AmateurRadio.com

I wish Murphy, the patron saint of things that don’t work, would leave me alone. It’s a bit frustrating reading on other blogs that someone spent a weekend and ended up with some perfect working piece of gear while I spent several hours just trying to get a computer to talk to a radio.

Although APRSIS32 now supports transmit and receive using AGW Packet Engine which can use a soundcard as a modem I have never decoded a single packet, nor have my beacons been reported as heard by anybody. I started to wonder whether my cheap USB dongle – one of those things about the size of your thumb with a USB plug on one side and two 3.5mm stereo jacks on the other, that cost next to nothing – was up to the job. It had worked acceptably well for Echolink, but although my braaaps sounded to me like packet, they might not sound enough like packet to someone else’s decoder.

My computer’s on-board soundcard is in use by my K3 so there was no point in trying that. But I did have another slightly better USB audio dongle being used for PC sound, so I decided to swap them over. I removed the cheaper dongle in order to better access the audio sockets and when I replaced it I received a message from Windows that “One of the USB devices attached to the computer has malfunctioned” and it disappeared from the system.
Giving up on computer sound for the moment I proceeded to try to test APRS packet transmission using the other dongle. But although I was receiving audio OK and keying the transmitter I was not transmitting any audio!

I fished the interface out from behind the rigs – a trying task ever since I installed the new shelving – in order to test it with my netbook and FT-817. It worked perfectly with Fldigi. Perhaps a bad connection? Back in position connecting the Icom to the shack computer and still no transmit audio, even though I could plug the computer speakers into the headphone output and hear the braaps being generated by the software!

Eventually it finally dawned on me that the AGWPE soundcard software only generates audio on the left channel. My radio interface was wired to the right channel! The cheapo USB audio dongle (that was now malfunctioning) presumably had a mono output so I was getting audio on both channels. The better one was generating proper stereo so there was no output on the channel I was using. D’oh!!

Fixing this ought to have been simple. Just open up the interface and switch the wires so the one from the left channel provides the input instead of the right one. But of course, it wasn’t. Even though the cable from the stereo jacks used in this interface had no less than four insulated wires within the screening, only one was connected to anything – the tip (right channel) of the plug. The ring was unconnected. So I had to take another audio patch lead, cut it in half, and use that to make new audio cables for the interface using the left hand channel.

Finally, it appears to be working, though I have still to decode an APRS packet. But now I have no computer audio because the other USB dongle is still broken and the connecting cable was cut in half to get the interface working. I came this –><-- close to saying "the hell with all this" and ordering a Signalink USB interface this morning.

An antenna analyzer is a very useful piece of equipment and I have never regretted buying my AA-200, though I probably wouldn’t get one now with the current model priced at £410.00. Even the basic MFJ-259B which is not exactly renowned for its quality construction will set you back £260.00. So I was interested to discover that the Chinese have entered the market with the Feature Tech AW07A which can be bought on eBay for a much more reasonable £160.00.

The unit can measure RF impedance and SWR from 1.8 to 490MHz (making it more directly comparable to the MFJ-269B model) as well as measuring capacitance and inductance. It may be used as a non-precision signal source and frequency counter, and with the addition of an inductor may be used as a dip meter. It looks like a nice addition to any amateur’s toolkit.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve made some strides toward getting on 6 meters over the weekend.  I assembled the 3-element Yagi last weekend.  It was leaning against a post in our back yard pointing skyward for a few days.  I told Sarah that I was thinking of adding 18,431 more of these antennas so I could compete with the 50-MHz radar at Jicamarca.  She was not amused.  I hadn’t even mentioned anything about megawatts.  Yes, Virginia, the mast in the photo is not square.  The top portion of the mast is a little skewed in the rotor and it’s attached with rusty U-bolts that I’ve never loosened.  I’m still turning the antenna with the TR-2, even though I have a T2X out here now.  I will do that swap eventually.  But, for right now, the TR-2 is doing fine.

In order to start moving the transverter toward its new home in a beautiful rack-mount enclosure that previously housed a 900-MHz digital repeater (not included when I obtained the box, unfortunately), I had to “re-arrange its internal organs”, as a menacing extraterrestrial used to say in Space Quest.  Sarah wonders why I schlep all of this crap from place to place with us.  I’ve had that rack-mount box longer than we’ve been married!  It was just waiting for a chance to serve in my shack.  Anyhow.  You can see the layout above.  Sarah says it looks like a doll house.  Pretty sweet house, if I say so myself.

Here’s another view of the partially-integrated box.  I’m running it off a battery because I don’t have the power supply subsystem installed in the box, yet.  It’s really just a PA and some control circuitry away from operational.  Although, I would like to align the TX side with a spectrum analyzer at some point.

I heard quite a few signals in the ARRL contest over the weekend.  W5ZN comes to mind, as well as a couple of locals like N4QQ, who lives just a stone’s throw away on the other side of the Beltway (aka the wrong side of the tracks).  I suspect that the locals would move the S-meter a little more (like past S9) if I put an IF amplifier in after the RX mixer.  But, I’m not really keen to do that unless I have to.

Schematics will come once I’m finished.  But, nothing about this so far has been rocket science (or brain surgery, as the rocket scientists say).  I’ve just been following the Handbook.

I received an email from a German CB operator named Dieter (I presume he is a CB operator from the callsign) asking if I knew of a program to design a SuperMoxon antenna for 27 or 28MHz. I replied, as I would have done to a licensed amateur who had asked the same question, that I didn’t. The SuperMoxon was designed and made by Ron, GW3YDX. Only he knows how he designed it.

My reply to Dieter’s gmx.de email address bounced back with the message: “Sorry, your envelope sender has been denied: The recipient 550 5.1.1 does not want to receive mail from your address.”

Dieter wouldn’t have known, since he contacted me through the form on my website, that I use a Gmail email address. So if I understand correctly, the German ISP gmx.de is blocking all mail from the largest email service in the world (though I suppose it’s possible that it is only blocking email from me.)

I guess this has something to do with preventing spam, since I read recently that a lot of spam comes from fake Gmail addresses. But if gmx.de can’t distinguish spam from real email – something Gmail does extremely well, and one reason why I’ve been very happy to use this free email service – then perhaps it should stop using half measures and turn off email altogether rather than leave its customers wondering why they don’t receive replies from some of the people they contact?

A recently published paper suggests that the peaks of the next two solar cycles are likely to have greatly reduced sunspot activity similar to solar cycles 5 & 6 during the Dalton Minimum of 1790 to 1830. Solar records going back over 11,000 years have been correlated with planetary ephemeris and the results appear to show that solar cycles are affected by the position of the solar system’s outer gas giants Uranus and Neptune.

However I’m not sure what is more depressing: the thought that I’m unlikely to see a solar maximum in which ten metres is wide open for worldwide propagation during my lifetime, or the reaction of some of our fellow amateurs to the news on QRZ.com. “WHY CRY about it? Buy a BIGGER antenna & amp for the bands you enjoy & have FUN!” read one comment. “All the whiners about hams using kilowatt amps will be crying constantly. Life is too short for QRP.” went another.

QRPers have been having fun throughout the extended solar minimum of the last few years and will no doubt continue to do so despite the dearth of sunspots. What is sadder, in my opinion, is the passing of an era when radio amateurs were all thoughtful, intelligent, articulate, considerate and gentlemanly individuals who treated their fellow enthusiasts, whatever their interests, with respect.

I put the 3-element 50-MHz Yagi (Cushcraft A50-3S) up yesterday morning with the 6-element 144-MHz Yagi (WA5VJB design) above it—just in time for the ARRL June VHF contest!  The 50-MHz transverter is not yet complete, although I have the RX side done and the TX side makes about 250 mW.  It’s not integrated and I haven’t started building the PA.  Bummer because yesterday was a pretty good Es day from what N3OX told me last night.

With 10 watts from a TS-700S to a 6-element Yagi at 30 feet, there’s not a whole lot you can work on 144 MHz.  Plus, everybody was on 50 MHz, so I could only hear the multi-operator and serious single-operator stations on 144 MHz locally.  Around 21:00 local time, Sarah and I had just returned from a walk.  I had pointed the beams WSW (my best shot from here is SW) and was slowly tuning up and down the band hoping for some tropo enhancement or something…and after a few passes, I heard on 144.210 MHz…

“CQ contest, CQ contest, looking for sporadic-E on two meters, CQ contest, Kilo Five Quebec Echo…”

That’s something alright!  I figured the beam was in approximately the right place and gave him a call.  He came right back and we exchanged grids.  He was there for a few minutes and then disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared.  I know he made at least one other QSO, but he was starting to fade by that point and I couldn’t hear the other side.  Cool!

My logging software calculated the great circle distance as 1037 miles (1669 km) between FM19 (me) and EM31 (him).  Either it was one heck of big meteor or (more likely) one heck of a sporadic-E opening.  Either way, I’m pleased.  Want more of that!

The IARU HF World Championship is one of my favorite summer RadioSport events. The game is well positioned for phenomenal success given new media tools and its global reach perhaps might I say, this is the World Cup for RadioSport?

However, has leadership recognized its potential for publicizing ham radio while creating a venue for the world to watch? Instead, a world wide network of headquarter stations, cannot compete. What good is competition without results?

Meet A Challenge With Vision.
I do not agree with the elimination of headquarter scores. RadioSport at the international level has a problem in need of a reasonable solution. Elimination is a one-sided, arbitrary decision and the consequences reach far into the future. Perhaps, it is time for our international RadioSport community, to see this as an opportunity and meet the challenge with all its resources?

My favorite comment and one that is most reasonable was written by John Crovelli, W2GD/P40W who stated, “Eliminating national cheerleading and bring the HQ stations back into the competition, can be accomplished easily. Assign ZERO points to in-country QSOs made by HQ stations. The potential for abuse is eliminated.”

New Media Shaping Our World.
Toby, DH1TW examines the problem while demonstrating the reach of today’s new media and its capacity to shape our conversation. His campaign started with his blog, a tweet, then a survey…

• Survey on ARRL’s IARU Contest Decisions.

If, the game is moving to the next level of elite competition, one for the elite competitor then meet this challenge with resources and bold vision. I’m looking forward to participating in the IARU HF World Championship this summer.

73 from the shack relaxation zone.