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ARES in a Small Town

13 December 2011 | by Todd NØIP | Leave a Comment (0)

I’m afraid I haven’t spend much time on the air lately, because what time I have for ham radio has been devoted to a project that began as an idea for a blog post and has grown . . . and grown . . . and grown! I hope to write it all up when everything comes together, but I don’t want to give it away just yet. For now I’ll just give you a few clues: I’ve been assembling some test equipment, including an inductance-capacitance meter kit and a signal generator kit, and I received a tantalizing shipment in the mail today from a fellow who wrote a stellar article in QST 31 years ago. Stay tuned!

On another front, I finally got to meet a local ham who is the IT manager at the hospital in our small town (population ~3K) — Mr. Andrew Rosenau, KCØYFY. I’ve been meaning to introduce myself to him ever since moving out here, but when I found out a few days ago that he is our county’s ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) Emergency Coordinator, I sent him an email right away. He replied immediately, and today, after wrapping up a meeting in another part of the hospital, I ambled over and chatted with him for a few minutes in his office.

Behind him on his desk sat an HF rig, a 2M rig, and a TNC. Andy explained that he was a ham before moving here, and he got involved with ARES when the hospital became interested in EmComm. But with so few hams in our area (only 14 in the whole county), there hasn’t been much in the way of ARES activity. I volunteered to do what I could, and he said that for starters I could act as a back-up operator there at his station if he were unavailable in time of need.

It turns out that Minnesota has a huge packet network, and a radio club in a nearby town has even installed an antenna right in our city to extend this network. That was news to me! I’m going to have to dig up my old TNC and see if I can get it running. As much as I prefer CW, I have to admit that it does seem like an excellent way to handle traffic in an emergency.

ARES has always interested me. I’ve never been involved in it before, back when I lived in the Twin Cities, but now I think I owe it to my community. It appears that while there is less opportunity to do much ARES work out here in the sticks, there is also more opportunity for one ham to make a difference. So far Andy has been all alone in his effort — if even one ham chips in, that would double the number of ARES operators in our county.

Andy’s wife is a ham, too! I hope to have them over for dinner one of these days and get to know them better.

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

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Post-post Thanksgiving Leftover Leftovers

12 December 2011 | by David Kozinn | Leave a Comment (0)

As I mentioned in my last posting, I’ve still got a few items leftover from Thanksgiving. Unlike the leftover turkey and trimmings, these didn’t have to be tossed out after a couple of weeks, so they are still relatively fresh.

Going back to the CQ WorldWide DX Contest, I did have a few more comments to make. First I really learned to make use of the attenuator on my radio. When conditions are good, stations that are slightly off frequency can make it hard to hear the stations that you’re trying to work. By using the attenuator, it brings down the level of those signals so that I can more clearly hear the station that I’m trying to work. The station I’m trying to work is weaker too, but usually they drop less than the off-frequency station and it makes it possible to better copy what they are sending. This isn’t something that I alone have just magically discovered, it’s just been a while since conditions were good enough that off-frequency stations were so strong that I needed to get them dropped down.

And now, time to jump on my soapbox to talk about two things. The first of these I haven’t seen mentioned much recently in blogs or the contesting lists, but I noticed a number of times where a stations was calling CQ at a relatively slow speed (for a contest), perhaps 18 to 20 words per minute. I was always taught that you should always answer a station no faster than the station is calling, with the idea that you should only call CQ at a speed at which you are comfortable receiving. Why then do stations respond to those “slow” (which is a relative term here) CQs at 30, 35, or even 40 words per minute? I heard this a number of times, and while in some cases the slower station seemed to have no trouble copying the other station, in most other cases the slower station had to repeatedly ask for “fills” (meaning they couldn’t copy the exchange being sent.) If the other stations were too impatient to wait, they should find another station to work. When I work a CW contest, I have the ability to easily adjust my sending speed (I send using the computer, and it’s very easy to adjust my speed up and down in real time) and I have a hard time believing that some of these speed demons can’t do the same.

The second soapbox item is one that has been talked about a lot recently, which is regarding stations that do not ID frequently. For those readers who aren’t familiar with this, here’s the background: The FCC (and their equivalent in other countries) require stations to identify at certain intervals. In the US, you’re required to ID every 10 minutes and under certain other circumstances. Some operators, especially the “big gun” stations who have big signals and many stations calling them, try to shave off a small amount of time on each contact by not IDing after every contact. While a second or so might not seem like much, these are stations that might work 200+ stations in an hour, so assuming there are enough stations to keep them busy (which for those stations may actually be the case), there can, in theory, be enough time saved by not regularly IDing to be able to make more contacts in that time period. As an example, let’s say you can work one station in 20 seconds, or three per minute, which gives you a rate of 180 per hour. If you can shave two seconds off each contact, you can now work 3.33 per minute which translates into 200 per hour. That can add up over the course of a contest, under the right circumstances.

Of course, you need to ID occasionally to fulfill the legal requirements as well as letting the stations listening know who you are. (Yes, some stations can and do just assume that the spot on the packet cluster is correct. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. I want to hear a callsign myself before I work a station.) While I personally will ID after every contact on those rare occasions when I’m “running” stations, I think it’s OK to do it every 3rd or 4th contact, which means that the listening station have to wait no more than a minute or so to figure out the ID of the station. The problem is that some of these big gun stations have a seemingly endless stream of callers (many of whom are calling because of the aforementioned packet cluster spot) and they don’t ID for many minutes at a time. I’ve read their arguments which I won’t rehash here (if you’re interested, you can check out the archives of the CQ-Contest mailing list) but to me, they are just being selfish. From their perspective, they have plenty of folks trying to work them, and it’s just too bad for those of us who are waiting before calling. Often, I’ll just give up after listening for a short period of time, but I risk missing a valuable multipler if it turns out that the running station was something that I needed.

I don’t know what the right solution to this problem is, since the big guns aren’t going to change their operating processes just because I think that it would be nice to do so. Some contests require the station ID as part of the contest exchange (though sometimes they omit it there as well; I wonder if they will get disqualified if the contest sponsors discovers that?) which solves the issue, but since even minor changes to the contest rules seems to be upsetting to much of the contest community, I can’t see an ID requirement being added to any of the existing contests.

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FoxNews.com Media Hit on 700K Amatuers in the US

12 December 2011 | by Rich KB2MOB | Leave a Comment (2)

While doing my usual trolling of the internet, I found a quick little media hit from a Fresno, CA, Fox news station, on the number of licensed Hams in the US. I figured I would share this one.

Rich Gattie, KB2MOB, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New York, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

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ARRL 10 Meter Contest

12 December 2011 | by Bob KØNR | Leave a Comment (0)

Usually I don’t focus on the ARRL 10 Meter contest, especially when the solar activity has been so low. However, band conditions have really picked up and 10 Meters is alive and kicking. We have quite a few new Technicians that are discovering the wonder of worldwide HF propagation with even a modest station.

I decided to operate from our cabin up in the mountains. I haven’t been happy with the performance of my trap dipole on 10 Meters, so I wanted to try something different. I pulled a twinlead J-pole antenna out of the basement and strung it up in a tall pine tree. This basically gave me a 1/2-wave vertical on 10 Meters and I was pleased with the performance.

I had a great time with the 10 Meter contest, operating for part of Saturday and Sunday.

You’ve got to like a contest that has:
- Only one band, so no fretting about which bands to focus on
- CW or SSB, take your pick or do both
- Lots of DX
- Work anybody anywhere
- You can sleep at night and not miss anything

I mostly searched and pounced around but did manage a few runs with my mighty wire antenna. Not being a real CW operator, I did decide that I would push myself to make 10 CW contacts. Most of those guys are going way too fast for me, but I got it done.

ARRL10M Score Summary Sheet

Start Date : 2011-12-10

    Band Mode QSOs Pts Cty
      28 CW    10   40   8
      28 USB  254  508  72
 Total        264  548  80

Score : 43,840

73, Bob K0NR

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

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10m ARRL contest part 2

11 December 2011 | by Bas PE4BAS | Leave a Comment (1)

What can I tell, can propagation get any better? I only made 15 QSOs in the morning as my second operator did not know which buttons to push, so I had to follow her with my eyes constantly before she would switch off the entire station. That almost happened! Anyway, when she was away and in bed for her afternoon nappy I made te rest of the QSOs and stopped at 200. 15:15 UTC like yesterday. At that time the greyline was jumping in and the frequency went crazy. Worked 1 station/minute last 20 minutes. Signals booming from Europe, South, Central and North America with signals over S-9. Real fun to contest like this even without a beam. So different from my first ARRL 10m contest in 2006 when I actually obtained first place in the same category as now because I was the only participant! A overview: 2006-22 QSOs, 2007-30 QSOs (as PA25HSG), 2008-20 QSOs, 2009-21 QSO’s, 2010-5 QSOs, 2011-200 QSOs. What a difference!! Lot’s of nice DXCC worked a few new ones on 10m. A all band new one today was Guam which was surprisingly easy to work, and as he worked a lot of Dutch stations there seems to be a small path of propagation in between. Don’t know how many USA/Canada stations I worked as I lost count, I probabely worked some new states. A list of interesting DXCC:

A61BK (UAE), UA9XL (As.Russia), RK8I (Uzbekistan), HS0ZDG (Thailand), V25R (Antigua&Barbuda), VK6IR (Australia), UN6P (Kazachstan), CE1DY (Chile), AU2JCB (India), B7P (China), LV5V (Argentina), CO2CW (Cuba), SV5DKL (Dodecanese), HI3TEJ (Dominican Rep.), TR8CA (Gabon), BX5AA (Taiwan), EK6TA (Armenia), KP2A (US Virgin Isl.), TI5N (Costa Rica), NH2DX (Guam), HZ1FI (Saudi Arabia), PU2LEP (Brazil), HK1NA (Colombia).

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

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The Elecraft P3 has arrived……

11 December 2011 | by Mike VE9KK | Leave a Comment (6)

The shipment arrived

Ready to go

The postal service came through for me and not only was the Elecraft P3 here before Christmas it made it to my home in a record 5 business days. The package arrived on Thursday but I had to wait for Saturday to open the boxes and drool!! Before the P3 arrived I had downloaded the manual and assembly instructions to go over things. I did have plans of participating in the ARRL 10 meter contest but the P3 blinded me to the contest. The two boxes were very well packed with bubble wrap on all sides and the contents of each box again
surrounded in bubble wrap. I sat down Saturday afternoon as the morning was dedicated to putting up the Christmas tree and decorating our home. As always I took inventory of all the parts I encourage anyone who orders any kit to make sure you do the inventory. This kit is another of Elecraft's solder-less kits. It comes with the boards (front panel board with LCD, rear I/O board and rear RF panel

Front panel done

board) all ready to go the only real assembly is the mechanical side of the P3. By spending some time putting the kit together yourself you save some cash. The first step was to install some stand offs onto the front panel board these are used to secure the front LCD board to the front plate assembly. The fit of the front panel board into the front plate was perfect no binding or poor alignment of screws into stand off threads. I have found with all the Elecraft kits the attention to this type of detail makes the kits a joy to put together. It was then time to assemble parts of the enclosure and rear panel. The installation of the I/O board and RF board in the rear panel went very smooth. As the end was near it was time to install the 40 pin ribbon cable. The instructions for this were very detailed and clear. A red stripe on the ribbon cable was to be

I/O board installed

Back panel

oriented toward certain parts on both the I\O board and the front panel board. Failing to plug the ribbon cable in correctly would result in damage once power was applied. Lastly there was a TMP coaxial cable from the main board to the RF board and except for a few more chassis screws the P3 was done. The total time was about 2 hours with some breaks and taking my time. This unit is plug and play with the K3 radio. To get the P3 mated with the K3 there was a power cord that plugged into the K3. This way when the K3 was powered on so is the P3. ( there are other options for power up and only involved changing a plug in jumper on the P3) The IF feed comes from the K3 to the P3 with a supplied

The finished product

BNC coax jumper. Finally there is RS232 DE 9 cable (again supplied by Elecraft) between the P3 and K3 so they can "talk". I then brought my RS232 from the PC to the P3. This allows me to update the P3 over the internet and the P3 utility can communicate the P3. I have not had to much time to play with the P3 as Sunday was dedicated to shopping and resting as I worked all night Saturday.

Hooked up to K3

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

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I am great! Again?

11 December 2011 | by Hans BX2ABT | Leave a Comment (1)

Well, this time it was more luck than anything else. Let me explain.

I promised a while back that I would tell you about me enjoying the newly repaired TS-440S. I do enjoy it, that’s not the problem, but the amount of enjoyment is short. How come? My power supply consist of two 7 Ah SLA batteries, which I charge with a wall-wart. With a 100 Watts output I can operate for an hour and that’s it. Even in listening mode it’s not more than a few hours longer as the set draws quite a current. When the batteries go flat it takes some 18 hours to charge them again, so I have to plan my activity very well.

So meet Mr. Jack Huang, a.k.a. BU2BA. BU2BA

He is living down the street from my mother-in-law, on the edge of Banqiao. He is quite an active ham and so it was obvious that I paid him a visit when I first arrived here a year ago. He has a room full of transceivers and a small dipole on the roof of his 15 storey apartment building, so he is limited to daytime operation due to noise. It’s always nice to chat with him and he is much more technical than I ever will be.

I had to sell off all my 220 Volt power supplies before we moved here, because Taiwan has 110 Volt coming out of the wall sockets. Jack had an old 30 ampere PSU lying around which he sold me together with a Yaesu FT-690mkII for a good price. It is a locally made PSU, so no circuit description, modded with a fan and – to be honest – some shoddy soldering. It worked fine until I started to have problems with RF feedback. Over the course of a few months it became worse and worse until I couldn’t even draw 1 Amp of current out of it. With my modest test equipment and knowledge I measured everything I could: all normal. I put in some new transistors and an IC in the voltage regulating circuit, just in case. Learned a lot about PSU’s in the process, but I still couldn’t find the cause. I even made a video of it.

Back to Jack with the 10 pounds of heavy metal. With his sophisticated equipment he tested the whole thing: couldn’t find anything wrong, either. Then he hooked up a 50000 uF capacitor instead of the 2×10000 uF which were in the PSU and waddayaknow? It worked! Out with the old, in with the new. You guessed it: still the same problem.

I am not a technician by nature. I approach everything with logic, curiosity, trial-and-error and by eliminating the impossible. And then there is my gut feeling which said: “it’s the voltage regulator, sonny!” So with the PSU gutted on my bench I noticed this trimming potentiometer on the voltage regulator controlling pin 2 of the CA723CE IC. Time for a dose of curiosity: what does it do if I turn it? Well, it creaked and squeaked a bit and all of a sudden the PSU came back to life. I hooked up a halogen lamp and no problem drawing 2 amps. I hooked up my TS-130v and no problem drawing 4 amps. I would have hooked up my TS-440S, but the kids called for dinner and Sinterklaas was also scheduled to pay us a visit that night (he never forgets Dutch ex-pats, because he is a really nice Saint), so I left it there.

I later took out the potentiometer and couldn’t measure a steady resistance at any point. I guess it is a 20 MOhm one, but I only had a 1 MOhm at hand. That one did the job too, so I was right in time for the ARRL 10 meter contest. All’s well that ends well. So, am I great or am I just lucky?

Hans "Fong" van den Boogert, BX2ABT, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Taiwan. Contact him at [email protected].

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