AmateurRadio.com

I’m back from my short trip to Florida where I operated from Lido Key, located just to the west of Sarasota, in west central Florida. I was very pleased with the operation this time, despite a minor glitch after the first day (which I’ll talk about later). I wound up operating from the same general area that I did on my last trip, which is from South Lido Park at the very southern tip of Lido Key. As with each trip, I learned things that I hope will help make things better for the next time, but fortunately, unlike my last trip, I didn’t run into any significant issues that had a major impact on my ability to operate. (If you’re interested, you can read the whole saga of my last trip starting with this post; there are links to the rest of the series at the end of that one.)

View K2DBK @ South Lido Park in a larger map
As with past operations from NA-034, my radio activities took place in the afternoon which allowed me time to spend some time with my wife’s family in the mornings and evenings as well as giving me some time to have lunch at my favorite restaurant in the area, The Old Salty Dog, before setting up for the afternoon.

As I mentioned during my preparations a few weeks ago, the idea was to operate using the Buddipole on top of the 8-foot shock-corded mast, using some tent stakes, line, and some small S carabiners to guy the mast. As long as the wind wasn’t too strong, I felt that the setup should work just fine, and it did. The setup here was very similar to what I’d done in the past, but I wound up having to drag the picnic table over to where it was close enough to the car so that I could run the power cables to the battery. On the first day, I wound up having a very late breakfast so I decided to skip lunch and headed right for South Lido Park. The first difference from previous years was that although it was almost the exact same days as previously, this year, there were a lot more people in the park, which meant it was a lot harder to get to my “favorite” operating position. On the map here, I’ve put a red marker on the spot, which is just off the south end of the parking lot.

There was a reason why there were more people this year: It was quite a bit warmer than in the past. In fact, the weather was absolutely beautiful, with temperatures in the mid-80s under a beautiful blue sky with just a few clouds on the horizon.That warm weather led to my first small problem: As with my trip to Costa Rica, I was using my iPad with the Hamlog logging software to log my contacts. (Just a quick side note about Hamlog, Nick, N3WG, has done some great upgrades to recently, including the ability to save your log to a cloud server. Very slick stuff.) The one big difference is that when in Costa Rica, even when it wasn’t raining, I was usually operating in the shade, not in direct sunlight. When operating from the table you see in the picture, I was in direct sunlight. After a few minutes of having the iPad set up, it shut itself down due to the heat. What I wound up doing was to use the backpack bag from my radio to shield the iPad which kept the temperature down to a point were it was no longer shutting off. Lesson learned for next time.

I initially set up to operate on 21.260Mhz and although I did make a contact with Vasily, ER4DX in Moldova who was CQing a bit above that frequency, I wasn’t getting any “takers” so I decided to switch to the main IOTA frequency of 14.260Mhz. I started calling CQ there and after a few minutes, George, KC2GLG, who had read my previous posting about the IOTA activation, heard me and answered. We had a nice chat, and I then moved on and worked about a dozen other stations that day.

I did have a bit of an issue with the antenna on 20m, though I was able to work some DX (Sweden and the UK). With the configuration I was using, it was very tough to get a good SWR and I seemed to be getting some RF back into the radio. Scott, NE1RD, wrote me and suggested that I set up for 20m in a vertical configuration, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to test that configuration before I left home. Even though I had Scott’s excellent Buddipole In The Field [PDF] book with me on my iPad which has a cookbook section to help set things like this up, by the time I decided to try this I was hot, tired, and it was getting late so I decided to call it quits for the day. So that takeaway lesson from that was “try everything before you leave”.

Click here for Part 2.

I bought this used Hy-gain 18AVT 5-band (80/40/20/15/10m) vertical in the mid 80’s. I mounted it 12” off the ground in California, it sort of worked but I was NOT impressed with few DX contacts. Now with +40yrs of HAM’ing, all the internet articles, and QSO’s that continue to tout HF verticals being the theoretical best antenna for DX it was time to resurrect my moth-ball from the rafters. Here is what I did to restore my 18AVT, making it one of my NEW FAVORITE HF antennas at my Ohio country home.

First, I refurbished the antenna making all joints shine, again. Applied liberal amounts of Penetrox to all joints, replaced all clamps with stainless steel clamps, made new top hat radials (using copper coated steel brazing rods – bird strong), cleaned up the 80m coil and re-hot glued it back together. I replaced the old stinger cut for 3925 with a new stinger cut/tuned for 3800 (what a hassle that was to buy from MFJ/Hy-gain). Course adjusted all traps to cover “my” SSB selected centers; 28,500, 21,275, 14,220, 7,180, & 3,800. Mounted and re-tuned all traps starting at 10m working down to get a 1:1 on all selected centers using a MFJ-269. It’s a lot of up-down work (why I use wing nuts on the U mounts) but worth the time. I use nylon guy rope for added stability due to serious open county Ohio winds.)

I dislike ground radials due to all the required work to install properly; so here is where I was going to experiment. I mounted the AVT to the fence post of our new chain-link fence. (Recently we installed a fenced area behind our house-garage to allow our Jack Russell Terriers free but controlled roaming then installed doggy doors to the area. One of my better home improvements that ‘bought’ me favorable accolades from my XYL!) The 5’ chain-link fence is mounted at 4’ height (burying one foot into the ground for anti-dog dig-out). The near house section is 18’ long (up to the side gate) where the AVT is mounted.

I’ve read about the attributes of the Ugly-Balun, here was my opportunity to test it.

http://www.hamuniverse.com/balun.html

My Ubalun is made on 4” PVC with 26 wraps of RG-8x (~30‘ of wrap), used hot glue at the holes and electrical tape on the ends – easy. Bent up some mounts and attached it to the fence – high enough to insure the lawn tractor misses it too. The fence has an added bonus of providing a nice off ground coax run to the house.

The Ugly-Balun really made my vertical a performer. I now got into EU, Med, Africa, and Asia (as well as all points North America). This vertical NOW impressed me and was living up to vertical DX claims. Using my IC-746P and MFJ-989c I was making solid DX contacts even during flaky band conditions. I only need to use the tuner for 75m outside 3725-3875 and the extreme edges of 40m SSB due to >2.5:1. The recheck of my ATV center frequencies showed all to be 1:1.

But I was still not happy with the 18AVT as it is only five bands (80/40/20/15/10m), my favorite day time band is 17m.

On the internet I’d come across articles on how to “add-a-band” to a vertical. These articles were so oblivious and easy to do, I had to try. I made the brackets (adding my own touches to improve mechanical strength).

http://www.hamuniverse.com/5btvmodkk5id.html

I only use this string-pulley to tune in the quarter wave 17m (starting at 13.5’) element length and pruning it down to get 1:1 VSWR @ 18.135 MHz. I replaced this string with a SS spring between the PVC and egg insulator, adjusting the PVC mount position to apply only moderate spring tension. Once again, I rechecked all other bands for 1:1 VSWR at my selected center frequencies and found no affects or adjustments needed.

In theory, the actual element connection point is at the aluminum hole in the ‘L’, but I ran the stranded copper 14AWG Radio Shack antenna wire (with soldered eye-lug) to the mounting clamp to insure conductivity and minimize oxidation impacts. The hole may need to be readdressed (with a fixed bolt/nut) if I find friction wear after this winter to the 17m wire element at the hole.

Here is my restored 18AVT SIX band vertical with Ugly-Balun fence mounted.

This evening, as I was driving home, I was reminded of an object lesson in DXing; sometimes it is better to call the weak ones.

As has become customary, I switched on the Anytone AT5555 10m rig and tuned around a little as I headed back from Didcot towards home. The band was going out, but as usual there were some South Americans coming through. LU7DP was loud, working mostly Spanish and Italian stations. A little further down I found CE2WZ also at good strength, working mostly southern Europeans, including my old pal Cedric CT3FT who I couldn’t hear today. I tried calling CE2WZ but he kept CQing. My little signal wasn’t quite enough to get to Chile tonight.

A few kHz further down, I found PU2RJF calling CQ. Betto wasn’t so strong but was coming through ok. He didn’t seem to be getting many callers, so very much tongue-in-cheek I called. To my surprise, he heard me straight away and we had a simple but enjoyable contact.

Fun to remind myself, that although when running low power, it makes sense to call the loud stations, sometimes you should call the weak ones too as they may be running simple stations and will hear you just as well as you hear them.

Obrigado Betto!

This looks like a lot of fun, and the price is certainly right! It uses the popular (and cheap!)  DVB-T Digital TV USB Dongle Stick.

From the video description:

Download it here: http://spench.net/r/USRP_Interfaces
http://twitter.com/spenchdotnet

Compatible devices should be: ezcap, Hama nano & Terratec NOXON (get the first two as it has a better tuner – the Elonics 4000, same as FUNcube Dongle, broadest frequency range: 64-1700 MHz).

This all started here (info & code): http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr

My ExtIO plugin also supports all USRPs, the FUNcube Dongle and network streaming using BorIP (see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2PaSeR-4Ck). You can also send the received baseband data over the network to GNU Radio using the UDP Source block.

The weather has been phenomenal this winter, as you all know.  Due to Arctic air staying way up north, we’ve had one of the warmer Winters that we’ve had in a while.  Who would’ve thought last Halloween, when we had that early snow, that Winter was going to turn out the way it did?

The early warmth and early blooming and budding is playing havoc with my head, though.  My nose is all stopped up and my eyes are itchy and watery.  Allergies are no fun; but this too shall pass.

So when my friend Rem K6BBQ posted about another video from last year, it’s gotten me all torqued up for portable operating for this coming Spring and Summer outdoor operating season.  Shorts and T-shirt weather may not be immediately imminent; but I dare say it’s closer than father away!

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

Introduction:

• An absolutely FABulous episode, in which we interview Fab Scherschel from the Linux Outlaws podcast. Fab’s de-facto father-in-law is DC5JM!

Announcements:

• Ronny, K4RJJ, attended the KARC Hamfest over the weekend as the LHS Ambassador. Details, photos and video will be on the web site very soon. Thanks, again, Ronny!
• Roy, KK4ATD, will be our ambassador at the RARSfest in Raleigh, NC on April 7th. Thanks, Roy!
• The LHS Web site now has a ‘Chat’ link which gives you the ability to join the #lhspodcast IRC channel without having a client, straight from the LHS web site.
• LHS hopes to attend the 2012 Dayton Hamvention. Please donate to the cause to help make that happen!
• A recent iOS update broke the Black Sparrow Media app for iPhones, but that will get fixed, soon. Look for new podcasts in the future. Visit blacksparrowmedia.net/join if you’d like to add your podcast to the Black Sparrow Media network.

Interview:

• Russ and Richard interview Fabian “Fab” Scherschel, co-host of the Linux Outlaws podcast.
• Fab transitioned from Windows to Ubuntu in 2007. The biggest issue was games, but he bought a PlayStation 3 to satisfy that requirement. Minecraft runs well on Linux.
• Fab’s primary motivation for Linux Outlaws was to practice his English.
• Our hosts then discuss Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Canonical and Debian.
• We then talk about software patents from a UK and German perspective.
• Fab is switching his servers from CentOS to Debian, primarily because there is no upgrade from one major release of CentOS to another. He also likes to try different distributions so as to maintain impartiality.
• Fab asks how Linux in the Ham Shack began.
• You can contact Fab via Google Plus.

Feedback:

• LinuxCanuck asks for help accessing links and RSS feeds from the website. Everything seems to be working on this end.
• Phil, AK4RQ, recommends the book ‘The C Programming Language’ by Kernighan and Ritchie, originally published by Prentice Hall in 1978. Thanks, Phil.

Contact Info:

• Contact Richard at [email protected], Russ at [email protected], or both at the same time at [email protected].
• Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
• Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
• Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
• Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
• LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
• Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

• “Vertigo” by Obsidian Shell from their album Evershade, courtesy of Jamendo.
• “Faces Nameless” by Reform the Resistance from their album And It Begins… courtesy of Jamendo.

Introduction:

• Richard says life has been good, lately, except for Linux Mint, but we’ll get into that in a moment. Announcements and feedback are at the end of the show.

Topics:

• Linux Mint Sux!!! (At least, for Richard.)
  • Richard’s never-ending quest for a Linux distro that works for him. In the past few days, he’s tried various Debian-based distributions:
    • Linux Mint 12, with Gnome 3, MATE, and Cinnamon, but he didn’t like any of them. Too few configuration options for the desktop and gtkpod didn’t work, and that was a deal-breaker.
    • Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE): one of the CPU cores wasn’t running; fixed that, installed software and updates, but gtkpod didn’t work there, either.
    • Crunchbang Linux: too minimalist and too much configuration.
    • XFCE on LMDE was close. Richard replaced the Thunar file manager with Nautilus.
    • Xubuntu which is Ubuntu with XFCE. It looked good, was configurable, but lacked a few features.
    • Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with KDE. He tried installing it from the live CD, which took 25 minutes to complete. After the reboot, it generated all sorts of hard drive errors. While it’s possible that the hard drive did fail, but Richard blames Kubuntu for causing the problem.
• Russ discusses OpenMediaVault, an open network attached storage solution.
  • It’s an alternative to FreeNAS.
  • Debian-based with a simple install process, while FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD.
  • Supports many features of FreeNAS, including CIFS/Samba, NFS, FTP, SSH, BitTorrent (via plugin), TFTP, and DAAP (via plugin).
  • Russ tried it in a virtual machine, and it installed easily. Once installed, all configuration occurs through the web browser.
  • While it’s perhaps not as mature as FreeNAS, it’s also a newer project, so it’s likely to improve. At the moment, Russ prefers FreeNAS, especially v0.7, but OpenMediaVault may very well catch up and surpass FreeNAS.
• Linux Contesting Software revisited. We covered a few in Episode 70, and here are a couple more.
  • Bill, W9YA, one of the maintainers of YFKtest, contacted Richard to inform him that YFKtest has had a major facelift, as well as adding a few features and fixing some bugs. It’s available as v 0.0.10 from the subversion repository. Russ downloaded the compiled version. He picked a contest, filename for the log, entered his call sign, mode, and some other information, but he had trouble entering a contact.
  • Minos Contest Logging Software is a contest logging suite for VHF and UHF Amateur Radio Contests. The current version is 1.5.4, and is available as a download or via the Subversion repository. It’s a Windows application, and there are directions on the Web site for running the application using WINE. If only they’d simply re-release with Linux-native code. Russ tried it and it does run quite well under WINE. It’s an open source project under the BSD license.
• Allstar Link Node Update: Russ now has an Allstar Link node number assigned, 28357. Allstar Link offers several packages: Limey Linux, ACID CentOS or Pickle Linux (for the BeagleBoard). Russ has been trying to get the ACiD version running on his LMDE machine so he can use it with his existing Asterisk installation. Meanwhile, Russ has his Echolink station working, node 54711.

Feedback:

• We received a voice comment from Ed, KB4VWA, who’s having trouble with some MFJ TNCs he recently bought at the Dalton, GA hamfest. Richard responds, though he’s had the least experience with MFJ TNCs. There are several possibilities: wrong on-air baud rate, bad connection, wrong dip switch settings, or poor or filtered audio into the TNC. Try using the jack on the back of the radio for the audio. Maybe the radio is not exactly on frequency?

Announcements:

• The OGG and MP3 feeds for the LHS Music and LHS Up All Night audio streams from the LHS web site have new links, so check your settings. The live streaming feed is mp3, so it works everywhere.
• The wAVEgUIDES podcast joins the Black Sparrow Media network! Visit blacksparrowmedia.net/join/ if you’d like to add your podcast to the Black Sparrow Media network.
• Episode renumbering: Ever since naming episodes 18a and 19a, it’s been bugging Russ, so they were renumbered to eliminate the letter suffixes.
• LHS hopes to attend the 2012 Dayton Hamvention in May. Please donate to the cause to help make that happen!

Contact Info:

• Contact Richard at [email protected], Russ at [email protected], or both at the same time at [email protected].
• Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
• Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
• Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
• Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
• LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
• Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

• “Requiem For A Fish” by The Freak Fandango Orchestra from their album Tales Of A Dead Fish, courtesy of Jamendo.
• “Boats (Swept Away)” by I Am Not Left Handed, from their album Time To Leave, courtesy of Jamendo.