AmateurRadio.com

I constructed a 6m dipole (106") from some scrap aluminum tubing and dug out my Icom IC-R20 handheld scanner.

The next day I set about walking around the neighbourhood, taking bearings at various locations, as the signal was easily heard with the dipole. I had earlier determined the rough direction of the signal using my main 6m antenna, a 4 element homebrew Yagi at 55'.

Courtesy: Google Maps

It didn't take long to triangulate the suspected residence as the dipole kept pointing to one particular house as I walked past it. Luckily it was someone I knew and it seemed that they did indeed have a wireless headset that had been plugged-in for several years but never used! They were more than happy to remove it as we both expressed how surprised we were to see how far the signal was radiating. The home in question is about a quarter-mile away.

The band is wonderfully peaceful once again (except when the power lines start arcing at about noon) and within minutes of the headphone system shut down I was able to work a loud BV2DQ in Taiwan and several JA's, shortly before dinner time.

These amazing early July conditions continue on the magicband.

6m July 08 Courtesy: ON4KST.org

50MHz continues to demonstrate its preference of early July to reveal its magical powers. Here in VE7 land, the band has been open continuously to some region for more than 48 hours. Yesterday's repeat west coast sporadic-E opening to EA7, EA8 and CT1 was capped with a multi-hour opening to Asia.

Six meter operators in the western part of the continent exchanged signals with Japan, Taiwan, China and South Korea beginning at around sunset on the west coast and continuing until 0230 the next morning! Many stations on both ends of the path filled their logs during the heyday event.

To add to the fun, BV2DQ (Ran) in Taiwan, was also active and gave several 6m ops a new country, working as far east as Colorado.


BA4SI (Li), in mainland China also handed out contacts to two old hands on six, K7CW (Paul) and KE7V (Johnny) who also happen to be brothers.

BA4SI 6m stacked Yagis

Paul also worked two stations in South Korea along with his 310 JA QSO's, beating out his brother's 300 contacts with Japan. KE7V reported working over 100 JA's on phone during the amazing conditions.  W7FI (Jim), in Seattle, also did well, with his comment from the ON4KST 50MHz chat page summing up the event

" W7FI Jim - That blows away my 113 JA last night, pile still calling when I qrt'd at 0800z. "

I was also present for the action, but worked only a few dozen of the strongest signals as I have been plagued with exceptionally high power line noise this summer, directly in line with Asia. Additionally, a new source of QRM has cropped-up in the form of an S9+ 49MHz wireless headset that has drifted up into the band. As the days get warmer, it has now drifted from below 50MHz up into the working part of the band and last night had settled itself smack on 50.090. Being a wide band FM signal, it effectively destroys any reception for about 50KHz of the band. As Murphy would have it, the crud is coming from the exact same direction as my beam heading to Asia. Yesterday I was able to roughly determine its location with a handheld Icom scanner and today I will use a quickly-built 6m dipole to zero-in on the offending source. Hopefully I can eliminate the problem soon.

Courtesy DXMAPS.COM

Six meters was open most of yesterday and was still open when I went to bed at around midnight. Many northerly beacons were starting to show up and there were high hopes for the morning.

At 0700 I began to hear bits and pieces of CN8KD in Morocco while he was working 4's and 5's ...every once in a while his CQ's would briefly rise out of the noise but never long enough or loud enough for me to reply. He eventually faded and the band shifted to a more northerly path and at around 0900 local time, EA8DBM (Canary Islands, AF) showed up on SSB, while working into the SE U.S.A. He was much louder further to the south but at 1632z I was able to work him on phone and a few minutes later on CW, down the band. In over 40 years of being on 6m, this was only my second African QSO, with my other one also being into EA8.

The best part of the opening today was the number of west coast stations that were able to put rare Africa into the log....and, for a number of them, it was the completion of WAC on 50MHz....very tough from the left coast. VE7DAY, K7SS and NA6XX will all be celebrating today!

As I post this at 2130z, the KL7's are cashing-in on the magic while working across the U.S. as far south as Florida! I've always thought the first week of July to be the best of the season for 6m...lets hope it keeps going.

July 06, 2014 Courtesy: nasa.gov

When looking at today's solar image, it's difficult to believe that Cycle 24 is the weakest cycle in the past 100 years. It's also hard to believe that it is on the way down. With the solar flux numbers hovering around the 200 mark, one wonders how great conditions might be had this been happening in mid-November rather than in mid-summer. In spite of the month, propagation over the pole from VE7 land continues to be excellent on the higher HF bands.

Now, thanks to AmericanRadioHistory.com, most of those great old hobby magazines of the past can be viewed online and enjoyed once again.

As a pre-teen short-wave listener in the late 50's, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the latest edition of Popular Electronics, stuffed with its latest SW broadcast news, frequency lists and DX stories.






Thanks to David Gleason's work, I always have several of my favorite classics downloaded to my I-Pad's bookshelf for offline reading. With hundreds of recent updates this spring, there appears to be a lifetime of vintage reading now available!




As a builder of vintage-style radios, particularly transmitters, I can often find new inspiration from the magazines particularly devoted to ham radio. If your workshop library is lacking in vintage reference material, you need look no further than this site for a vast source of building inspiration....transmitters of all description along with receivers from crystal tuners to complex multi-tube designs.



So many of these early publications were the brainchild of Hugo Gernsback, a prolific writer and editor of both technical and science fiction magazines but sometimes blurring the boundaries of each! I suspect that his wide variety of radio publications had some significant role in the way radio so quickly transformed the world.
Even in the 50's, long after the 'golden years' of radio, it was not uncommon to still see radio antennas on most houses, at least in my neighbourhood!







If you haven't visited this wonderful resource yet, I'm sure you will be amazed at what you find.

The Sun Today / July 03  Courtesy: nasa.gov

As poor as our latest solar cycle has been, there still seems to be plenty of life left. Now pegged as the weakest cycle in the past 100 years, edging out Cycle 14 of 1906.  This cycle, like its predecessors, has had a double peak....but, unlike the others, the second peak was stronger than the first. Initially predicted to peak with a SSN (smoothed sunspot number) of 70, this number was surpassed in October 2013, when the SSN reached 75.



Cycle 24 Prediction (courtesy: nasa.gov)

The present rotation has brought a number of active sunspot groups into view along with several small solar flares. The elevated solar flux has had an immediate effect on propagation, producing excellent F2 conditions on the higher bands. Today's solar flux is pushing 170 and on the rise! It makes one wonder what other strange tricks Cycle 24 might have up her sleeve for us yet?

Active flaring during the summer 50MHz sporadic-e season can often produce some odd long-haul paths along with the possibility of some transcontinental auroral-e propagation....so hold on, as it looks like the ride is not yet over!

The past few days have been spent refurbishing my next door neighbour's 1937 floor model Marconi radio...Model 82. All of the capacitors were replaced except for the micas, which seemed to still be in spec. Several resistors were also replaced as they had drifted far out of spec on the high side. Four tubes were replaced as well, after measuring low emission on my  Eico 667 tube tester. Additionally, several wires whose rubber jackets had cracked and disintegrated, were replaced. A new three- prong power cord was installed, along with a fuse holder on the back of the chassis.


The radio also had two small fixed bias cells....small 1.25V cells for supplying grid bias voltage to the AVC/IF stages.



Both cells had long ago dried so I tried to rejuvenate them  by following a procedure found on the web. The zinc casing was carefully pried up to remove the carbon covering disc and a few drops of distilled water were added to the dried-up crystals inside before re-sealing the case. The initial cell voltage of .11 VDC rose to 1.2 VDC after the procedure but I wasn't confident that the new 'seal' would keep air from drying the electrolyte out.

I decided to use small camera batteries (1.5VDC) in place of the original cells since they were very close to the same size. With heat shrink tubing surrounding the edges and bottom lip, they readily installed on top of the original holder and clamped solidly in place.




A small brass spacer was inserted into the cell holder to make contact with the bottom of the new cell.




I was pleased to hear how well the radio performed after all of the changes. I have attempted to record a short video (for the first time) using my I-Pad and then converting the video to mpeg format as well as trimming it slightly in newly-installed Windows Moviemaker freeware. Hopefully my videos will get better with practise!




My neighbour will be pleased as the radio belonged to her grandfather and she remembers listening to it a lot as a child. She has been kind enough to let my hang my 100' three-wire LF flattop over the top of her house and property to a tree on the far side of her lot....now that's a good neighbour!



While on a roll I also cleaned and re- capped a mid 50's 'All American Five', Sylvania (model 515) that another neighbour had given me several years ago. It was so dirty and grimy when first received that it was hard to even tell what color it was. Two tubes were also replaced. It now resides on the kitchen counter and is sounding great, playing oldies only!

My restored Sylvania 515