AmateurRadio.com

The Homebrew Heroes Award Program announced its first annual recipient, Hans Summers, Call Sign G0UPL. The recipient is the very popular proprietor of QRP Labs and maker of numerous homebrew style projects in amateur radio. He’s been producing them for over a decade now. The details are available at this link, including a video of the award to Hans. Being involved with launching the Homebrew Heroes Awards Program with Martin Butler M1MRB and Colin Butler M6BOY on the Steering Committee has been exciting as we’ve been very busy with development since the idea hatched at Xenia Hamvention this past May. But the payoff is seeing the impact that such attention can bring to a most deserving recpient, like Hero 2019 Hans Summers. “I am just blown away by it all!” said Hans when he received the plaque and customized clothing designating him as Homebrew Hero for 2019. This annual award recognizes persons, groups or organizations who help define the frontiers in amateur radio technology through the long-standing tradition of “home brew” construction. This is the first of the annual awards to be given by the new program, housed at the website address, homebrewheroes.org. A video of the award is available here. A longer feature interview with Hans is available in Episode 308 of the ICQ Podcast which is the promotional partner of the Award Program.
Frank Howell, K4FMH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Mississippi, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Our new hobby room

This weekend in Canada is a long weekend as we celebrate Thanksgiving. Today Julie and I agreed to take a break from getting our new place looking how we like it and have a hobby day. For me it's amateur radio and for Julie it's quilting. This past week I finished off our hobby room, Julie and I hobby in the same room. In the picture you can see Julie's sewing machine table and opposite to that is her cutting table and my hobby is in the roll top desk. The walls at this point are still naked  as I want to wait for about a week for the paint to be fully dry before we hang any wall items.

The wire and broken support issue

The window in about 4 weeks is going to be changed out with a new window that is almost twice the size of what is in the picture. That should really brighten up the space. My plan for my hobby day was to make sure the my radio and PC software were still getting along after putting my station back together and then I wanted to just go over the radio manual and re-familiarize myself with the radio. I turned on the Icom fitted on the headphones (Julie does not consider CW to be music to her ears) and low and behold only the right side of the headphones was working! We this side lined the plan for the morning. The headphones are AGK K240 studio headphones and I have had them for about 5 years and they are just great. Upon removing the headphone cover plate (non technical term) I two unfortunate things. The first was two wires that were torn off their termination and the other issue was  a broken support which was the reason the wires were torn off. Since these are the best headphones I have had in a long time I was determined to repair them. With the combination of a glue gun and soldering iron the job was completed and the K240 headphones are back in service. 

Glue gun nicely repaired the support issue.

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

It's now official on paper with my new call sign for New Brunswick. Funny thing the other evening I was calling CQ (CW) and a few times I used my old call without evening noticing it. Old habits die hard I guess.....it's just going to take time to get the new call rolling off the key like the old one did.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Hello and welcome to Episode 307 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts have an in-depth conversation with Jon Spriggs, G7VRI, an Ansible fanatic and guru. We cover the project, its installation, setup and operation from point A to point Z. If you're deploying multiple machines in your shack, are a systems administrator or just want to automatic some deployment procedures, this conversation is for you. Thank you for listening.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2019 Oct 07 0338 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 30 September – 06 October 2019

Solar activity was very low throughout the past week. No active regions with sunspots were observed nor were there any coronal mass ejections.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit reached high levels each day of the summary period.

Geomagnetic field activity reached active levels on 30 Sep and 01 Oct due to weak coronal hole high speed stream effects. Quiet and quiet to unsettled conditions were observed throughout the remainder of the period.

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 07 October – 02 November 2019

Solar activity is expected to be very low throughout the outlook period.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to reach high levels on 07-09 Oct and 25 Oct-2 Nov. Normal or normal to moderate levels are expected to persist through the remainder of the period.

Geomagnetic field activity is expected to reach G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm levels on 24-25 Oct due to the influence of a recurrent coronal hole high speed stream. Active conditions are expected on 21 and 26 Oct with quiet and quiet to unsettled conditions likely throughout the remainder of the period.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users: 1. https://Twitter.com/NW7US 2. https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

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Be sure to subscribe to our space weather and propagation email group, on Groups.io

https://groups.io/g/propagation-and-space-weather

Spread the word!

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Links of interest:

+ Amazon space weather books: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC
+ https://Twitter.com/NW7US
+ https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

Space Weather and Ham Radio YouTube Channel News:

I am working on launching a YouTube channel overhaul, that includes series of videos about space weather, radio signal propagation, and more.

Additionally, I am working on improving the educational efforts via the email, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and other activities.

You can help!

Please consider becoming a Patron of these space weather and radio communications services, beginning with the YouTube channel:

https://www.patreon.com/NW7US

The YouTube channel:
https://YouTube.com/NW7US

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Visit, subscribe: NW7US Radio Communications and Propagation YouTube Channel

Old HDMI monitor cable

I have had some positive moves forward with regards to my RFI in the shack. I am the kind of person who has to sit back and just think things over, go on the internet and step back and have a good look around. Over the past few days that is what I have been doing. I have had great feedback from my blog readers and it has cause me to think and search out ideas. This was the first time I had ever had these types of issues in the shack but then again I have never used an Endfed antenna before. With regards to my internet adventures I came to the understanding that the Endfed antennas that uses the coax as a counterpoise there can be expected issues of RFI in the shack. My Endfed antenna from W1SFR does not have a separate counterpoise connection. On their website the purchaser is informed the coax is the counterpoise. With regards to my W1SFR Endfed antenna I have contacted the owner Steve many times via email with my questions. His support has been great and Steve has been very willing to afford me as much of his time as needed.
I am the kind of person that things just don't click right away and I need time to mull things over. One  thing that came to mind was my monitor issue I was having. I was using an HDMI feed from my PC to the monitor as I always have in the past BUT in the past I was not faced with the RFI issue. Chameleon Loop antenna  and I remembered the coax that came with the antenna had a set of RF

Chameleon coax choke

chokes on the coax. The reading that I have been doing the the comments on my blog all backed up the fact that with Endfed antennas there is a very strong possibility of RF on the coax if it is being used as a counterpoise. I was able to add the coax from Chameleon to my setup with the RF choke section of coax connected to my radio. I did some testings and found my capacitive touch keyer no longer locked up, my SWR was no longer speratic and I have not as of yet checked my electronic washing machine to see if it stops but that will be when the next load of laundry goes in.
I replaced the HDMI cable with a DVI cable that had RF chokes at either end. This solved my monitor issues of it waking up from sleep mode on it's own and characters showing up on the screen.
I did on Friday end up ordering the Balun Designs 1115 Balun and it should be arriving within the next week or so. My positive tests using the RF choked coax tells me that the purchase of the Balun was a good choice. My next step will be to try out a counterpoise that is 25 feet long secured at the PL-259 that feeds the W1SFR Endfed antenna and see what this step produces. I am hoping with the new Balun, the counterpoise and changing the monitor cable will solve the issues I have been experiencing.
It now the next day and my experiment with the separated 25 foot counterpoise have been completed. I stripped one end of the 25 foot piece of wire and attached it to the outside of the PL-259 using a screw clamp similar to the clamps you see on automative rad hoses.....but much smaller. I checked the SWR on 40m, 30m, 20m and 18m and it really did not change much but what did change was the amount of RFI what was showing up on my waterfall on the 7610. I then removed the counterpoise and the offending RFI was gone. So that was good enough for me I am going to keep the Chameleon coax with the chokes in place until the Balun from Balun designs comes in.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

In this episode, Martin Butler (M1MRB/W9ICQ) reviews headphones from BHI Noise Cancelation Products, A Handheld Radio Programming Guide and we speak to Chris Taylor from Moonraker regarding Rola Masts, Network Radio and a Dual Band DMR Radio with Bluetooth Connectivity to any device.

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We would like to thank Anne Marie Nugent and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

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Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].