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Spring is finally making an appearance in the Rocky Mountain region which means it is time to get on top of some SOTA peaks and transmit some RF energy. On Saturday, Joyce K0JJW and I had planned to drive through the Big Thompson Canyon to Estes Park and also sneak in a quick SOTA activation. Matt K0MOS suggested a few peaks and we chose Prospect Mountain (W0C/FR-069) just south of Estes Park. See Matt’s trip report for a good overview of the hike.

For a low hassle SOTA activation, I usually just take my Yaesu FT-60 handheld radio and operate 2m FM. Most of the VHF activity is on FM anyway and I usually rustle up some SOTA contacts that way. On this trip, I also brought along my Yaesu FT-817 so that I could operate 2m ssb, to provide better weak signal options.  For SSB operation, my 3-element Arrow yagi antenna was mounted on my walking stick for easier pointing, with horizontal polarization.

The above photo shows the FT-817 in its Sitting-On-A-Big-Rock operating position, using the AMP-3 carrying case with lead-acid battery inside.

I had arranged a sked with Stu W0STU who was located ~100 miles away with a group of Scouts at Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch. There wasn’t a solid radio path between our two locations, so I wasn’t sure if we’d make it or not. I did not think we could make the contact on FM but the efficiency of SSB should do better. He had a small yagi pointed in my direction driven by an FT-857 transceiver but we tried working on 144.200 MHz SSB without any success. Another station W6LEV near Loveland came up on the calling frequency so I worked him.

After working a few stations on 146.52 MHz using a half-wave whip on the FT-60, I decided to try to work W0STU one more time. I sent him a text message and confirmed that he was available. However, snow was moving into his location (welcome to spring) so  he had dismantled his yagi antenna and only had a vertical antenna on his truck. I told him to give me a call on 144.200 SSB and I’d try to find him. I flipped my yagi to vertical polarization and pointed in his direction.

At first, I heard nothing but noise. I was about to give up when I rotated my antenna around to see if the signal peaked up in another direction. Sure enough, when pointed S/SW, I could hear Stu’s signal rise to just above my noise floor. His actual direction from me was SE, so we were probably getting a reflection off one of the mountains to the south.  My signal was right at his noise floor, so we just barely completed a contact. Without the weak-signal performance of SSB and the gain of the yagi antenna, I am sure we would have never completed the contact. Another lesson is that it pays to point your antenna in different directions, since you don’t always know what the best propagation path will be.

Another fun day messing around with ham radio.

73, Bob K0NR

TX Factor, the UK’s first TV show dedicated entirely to amateur radio has launched TXtra, a regular supply of extra features with new and exciting content related to amateur radio and associated technology.

More important things spewing forth from the interwebz:

The Ham Hijinks guys have been at it again, with this article: New Drug Aims To Get More Hams On The Air
Warning: Do Not Take These Guys Seriously, It Only Encourages Them

Chiming in on April 1st, Dan KB6NU reported that the FCC is going to reinstate the Morse Code test.

I posted an article about using UTC over at HamRadioSchool.com: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

KB9VBR has a nice article that explains the common types of antenna connectors used with ham radio.

Elliot KB0RFC has been writing some interesting stuff about D-STAR, DMR and other things digital on his blog. See his latest article: Developing a DMR / D-STAR radio

James R. Winstead, KD5OZY, of Coleman, Texas found out that sometimes the FCC does show up and bust radio amateurs that are causing problems on the air. See the ARRL article here. It always cracks me up when the FCC Engineer reports that during their station inspection, the offender’s radio is still tuned to the frequency where the problems were occurring.

Serious DXers all over the world are in severe depression after finding out that Crimea is Not a New DXCC Entity. Conspiracy Theory: the whole thing was instigated by a group of hams that believed Crimea would be a new one.

73, Bob K0NR

TX Factor, the UK’s first TV show dedicated entirely to amateur radio has certainly taken off. Episode 1 which launched back in February has seen over 22,300 downloads and the latest release has been viewed more than 7,400 times in the past 14 days. We’re extremely grateful to the amateur radio world for helping to propagate the news of this TV show and to help us achieve a large and appreciative audience. It’s made it all worthwhile!

If you’ve not yet watched an episode, then head over to www.txfactor.co.uk to see what’s on offer.

We’re always on the lookout for ideas for future show topics, so do let us know of any ideas we could consider for future inclusion.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our emailing list or YouTube channel to make sure you get notification of each new episode. Talking of which, episode 3 will be available in mid-May. The show features the famous Military Wireless Museum in Kidderminster with curator Ben Knock G4BXD and the king of kite aerials Roger Stafford G4ROJ. Mike Marsh visits the Exeter Radio and Electronics Rally and Bob takes a look at the new offering from FlexRadio Systems.

We’re currently building up a resource library of extracts from past shows which may be of interest to those who haven’t managed to watch an entire episode.

And if you can’t wait for the next episode, there is now TX Talk, a section of the web site where regular audio features on all aspects of amateur radio are uploaded. Right now, there’s an exclusive interview with FUNcube Project Manager Jim Heck talking with Bob McCreadie about the prospective changes to the FUNcube satellite’s transponder availability.

This is PART 4a (there is a part 4b below) of the project “Arduino Frequency Display For a Kenwood TS-520S HF Ham Radio”. This part covers switching to a new front end circuit as seen used by the DFD2 frequency counter from “Almost All Digital Electronics”. Their website is http://aade.com/DFD2inst/DFD2inst.htm

All parts: (PART 4), (PART 3), (PART 2), (PART 1)

(PART 4A)

This is PART 4b of the project “Arduino Frequency Display For a Kenwood TS-520S HF Ham Radio”. This part covers testing the circuit and frequency counter software when connected to the Kenwood radio but still on a bread board. The final display is not ready so in this video I simply push the frequence counts to the laptop.

(PART 4B)

Here is the datasheet for the PLL chip I used in (PART 4). Other datasheets can be found in (PART 1).

74HC4046 Phase-Locked Loop with VCO (PDF)

I’ve had several opportunities to take amateur radio along on vacation and do a little radio operating from other countries. I try not to focus too much on ham radio during such a trip, as it has a tendency to create marital discord and can suck the fun out of the vacation. Some people call this a “holiday style” DXpedition, or maybe it’s just the slacker approach.

The marine yellow Baofeng UV-5R handheld transceiver got a lot of use.

St John USVI

Joyce (K0JJW) and I were planning a vacation with three other couples that we’ve known for years. It turns out that six of the eight have their ham licenses. (We’re still working on the last two.) Our primary goal was to find an island location with great beaches and snorkeling. Someone proposed the island of St John in the US Virgin Islands  and the idea took hold.

The Buddistick antenna is mounted on the railing of the patio, overlooking the sea.

From a ham radio perspective, USVI is an interesting choice since it does count as a DXCC entity (“country”), even though it is a US possession. See my article on HamRadioSchool.com for more information on how that works. Anyone with an FCC license can operate from there without any special licensing or approval. KP2 is the prefix for USVI, so identify as KP2/<callsign> to indicate that you are operating from USVI.

Radio Gear

We were trying to pack light, so the radio equipment had to fit into our normal luggage. I took my Yaesu FT-817 and a Buddistick™ antenna. Paul (KF9EY) took along a Yaesu FT-100D, while Denny (KB9DPF) transported his FT-817 and a G5RV Junior antenna. Our primary operating mode was using the FT-100D (more power, baby) to drive the Buddistick, which was attached to the railing on the patio.

The FT-100D was the primary operating rig, carefully placed on a random table out by the pool, with the St John Guidebook nearby.

I decided that the true slacker approach required some Official Beach QRP contacts in the style of Buddies in the Caribbean (see the video). One day on the beach, I took along my FT-817 and the Buddistick and set up for some QRP action.

Some slacker beach operating (Bob K0NR).

The Buddistick was mounted on a Dolica WT-1003 camera monopod stuck into the sand, with the radial trailing off into the vegetation. My compact Heil headset was a convenient way to make some phone contacts without blasting my fellow beach bums with noisy audio.

The view looking out from the beach operating location.

How did we do on the HF bands? We managed to make a number of contacts on 20m, 15m and 10m into the Americas and Europe. I was a bit disappointed that we never really got a pileup going. I think our signal was plenty strong but KP2 is maybe just not that rare.

The innovative “plop the rig on top of a backpack” operating configuration.

We spent quite a bit of time exploring the island, driving around in two rental Jeeps. For mobile communications, we chatted back and forth on 146.58 MHz, the Golf-November-Tango frequency, using handheld transceivers. In the end, these radios probably got the most use during the trip. (Did I mention this was a slacker DXpedition?) There are a few 2m repeaters in the islands but we did not make use of them.

I brought a Yaesu FT-60 and a Baofeng UV-5R along on the trip, but mostly ended up using the Baofeng radio. If was the perfect radio to take to the beach — does the job and not that big of a loss if it landed in the ocean. Using the dual receive feature of the HT, I monitored the marine calling frequency, 156.80 MHz, listening to the boat traffic.

So if you are looking for a great place to go to enjoy the sand and water, I highly recommend St. John. Go ahead and take along some ham gear and do some slacker DXing. For more information on KP2 ham radio, see the ARRL Virgin Islands Section web site.

— 73, Bob KP2/K0NR

QSL to KP2/K0NR via Logbook of the World or to K0NR via Buro or Direct with SASE

This is PART 3 of the project “Arduino Frequency Display For a Kenwood TS-520S HF Ham Radio”. This part covers 0.9 volt 38 MHz signal amplified into Schmitt triggered NAND gate for cleanup before going to a divide by 8 ripple counter chip then finally being cleanly counted by the Arduino using multiply by 8 math function to restore counts to 38 MHz. All parts: (PART 4), (PART 3), (PART 2), (PART 1)

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