AmateurRadio.com

USA Single Operator All Band.

• KR5X (K1BX) | 1974 Qs | 868 Prefixes | 36hrs | 4,463,256 Points [YCCC].
• NV1N (N1UR) | 1761 Qs | 805 Prefixes | 36hrs | 3,761,185 Points [YCCC].
• KW3W | 574 Qs | 366 Prefixes | 18hrs | 552,294 Points [PVRC].

n = 33 scores submitted in this category.

The climatic ionospheric event of the season guaranteed ham radio fun and CQ WPX SSB delivered on the promise. Prefix multipliers added extra value even if one operated from their apartment balcony or with a long wire with counterpoise from a college room in a dormitory.

Congratulations K1BX who piloted KR5X to a 3830 Claimed Score first place finish while leading the Yankee Clipper Contest Club to its banner position for the year.

73 from the shackadelic on the beach.

Scot Morrison, KA3DRR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from California, USA.

If you haven’t read Part I and Part II first, you might want to do that.

As I mentioned previously, meeting Larry, KH6ITY on the air turned out to be a great stroke of luck for me, and the contact proved to be beneficial for both of us. Larry is a technology teacher at a high school in Texas, and when he responded to my call on the air, he was looking for a contact to speak with his class via ham radio as a demonstration. I was more than happy to do so, but what Larry told me was that while he could hear me, my audio was very distorted and I was extremely difficult to understand. Somehow, I managed to convey to him enough that he understood that I’d done some pretty extensive troubleshooting on the antenna system, so he suggested that I try to reduce the transmitter power to see if that would help. Since I’d connected the radio directly to the car battery, I figured that power wouldn’t likely be the source of the problem, but given that nothing else I’d tried had worked, I figured I’d give it a shot. 

I turned the power down to about 40% of the maximum and transmitted, asking Larry if my signal was any better. Before he even answered, I knew what the answer was: I was no longer hearing that odd noise in my headset, and Larry confirmed that indeed my signal had no issues. Although the signal strength was somewhat reduced, Larry was able to report that the audio artifacts were completely gone. He then asked me about what kind of radio I was using (an Icom 706 MKIIG), and when I told him that, I think that both he and I figured out the problem, both from similar past experiences. First, a little bit of background. 

All electronic equipment requires a power supply that is capable of supplying a certain amount of electrical current at a voltage within a specified range.  According to the manual, the 706 MKIIG  draws up to 20 amps at 13.8 volts DC+/- 15%. Although the electrical system in a car is rated at 12 volts DC, it turns out that a charged car battery will provide somewhat more than 12 volts, and the battery is charged at somewhere between 13.2 to 14.4 volts. A running engine which is charging the battery should provide enough power for the radio, but what happens if the car isn’t running? It turns out that in practice, there is some “give” in these numbers, but at some point, the radio doesn’t function properly. 


For those of you who have forgotten (or never knew), one of the most basic formulas in electricity is known as Ohm’s Law. It states the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance. In order to try to keep my readers awake, I’ll skip all the details and say that Ohms law explains that the length of the power cord, among other factors, affects the amount of actual power that the car battery is able to deliver to the radio. I’d used this exact same setup previously from at least two different vehicles without any issue. However, it seems that the battery in the rental car (a Mazda 5) that I had was a bit weaker than the others that I’d previously used and it just wasn’t capable of delivering enough power to the radio. 


The Icom 706 MkIIG is probably one of the most popular radios made in recent years. It is very portable, capable of transmitting on all the HF radio bands, (10m through 160m) and can also transmit on VHF (6m and 2m) and UHF bands (70 cm). This was the first HF radio that I ever bought, and it has served me very well for the almost 10 years that I’ve owned it. However, it does have one problem (perhaps common to other similar radios): When it doesn’t get enough power to transmit properly, instead of simply shutting down or refusing to transmit, the transmitted audio gets distorted. 


Both Larry and I had previous experiences where the radio wasn’t supplied enough power and exhibited this problem. In my case, the very first time that I ever tried to operate from a car, I was parked outside a friend’s vacation home in upstate New York, and figured that the accessory adapter (we called them cigarette lighters back then) looked like an easy way to hook up the radio. It turns out that the wiring for the lighter plug wasn’t capable of carrying the 20amps at 13.8vdc that the radio requires to transmit at full power. My audio was distorted, and a helpful ham in Italy (I wish I’d made a note of his call) helped me to troubleshoot the problem. At the time, the solution was to simply connect the radio directly to the car battery, which did the trick.


Since I was already connected directly to the battery, the only other thing that I could do was to start the engine, hoping that the charging current provided by the car’s alternator would provide enough power to the radio when transmitting at full power. I adjusted the transmitter output back to 100%, and Larry verified that my audio was still clear. Finally, I was on the air, and could start making contacts.

The antenna was mounted on a picnic table about 15 meters away, I was sitting underneath some trees, and I was able to make contact with other stations all around the world. This was what I’d planned to do.


However, Murphy still had one surprise in store for me, which didn’t crop up until the next day.


The sage concludes with Part IV.

David Kozinn, K2DBK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Welcome to Handiham World!

Before we do anything else, I’d like to share last week’s Midwinter Madness Hamfest with our readers. After that, we have a special edition of the Handiham World that is dedicated to operator improvement.

Midwinter Madness Hamfest Photos

Now, to our special feature: Communicating with other hams: It’s all about exchanging information.

Okay, I’ve had it with bad communications and bad communicators. It’s time to teach some “elementary” ham radio. In a special three-part series, we are going back to our Technician Class studies to review some communications basics. To help us, we are taking the information from my teaching notes – the very same notes I use to teach in my own local club’s Technician course. We can all do with some reminders of what constitutes the basics of amateur radio communication.

Ready to review the basics? Good! Let’s get started.

The basics

Start with callsigns: My callsign is WA0TDA.

Every other station has one, so you will use both of them to initiate a contact:

“W0ZSW, this is WA0TDA”.

Identify!

• Use your callsign.

• Speak clearly & slowly.

• Use phonetics when conditions make hearing difficult.

• Position your microphone correctly.

• Repeat (or ask for a repeat) of the information as necessary.

When you are done talking… (Read more on the Handiham website, or listen to the audio podcast.)

Pat Tice, WA0TDA, is the manager of HANDI-HAM and a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

The success of my project to make an FM version of G3XBM’s Fredbox was always going to depend on the receiver. The Fredbox receiver is a simple three transistor super-regenerative design. This is the only practical way to make a receiver small enough to fit in a hand-held case. It is also the only cost-effective way to do it, because making a conventional double-conversion receiver with crystal control just wouldn’t be worth it for such a project.

What I didn’t know were a) would the super-regenerative receiver work with FM signals (the original Fredbox was designed for AM) and b) would it be sufficiently stable to stay on frequency without the benefit of crystal control? However, what I didn’t give too much thought to was the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to get it to work at all.

Because this is a VHF circuit I didn’t think I could try it out on the breadboard so I made it up directly on to Veroboard. The layout is pretty similar to Roger’s original layout from what I can tell from the pictures on his website, although I think he made an etched circuit board, something I’m not able to do.
I drew up the layout using a bitmap editor. This shows the components from the top view. The large outline components are the Toko S18 inductors, and the red lines are wire links below the board connecting the ground traces. The schematic for the receiver part of the Fredbox is shown below. As with the Nano-40 I used an MPS13 in the audio stage in the hope of getting a bit more audio gain.

I applied power and expected to hear a hissing sound in the earpiece which stops when a signal is tuned in. However I heard nothing at all. The audio stage appears to be working, as I can hear a faint buzz if I touch something metal to the input.

Alan, VK2ZAY had a lot of trouble getting the receiver to work as well, and he is an experienced constructor who knows what he is doing. I suppose this should have warned me off trying this project. Alan replaced the axial choke for L3 with half a dozen turns of wire on a ferrite bead, and I did the same, but to no avail. I also substituted a variable trimpot for R2 which in many other super-regenerative receiver designs is a variable regeneration control. But no matter what the setting of the pot I could not get any regeneration to occur at all.

I think my FM Fredbox is about to become yet another abandoned project. 🙁

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

The New York Post is reporting that Radio Shack may be courting suitors, namely electronics retailer Best Buy.  If you have the cash lying around, you can pick up your very own electronics...errrr cellphone store chain for a cool $3B.

Could this be the next or perhaps last chapter of our once great electronic hobbyist mecca?
Anthony Good, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Pennsylvania, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

The Digital Voice Access Point (DVAP) Dongle is a small device now available in the US that plugs into a computer and lets you create your own low power (10mW) RF gateway to the D-Star network.

Leaving aside my dislike of D-Star (it is incompatible with existing radios and requires you to purchase an Icom radio to participate, which in my book makes it effectively a proprietary system) for a moment, as someone living in an area where you hardly ever hear any 2m FM activity I can see the attraction of something like this. It would allow one to make some internet-linked ham radio contacts from around the house using a hand-held.

A couple of years ago I started looking into the idea of setting up a low-powered personal EchoLink node, for similar reasons. I prefer EchoLink to D-Star for the simple reason that almost any existing FM radio can use it (as long as it has a DTMF keypad). EchoLink has been going for years and already has a critical mass of users, which is surely more important from the point of view of finding people to talk to than using some new and more state of the art system?

Unfortunately it appeared that in order to set up an EchoLink node I would need to apply for special permission, providing details of three people who could turn the equipment off on instructions from Ofcom, wait months for permission to be granted, etc., etc., which is way too much hassle. I don’t think you are exempted from this procedure simply because the RF output power of the node is very low. Because of this restriction doubt if many people in the UK will be using the DVAP Dongle either.

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

A fitting end to this season of PBMME … Saturday the weather was finally decent here in Orlando and with 80F temperature and lots of sun, I certainly earned my red neck for the season! I set up my portable station near the tall pine trees in our neighborhood park on Lake Fredrica. A few curious neighbors came by to find out what the crazy guy with the wires in the tree was doing!

I am really liking the latest antenna launching combo shown in the photo below. I have been using a slingshot taped to a shelf bracket and equipped with a spincast reel, but have been considering other alternatives. The monofilament fishing line is prone to wind knots and tangles and does not always slip through the branches as well as I’d like. I found an old post by Russ Carpenter, AA7QU, a co-founder of Adventure Radio Society, which described using an archery reel and super slick braided line. Sure is nice to learn from those that have gone before! The bright yellow line is very easy to see though very thin, 3x stronger than monofilament and flies through both air and branches with ease! KEEPER!  Think I will do away with the spincast reel and save it for the grandkids!

If you look closely, you can see the 30m half wave going up to the tree on the left. Nearly vertical for 46 feet and is spooled on a Coleman Camping clothes line and used with a 3 ft counterpoise.

To the right is my 20ft Jackite pole and a W3EDP 84 ft antenna with a 17 ft parallel feed with 3/16 inch PET pipe spacers about every 2.5 ft. it tunes 80-15m with my BLT+ tuner.

The Polar Bear QRP Group is a great bunch of guys… (no yl’s or xyl’s that I’ve heard yet) and our monthly outings are something I look forward to each month. The Yahoo Group is a good source of information and laughs as we swap stories and share our adventures. If you like QRP and portable operation, this is the group to join.

Kelly McClelland, K4UPG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Florida, USA. Contact him at [email protected].