AmateurRadio.com

As much as I hate to admit it, for a few short weeks every summer, I become ... get ready for it now ... a CBer! Now I'm not talking about what might typically come to mind when thinking about CBers ... for me it's more of a love-hate relationship. You see, the 27MHz CB band, and 27.385MHz in particular, happens to make one of the best indicators of Sporadic-e openings on the face of the planet. Unlike the vast empty wasteland that 10m becomes during the summer, the 11 meter band is jam-packed full, with thousands of operators ... and some days it seems as if they are all on the 27.385 MHz (LSB) calling frequency.

With my receiver quietly running in the shack, the frequency can suddenly jump to life, with hundreds of stations calling each other in a matter of seconds. Sometimes it's like a switch has suddenly been thrown to 'ON'. This is not too hard to understand as the present suspected cause of Es is sudden high speed wind-shear within the E-layer. Have a quick listen to what the calling frequency can suddenly sound like:


Now the beautiful thing is that strong Es on 11 meters usually heralds the possibility of 6m also opening via the same mode ... usually 30 minutes or so later if it's going to happen. Often a CQ on a seemingly 'dead' 6m band in the direction of the 11m Es, will produce a response from an equally surprised operator at the other end.

I don't think I've ever heard Es on the 6m calling frequency without hearing Es on 11 meters beforehand. It's been my experience that the band always opens from low to high, in terms of frequency, so it just makes sense to listen lower (11m) to get a heads-up for what is likely soon to follow on the magic band. As well, knowing that there is 'zero' Es on 11m, can let you rest assured that nothing will be happening on 6m via Es ... at least for the time being.

If you haven't already tried it and have a second receiver that can be put to use as an 'Es-monitor', you might be pleasantly rewarded. Even though knowing that the band will soon open might rub a bit of the magic away, I think it's still well worth it!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

It was announced last night / early this morning on Facebook that Bill Pasternak WA6ITF has become a Silent Key, after a long illness.


Bill was the founder and producer of Amateur Radio Newsline and founder and administrator of the Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year Award (co-sponsored by CQ Magazine). Bill was the author of many columns for many Amateur Radio publications over the years.

Bill was an outspoken advocate for all thing Amateur Radio. His achievements in Amateur Radio and in the promotion of it are too numerous to mention. I met him a long time ago (on-line) back in the good ol' days of Prodigy. Bill was always friendly, outgoing and willing to help anyone in any way he could. He will be sorely missed, and he has left us with a very large pair of shoes to fill.

My condolences to his wife Sharon KD6EPW and the rest of his family.

73, OM.

Larry W2LJ
Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

For Field Day this year, the Tri-Lakes Monument Radio Association (WØTLM) is planning a one day event that combines our Tech Day training activities with normal Field Day radio operating. This Tech Field Day will have a strong emphasis on radio education and training, including an opportunity to make contacts on the HF bands under the supervision of an experienced radio ham.

Sat June 27^th, 2015 (8:00 AM to 5 PM)
Location: Black Forest Fire Station 1
11445 Teachout Road, Colorado Springs

Come to our one-day education and radio operating event and learn from informative presentations of amateur radio topics. Operate a high frequency (HF) radio station with the helpful guidance of an experienced radio ham. Learn about emergency communications and public service. Most of all, have a bunch of fun messing around with ham radio stuff!

Time	Activity	Presenter
8:00	Setup starts
8:30	FM Simplex and Repeaters	Bob Witte, KØNR
9:30	Operating SSB on the HF Bands	Stu Tuner, WØSTU
10:30	Construction of Dipole Antennas	Larry Kral, NØAMP
11:30	Summits On The Air (SOTA)	Steve Galchutt, WGØAT
12:00	Start Field Day Operating
13:30	Copper pipe antennas	Al Andzik, WBØTGE
14:30	Emergency Power for Ham Radio	Mike Hoskins, WØMJH
15:30	Ask an Elmer Panel	Bob Witte KØNR and crew
17:00	End of operations – tear down

For more information, visit the W0TLM web site.
73, Bob K0NR

The post We Call It “Tech Field Day” appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

I don’t think this company still exists.

At one time you could buy Mizuho single band SSB handhelds for many bands up to 2m including many HF bands.  I owned the 2m 200mW pep version (MX2) and managed to work some decent SSB DX with mine mostly with a 1/2wave whip on the rig. The main issue was the poor battery life, so I tended to use an external 9.6V battery.

My rig was used in the main with a homebrew 2m-10m transverter and I worked all over the world on 10m with just the tiny Mizuho rig on the desk.

If I remember right I covered the CW and main SSB parts of 10m by having a couple of crystals in the transverter. Somewhere I still have the transverter, although it has not been used for years.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/mx2 .

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

The other evening I had an opportunity to get on the air it has just been to long and I was very excited about spinning the dial around the HF band! I ran the coax out to my MFJ 1788 on the balcony and fired up the K3. I jumped on 20m were not to much was happening but on 30m there was some Dutch DX that was calling CQ so I thought I would give them a go. Prior to calling my SWR on the loop antenna was tuned to 1.2:1 BUT when I started to call the Dutch station my SWR readout on the K3 magically became 99.9:1!!! It was like the coax had been removed from the antenna and was sitting on the ground. It was late so I wanted to look into this at a later time, this evening was the later time so I hooked the antenna up and gave 20m a go and the SWR once again on the K3 was showing 99.9:1. It was time to trouble shoot, was it the coax, MFJ 1788 antenna, the K3 or my LDG antenna switch? The first thing I wanted to do was to remove the antenna as the problem.

Without LDG antenna switch

I removed the coax from the antenna and in it's place put a 50 ohm dummy load. In a way I was relieved to see the 99.9:1 SWR thus removing the MFJ 1788 from the problem. Next I bypassed the LDG antenna switch and low and behold the SWR now was 1.1:1 and me saying thank god it was not my K3! So it would seem the LDG  antenna switch is the problem so I took the switch cover off and looked around. I cleaned the SO-239 connectors, check the internal connections and all seemed to be great. The only problem spot to me could be the switching relays with internal contact troubles? After exercising the relays the trouble in the LDG antenna switch seemed to be ok. If the trouble comes back this is a 4 position switch and I only use 2 positions I could swap out relays and look at ordering all new relays. At this point all seems to be working well but stay tuned to see if relay swapping and ordering is in the near future.

Relay in the LDG antenna switch

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

courtesy: https://openclipart.org

When I was in my 30's (30+ years ago), my very good friend Tommy (VE7BLF), reported to me a serious of LDEs that he had heard on 160m CW. At first I was skeptical as the claimed LDE was heard 30 minutes after his CQ.

Tommy happened upon the LDE when tuning around the band one December evening. He heard a weak, warbly ... "CQ CQ CQ de VE7BLF VE7BLF K". A chill went up his spine as he had actually called CQ about 30 minutes earlier, and was answered by a K7. Sure enough, the phantom LDE soon came back to the K7 while Tommy listened to himself send the report, name and his QTH information on the next transmission! Listening to his own signals, 30 minutes later, really shook my friend up as he had no idea what to make of the incident.

Over the next few weeks, Tommy heard several LDEs, some with separations as much as 3 or 4 days and during this time made several recordings of the events. He made a copy of the recordings for me to listen to and the sound of the signal really did send shivers up my back. It was tormented, warbly, with a bit of flutter and very weak. It sounded as though the signal had been ripped apart on a trip to hell and back, adding further to the mystery.

The LDEs stopped as quickly as they had begun and were never heard again but in the meantime, Tommy and I speculated on what might be the cause. Were they genuine LDEs? ... they certainly sounded as if they had been on a very long trip ... or was the explanation something far less sinister? We never did solve the mystery but I had suggested that one likely explanation might be a faulty (or normally operating) VCR, somewhere in the neighborhood. Someone that happened to record at around the same time that Tommy was operating and playing the program back when Tommy happened to be listening. It seemed a far-shot and one that we never tested, preferring to think of it as another one of the mysteries of radio. Unfortunately Tommy became an SK several years ago, never knowing the cause of his mystery signals.

During a recent discussion with Tony (VE7CNF) and Mark (VA7MM) about the newly imagined plasma tubes, the subject of their possible link to LDEs also emerged. I related the above story and Toby immediately went to work with his old VCR! In his own words:

Yes, old VHS recorders could cause long delay echoes. When Steve mentioned it, I had to try it. I attached a photo and some recordings.

I hooked up my old VHS recorder with BNC video and audio cables in and out. I pulled out the video cables a bit to disconnect the shields, so RF could leak into and out of the video ports. My IC7410 was connected to a dummy load and split, through a T connector, to a whip antenna on top of the VHS.Transmit power was 100W to the dummy load.

I transmitted while recording video. When I played it back I could hear the CW signal pretty much on frequency. I tried this at 1820 kHz and the signal had a lot of frequency flutter. At 3510 kHz the playback signal was stable enough for SSB.

So, RF leaking into and out of the video cables of a nearby VHS recorder could explain LDE's where the delay is hours or days.

Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Some years ago I was professionally involved in the design of this innovative transceiver. I am sure I mentioned this on the blog not too long ago.

Some people managed to find rare examples on the secondhand market and converted them to 70cms use. They are hard to find as not that many were made.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/pf8 .

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.