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My latest antenna project turned out very well. I took it to the beach for an on the air test this afternoon. This magnetic loop antenna tunes from 40 meters through 15 meters. In my haste to get to the beach, I forgot my antenna analyzer. After setting up the Mag Loop, I turned on the radio, turned the volume up full blast, and tuned the antenna for the loudest noise. Bingo!!

I was on the air. It couldn’t have been simpler.

The antenna is made from 3/8 inch copper tubing, 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe and a few odds and ends from Radio Shack. The heart of the antenna is an air variable tuning capacitor, 11 to 300 Pfd. The large loop, (the main loop) is fed with a half Faraday feed loop. All the information for building this antenna is readily available on line and partially from the ARRL antenna hand book.

Good links for Magnetic Loop builders: http://aa5tb.com/index.html,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CW-QRP-HOMEBREWERS/,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagneticLoopAntenna/messages

http://www.alexloop.com/

My next Mag Loop will be 5.5 feet in diameter and made from 5/8 inch copper tubing. More on this as it develops!! There was an unexpected bonus in the speed and ease of setting up an antenna for portable use. I was on the air in minutes after getting out of the truck.

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in building one of this fantastic antennas. The antenna has a very high Q so it has a steep tuning notch.

If you use a Faraday loop to feed it, it will be very directional. You can also use a Gama match instead of the feed loop, to feed the antenna. How did it work? I made a very nice contact on 15 meter CW with a ham in Milwaukee this afternoon. Not bad for 5 watts, an small antenna for a contact from Florida. The QSO ended with air boat QRN! The air boat passed by close to shore and I was on the water’s edge about 100 feet away. Next time I’ll bring the Bose noise cancelling headphones!!

De AA1IK

Ernest Gregoire

Geezer in the park

Mt. Herman is in the books as my first SOTA (Summits On The Air) activation.  I’ll get to all the particulars in just a minute.  First, I want to thank a few individuals who truly made a difference in helping me make this activation a success.

Steve Galchutt, wG0AT.  If you’re the least bit interested in SOTA and/or any type of portable operations, you’re probably already familiar with his YouTube videos.  If not, please take a look.  Steve answered my many questions about the SOTA program and activating Mt. Herman.   Thanks Steve.

Budd Drummond, W3FF.  Budd is the Budd in Buddipole.  Without his fantastic products, all I’ll describe later would not be possible.  In addition, Budd helped spot me and cheered me on as the pileup started.  I was told he would probably show up and help stir up contacts for QRP stations.  Show up he did.  Thanks Budd.

As I described in my activation alert and the update released a few days later.  I’ve done backcountry hiking, backpacking, camping and have climbed a few 14’ers here in Colorado.  I’ve also operated portable HF before but have never combined the two in any way before today.  I had some (OK…a lot) of concerns and probably over prepared for this and also brought along a lot more gear than I truly needed.  More about this in a minute.

A major concern I had going into this activation centered around powering my station.  I have been researching the Buddipole nanophosphate A123 battery packs and decided to bite the bullet and purchase one.  Unfortunately, it didn’t arrive in time (no fault of Buddipole Company) and I had to go to “Plan B”.  This “Plan B” ended up being my old stand by which is a sealed lead acid 7.5 Ah battery weighing in around 6 lbs.  The battery is a couple of years old but I’ve maintained it the best I could.  I tested it prior to the trip by running the FT-817 on WSPR.  My station transmitted every 6 minutes or so for a transmit duration of almost 2 minutes each cycle.  It powered the 817 in this condition for nearly 3 hours before beginning to fall off.   

As a precaution I carried along a rollup solar panel which I’ve had a few years.  I was concerned  the battery wouldn’t hold out and figured if it was a sunny day, the solar panel would help supplement the battery.  The solar panel and solar charge controller weighs in about 2 lbs. 

My antenna setup for this activation was probably the one area I felt fairly confident with.  I’ve owned my Buddipole for several years and have used it in portable operations and even set it up at home a few times.  I’ve used it in the dipole configuration as well as vertical.  The Buddipole setup is a highly versatile system and of course very portable. 

For portability I went with the vertical versatee setup.  Which consists of a mast, the buddipole versatee adapter, coil, two mast sections and standard whip with one wire counterpoise.   The challenge I experienced was with the mast.  I had also ordered the new Buddipole shock cord mast and like the battery it didn’t arrive in time.  I wasn’t looking forward to carrying the extended mast I have for the buddipole tripod.  With the help of Steve, wG0AT he shared with me some pictures of using a hiking pole to support the vertical.   This will work….but did it really?

I think I finally fell asleep on Friday night just before midnight.  I was excited and I was mentally going through my pack (which I had packed a few hours before).  I finally convinced myself I had everything and fell asleep.  I was awake before my alarm sounded at 5 AM.  The plan was to have breakfast somewhere between Denver and Monument, Colorado and arrive at the trailhead by 8 AM local time (1500z).  This would allow me two hours to make it to the summit of Mt. Herman and setup to start calling CQ around 10 AM local (1700z).

I arrived at the Mt. Herman trailhead right on schedule and began the hike.  I’ll admit I’m not in shape…..far from it.  But I allowed enough time to do 1 mile hike (about 1000’ of elevation gain) and was on the summit with about 45 minutes to spare.  I started setting up the antenna first.  The wind was rough…really rough on the summit.  While I setup guy ropes, the wind was really punishing my antenna. 

As I previously stated, I was planning to lash the versatee to one of my hiking poles.  I brought along about a half dozen tie-wraps or zip ties.  I use these things all around the house and office.  I’ve always considered them the next best thing to duct-tape and bailing wire.  I’ve never had a tie-wrap break on me and figured this would be a better solution to bungee cords.  Unfortunately within 15 minutes the first two zip ties had been broken and the antenna crashed to the ground.  I had four more and decided to go for broke and use all four.  Success???

I had watched several of the Buddipole Youtube videos on setting up the versatee vertical.  The recommended setup was two antenna accessory arms, red coil: tap 5, standard 5.5 foot whip with all 6 extensions out.  The counterpoise 14.25 feet.  I managed to fight the wind, the vertical was standing straight and I quickly checked using my iP-30 antenna analyzer.  Just a few tweaks to the counterpoise and I had an SWR reading of 1.5.  This was good enough for me.

I quickly got my Yaesu FT-817ND setup and was in business.  I dialed up the HF Pack 17m frequency of 18.157.50, listened for a few minutes (heard nothing) then asked if the frequency was in use (heard nothing) asked again and after hearing nothing I began calling CQ.  At 17:15z the first station answering my CQ was just a few miles below me down in the town of Monument, Colorado.  wG0AT had been listening for me. Steve posted my callsign on the SOTAWatch website which alerted  all the other SOTA Chasers to my activation.  Let the fun begin.

The pileup was simply amazing and contacts flew into my paper logbook (just a Rite in the Rain journal).  From 17:15z through 17:49z I worked 28 stations consisting of 22 US, 2 Canada, 2 Germany, 1 Spain and 1 Czech Republic.  All on 5w.  I truly didn’t count on working DX and certainly didn’t count on adding to my DXCC count.  But the Czech Republic was a new DX entity for me and I’m truly pleased to have worked  him.  Thanks again to Steve, wG0AT who sent me the picture below showing my APRS route up to the summit and three of the DX stations QSL cards.

My plan was to spend about an hour working 17 meters and then try 12 meters.  However, just after wrapping up with W7RJC at 17:49z the vertical came crashing down to the ground.   The temperature on the summit was below freezing and I guess that made the plastic zip ties brittle and they just couldn’t handle what mother nature was dishing out.  I was out of options and decided to pack up. 

Besides the high wind, I could not have asked for a better day for my first SOTA activation.  The picture (below) was taken with my iPhone and shows the view from the summit towards the northeast.  Once I got everything packed away I took some time to enjoy a sandwich my wonderful wife made for me the night before and take in the beautiful sights around me. 

Just before strapping the pack on for the descent back to the car I took this photo (below) to capture just how pleased I was with the events of the day.  I had finally combined a couple of my favorite hobbies together into one activity and can honestly say, I can’t wait for the next SOTA activation.

This experience has helped me to also better understand I need to do more to get back in better physical shape.  As I’ve always said, amateur radio is different things to different people.  The best part about the SOTA program is it can be enjoyed both from a mountain top or from the comfort of your ham shack.  I’ve done both and will continue to chase and activate every chance I get.  I hope you’ll join me.

Until next time….

73 de KD0BIK

I saw this on Southgate this morning and figured I would simply repost the whole article as it’s got all the info and is to the point. If you work on 60 Meters at all, you may want to make sure you have this info handy. From Southgate ARC’s website here is the info:

By Bonnie Crystal, KQ6XA (used with permission) –

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission released a ‘Report and Order’ on November 18, 2011, with new 5 MHz rules for the Amateur Radio Service.

The effective date is 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.

Some of the FCC changes are to now allow Phone (Upper Sideband), RTTY, Data, and CW; with specific limitations on the use of these modes, as well as the maximum allowed power level is now 100 watts PEP (ERP) effective radiated power referenced to a dipole.

The FCC has deleted a channel and added a channel. The new 60 meter channel list (for General, Advanced, or Amateur Extra Class license only) is as follows (Suppressed Carrier):

VFO Dial frequency
——————
5330.5 kHz USB (center of channel = 5332.0)
5346.5 kHz USB (center of channel = 5348.0)
5357.0 kHz USB (center of channel = 5358.5) New!
5371.5 kHz USB (center of channel = 5373.0)
5403.5 kHz USB (center of channel = 5405.0)

PLEASE NOTE: The FCC deleted the channel 5366.5 USB (center=5368.0)
and “replaced it” with channel 5357.0 kHz USB (center=5358.5).

For the complete FCC ‘Report and Order’ release, see:
http://www.fcc.gov/document/amateur-radio-service-5-mhz

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

If you’re just getting started with CW, you need to know that learning Morse Code is only part of the puzzle. You’ll also need to learn basic CW Operating Procedures, and you’ll need to know some commonly used abbreviations, too. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to print out something like this and keep it near your key until sending and receiving these are second-nature:

Everybody is on 10 meters nowadays! I am no exception, just check out my piece from yesterday. But 10 meters is not my favourite band. I’ll show you why….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70fed-lAcxM

Imagine scanning that in SSB! “Get the aspirin out, honey, I’m going on 10 meters now.” Can it get any worse? Yes, two nights ago someone was singing on 28.325 MHz. And not just for a few seconds, no minute after minute. Amateur radio keeps amazing me.

On a serious note: I can’t make much of the language that is spoken by most of the intruders. It is certainly not Mandarin, but there are definitely Chinese dialects amongst them. Most of what I hear, I think, are from southern Asia, probably the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, etc.

In the mean time I spend more time on 12 and 15 meters than on 10. Especially 12 meters is a fun little band with a lot of the characteristics of 10 meters. Try it out yourself, you’ll like it. See you there.

In the APRS world a new piece of software has been creating some excitement. It is a soundcard modem for packet radio by UZ7HO. It runs under Windows and emulates the AGW Packet Engine so that it can be used by any program that is designed to work with it. The reason for the excitement is that this packet modem can decode several packet signals on slightly different frequencies in parallel, resulting in many more decodes on HF where it is quite common for stations to be 50Hz or more off-frequency.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to try the new packet engine as the PTT won’t key my Elecraft K2 and I don’t know why. My K2 CAT cable has a transistor switch on the DTR line which goes to a 3.5mm jack plug that plugs in the K2 key socket. This was originally used for computer Morse keying using software like MixW, but it can also be used for PTT with digital mode software as the key and PTT lines are common. Using fldigi and even using a serial port test program I am able to activate the DTR line on COM2 and the K2 will respond by switching to transmit. But if I use this software modem no PTT ever occurs so although the audio is generated the packet signal is never transmitted. If I was using a SignalLink or other device such as my homebrew USBlink with fast audio derived VOX then this wouldn’t matter but as I have a PTT connection on this serial port I’d really prefer to make use of it.

If I change the serial port to COM3 then the program will key my Elecraft K3, which uses a different serial cable but still uses DTR for PTT. I tried the original AGW Packet Engine, both free and paid-for Pro versions but that won’t key the K2 either. So the problem must be something to do with my K2 CAT cable. But my poor old brain has been having rather a tough time recently with all the treatment making me feel like a bit of a zombie and I’m finding it rather difficult to think things through logically and find the solution which is probably staring me in the face!

Series Four Episode Twenty-Five of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Plano Amateur Radio Klub honored
• 12 Mbps RF modems
• Radio Security Service Reunion
• Society donates radio to new group
• Mercer County needs amateur radio operators
• Record numbers at Radio Club licensing session
• Maritime Mobile Net in crew rescue

Your feedback, Propagation Report from Steve Nicholls (G0KYA) and Martin is joined by Chris Howard (2E0CTH) to discuss differences between UK and US Licensing System