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Welcome to Handiham World!

A new antenna goes up at Handiham headquarters

By Patrick Tice
[email protected]

As most of our regular readers and listeners know, the Handiham headquarters has moved from its long-time Golden Valley offices to a new location at Camp Courage near Maple Lake, Minnesota. We already had a vertical antenna at the new location, but we really felt that we needed a more versatile wire antenna that would be able to tune a variety of different frequencies. We settled on a 300 foot dipole fed with 450 ohm ladder line and a current balun. Coaxial cable from the balun takes the signal to the antenna tuner and to the TS-570 transceiver currently in place at our operating location.

As you can imagine, getting an antenna of that length up into the air can be quite a challenge. We had the advantage of some pretty tall trees from which we could support the antenna, and with some careful planning we were able to run the legs of the antenna out into some fairly clear spaces while still using these tall trees as supports.

Volunteers Dave Glas, W0OXB, and John Harvard, KC0UHY, had put up these “OXB Special” antennas before, so all I really had to do was follow directions and do as I was told. Dave directed the operation, as he is the real wire antenna expert. Not only had he ordered the materials and did some assembly ahead of time, he also procured the materials by getting the support of the Handiham affiliated Stillwater Amateur Radio Association, which paid for everything we needed. Dave also drove and brought the necessary tools. You could certainly tell that he had done this kind of antenna work many times before!

The weatherman cooperated on Tuesday, May 4. The sun was shining and the temperature was in the mid-70s. Although we had some wind, it wasn’t really more than a modest breeze and we were able to use the wind to our advantage in launching a tennis ball loaded with a couple of heavy lead sinkers as a lead for our fishing line. The tennis ball is launched using a slingshot like device that was donated to the Handiham program by volunteer and donor Bill Rouch, N6HBO. In order to get the tennis ball over some really tall trees, Dave cut a small slit in it and slipped in a couple of lead fishing weights. This gave the tennis ball enough mass to easily fly over the tallest branches. When all was said and done, the average height of this 300 foot antenna was probably close to 45 feet. That is really pretty good for an antenna of this length held up by trees.

We did some preliminary tests and then had to head back home to avoid getting stuck in rush-hour traffic. We will do some of the final work on the station later on when we receive the expected donation of an automatic antenna tuner from Eliot, KE0N. Do you see how volunteers, donors, and staff all work together to make a project like this possible? We are so grateful for everyone’s assistance. We couldn’t do it without you!

Eventually, we plan to use this new antenna on a second Internet remote base station. This will increase the operating capability by adding not only the second station but the ability to operate on the 160 m band and on the 6 m band. If this new antenna system works as well as expected, we may even consider upgrading the antenna system at the Courage North location, also adding 160 m and 6 m there.

Remote base operation will be an important part of our services in the years to come. Thank you for your support.

A few weeks ago I set up an experimental low power EchoLink node for use as a personal EchoLink “hot spot” using my FT-817 and a dummy load. I planned to make a a dedicated transceiver / computer interface for this. I thought I found the ideal basis for the project in this UHF Micro Transceiver Module from Elcom Research, a Greek company that makes packet radio and APRS products. The transceiver runs on 5V and can be powered by a computer USB port.

Perhaps I should have been warned off by the fact that an enquiry made through the web form on the Elcom site went unanswered, but I went ahead and ordered the module on 9th April, paying online using PayPal. After a couple of weeks nothing had been received, so I sent an email enquiry and received a reply that it had been sent by air mail and should be with me by the end of the week or the beginning of the next one. This was during the flying hiatus caused by the Icelandic volcano, so I gave it a bit longer. However it is now a week after the week that the module should have been received at the beginning of, and a further email received no answer at all. It looks unlikely that I will receive the module at all, so I guess my only option is to initiate the PayPal disputes procedure.

Ryan, K3SFG, asked us to pass this along to our readers:

CQ young hams…CQ young hams…

The Youth Net takes place every Saturday @ 2 pm (CA Time, PDST)

It is on the N6NFI Repeater, 145.230 -100. Young hams, 18 or younger, can also check-in through Echolink, using KR6DD-R (271122) or N6WN-R (477737).

Please help us get the word out, and if you have any questions, suggestion, etc., please contact K3SFG at [email protected].

Note: Only hams 18 and younger can check-in to this net. Unlicensed youth can check-in under the supervision of a control operator.

Please visit http://www.sbara.org/index.html and click on Youth Group in the left side bar.

Thanks and 73!

– Ryan, K3SFG

In State County Expedition Multi/Multi.

• KE7DX | 87 CW | 25 SSB | 25 Mults | 10.5hrs | 7,775 Points [Arizona Outlaws Contest Club].

n = 1 score submitted in this category.

In State Multi/Multi.

• KB7QND | 281 SSB | 54 Mults | 17hrs | 30,348 Points [Arizona Outlaws Contest Club].

n = 1 score submitted in this category.

In State Multi-Single.

• K7LED | 286 CW | 120 SSB | 52 Mults | 12hrs | 56,940 Points.

n = 1 score submitted in this category.

In State Single Operator CW.

• KK7S | 595 | 62 Mults | 18hrs 110,670 Points.
• AB7R | 640 | 53 Mults | 11hrs | 101,760 Points [WWDXC].
• W7Z (W7ZR) | 500 | 53 Mults | 12hrs | 79,500 Points [Arizona Outlaws Contest Club].

n = 11 scores submitted in this category.

Out of State Single Operator CW.

• N6MU | 191 | 98 Mults | 56,154 Points [SCCC].
• K0IO | 134 | 59 Mults | 23,718 Points [Newton ARA].
• K1TN | 99 | 49 Mults | 6hrs | 14,553 Points.

n = 14 scores submitted in this category.

A tough weekend inside the cans given changing ionospheric conditions although KK7S captured a 3830 top slot position prior to log adjudication. Out of state participant, N6MU, battled tough conditions on 20m leading the Southern California Contest Club to its banner position in the low power category.

It was not easy with near flat conditions however KK7S and N6MU get the honors! Well done.

Contest on.

Lately it seems like if there were an extra day in the week it still wouldn’t be enough to get everything done. That being said, Episode #037 is here and it’s even released on time. We’d like to especially thank Dan and Gary for leaving us audio comments via our call-in numbers. If you’d like to participate by leaving us audio feedback, the number to call can be found at the top of the left column of this site. We really do like to “hear” from our listeners.

This has also already been announced, but I’d like to promote our merchandise shops once again. If you’d like T-shirts, tote bags and lots of drinkware items with the cool new Linux in the Ham Shack logo on them, take a trip over to http://www.printfection.com/lhs and pick up an item or two. You’ll be helping us out with a small donation and advertising the show to your friends, family and colleagues. If caps or wall clocks are your thing, http://www.cafepress.com/lhspodcast has exactly what you need. They make great gifts, too. And every purchase helps Linux in the Ham Shack out with our hosting expenses.

Hopefully we’ll see a lot of our listeners at the Dayton Hamvention this month, and hopefully we’ll have many more faithful followers by the end of the event. Thanks as always for downloading the show, and make sure to leave us a comment. Don’t be a stranger.

73 de The LHS Guys

Not much happening today. I have been WSPRing on 10m with 5W but heard nothing and have been spotted just once – by OY1OF on the Faroe Islands.

Yesterday evening I was receiving EA4SG in Spain but he was running 20W. I upped my power to a similar level, and was spotted by G0HNW and M1AVV in the early evening. I left the system running all evening but after it was dark I noticed my neighbour’s security lights were coming on at the start of my WSPR transmissions. Not good when you are trying to maintain a “stealth” station!

Before I started with WSPR today I got out the old DOS laptop and the Motorola programming software to make a few changes to my GP300 configuration. I reduced the squelch threshold slightly, reduced the power from 6W to 5W which should help the battery endurance more than it will affect reception of my signals, and I programmed the radio for 16 channels.

Now there are 16 channels it’s difficult to remember what they all are so I made a paper scale to go under the tuning knob which shows the 2m channel numbers or repeater calls. I had to use the magnifying headset to do the very small lettering and I can only read the scale with my reading glasses on – which I don’t when I’m out and about. But I couldn’t read the channel numbers on the original dial scale either so I’m not actually any worse off. I used to have great eyesight – this is what happens after spending most of your life in front of a computer!

I spent the morning building this constant current charging circuit on to the circuit board of the junk Motorola charger I bought on eBay. I also made a power lead so that it is powered by my K2 power supply, eliminating the need for yet another wall-wart. The charger was supplied with a UK type switched mode power supply rated at 12V 1000mA. In view of the “quality” of the charger itself it is unlikely that I would want to use the wall-wart that came with it for anything, but surprisingly when I tested it I couldn’t find any obvious interference. As I have said before, the electrical noise level here is so high that something would have to be pretty bad for me to notice it, but that was a device which I expected to be pretty bad.

As I was checking the bands for new unwanted noises I heard a CW signal on the 6m band. That turned out to be EB1EHO, whom I worked for my first Sporadic-E contact of the year. I spent an hour or so on the band and worked several stations on the west coast of Spain and one in Portugal, CT1ANO.

As you can see from the DX Sherlock map, the reflective Sporadic-E cloud appeared to be located somewhere over South Wales. I did hear a Scottish station working EA6/M0DLL on the island of Menorca. The DX was right down in the noise and not copyable on my dipole but might have been workable if I had a beam. So clearly there was Sporadic-E about elsewhere.

This opening was a nice treat for a Bank Holiday and I hope is an indicator of things to come this year.