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FT-817 and Signalink USB Interface

WSPR Control Software

10 mins on 17m!

 

 

 

Rob Law, MW0DNK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Anglesey, Wales. Contact him at [email protected].

I was in the shack, messing about with ferrite rods trying to replicate Roger G3XBM’s success using a ferrite rod as a transmit antenna. Meanwhile I was monitoring 14.236MHz, the 20m digital voice calling frequency.

Some audio came through the PC speakers. I didn’t catch what it was, but the callsign OZ1BXN appeared below the DV application waterfall. I waited, and shortly Chris called again. We completed a QSO with 100% solid copy each side. I gave Chris 5 by 8, which was the actual K3 S meter reading, and Chris gave me 5 and 9. Chris said he was running 200W peak power. I had the K3 in DATA mode with the power level set to 25W which is the recommended level to use with a 100W transceiver. Whether that results in an average or a peak power of 25W I have no idea.

Although Chris’s signal was solid copy with no dropouts the audio was rather boxy and I found it more difficult to read than a typical SSB signal. This is probably a consequence of the fact that Codec2 has been designed to use a 1.4kHz bandwidth rather than the 2.8kHz required by SSB. I can understand the thinking behind this decision but I agree with David G8JGO who commented on one of my earlier DV posts that it is a pity the codec wasn’t designed to give better than SSB fidelity within an SSB bandwidth. I think that would make the adoption of digital voice more compelling. I can see many people, particularly skeptics who can’t see the point of digital voice at all, being turned away by the audio quality. Has DV shot itself in the foot?

Having said that, Chris reported that I had very good audio. I had tweaked the equalisation built into FreeDV to give some treble emphasis and bass cut, so perhaps some adjustments are possible.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I received two e-mails, that I’d like to share – the first is from Andreas, IZ3NYT:

“Hi dr om,

I built a new beacon on 30 meters, I would like your participation, I hope you have fun. receive the signal if I’d like your QSL card.
the frequency is 10139,2 khz cw wpm 8, power 100mw.

The layout and the pictures you can see on my site http://iz3nyt.altervista.org/.

73 de Andrea IZ3NYT”

Keep a listen out for Andreas’ beacon – this would be an excellent way to know if the band is open to Europe

The second e-mail was from Blaine KØONE, pointing me towards a new Website : MorseFusion.com.  They are touting themselves as a new way to learn Morse Code:

“You begin by listening to a novel (over 20 available) spelled out in English (not in code). Then you select which letters, numbers, and punctuation marks you want to gradually start hearing in code. Proper character speed and word rate are maintained during all stages of training.”

and

“Throughout the learning process you focus your attention entirely on listening to a novel, NOT on learning Morse code. Learning takes place gradually and in the background.”

Interesting concept – but not cheap. A subscription of $19.95 per month is involved.  But, if all other methods of learning the Morse Code have failed for you, this might be something you could look into.

I have to admit, the list of novels that have is intriguing. Classics such as “Pride and Prejudice”, “Moby Dick”,  “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (had to read that in High School) and books that are a bit more fun, such as “War of the Worlds” and “Tom Swift and his Wireless Message”.

The Tom Swift and Hardy Boys books were staples of my youth.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

After the unsuccessful Christmas cumulative contest I thought I’d have another go at the UKAC 144Mhz contest. I will be portable again from one of the local hills that I can get access to easily from the car and without having to drive for miles. I better sort that out tomorrow before its too late. Last time I operated from a farm track near a water pumping station with enough metal furniture around to ‘help’ propagation no end. Its a toss up between there and somewhere near Whitehaven that is just as quick to get to. Lets hope its not as cold as last time.

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

I spent all of Saturday monitoring the FreeDV suggested frequencies but so far I haven’t heard a thing. I am really surprised. Whenever a new data mode is announced the main problem is usually QRM as too many people pile eagerly on to the recommended frequencies. FreeDV is a development that is potentially as revolutionary for the hobby as the advent of SSB in the 1960s. I would have thought that more hams would want to be in at the start, especially as there is no cost apart from the time taken downloading the software.

Perhaps people just don’t know where to go. Since my last post I have discovered the FreeDV QSO Finder. This is a tool to enable potential users of FreeDV to find out where others are. Suggested frequencies are: 14.236, 7.190 and 5.4035, though I’ve seen people using other frequencies. This weekend’s contest will probably put the kibosh on attempts to set up contacts for now, but I hope for better luck next week when the bands are quieter.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

It came with all this

 Julie has lots AA batteries she uses and most if not all are rechargeable and she has been up to this point just using a cheap wall charger. There has been many times when these AA batteries have let her down with regard to her flashes. I was online and found some nice chargers the one I decided to purchase was the LA Crosse BC 1000 . This sure is a gem of a charger and for the price 60.00 shipping included at Amazon.ca as well it came in 2 days via UPS. From the picture above you can see the unit came with a carry case, wall adapter, 4 AA 2600mAh, 4 AA 1000mAh, provision to charge D and C cell batteries and finally the
unit....not bad for 60.00 and 2 day shipping to boot.
So what is so great about this charger, each cell can be charged, discharged/charged, refresh/charge or finally test/charge. Each cell can have it's own custom type of charge done to it. The charging rates can chosen from 200mA to 1800mA and again each cell can have it's own charge rate. The unit will let you

Charge and test mod results

TEST/CHARGE complete

know if the cell is defective and will not charge or allow the batteries to overheat. Once the charging is complete it goes to trickle charge. At this time you have access to the voltage of each cell, the capacity of the cell in mAh's, how long the charge time was and depending on the charge mod you chose other info as well. You can also charge different battery sizes at the same time and again program what type of charge you wold like for each cell. So I put Julies AA cells to the TEST!! As they were charging I could see at least one cell that was getting a failing grade at only 120mAh for a 2600mAh battery not good. I am running all her batteries through the test/charge and will dispose of the cells that don't cut it. I have my Elecraft KX3 with the Ansmann AA batteries and will be using this charger too look after those batteries. Now speaking of Elecraft I did purchase there internal battery charger. I have to admit I was disappointed that up to this point the software has not been introduced to trickle charge the AA cells, offer selectable mAh charge rates and so on. Think I may just use the LA Crosse and if I do then end up selling the internal charger. Live and learn I guess......anyway back to the subject at hand......up to this point many of Julies batteries have not met with a passing mark and have been tossed.
With this charger you are able to get the most out of your not so cheap rechargeable batteries and make your hard earned money go as far as it can.

And the testing goes on

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

A few weeks ago, I overhead a QSO talking about using a Raspberry Pi and a DVAP as a hotspot for DSTAR. Like a lot of things, it lodged in my brain, but I didn’t do anything about it immediately!

Googling around a little, I found lots of references, but the best suggestion seemed to be to join the pcrepeatercontroller group on Yahoo groups, where there was some good documentation on how to go about it in the Files/Documentation folder.

It turns around that thanks to the hard work of Mark, WD9JEN, Dave, K9RUF and Brian GW6WTK as well, of course, as the software author Jonathan G4KLX, the process is quite easy.

I got a new SD card (actually there was a slight false start as I discovered that not all SD cards work well in the Raspberry Pi). I downloaded the image for the Raspberry Pi of the operating system, Debian, with ircDDBGateway and DVAPNode already installed. You can download it from this link

Most of the instructions I read about copying the image to the SD card talk about using Win32diskimager, however, I could not get it to work with my internal SD card reader on the Dell laptop. I used a utility called Flashnul which worked fine. If you run into the same issues, you can grab Flashnul here

Once the image was written, I checked to see if I could boot the Pi with it and was delighted to find that I could. Following that, it was just a question of following WD9JEN’s instructions and substituting my call for his. I did a slight false start and found that though the DVAP node software was working alright, it wouldn’t link to anything. I discovered that I had inadvertantly entered a password in the ircDDB tab in ircDDBGateway. I removed that and it all started working.

My Raspberry Pi’s network connection is via WiFi but this seems fine and adequate for connectivity, though perhaps it would be even more reliable to take a cable directly to the router.

I have enjoyed some nice QSOs this afternoon, with Peter G0BZX, Dave M0NEY, Ian 2E0VTM (also experimenting with a Pi and a DVAP) and Bob MW0RBL.

Since I can leave the hotspot running without tying up the main computer, perhaps this will result in a few more DSTAR QSOs being made!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].