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Operating an amateur station at VLF is a very specialised area of experimentation. There are basically 2 different threads (1) earth-mode or utilities assisted earth-mode with propagation mainly along or close to roads and (2) radiated DXing in which a VLF signal is actually radiated and propagated to great distances. With (1) I have managed 6km with QRSS3 with 5W from a TDA2003 audio IC at 8.97kHz. Earth-mode gear can be low powered and simple to build.

VLF amateur signals

With (2) the Atlantic Ocean has now been crossed, i.e. quite remarkable distances with amateur powers and antennas. Usually very large loading coils are needed and making these can be “challenging”. As high voltages are likely, great care is needed. Of course, most DXing is done with very long stable transmissions in very narrow bandwidths. Most amateur VLF gear is home made with free PC software to allow signals to be seen. Casual listening is not effective.  Most operation is now around 8.300kHz as this is unallocated in many countries.

News of VLF activity may be found at https://sites.google.com/site/sub9khz/ .

The Scorpion Antenna is mounted in a good spot in the rear of my pickup truck bed. Seen here at Hagen’s Cove in Perry Florida on the Gulf of Mexico in the ‘big bend area’!

Going Mobile, Rag Chews, Nets, CW, its all available and very doable when you are on the road!

Mobile HF radio adds yet another dimension to Ham Radio. This is my second go, at HF Mobile operation.

Years ago, when ‘real life’ happened to me, I had no home QTH to operate from so I bought a new (at that time) Icom 706 M II G radio.  It was a great choice. A DC to daylight rig, and its still working 15 years later. This next episode of HF mobile is greatly improved over my previous one. A good antenna at the time, was made by High Sierra. It was a screwdriver type. (the original mobile antenna’s were nick named ‘screwdriver’ because they used an electric screwdriver for moving the coil)

High Sierra no longer makes mobile antennas, but the good news is there is a good company making them in Arizona, Scorpion antennas!

Scorpion Antennas

The Scorpion antenna is a heavyweight, at 18 pounds and it needs a very robust base to hold it. Breedlove Mounts

Its the Rolls Royce of Mobile screwdriver type antennas, and not just because I bought one, it is indeed, a very rugged and carefully crafted antenna.

I’m primarily a CW op so I incorporated a touch sensitive paddle to do CW on the move or sitting still in a local park like this one at Hagen’s Cove, on the Gulf of Mexico in the ‘big bend area of Florida!’

The cap hat ‘whip’ is a 3 foot rod of solid aluminum. It shortens the overall whip. This is nice for parking my truck in the breezeway without hitting the roof.

A motorized coil is moved up or down electrically! Listening for the greatest noise, depending on the band of choice, puts me in the ball park for checking the SWR. A 1:1 ratio is easily obtainable if care is taken during installation. Bonding straps are a must. All the parts of the truck body, door, tailgate, hood, fenders and truck bed, must be bonded together to from a good RF ground. Not a DC ground, mind you, but an RF ground plane. (The ‘other half’ of the antenna’)

All the body parts of the truck must be bonded together with straps. RF flows on the surface not the cross section of a conductor, so the wider the better. Copper flashing best carries RF current but a compromise is make for braid due to continuous flexing while opening and closing doors, and tail gates.

Bonding is one of the things that separates a good installation from a poor one. I had fun with the first truck and radio set up back in 2001 but I learned a lot about mobile HF radio since then and did things differently this time.

Location, location, location! It sells real estate and its very important for HF Mobile Antennas!

What makes a good location on a vehicle?

I’ve seen many examples of HF radio antenna installations that work, but some work much better than others. Besides bonding, another good trick for a good installation is to use a very good location; the main mass of metal must be Directly under, not near, the base of the antenna. Will a bumper mounted antenna work? Yes, but one with a mass of metal directly beneath the antenna will work better.

Its simply a case of, more bang for the buck!

Positioning the bottom of the movable coil above the truck side wall is best.

The Scorpion antenna movable coil still has the protective bubble wrap on it in this picture.

Scorpion Antennas

Clearance is important!

The bottom of the coil must have clearance from metal objects like the side wall of the truck.

Detailed installation instructions come with the scorpion antenna. This is very important. A good installation will insure good operation.  Skimping on installation will only hurt you in the long run.

I installed an auxiliary battery in the back set compartment of the truck. Its a sealed lead acid 75 Ah battery made by Optima. I bought it trough Apex Battery.

Optima Blue Top from Apex Battery co.

Optima Blue Top 75 Ah Auxilliary Battery

I can use either the auxiliary battery or the truck battery or both at the same time, thanks to a marine dual battery manual switch.

See its picture below.

I used #4 wire to connect the truck battery in parallel with the auxiliary battery in the back seat area. This large gauge wire greatly reduces voltage drop between the batteries. For extended stays in one place, I can operate on the auxiliary battery, without running the engine. This insures that the separated truck battery will start the truck when I’m done operating.

I have not yet mounted this switch on a back board, but that is coming. I need both hands to operate the switch now and I want to be able to do it with only one hand!

Perko Switch

Dual Battery Switch in the -Both-Battery- Position

The business half of the IC 7100 is mounted to the floor of the truck on the hump. The battery box can be seen with a power pole connection box on top.
The control box for the IC 7100 rides up front on the center console as does the touch sensitive paddle. The microphone hands on the cup holder.

I have a Warren Gregoire headset for SSB. It features a noise cancelling microphone. Warren Gregoire Headset (no relation to me)

(Special note here; its illegal to have both ears covered with a headset in Florida while you drive.)

Its a stupid law because you can legally drive in Florida even if you are stone deaf! So that kills the reasoning for ‘listening to sirens’ on emergency vehicles!

Okay, that rant is done!  Back to the Mobile installation.

Battery Box, with Power Pole Box,-top, IC 7100-bottom

AA1IK, Using Warren Gregoire Headset 2
Join me on a new Yahoo Group for HF Mobile ops.
New HF Mobile Yahoo Group

Here I am using the Warren Gregoire headset. This headset has a noise cancelling mic so its a good fit for mobile HF radio. SSB is a new thing for me. I’ve been a CW op, for most of my ham life. I’m having a great time meeting new folks all around Florida on 40 Meter SSB. Ham radio has lots to offer and I’m glad I have not yet exhausted all the possibilities. I have not forsaken CW, but SSB is a fun mode, as I’m sure many of you already know.

The IC 7100 is a two part radio. You saw the ‘business end’ in a previous photo. This photo shows the control head and the touch sensitive paddles Touch Sensitive Paddles They are held in place with a bungee cord. The black plate that you see here is a small plastic clipboard with the clip removed. It is glued in place to the light brown plate, and that is also a clipboard with the clip removed. Both clipboards are held in place with bungee cords. This allows me to remove the control head and the paddles for security reasons.

IC 7100 and Touch Paddles

Remote Switch-top, SWR/RF PWR Meter-left, Speaker-right

The remote switch for moving the antenna up and down to tune in each band is show in the little cubby hole. The SWR/PWR meter is stuffed into a hole where the ‘never has been used-ashtray’ was. The speaker is mounted just above the cup holder.

Remote Switch Moves Antenna Up and Down to Tune Each Band

This photo shows the remote switch. It is hand held, and easily put away after the antenna is tuned.

So! That is pretty much the end of a walk through in my new mobile ham radio shack. So far, I’ve listened to CW on the road but have not called CQ or talked to anyone while driving. I became interested in CW Mobile early in my ham radio career.

The first requirement for operating CW Mobile, according to an article that I read on the subject, said to ‘become a dynamite CW operator! Its been almost 25 years since then and I’m still working on that first requirement.

I’ll keep trying!

De AA1IK

Ernest Gregoire

There is a new sunspot region rotating into view, producing moderately-strong (M-class) x-ray flares. This video shows you the first 11 hours of May 5, 2015

Expect flares throughout this week, which will degrade HF propagation DURING the flare, but enhance propagation overall (due to the higher Radio Flux). There might be occasional coronal mass ejections, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgis5Bg8dBk

We rely on the Sun for HF radio communication propagation. For the last five years, we have an amazing front-row seat: the SDO spacecraft. Here is a video with highlights of the last five years of solar activity as seen by NASA and the SDO AIA spacecraft. This is worth seeing on a larger monitor, so try to view it full screen on something larger than your palm. The music is pretty good too. It is worth the 20-some minutes of stunning viewing. Be sure to share!

Enjoy!

Details:

This video features stunning clips of the Sun, captured by SDO from each of the five years since SDO’s deployment in 2010. In this movie, watch giant clouds of solar material hurled out into space, the dance of giant loops hovering in the corona, and huge sunspots growing and shrinking on the Sun’s surface.

April 21, 2015 marks the five-year anniversary of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) First Light press conference, where NASA revealed the first images taken by the spacecraft. Since then, SDO has captured amazingly stunning super-high-definition images in multiple wavelengths, revealing new science, and captivating views.

February 11, 2015 marks five years in space for NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which provides incredibly detailed images of the whole Sun 24 hours a day. February 11, 2010, was the day on which NASA launched an unprecedented solar observatory into space. The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) flew up on an Atlas V rocket, carrying instruments that scientists hoped would revolutionize observations of the Sun.

Capturing an image more than once per second, SDO has provided an unprecedentedly clear picture of how massive explosions on the Sun grow and erupt. The imagery is also captivating, allowing one to watch the constant ballet of solar material through the sun’s atmosphere, the corona.

The imagery in this “highlight reel” provide us with examples of the kind of data that SDO provides to scientists. By watching the sun in different wavelengths (and therefore different temperatures, each “seen” at a particular wavelength that is invisible to the unaided eye) scientists can watch how material courses through the corona. SDO captures images of the Sun in 10 different wavelengths, each of which helps highlight a different temperature of solar material. Different temperatures can, in turn, show specific structures on the Sun such as solar flares or coronal loops, and help reveal what causes eruptions on the Sun, what heats the Sun’s atmosphere up to 1,000 times hotter than its surface, and why the Sun’s magnetic fields are constantly on the move.

Coronal loops are streams of solar material traveling up and down looping magnetic field lines). Solar flares are bursts of light, energy and X-rays. They can occur by themselves or can be accompanied by what’s called a coronal mass ejection, or CME, in which a giant cloud of solar material erupts off the Sun, achieves escape velocity and heads off into space.

This movie shows examples of x-ray flares, coronal mass ejections, prominence eruptions when masses of solar material leap off the Sun, much like CMEs. The movie also shows sunspot groups on the solar surface. One of these sunspot groups, a magnetically strong and complex region appearing in mid-January 2014, was one of the largest in nine years as well as a torrent of intense solar flares. In this case, the Sun produced only flares and no CMEs, which, while not unheard of, is somewhat unusual for flares of that size. Scientists are looking at that data now to see if they can determine what circumstances might have led to flares eruptions alone.

Scientists study these images to better understand the complex electromagnetic system causing the constant movement on the sun, which can ultimately have an effect closer to Earth, too: Flares and another type of solar explosion called coronal mass ejections can sometimes disrupt technology in space as well as on Earth (disrupting shortwave communication, stressing power grids, and more). Additionally, studying our closest star is one way of learning about other stars in the galaxy.

Goddard built, operates and manages the SDO spacecraft for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. SDO is the first mission of NASA’s Living with a Star Program. The program’s goal is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to address those aspects of the sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society.

Please visit my channel on YouTube, and subscribe ( https://YouTube.com/NW7US ).

— Twitter: https://Twitter.com/NW7US
— Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spacewx.hfradio
— Web: http://SunSpotWatch.com
( Data feed Twitter https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx )

Credits:

Music Via YouTube “Free-for-use” Creation Tools

Video clips of the Sun are from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO which are in the Public Domain

By the way, this is an example of what I am trying to produce on a more regular basis, once I launch the space weather YouTube channel that I have started. If you wish to help, here is the GoFundMe link: http://www.gofundme.com/sswchnl

Hello, folks! We're happy to say that Pete has rejoined our crew for this episode of the show, and he brings with him some excellent information for all you listeners out there. We take a look at several great video and audio resources for amateur radio adventures this fortnight. On top of that, we give a detailed description of YFKtest in action during a contest, and an overview and introduction to the latest version of the Tucnak logger. Lots more news, reviews and excitement as well. Please enjoy!

73 de The LHS Guys

All month long, during January 2015, a group of volunteers using the special event callsign, “K3Y” with a slant-region number (i.e., “K3Y/3” or “K3Y/0”), were on the amateur radio HF bands (and some, on six meters).  I was one of these volunteers, operating nearly every day of the month for at least one hour, but some times a few hours per day.

“K3Y,” the Straight Key Century Club’s annual January celebration, commemorates the club’s founding in 2006 following the American Radio Relay League’s Straight Key Night. A small group of participants wanted to extend the fun of SKN throughout the year. The SKCC is the result.

For the first three years, the club’s founders used K1Y, K2A, and K3Y as the celebration’s special-event calls. But someone cleverly noticed that a 3 is nothing more than a backwards, curvaceous E. This “KEY” event has operated under the K3Y call ever since.

The on-air party is open to members and non-members alike. It runs from 0000 UTC Jan. 2 through 2359 UTC Jan. 31. It’s a great time to introduce others to the joys of hand-crafted Morse code using straight keys, bugs, and side swipers.

In this video, you can see this operation at my ham radio shack, as I am the control operator of the special event station, “K3Y/0”, during one of the many shifts. “K3Y” is the special event callsign of the Straight Key Century Club (SKCC). The special event operates each January.

In the following video, you can see some of the QSL cards associated with this year’s operation, and then some other QSL cards in my collection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOsNjT7OCyc

+ The SKCC website is at http://skccgroup.com

+ The “K3Y” special event page is http://www.skccgroup.com/k3y/index.php

+ My page is at http://NW7US.us

+ My Morse code page is http://cw.hfradio.org

• Ham radio responds as a pair of tropical cyclones hit Australia
• The FCC and the FDA look the future of medical remote electronics
• Printed FCC issued ham licenses come to an end
• Stunning images received from the latest ISS slow-scan television experiment
• And the nominating period opens for the 2015 Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year Award

THIS WEEK'S NEWSCAST

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