AmateurRadio.com

Since I logged my first HF QSO back in 2005 I have been using one type or another of software logging. I have also enjoyed exchanging QSL cards but never developed a good system at keeping them organized. Jumping from one logging program to the next, managing the “sent” and “received” QSL card fields have been hit or miss. A good portion of my contacts were uploaded to eQSL. Some were pushed out to LoTW. But I am not at all certain that either accurately reflects all my logged contacts. Compounding the problem has been multiple moves and military facilitated DXpeditions to Iraq and Korea. So what I am left with is a filing cabinet drawer full of QSL cards and a hard drive full of various log files.

It would be nice to get this mess sorted out.

I taking a three-step approach to establish order out of chaos.

(1) Gather all my software based log files. Use a file format compatible with fldigi and convert all the log files accordingly… with the end result of one consolidated log.

(2) Organize all QSL cards by date. I have a few boxes that QSL cards fit in nicely as well as tabbed dividers. This will allow me to fairly easily crosscheck the cards I have against the digital log.

(3) Stick with fldigi as my logging program. Update the QSL card “sent” and “receive” fields as I mail out cards or receive them. File received cards by date of contact.

(BONUS) I am pretty sure I achieved DXCC back in 2007, but have never been able to sit down and pull out the 100 cards I need. With a consolidated log and QSL cards organized by date, I will be able to easily find my 100 cards.

It has been a long time since I mustered up the time to post but there’s been a lot going on in West Cumbria and unfortunately most of it hasn’t had anything to do with radio. I did manage to get a day out last Sunday to the Norbreck Rally, thanks to Noel G4PEW for the driving, to help out with the club stand and pick up a couple of goodies for the portable enthusiast. I’ll post about them later when the work dust has settled.

You may remember that a while ago I bought a 2 element lightweight 50Mhz antenna that is currently sitting in a 95% completion state so that will need a bit of finishing off and talking about.

I also purchased a Prowhip 5 band fishing pole antenna on a bit of a whim, partly because I was going to make one and thought I wouldn’t have the time to do it this side of the summer and partly because it was so cheap I doubt I could have got the parts and made one up myself for much cheaper. It calls itself a multiband antenna but its really a 1/4 wave vertical in a fishing rod that will tune to 40m and a few higher bands with a tuner. More on that later.

The other thing I’m involved with is helping with the Workington club (MX0WRC) to try and help out some of the novices and non home brewers to make a simple 3 element 2m band antenna out of ‘stuff from a hardware shop’. There are some well established designs that work but the focus is on getting the guy’s and girl’s to make their own.

I’ll also be helping out with the Fred Whitton Cycle Challenge with the local Raynet group shortly so weekends are looking quite busy .So as you can see, plenty on the plate but no time to get on the air. Something is going to have to stop, my vote is work but I doubt the mortgage will get paid, mores’ the pity.

Loyal readers know that from time to time, I am fortunate to travel to interesting and exotic locales for work—they usually come in pairs, so Greenland and Peru are it for a while.  Although the motivation is usually field work, occasionally a conference pops up.  The International Symposium on Equatorial Aeronomy occurs every three to four years and can be counted on for an exotic locale.  Sarah had such a good time when we attended the 12th ISEA in Crete in 2008 that she insisted on attending the 13th in Peru with me this year.  Of course, Evan complicated that a bit, and so we evaluated the pros and cons of leaving him with grandparents or bringing grandparents along, eventually finding a willing pair of grandparents to come along.  If you’re interested in a general travelogue (and following posts) and some photographs, you might check out my father’s blogs.  This short post is mostly focused on radio aspects of the adventure.

In retrospect, it may not have been such a good idea to bring ham gear to this meeting.  Between being the most seasoned traveler in my family and the only one with a functional command of the Spanish language, plus Evan, plus hours of meetings and collaborations each day, there was little time/energy to actually operate.  Getting to Peru was uneventful—we took an American Airlines codeshare flight on LAN Airlines via Miama to Lima and got there early in the morning.  Unlike their neighbors to the south, Peruvian Customs is by far the most curious I’ve encountered while carrying radio gear—just a minor headache but Sarah was a bit concerned when they took me away for additional questioning.  I carry modest gear—a Yaesu FT-840, Astron SS-30 (this should be replaced with something smaller, but it’s what I have), WKUSB, Palm Mini-Paddle, the K8GU portable antenna system, and various cables to connect it all up.  After clearing Customs, we boarded a bus to Paracas, where the meeting would be held…

Paracas, which is about four hours’ drive south of Lima, was the site of a major earthquake several years prior and is still in recovery.  The hotel that hosted the conference and a few nearby hotels had all been rebuilt from the ground up since the earthquake.  The city is on a small bay that is protected from the Pacific.  It’s very beautiful—desert sands that go right down to the bay.  After a few days at the meeting, I managed to get the antenna set up.

One of the things that surprised me was an excellent JA opening on 20 meters just after sunrise before I went to breakfast and then the meeting.  I am pretty sure it was a direct-path opening because the signals did not sound like long path and the long path crosses the southern auroral oval, whereas the direct path does not.  (Auroral absorption, by the way, is one reason that the long path can be more effective than the short path.)  Any time I called CQ as OA5/K8GU, I was greeted with a roaring pileup.  Not bad for an antenna propped up on my veranda.  Verticals on the beach rule, and this one wasn’t even really on the beach.

At the request of a friend, I made a special effort to operate on 12-meter CW in the afternoon.  The portable antenna would not tune up on 12 meters with the wire radials I had laid out.  In a moment of desperation, I assembled some extra pieces of my portable antenna to produce a tuned radial that I clip-leaded to the ground lug as depicted in the photo above.  It worked right away and I was quite popular there as well.

A comment about computers—my standard work-issued computer is a MacBook Pro, which although perfect for my work, is essentially useless for amateur radio.  I know this will generate a torrent of discussion, but if you are accustomed to real contest/DXpedition logging software available for DOS and Windows, you know that the stuff for the Mac doesn’t cut the mustard.  I have logged DX operations on paper (CE/K8GU), or in the case of the OX/K8GU operation, brought along a second computer.  However, in a long-delayed flash of insight, I bought and installed VMware Fusion on the Mac in February.  It runs Windows XP and TR4W with the WKUSB just brilliantly and with no special configuration.  Aside from having to press Fn+F1 to CQ, this was an epic win.  KB9UWU tells me that there’s an option in VMware to eliminate this nuisance as well.

After the meeting in Paracas, we returned to Lima, where we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Jicamarca Radio Observatory.  The cornerstone of the Jicamarca facility is a 49.92-MHz radar that feeds an 18,720-element phased array, pictured above.  Jicamarca is one of the most powerful radio transmitters in the world, capable of 4.5 MW output, and is used for a variety of atmospheric, ionospheric, and space science experiments.  Like Arecibo, it was originally designed to perform incoherent scatter measurements of the ionospheric electron density profile.

Lots of fire in that wire!  Have you ever seen a coaxial cable that’s rated for over a megawatt at 50 MHz?  This is the feedpoint of the phased array.  There are a few tuned stubs in there, too.

Here’s one of the four 1.5-MW transmitter cavities.  A maximum of three are used together.  When configured for three transmitters, the driver stage puts out 7 kW!  Needless to say, everything is custom made on site.  The transmitting tetrodes (8973s, if I recall correctly) are refurbished by the manufacturer as needed.

After Jicamarca, we went to Cusco, which is south and east of Paracas, and much more lush than the deserts around Lima and Paracas.

We spent a lot of time being tourists in Cusco and vicinity and I had some difficulty with my computer so I only made a handful of OA7/K8GU QSOs from Cusco on 17 meters.  It is quite remarkable how much better the bands were from the coast.  As someone who has operated from W3, W8, W9 and W0, I can attest to that difference as well.  I missed my morning JA run…

A final thought—we drove through a lot of towns and communities in OA4, OA5, and OA7, on this trip.  Nearly every town, no matter how small, had at least one building with an HF fan dipole on the roof.  HF is alive and well in a mountainous country like Peru!

QSL information:  If you worked OA5/K8GU or OA7/K8GU, the best way to get a confirmation is through ARRL’s Logbook of the World.  I have been responding to direct cards (to my FCC address) with a one-day turn-around lately.

A few years ago, when children,  pets and work didn’t need so much attention I took part in a bike race (commonly called a sportive) which took in 6 passes in the lake district (kirkstone, honister, Newlands, Whinlatter, Hardknott and Wrynose) in a 112 mile day out on 2 wheels. This time I shall not be cycling but helping out with the local Raynet group.

Saturday had us checking the local communication paths for the various areas. It’s the first time I’ve been involved in any of this kind of thing so Paul, 2E0EET took me through the basics and now I’m looking forward to being a spectator and watching those who’ve trained for months on end to attempt this formidable ride.

It took me over 7:30 hrs when I did it do giving up the same amount of time with the rig at cockley beck (not too far from the Hardknott summit) seems a small price for my earlier enjoyment.

Air travel is hard on luggage.  Just yesterday, I was sitting on the tarmac at Washington National (DCA) as we waited for our arrival gate to become available.  The ground crew were loading baggage into the departing aircraft and did not elevate the loading elevator quite enough.  Several suitcases and a Pack ‘n Play (the technical, brand-inspecific term for these things is a “playard”…who knew?!) toppled blissfully off the end of the elevator and landed in a pile beneath the aircraft.  That’s just the stuff you see…

Until recently, I managed to travel carry-on only most of the time, something that preserved the life of my inexpensive soft suitcase far beyond expectation.  However, the proliferation of checked bag fees has caused thrifty passengers to stuff as much stuff as possible into their carry-ons, making the overhead bins a nightmare.  My employer is willing to pay for the first checked bag when I travel for work, which is 90% of cases or more, so thrift is slightly less motivating for me.  I suspect that checked-bag fees have also increased the size of the average piece of luggage, making it perilous for my small soft-sided bag.  So, like U.S. drivers of 10 years ago who preferred gas guzzling SUVs for their “safety,” I decided to fight back with a hard-sided suitcase.

After a trip to Europe in 2008 in which one of our soft-sided suitcases was essentially destroyed, Sarah was on board with this idea.  I proposed a Pelican case at the time, but she thought it was ugly and “looks like a toolbox.”  Since it’s a well-known fact that women drive household purchasing decisions, it should be no surprise that we ended up with a set of highly-rated, yet inexpensive hard sided suitcases.  After one or two domestic trips, one of these developed a crack.  The trip to Greenland in January of this year was impetus for me to take matters into my own hands:  I bought a Pelican 1560 (empty with no foam) and the 1569 lid organizer.

The genius of the 1560 is that you can’t load it to more than 23 kg with “normal” contents.  Although, Sarah—and airline, security, and customs employees the world over—would argue that very little that goes into my bags is indeed “normal.”  It’s only a little more expensive than a department-store suitcase and definitely cheaper than most of the high-end brands.  And, of course, it’s indestructible…and it floats.  What’s not to like about that?  There is one downside—it is almost always loaded to near 20 kg, so it’s heavy.  But, until the airlines force us to pay by the kg, I have my suitcase for life.

Upon return from our latest trip yesterday, the two larger hard-sided suitcases had big cracks in them.  “I think all of our suitcases should be Pelican cases,” Sarah remarked as we left the airport.

With the loss of my preferred frequent flyer status, airlines tightening their checked luggage allowances, and the addition of another traveler to the family, I’ve been contemplating a new portable antenna that is easier to pack than my usual DK9SQ mast and dipoles.  I don’t do high-priced reduced-size antennas if at all possible since portable installations usually have other efficiency-reducing problems.  Multi-element antennas take up additional space and have feeding and installation complications that are unnecessary for the casual DX operator.  So, that leaves us to choose between a vertical and a dipole.

A few words about efficiency:  Dipoles have a distinct efficiency advantage over verticals in almost every practical installation for 40 meters and up, except when the vertical is physically placed in or over salt water.  Radiation efficiency tends to be dominated by near-field conditions, pattern is dominated by stuff that’s farther away.  This is why vertical dipoles work so well for long-haul DX when placed within a few wavelengths of salt water.  They don’t need the near-field efficiency enhancement as much as base-fed verticals, but they still leverage salt water for developing their far-field radiation pattern, especially at low angles required for long-haul communication.

I’m a casual DX operator, not a DXpeditioner, so I never operate on 160 or 80 meters.   That is, considering the discussion above, why I have been using dipoles with the DK9SQ.  But, verticals have a distinct advantage over dipoles in the sense that they are self-supporting.  I decided to build a vertical because: 1) my next DX trip would include time near a beach and 2) I wanted to be able to bring my own support as I had with the DK9SQ.

My remaining requirements were now simple:

1. A vertical antenna that requires no additional supports.  Guying is OK.
2. The antenna must be full-size (quarter wavelength) on 40 meters and above.
3. Experience has shown that multi-band operation is desirable, but instant band switching is not necessary.
4. The longest piece must fit inside my suitcase (20 in / 50.8 cm maximum length).
5. Field assembly and repair with only a Leatherman tool.
6. Minimum cost, minimum weight, minimum volume, minimum installation time.

And this is what I came up with:

There are 21 aluminum sections, most with a “swaged” (actually, a poor-man’s swage to be described in a moment) end and a slit end.  They are shown here bundled perfectly inside a section of cardboard shipping tube.  An 18 x 2.5 x 0.125-inch aluminum plate serves as the base.  I used DX Engineering resin support blocks to insulate vertical from the base.  A point could be fashioned on the bottom of the base and a foot plate attached to push into soft soil, but that has not been done.

Most sections fit together using overlapping joiner pieces that I previously referred to as “poor-man’s swaging.”  I’m not sure that it’s actually a savings over paying a local shop to swage the ends for you when time is considered in addition to material, but I cut telescoping pieces six inches long and fastened them three inches deep in one end of a 17-inch section of tubing with two offset and orthogonally-placed aluminum pop rivets for a total length of 20 inches.  This geometry not only fits in my suitcase, but results in a very small amount of wasted material as well.

The other end of each piece is slit about 2 inches and they mate with an all-stainless steel hose clamp.  The first 10 feet of the antenna are 0.75-inch 6063-T832 tubing followed by telescoping sizes down to 0.375-inch at the very top.  The transition pieces are a full 20 inches long and are slit on both ends.  The full-size antenna will stand in a light breeze, but guying is a good idea.  Guy rings are fashioned out of flat washers drilled in three places.

Tune-up is easy…the more radials you use, the less critical their length.  After about 8 or 10, you’re in the clear here.  I never attached enough to prevent them from affecting the tuning.  If you only plan to have a couple of radials, go ahead and cut them to 1/4 wavelength (even though ground proximity will detune them).  Then, set the length of the antenna using the required number of 17-inch sections (the 234/f formula is surprisingly close) with the last section being a variable length for fine tuning.

I’ve intentionally left out most of the details of the antenna itself because I don’t expect anyone duplicate it exactly.  But, here are a few notes for anyone considering building one themselves:

1. There are lots of parts vendors out there.  McMaster-Carr and DX Engineering will get you there in one order from each.  There is a surprising amount of overlap in their inventories.  Get the hose clamps from McMaster…even if you get stainless-stainless (stainless band, stainless screw), they are about 1/3 of the DXE price.  On the other hand, the resin support blocks are cheaper from DXE.
2. I carry a compact antenna analyzer (Autek Research VA-1) with me.  Field tune-up is a snap and it runs on a single transistor battery.  It’s about 1/4 the size and weight of an MFJ-259 and good enough for amateur work.  Oh, and I bought mine used for a fraction of the MFJ.
3. A tubing cutter is fine if you only have a half-dozen or so cuts.  But, if you have a chop saw or need an excuse to buy a chop saw, it will make cutting the tubing far easier.  My hands were raw for a few days after cutting the tubing by hand.  I’m sure the antenna performs better on account of it, though.
4. Find a friend with a metal-cutting bandsaw to slit the ends of your tubes.  I went through a half pack (McMaster mega-size pack) of cut-off wheels for my rotary tool doing my slits.
5. McMaster only sells the aluminum plate in 36-inch pieces.  If you don’t have the aforementioned chop saw, an angle grinder with a cut-off disk does a surprisingly good job.
6. I pack a combination-screwdriver that has hex drivers that fit the hose clamps and #6 nuts.  Even though the antenna can be erected with only a Leatherman tool doesn’t mean it has to be.
7. The small parts box shown in the top picture holds all of the parts for the antenna—it was 2 USD at Home Depot.
8. The final and most critical component is a clip-lead that can be used to attach various nearby metal structures to your ground plane.  I have used it to make a temporary radial out of excess tubing sections on 12 meters as well.

That’s it.  The antenna goes up in a few minutes, especially if not used at full length.  I used it successfully last week as OA5/K8GU, which will be detailed in a future post.

Happy Birthday WOTA. What do you get a portable operators scheme for its birthday? I simply have no idea.

For those who aren’t too sure what it is. WOTA is a bit like SOTA but for the Wainwright Fells in the Lake District. If you don’t know what SOTA is then one explanation is portable operations from summits (or fells if you live here in the lakes). Or as I like to describe it to non hams, working you way up a fell till you get to the top, looking at the view for a bit then getting out a radio (generally in the fog or rain, in the lake district) and saying ‘hello its me, can you hear me?’ ‘yes, it’s me, can you hear me?’ ‘yes, good stuff, who’s next’. I don’t think I’ve had too many positive looks giving that explanation but its better than trying to explain what that pole sticking out of your rucksack is in a howling gale.

Anyway,m back to the point. WOTA was devised by Julian, G4ILO and the first activations have been tabled as the 21st March 2009. So all I can say is happy birthday and my XYL wants a word with you because I’ve not managed to fix the downstairs toilet whilst I’m out operating from a fell top.