AmateurRadio.com

Here’s a project I’ve been working on which kind of started on a whim a few days ago.  I’ve had two NJQRP DDS Daughtercards lying around, the older versions without the output amp update.  I decided to interface one permanently to an Arduino and build a dual 10 and 6 meter beacon.

Is your lab as messy as mine?

The Arduino alternates the DDS frequency between 28 Mhz and 25 Mhz and CW keys the amplifier board.  For the six meter transmitter chain I’m doubling the DDS 25 Mhz output to create the 50 Mhz six meter signal.  Output power on each band will probably be around 250 mW.  I’m probably going to put the unit in a weatherproof box, install it in the backyard, and attempt to power it with solar power.  In addition to doing the CW keying and DDS programming, the Arduino will also measure and announce the battery voltage and perhaps the solar panel charge current.  For antennas I’m thinking of simple wire loops.

Several years ago I ran a 100 mW ten meter beacon.  I like lower power beacons; it’s more of a treat when people report hearing them.  The previous ten meter beacon got quite a few DX reports from Europe during the last solar cycle.

Collage of photos, click to enlarge.

Actually it’s a pity the beam has gone before I could make any tests. One of the loop antenna supports snapped and I had to cut the wire. But I can overlook the damage. My most important all band vertical is still working. And it’s nothing compared to the damage my “neighbour” station PA1A has. His 150ft (45m) Rohn tower with yagi antennas has snapped. He has been lucky it did not fall on his new house, don’t know what happened to the yagis exactly. Actually same thing (cause) happened to me if you take a look at the photo, although  my “tower” was only 16ft (5m). What I learned already this new year is that “high towers catch much wind”. I extended my loop antenna from just 7m to 8m heigth last year and it didn’t work out. Sometimes a little difference has a huge impact on the construction. I’ll repair the loop and will take it to just 7m again to be on the safe side. We can’t joke with nature and since I live near the coast wind can sometimes be very malicious.

Windchart  from PA1A website: 34m/s=120km/h

Bas, PE4BAS, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Groningen, Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].

This was a very cool contest only lasting 3 hours on a Saturday morning giving me with some nice radio time and time to get other things done as well. The QRP ARCI Pet rock contest (please if you know why it's called the Pet Rock contest let me know) is a great way to make some nice QRP contacts. One thing I did find is you sure do put the rig's filters through the paces as you try to copy some signals that are very close to the noise floor. I was not in this one to win it or even come close but to log some contacts and look them up on QRZ.COM to learn about who I just contacted. The contest started at 10 a.m. local time, there was nothing on
10m, 15m gave forth some contacts but the best band was 20m. In this contest it was nice  leisurely  CW not like the world wide contests were CW sounds more like machine gun fire! Also during the occasional contact more was given than the required exchange info.....SAY IT AIN'T SO........we tossed around our names, rig and at times a hearty 72. ( that was not a typo 72 is the 73 of QRPers) This was the first time the Elecraft P3 was used in a contest and it was a great aid. It would show you what looked like just the noise floor but in the water fall below on the display a signal is made very apparent. Then along with the K3's APF (audio peak filtering) the signal just jumped out and a contact was made. This really was the first time I was able to see how great the APF was on the K3 I had tried it in the past and to be honest was not impressed but that has changed.
Power output          5 watts ( I can say I operated QRO compared to others)
Total contacts          9
Total points             2352
It's no record breaking contact count but this short contest was a blast there were some contacts I just could not put in the log as I did not get the full exchange due to fading. Also at times I got so excited about making a contact it wasn't until the contact was complete and it was ready to be entered into N1MM that I realized it was a Dupe!!! But not once did I get the CW sent to me B4...sorry for not paying closer attention gents and ladies regarding this but thanks for your understand.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

It’s always exciting to hear an astronaut from the International Space Station active on 145MHz. Over the last few days I’ve heard activity a couple of times and the second time, I had my iPhone handy and I shot a quick video, which I hope you might find interesting.

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

Nothing to do with Verdi or Rossini, nor the web browser of the same name. OPERA is a new weak signal digital mode that has been developed for use on the amateur LF (500kHz) and VLF (136kHz) bands.

Information about it seems to be a bit hard to come by, but there is an OPERA Yahoo group from where I presume you can download the latest version of the software. I managed to find a copy and was surprised at the sophistication of the program. It already has working CAT support for many transceivers including my Elecraft K2 and K3. It also has a built-in chat system showing reported signals from other users.

Although the new mode is apparently the invention of Graham, G0NBD, the program has been written by Jose Alberto Ros, EA5HVK, author of the ROS digital mode, and there are clear similarities in the user interface. The program supports all amateur bands from VLF to 6m but currently you can only select the frequencies 136kHz and 500kHz.

There are actually two OPERA modes, one of which is claimed to be even better (i.e. work with even weaker signals) than the WSPR mode. What is particularly interesting about OPERA though is that it does not need to use a sound card to send a transmission. Although the sound card is an option – and a convenient one for users already set up for data modes – OPERA actually (if I understand correctly) uses on/off keying, in other words CW (though not Morse code.) This offers the potential for long distance contacts to be made using ultra-simple QRPP (very low power) transmitters designed for QRP CW use – though I imagine that success depends on use of a very narrow bandwidth so you might need to pay more attention to transmitter stability than you would need for Morse code.) If the digital encoding scheme is published then it would also be simple to build microcontroller based beacon transmitters.

As I am not equipped to operate on the 500kHz or 136kHz bands I have been unable to try OPERA out on the air myself. But it certainly looks an interesting mode, especially if it is opened up to allow use on the HF bands where it could be used as an alternative to WSPR and QRSS CW modes.

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

Over at “This Day in History,” the lead story today is “Morse demonstrates telegraph.” It leads off, “On this day in 1838, Samuel Morse’s telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey.” Well, I thought, surely this is worthy of a blog post, so I poked around on the web to learn more.

It turns out that this first demonstration was put on by Morse’s partner, Alfred Vail. Vail had first become involved three months earlier when visiting his alma mater, the University of the City of New York. He stumbled upon Samuel Morse demonstrating his “electro-magnetic telegraph” with over one-third of a mile of wire coiled around a room. Vail was hooked. He convinced his brother George and father Stephen to support further development of the telegraph at the Speedwell Iron Works, and he signed an agreement with Morse to turn Morse’s crude prototype into a market-ready model — at his own expense — by January 1, 1838, in return for a minor share.

The challenge was to get the thing to work with a length of wire much longer than Morse had managed to use. Alfred Vail recruited an apprentice at Speedwell, William Baxter, and got to work. After many frustrations, they finally succeeded in getting their model to work:

At last on January 6, 1838, the machine was ready to be demonstrated. The cotton-covered hat wire was coiled around the room on nails to equal a distance of two miles. Alfred sent Baxter to “invite Father to come down and see the ‘Telegraph’ machine work,” which sent the eager lad plunging into the cold afternoon without stopping to throw a coat over his shop clothes.

The machine that sent Stephen’s message, “A patient waiter is no loser,” was still far from perfect. A few days later [January 11] several hundred men and women crowded into Speedwell to witness the first public demonstration. The message this time had a practical cast: “Railroad cars just arrived, 345 passengers.”

http://www.morrisparks.net/speedwell/tel/tel.html

I’m not sure how these messages were formatted, but most likely they were not sent letter-by-letter. In those early days messages were laboriously sent using numbers that were assigned to commonly-used words. Eventually the “Morse Code” alphabet would replace this system, though great debate rages over who invented it.

Vail himself gives credit to Morse for the alphabetical system on p. 30 of his book, The American electro magnetic telegraph: with the reports of Congress, and a description of all telegraphs known, employing electricity or galvanism (available online for free), though some doubt the truth of this statement. Many years after his death, someone even sneaked in and engraved on Vail’s tombstone, “INVENTOR OF THE TELEGRAPHIC DOT AND DASH ALPHABET.”

Whoever invented the alphabet, what does seem clear is that Vail was the one who invented the straight key, an elegant improvement upon the cumbersome machines first used to encode messages. Today, you can even purchase a replica of Vail’s “spring key” from Kent Morse Keys!

Alfred Vail became increasingly frustrated by Samuel Morse’s lack of involvement in the development of the telegraph while publicly taking all the credit. Vail stuck with it for ten years before finally leaving the telegraph behind.

Todd Mitchell, NØIP, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Minnesota, USA. He can be contacted at [email protected].

This morning, because I had to pop into the garage on the way to the station, I left the house a little later than normal on a work day. To fill the time (!), I popped onto 3.5MHz JT65 at greyline – just as the sun was rising. To my slight disappointment, although I heard several stations, I didn’t make any contacts.

However, this evening, I checked the PSK Reporter website to see where I was heard. I was delighted that although I didn’t make any contacts, my 25W JT65A signal was getting quite a long way into the USA

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