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QRP DX from Livermore Falls
26 May 2016 | by Tim W3ATB and I went up to Livermore Falls in Plymouth today. I worked North Carolina, Austria, Scotland, Lithuania, and Germany.
I setup the KX3 and a 29 foot vertical wire with a 9:1 unun above the railroad track overlooking the falls. As soon as I turned on the rig, I heard Joe W2KJ working another station on 14.060. When he was done I called him. He was running 4 watts with a KX3. We had a really nice chat. There were a few dips with QSB, but solid copy both ways. Joe was a strong 599 at the beginning and faded a bit toward the end.
I moved down the band and heard GS3PYE/P in Scotland working stations. We exchanged 599s and when I was finished, I heard Tim work him. Tim was about 100 yards to my north sitting on the hillside right near the track.
A little further down the band LY/ES5ZF was working stations. We exchanged 599s, then I went briefly to 17 meters to see if the band was open. To my surprise there was GS3PYE/P operating again. We had a second QSO on 17 meters. Then I packed up and walked down to Tim’s operating position. He was running a setup just like mine… KX3 and 29 foot vertical wire with a 9:1 unun.
We had a picnic lunch and then tuned around the band a final time. There was DP65HSC calling CQ and working stations. Both Tim and I had trouble sorting out his call sign, partly because he was going so fast, but also because the call is a bit of a CW tongue twister in itself. Turns out it was a special event station celebrating the 65th anniversary of the High Speed Club in Germany. Tim worked him after I did.
It was an absolutely gorgeous morning and the bands were in pretty good shape. After a fantastic time operating, Tim and I packed up and headed back to the car.
Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].
Hunting For NDB’s In CLE 207
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| 'LU' - 214 kHz Abbotsford, BC |
This coming weekend will see another CLE challenge, this time in the LF band from 275 - 425 kHz. with a bit of a twist.
'CLE's' are 'Co-ordinated Listening Events', and NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum but this time around, the challenge has been expanded.
From CLE coordinator Brian Keyte (G3SIA), comes the following reminder:
Hello all,
Our special 'Channels Challenge' listening event is nearly here:
Days: Friday 27 May - Monday 30 May
Times: Start and end at midday, your LOCAL time
Range: 275 kHz (or 325) - 425 kHz (see below)
Target: Try to log ANY ONE NDB in each channel
The main challenge is to try and log ONE NDB on each of the 151
channels in the range from 275 kHz up to 425 kHz inclusive.
The 'channel' means the NDB's NOMINAL (published) frequency
(it may not be quite where you heard the Morse ident).
An NDB on a 'half frequency' would be OK. E.g. 345.5 kHz would
count as OK for channel 345, etc. - show it in your log as 345.5 kHz.
Each NDB must be a 'normal' one - no DGPS, NAVTEX or amateur.
If you hear any UNIDs, please show them in a separate list.
So it means a highest possible target of 151 CLE loggings in all - that
will be VERY difficult to reach, probably impossible away from Europe.
If you don't have much time, or if you want to avoid those tough
frequencies shared with DGPS, you can try a reduced challenge of
325-425 kHz. That would give a possible total of 101 NDBs, still VERY
hard for most of us to achieve.
When we first tried this in CLE170 (end of May 2013) the average number
of channels heard was 83 for Europe listeners, and 41 for Rest of the World.
If you have extra time and want to make the challenge more interesting
you could hunt for NDBs which:
# give you the greatest number of DIFFERENT RADIO COUNTRIES heard.
See our Countries list at http://www.ndblist.info/beacons/countrylist.pdf
(Each State/Province in USA, CAN and AUS is a separate radio country)
# OR give the greatest TOTAL DISTANCE from you to all of the NDBs.
# OR include the greatest number of CHANNELS WITH MIDDAY LOGGINGS
i.e. heard within 2 hours of midday by your local winter clock time.
Send your 'Final' CLE log to the List, if possible as a plain text email
(not in an attachment) with CLE207 at the start of its title.
Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:
# The full date or day no. e.g. '2016-05-27' or '27'
and UTC (the day changes at 00:00 UTC).
# kHz - the beacon's nominal published frequency.
# The Call Ident.
Show those main items FIRST on every line, before other optional details
such as Location, Distance, Offsets, Cycle times, etc.
Always tell us your location and brief details of your receiver, aerial, etc.
I will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email at about 17:00 UTC on
Tuesday so that you can check that your log has been found OK.
Do make sure that your log has arrived on the List at the very latest
by 08:00 UTC on Wednesday 1 June.
I hope to complete making our combined results on that day.
Good hunting,
Brian
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From: Brian Keyte G3SIA ndbcle'at'gmail.com
Location: Surrey, SE England (CLE co-ordinator)
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TIPS!
Try the channels from 325 kHz first - if you start on the more difficult
lower frequencies it might dim your enthusiasm!
As always, you can find advice about CLEs generally and about this
special one by visiting our CLE page: http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm
This time you won't need a normal seeklist to help you. However,
from our CLE page you could quickly display details of the NDBs on
a particular channel using REU, RNA or RWW as appropriate to you.
Just enter e.g. 345 - 345.5 in the frequencies boxes and click 'Go'.
(REU shows, for example, that hearing an NDB from England on 287
would be a 'first' since 1990!)
If you wish you could use any one remote receiver (e.g. Twente) for
your loggings stating the location and owner - with their permission
if required. A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver,
whether local or remote, to obtain further loggings for the same CLE.
These listening events serve several purposes. They:
- determine, worldwide, which beacons are actually in service and on-the-air so the online database can be kept up-to-date
- determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range
- will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations
- will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working
- give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed
Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted there a few days after the event. If you are a member of the ndblist Group, results will also be e-mailed and posted there.
The very active Yahoo ndblist Group is a great place to learn more about the 'Art of NDB DXing' or to meet other listeners in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome.
If you are contemplating getting started on 630m, listening for NDBs is an excellent way to test out your receive capabilities as there are several NDBs located near this part of the spectrum.
You need not be an ndblist member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers. 'First-time' logs are always VERY welcome!
Reports may be sent to the ndblist or e-mailed to either myself or CLE co- ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), whose address appears above.
Please ... give the CLE a try ... then let us know what NDB's can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database to help keep it up-to-date.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
EFHW: progress on 20 meters
I’ve made some progress on the EFHW antenna since my last post here on AmateurRadio.com. I wound a new transformer, but now on a thinner plastic tube. Initially it had a 10:1 ratio, but after some initial tests at home I removed some turns and now it is 8:1.
Today, out on the parking lot, I managed to get a good match on 20 meters with 10 meter wire and a 1 meter counterpoise. A short video to prove this.
It was quiet on 20 meters in mid-afternoon. Only HS0ZJF came in with a reasonably strong signal and it was easy to work him. He gave me a 549 for my 5 Watt QRP signal and I was more than happy with that. And as fate would have it HS0ZJF is originally from Belgium, so we exchanged some Dutch greetings as well.
On 40 meters I wasn’t so successful. This time I tried various lengths of wire, ranging from 19 to 23 meters, but the lowest I could get my SWR was 2.4:1. Funny thing was that the KX3 wouldn’t put out the 3 Watts used when tuning at an SWR of 2.4:1, but it had no problem putting out more at a higher SWR of 3:1 or more. Now the SWR is measured behind 3 meters of coax at the KX3, which is not ideal, so the next step is to make a LED-based resistive SWR bridge to be put right behind the antenna and before the coax. 
I could make it tonight, but unfortunately I only had two 51 ohm 5W resistors in my junk box. Back to the shops it is.
Hans "Fong" van den Boogert, BX2ABT, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Taiwan. Contact him at [email protected].
A great weekend for portable op’s
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| The setup by the Lake |
This past weekend the weather was great and the propagation seemed to be fair. So that meant it was time to take the Elecraft KX3 along with my bike and hit the trails again. I went out on Saturday and Monday (It was a long weekend up this way) to see if the Ham god's would smile on my QRP signal. On Saturday there was a CW contest in full swing which meant there was contesters with keen ears wanting to make contacts. On Saturday I setup at the same location I blogged about on Friday. The park located where we live was not too busy and I was able to scoop a nice picnic table. I was using the same setup the KX3 and mono band 20m whip mounted on my bike. I heard DL2SAX calling CQ test but I was not able to raise a contact from him. I did make contact with CO2RQ from Cuba who was in the contest. This contact told me my signal was getting out as up to this point I had not made any contacts with this setup. I then hung out at the QRP watering hole calling CQ there did not seem to be much action and I was beginning to wonder if Cuba would be the only contact. Then WL2LG came back to me, Len and I had a very nice QSO my report was 229 and I gave him 559. We had a nice QSO talking about antennas, rigs and weather. For Saturday that was it for my contacts.
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| A visitor |
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
Molokai, Hawaii 2016
Judy and I went to Hawaii for 10 days for our daughter’s wedding. The wedding was fantastic… and there was even a little ham radio. I brought the HB-1B and worked PA, Mexico, AR and AZ. Conditions were pretty awful… but the view was the best!
The HB-1B was powered by 8 AA cells. I used the little QRP Par End Fed trail model antenna. 40 meters was just noise every time I tried. 20 meters was only barely better. I set up a few times at our daughter’s house in the hills. I only made one QSO… with N3RS, Ron in Pennsylvania. He was booming in, but he could just copy my callsign and RST. He gave me a 349. I was discouraged.
For the wedding we moved down to a cottage on Kepuhi Beach on the west end of the island. I only operated once because of the busy schedule. I made more QSOs from the beach, but still didn’t get any good signal reports. I strung the End Fed to a near by sea grape tree (I think) and ran it as a sloper from the porch of the cottage. Myna birds called out from the branches and the waves and wind provided plenty of background noise.
From here I worked Mexico, Arkansas and Arizona. Here’s my log:
16 May-16 0234 14.005 XE2MVY CW 559 599 Mexico
16 May-16 0243 14.060 K5EDM CW 229 579 AR Greg
16 May-16 0303 14.024 K7HP CW 449 599 AZ Hank
After the QSO with Greg K5EDM, I sent him an email to let him know I was in Hawaii. He sent back that he’d never worked Hawaii before. “Your signal was right in my noise. I copied your call sign but only because you sent it several times. ” He was running 25 watts with a dipole at 35 feet.
Operating from Hawaii with QRP is really challenging. It’s thousands of miles to the nearest land mass, and the propagation is often fickle. The timing and conditions have to be just right. I had the best luck late in the afternoon Hawaii time.
While I was there I worked the EARCHI net (on Oahu) on VHF with a handie talkie. From the west end, I could see Oahu rising above the water in the distance. So it was fun to work them on 2 meters. I told them I use the 9:1 unun all the time from home and thanked them for that successful project.
Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].
630m Transverter Project
I've ordered parts from Digikey for the summer workbench project, a 630m transverter. With the nice 630m WSPR signals received here from Roger (VK4YB) this spring, I think it might be possible for us to work each other using JT9, if the path continues to improve over the next few seasons. On more than one night, Roger's signal was at JT9 QSO levels and had we been on a schedule, a QSO may have happened. Roger's signal was peaking late in his evening, which for me will require making schedules in the wee hours of the morning.I've been wanting to build another SMD project for some time since making a little SMK-1 40m transceiver several years ago. This was a very inexpensive kit put out by the NorCal QRP Club as a way of introducing SMD construction techniques to beginners. I found working with the 1206 sized parts (basically the largest ones commonly available) to be fairly laborious and would only solder a few parts at a time before setting it aside for the next day. I think my frustration had a lot to do with my positioning and soldering methods and I'm anxious to try doing it with a more refined technique. As I recall, there were 72 SMD components on the board and it took me a couple of weeks to finish it all.
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| My SMK-1 40m SMD transceiver |
The parts I have ordered are also 1206 sized but the older I get, the smaller these things seem to look. The transverter will be based partially on the popular G3XBM circuit but will eliminate the PA. Instead, I'll just use a few volts of the transverted squarewave signal and a doubler, so that I can feed the signal directly into my present homebrew amplifier which uses two switching FET modules into a power combiner. Hopefully this system will let me run several of the non-linear digital modes such as WSPR, JT9, JT65 etc.
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| My 630m PA |
As a way of getting back into the SMD-soldering groove, I have ordered and now received, an "SMD Practice Kit" from E-Bay ... a real bargain at $1.78!
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| courtesy: Tradeworld2105 |
Although there are many similar practice kits being offered on E-Bay, this was the only one I found that had two IC's to practice with ... all of the others had just one. Since the transverter's doubler circuit has an IC chip, a couple of practice opportunities will be helpful. My only hope is that I don't run out of SMD steam with the practice board before getting down to the actual transverter board.
As soon as the parts arrive from Digikey, I'll start designing the transverter's PCB ... but with all of the usual distractions of summer, as well as trying to maintain vigilance on the magic band once again, my summer project may not progress as quickly as I hope.
All of this assumes that my old eyeballs hold out as well.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
Weekly Propagation Summary – 2016 May 23 16:10 UTC
Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2016 May 23 0405 UTC.
Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 16 – 22 May 2016
Solar activity was low with only B-class and C-class flare activity observed. Regions 2544 (N20, L=295, class/area=Dai/160 on 16 May) and 2546 (S07, L=223, class/area=Cho/550 on 21 May) produced three low-level C-class flares between them, with the largest being a C1.8 at 16/1525 UTC from Region 2544. No Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CME) were observed during the reporting period.
No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit. However, there was a slight enhancement on 16 May from a long duration C3 flare that occured previous to the reporting period. The greater than 10 MeV proton flux reached a maximum of 1 pfu at 16/0030 UTC.
The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit reached high levels on 16, 17, and 19 May and moderate levels on 18, 20-22 May.
Geomagnetic field activity was mostly at quiet to unsettled levels from 16-20 May with an isolated period of active conditions on 17 May in response to a positive polarity coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS). G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm levels were observed during the 0600-0900 UTC synoptic period on 21 May due to influences from another positive polarity CH HSS.
Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 23 May – 18 June 2016
Solar activity is expected to be very low (B-class flares) to low (C-class flares) levels 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 28-29 May, 01 Jun, 03-09 Jun, 12-13 Jun, and 18 Jun. Moderate flux levels are expected for the remainder of the outlook period.
Geomagnetic field activity is expected to reach G2 (Moderate) geomagnetic storm levels on 04 Jun and G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm levels on 05 Jun due to the influence of a negative polarity CH HSS. Active geomagnetic levels are expected on 26 May, 30-31 May, 02-03 Jun, 06 Jun, 11-13 Jun, and 17-18 Jun due to various recurrent CH HSSs.
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/
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