As usual a handful of us may choose to listen via a remote receiver
with permission if required - its own location will be their temporary
home Field).
A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, whether local
or remote, to obtain further loggings for the same CLE.

===================================================

My homebrew Ameco AC-1 clone

A weekly CW operating activity that seems to be growing in popularity is the Monday “NRN”.





The NRN get-togethers are an offshoot of the annual “NRR” or Novice Rig Roundup. Monday’s “Novice Rig Night” gradually grew from those that wanted to see the NRR fun continue, in one form or another, without waiting an entire year for the event to roll around again.

Operating times run from sunup on the east coast to midnight on the west coast ... but basically, people just get on the air whenever they can on Monday and call “CQ NRN”. I suspect that most of the activity takes place between late afternoon and bedtime, with 40m probably seeing the most action. As winter arrives, we may see more activity on 80m but these are only my personal observations from the west coast.

Most folks are using typical Novice-era transmitters and / or receivers, with the Drake 2NT, early Heathkits, Eicos, homebrews and Hammarlunds being popular. The previous Monday I was active with my homebrew Ameco AC-1 clone, a 6V6 crystal power oscillator, at about 6 watts out. Good contacts were had with several eastern stations. There are several AC-1s around and there has been at least one suggestion of an 'AC-1 Night' ... what fun that would be as well!

For last night’s NRN, I brought out my homebrew Paraset.


Once again, good contacts were had with the easterners on 40m: W9BRD in NJ, W3NP in WV,  KD2E in NJ and VE3LYX using his No.19 tank radio ... two WWII radios talking to each other in 2018, one real and one a reproduction!

VE3LYX's No.19 set operating position

The Paraset uses a two-tube regenerative receiver and, like the AC-1, a single 6V6 crystal controlled power oscillator. It's always difficult to judge propagation conditions when listening with a regen ... are conditions as bad as they seem or is it just my simple receiver making the band sound poorer than usual? Such was the case for me last night so next week I will spark-up the Paraset once again for another round of NRN fun. As promised on the NRR Facebook page (now at 1600+ members!), all Paraset contacts will be confirmed with my mid-30s styled QSL and these will be going out this week. 




Here is the formal announcement for the Monday events, with a few additional details. Hopefully you can join the fun (any rig is fair game!), next week.