Chameleon Antennas F Loop Field Test 03-21-2105

22 March 2015 | by Fred VE3FAL | Leave a Comment (2)

With a morning temperature of -13c and windchill still about -18c in the morning Gary VE3ODE and myself decided it was still too nice a day to waste inside and that we were going to head out to the lookout again with the new Chameleon F Loop to give it a field test. We were on site by 1600z and we wanted to get set up and catch up with some of the RaDAR crew and the HFNow gang. Bands this past week were far from being in great shape after the CME we had on Monday morning, but it appeared that Saturday the bands were probably better than we had seen in the entire week.
The nice thing about the area we are operating from is not only the view of Pine Bay and Lake Superior but there is no line noise or man-made noises that affect us, only things we hear are the wind, birds and small wind chime that is hanging in a tree.

We took a couple rigs with us and few antennas to play with but our main goal today was to assemble and test the New Chameleon Antenna Mag Loop called the F Loop. This unit posed to be very easy to assemble and use and had great results , but more on that later. I have many Chameleon products and I am very happy with the quality and performance as well as the support that Carl gives to his customers. In my YouTube video you see me unpacking the antenna from the box, in the field I am assembling the unit and testing it live. The antenna when in the Condor pack with everything but the large loop section weighs in at 2.65kgs, so fairly light by most standards.

We brought the IC-703 and the KX3 seen its first cold day to try and operate in. Once we hit the lookout the sun was bright and the temperature was -10c and about -14c with windchill and wind speed was at 10-12km/h. But the rock I was laying on was warm as was the snow around it melting fairly quickly from the heat.

Once the antenna was assembled and coax attached we brought out the IC-703, tuner in by-pass, battery attached we went straight to 18157.5 mHz and was able to hear Greg N4KGL working some others, Greg was low in signal at first but I associate that too band cdx and his QRP operating cdx. as well as I heard other stations working him much louder, we attempted a few calls to Greg but we were not heard. I called for Budd W 3 Fast Freddie a few times but he was not on the frequency, I tuned up just a bit and was pleasantly thrilled when I heard Budd make a call on 18.159, he heard me first call running 10 watts to the loop with the IC-703, BIG SMILE on our faces you bet! We worked Budd and then was able to exchange 5×3 reports both ways with Joe W5SAN in TN. who was bike mobile with his IC-703 and hamstick configuration. While testing with Budd he asked me to turn the antenna to see if it made any change on signal, and sure enough the sides of the loop showed directivity and his signal along with others we listened too improved on my end. Budd noted signal strength showed no huge changes but I was louder, even with the fading we had today and some noise from the solar godz signals were good, Budd was running 50 watts and his signal was 5×9 peaking 20 at times on the IC-703

So I then switched to the KX3, I think the cold was affecting the radio though as I had to crank the volume to 50 in able to hear the signals, combine that with weak signals on the band and was a bit of a chore to hear with the small speaker, but the best thing was I made a contact into Florida with KD4ZU running 5 watts on SSB from this rig. He said I had a great signal at his end was very much copyable with no problems. So 3 contacts on initial setup of the new Chameleon F Loop was indeed a great success for us, assembly was easy with no issues at all, and packing and unpacking into the Condo bag was easy as well. The tuner can also be mounted on a tripod if needed as it has a hole pre-drilled for that purpose, as you seen we had it sitting on the rock and had no issue running it.

A quick test of WWV on 10 megs also showed the directivity qualities of the side of the loop and the signal peaked quite well. It was now 1900z and we decided to pack up and head back down from the lookout and head home knowing we had another successful RaDAR and HFNow operating day after bands being so bad all week.

http://chameleonantenna.com/

My latest video can be found here on my YouTube Channel:

https://youtu.be/cpsFJRzaANc

Thanks goes out to:
Carl at Chameleon Antennas
HFNow group
RaDAR Group
Gary VE3ODE (Camera man and friend)
Teresa (VE3TLL) my YL who encourages me to get out and play radio
Elecraft for making a great radio like the KX3
ICOM for the hardy IC-703 of which Gary and I both own
Propagation Godz for opening up the bands
George and Mary-Anne who have allowed this beautiful spot to be viewed by others

Take care gang and be back shortly with more reviews, test and just plain fun.

Fred VE3FAL
The Ice Man

Fred Lesnick, VE3FAL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Thunder Bay Ontario, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

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40m Pixie kit at INCREDIBLE price

22 March 2015 | by Roger G3XBM | Leave a Comment (3)

I bought my 40m Pixie kit for $10 and thought this was a bargain. Then Andy Cutland sent me this link.

Hi Roger, this is the cheapest i’ve seen yet. What fantastic value !
Check out this item I found on eBay:
End time: 15 Apr 2015 10:33:10
Item: DC DIY RADIO CW Shortwave Transmitter QRP Pixie Tool Receiver 7.023-7.026MHz
URL: http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=131457860419&alt=web
(Sent from eBay Mobile for Android)

At £3.19 with free shipping there is no way you could make this cheaper in my view. Remember this price includes a crystal, PCB and all the board mounted parts. This looks identical to mine which works very well. This is a refined Pixie and performance has exceeded expectations. Netting is excellent TX to RX and AM breakthrough very modest. My power out is about 400mW and a 1uV signal level very good on RX. A totally usable 40m CW rig for not much more than a cup of coffee.

Even with the after-effects of my cerebellum brain bleed I was able to build the kit without any issues.

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

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Series Eight Episode Six – Making PCB’s (22 March 2015)

22 March 2015 | by Colin M6BOY | Leave a Comment (0)

Series Eight Episode Six of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Ed Durrant DD5LP and Martin Rothwell M0SGL to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature is - Making PCB’s by Matthew Nassau 2E0MTT

Amateur / Ham Radio Statistics - March 2015
Winner of UK CanSat 2015 Announced
Scientist Radio Ham Named for Prestigious Award
World Amateur Radio Day 2015
80th ARRL Anniversary of North Dakota Radio Amateur
PyQSO v0.2 Released
Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2015 Introduced in Congress
SARL Assist Zambians with the Licensing of Amateurs

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

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Series Eight Episode Six – Making PCB’s (22 March 2015)

22 March 2015 | by Colin M6BOY | Leave a Comment (0)

Series Eight Episode Six of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Ed Durrant DD5LP and Martin Rothwell M0SGL to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature is - Making PCB’s by Matthew Nassau 2E0MTT

Amateur / Ham Radio Statistics - March 2015
Winner of UK CanSat 2015 Announced
Scientist Radio Ham Named for Prestigious Award
World Amateur Radio Day 2015
80th ARRL Anniversary of North Dakota Radio Amateur
PyQSO v0.2 Released
Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2015 Introduced in Congress
SARL Assist Zambians with the Licensing of Amateurs

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

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VE3WDM is back into QRPp very low power contacts!

21 March 2015 | by Mike VE9KK | Leave a Comment (7)

I was feeling under the weather this weekend and thought it would be nice and relaxing to spend some time on the radio. It so happens a CW contest was in full swing the Russian DX contest. I was not into competing but just handing out points. The propagation conditions this past week were a struggle to say the least. Today the conditions were on the rebound a K index of 2 and the Sunspots were in at 27 and the solar wind was still up at 615. I parked on 15m and there was lots of DX rolling in for the contest. I made only 7 contacts for Saturday (so far) most were done with QRPp power! I was very pleased that my condo antenna was able to get out to make some great QRPp low power contacts. My K3 is only able to get down as low at 100mW's silly me I sold my attenuator thinking my contacts under 100mW's were over! I was able to make 3 contacts at milli watt power, 2 contacts at 1 watt, one contact at 3 watts and finally 5 watts. My first QRPp contact in the contest was K5WA in the states, my next QRPp contact was with EA3CX in Spain. Then finally F5IN in France with 500mW's of power.

The 7 contacts break down as follows

1. F5IN 500mW 7,500 miles per watt

2. K5WA 100mW 13,213 miles per watt

3. EA5CX 100mW 39,956 miles per watt

4. DK3QZ 1 watt 3,818 miles per watt

5. DL0AO 1 watt 3,818 miles per watt

6. HC2SL 3 watts

7. ZF2DX 5 watts

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

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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 53

21 March 2015 | by Cale K4HCK | Leave a Comment (2)

Colorado Governor signs Amateur Radio antenna bill into law
Friday the 13th turned out to be a lucky day for Colorado hams, as Gov John Hickenlooper signed into law an Amateur Radio antenna bill that mirrors the PRB-1 federal pre-emption policy.
ARRL

The tallest towers in the world
Name the tallest structures in the world. You’re almost certainly not thinking of TV towers. But dozens of nearly anonymous towers around the United States, most in small rural communities, dwarf all but the tallest man-made structures in the world.
Medium

Strongest geomagnetic storm of Solar Cycle 24
It didn’t take long for the VHF bands to start filling up with auroral signals as 6m diehards soon discovered that something was amiss.
VE7SL

Ubuntu Hams
The Ubuntu Hams Team exists to bring together Amateur Radio Operators and developers of Amateur Radio packages who use Ubuntu.
Ubuntu

Why you should learn to love Ham Radio
When I joined as a squeaky-voiced 12-year-old in the 1990s, it was like discovering the Internet before the Internet.
PopularMechanics

TNC-Pi: TNC-X for Raspberry Pi
TNC-Pi is a special version of TNC-X designed to interface directly with the Raspberry Pi computer. It can connect to the Pi either via the Pi’s serial port, or via the I2C protocol.
TNC-Pi

FUNcube team has received two million packets of telemetry data
FUNcube-1 (AO-73) was launched on November 21, 2013 and since then radio amateurs and schools have been receiving the telemetry packets and passing them to AMSAT UK.
AMSAT UK

Minimalist VHF Software Defined Radio
Our next step will be to mix this signal to VHF and add a PA to produce 1 Watt of signal on 2M, to support our VHF FreeDV work. Please contact us if you can help us with a VHF PA design!
Rowetel

Video

1st contact as a licensed Ham made via satellite
There probably are not any other 8 year olds who can claim that!
Vimeo

Tower demolition
This video features the demolition of a 300′ cable head end tower in Jackson, MN. Built in 1953, it did not want to fall over.
YouTube

New products

RUMlogNG now available
RUMlogNG is the next-generation of Thomas’ (DL2RUM) excellent RUMlog logging software and incorporates logging, rig control, Winkey support, DX Cluster, LoTW/eQSL/Clublog, support for HamQTH or QRZ.com XML lookups, award tracking, QSL printing, integration with Fldigi for digital modes, and much more.
Mac Ham Radio

CQmaps: Professional maps for Amateur Radio
At CQmaps, you will find that all the maps offered have been drafted with the utmost care and precision gained from 10 years of experience as a Geographic Information System (GIS) Analyst and cartographer.
CQmaps

Reviews

Baofeng FF-12P (UV-5X)
A clip on YouTube suggested that the UV-5X / FF12P scans faster. This proves to be true: the FF-12P outperforms all other Baofeng radios I own, including the GT-3 Mark II. Scan speed is about 5-6 channels/sec.
PD0AC

SSTRAN AMT3000 AM transmitter kit
The AMT3000 can be configured to work with the supplied simple wire antenna, which will essentially broadcast AM to radios throughout your home, or it can be configured for a Part 15 compliant outdoor base-loaded vertical antenna which will extend your range up to 3/4 of a mile, should your shack be down the road or in an outbuilding.
The SWLing Post

Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.

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Amateur Radio Newsline Report 1957 March 20 2015

21 March 2015 | by Amateur Radio Newsline | Leave a Comment (0)

Sunspot AR-2297 hurls a massive solar flare toward Earth
Cyclone Pam devastates Vanuatu cutting it off from the world
Dayton Hamvention names its 2015 award winners
GAREC 2015 to take place this June in Finland
Colorado hams now have their own tower and antenna protection law
Proof that wireless power can be transmitted using microwaves

THIS WEEK'S NEWSCAST
Script
Audio

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