AmateurRadio.com

Series Seven Episode Sixteen of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, Martin (M1MRB & W9ICQ) and Colin (M6BOY) discuss the usage of the 60m band in Europe and Martin (M1MRB & W9ICQ) interviews Adam (MM0KFX) regarding the recent Youngsters on the Air event and GA14CG Special Event Station.

• Ofcom looking at 2.4 and 5GHz Amateur Radio Bands for Internet of Things
• Hiker thanks ham radio operators and rescuers
• EURAO Party Summer 2014 - “Give Youth a Chance”
• 434 MHz balloon goes around the world
• GB100ZZ
• Panama Canal Special Event
• GB2VJ special event station marks V-J Day
• Amateur Radio Satellite Ground Station in Ghana

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

We are celebrating the 9th Anniversary of AmateurLogic.TV with a great mobile sweepstakes. Come register to win an Icom IC-7100 HF/VHF/UHF/DSTAR Radio with touchscreen. You are going to need antennas with that so we’ve teamed up with MFJ, Tarheel, GigaParts and Comet. The winner will receive a Little Tarheel HD Screwdriver Antenna with Ameritron SDC-104 Auto Tuner and Comet CA-2x4SR Broadband VHF/UHF antenna. To mount these we’ve got some great Comet CP-5M and HD-5 3/8-24 Universal antenna lip mounts.
It’s the ultimate mobile setup and some lucky AmateurLogic viewer is going to be very happy. Visit www.amateurlogic.tv/contest for details. The contest is opened to licensed amateurs in the United States and Canada.
Visit www.amateurlogic.tv/contest for details.

George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].

Joyce KØJJW and I were headed to the Duke City Hamfest in Albuquerque when we decided to make a side trip up Sandia Crest for a low overhead (read: slacker) Summits On The Air (SOTA) activation.

Sandia Crest pokes up 10,678 feet, towering over Albuquerque at roughly 5000 feet. Although the weather was rainy, we enjoyed the drive up the paved Sandia Crest Road through the Cibola National Forest. This looks like a great area to explore and we’ll probably be back sometime in the future.

At the parking lot, about 40 vertical feet below the summit, we paid the $3 per day use fee (self-service USFS station), grabbed the radio gear and headed up the walkway to the top. There is a gift shop and restaurant at the south end of the parking lot, along with several hiking trails. A large radio site on the north end of the parking lot has numerous towers and high power transmitters. The field strength is so strong that a sign has been placed there to warn of radio interference to car alarms and keyless remotes.

I pulled out the trusty Yaesu FT-60 handheld transceiver with the MJF-1714 1/2-wave antenna for 2 meters. I gave a few calls on 146.52 MHz and heard no replies. I am thinking, “surely with so many hams in town for the hamfest, someone is listening on five two.” Joyce was standing next to me with her FT-60 and a rubber duck antenna. We noticed that her radio was hearing signals that I could not hear.

Hmmm, the radio with the better antenna is not able to hear anything but the radio with a crummy rubber duck is working fine. At this point, I realized that my HT was being overloaded from the transmitter site with my high-efficiency antenna doing a great job of coupling those signals into my radio. I had to chuckle about this since I’ve often pointed out the poor performance of your typical rubber duck antenna. In this case, the less effective antenna was doing us the favor of reducing interference.

I swapped antennas and began making calls on 2m fm with the rubber duck. I also moved further away from the radio site to reduce the signal level. Yep, now I heard some guys coming back to me on 146.52 MHz. I could tell there was still some interference but it was workable. In short order, I had these stations in the log: KE7WOD, W5AOX, K5LXP, WB5QXD and K0JJW (after moving downhill outside of the activation zone),. Thanks for the QSOs!

I will admit that NM5SW mentioned the interference problems on this peak, so I had fair warning. Keep in mind that the FT-60 has reasonably good intermod performance, probably better than your average HT, and was getting completely blocked with the long antenna. I was glad that I was not using one of the Baofeng HTs. It made me wonder how well my FT-817 would do under the same conditions, but that will be a test for another day.

Another way to ascend the peak is via the Sandia Peak Tramway, which comes up from the Albuquerque side. We came across this sign that shows the trail system near the summit and indicates the top of the tram (click to expand). The tram drops passengers off some distance from the actual summit, so you’ll have about a 1.5 mile hike to the summit.

In summary, it was a successful activation although the weather could have been better. The big thing I learned was that a more efficient antenna is not always the best antenna. Sometimes a crummy rubber duck does better!

73, Bob K0NR

P.S. I later heard from Mike KD5KC that the Kiwanis Cabin (shown on the map) is a good place to operate from without radio interference issues on HF and VHF.

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

In the film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" there is a scene where the lucky children (and parents) enter the "Land of Candy" where everything is edible and they run around grabbing a taste of everything. I am beginning to know how they felt.

Amateur radio has so many different things to try and over the last year I have found myself jumping around having a dabble at new things. Doing this and time being scarce has inevitably impacted the HAB payload and other Arduino projects. I have also neglected some of my previous satellite monitoring activities.

I had been regularly decoding the FUNCube-1 (AO-73) telemetry and uploading packets to the data warehouse (see earlier posts). To do this I had been using a discone in the loft and a FUNCube Dongle on the ageing main computer in the house.

This computer was on 24/7 but I couldn't leave the FUNCube dashboard running continually as the processor load would cause the noisy fans to kick in, besides for most of the day there wasn't a receivable pass. So I would just start up the dashboard when needed which meant remotely logging in from work. Due to an increasingly busy work load I would often forget or be unable to start it up and have got out of the habit. I therefore missed many opportunities to climb up the uploading ranking chart (it is really for the science honest!)

Of late there have been a large number of new satellites launched including the UKube-1 and the QB50 satellites which have modules and transponders as part of the FUNCube project.

Catching up with news after the holiday to Skye I noticed the announcement that an enhanced version of the FUNCube decoder dashboard has been released promising improved performance. The dashboard will also capture and upload (but not display) the FUNCube-2 telemetry transmitted from UKube-1

Looking at the FC1 upload ranking list I saw I had dropped down significantly and decided it wasn't acceptable!


As part of my antenna upgrade I have put up the X-50 dual-band collinear on the top of the pole feed with nice low loss RG213. This is currently connected to the FUNCube Dongle Pro+ dongle on the shack laptop, with the latest dashboard software installed.



It has been running 24/7 for the majority of the last week and has captured close to 2000 telemetry packets from FC1 a significant performance increase compared to my earlier set up, and I have now surpassed the 10,000 packet milestone (currently 11,626). I have also uploaded over 500 telemetry messages received from the FUNCube-2 on UKube-1. I have actually received more but a fault in the warehouse meant a lot were rejected due to a incorrect data field.

The FC2 subsystem on UKUBE-1 may not be enabled on every pass while the satellite is commissioned and the FUNCube team will be releasing an updated dashboard shortly for when it is operating full time.

At present both satellites are passing one after the other, with UKube-1 gradually gaining. So as FC1 goes LOS (loss of signal) UKube-1 rises elsewhere for AOS (acquisition of signal)

On one pass yesterday I thought I would capture some screen shots and show how I've got the dashboard set up for both payloads.

As already mentioned the existing dashboard can be used to receive both FUNCube-1 and 2, if using the FUNCube Dongle Pro+ by setting the central frequency to 145.905MHz and adjusting the upper and lower filter curtains both payloads can be received.

On the Orbitron prediction software you can see FC1  is overhead, with UKube-1 over the North pole.


The reception window on the dashboard is limited by moving the curtains. I have the lower one set at 145.906MHz just enough to filter out the centre SDR spike,  the upper one is at 145.945MHz. The telemetry signal on FC1 is at 145.935MHz but due to the Doppler effect the received frequency will vary above and below this nominal value, 10kHz either size is sufficient to compensate.

If you were just interested in one satellite you would move the lower curtain to around 10kHz below the nominal download frequency. However since UKube-1 is on 145.918MHz the lower curtain is set to below this again to compensate for the Doppler shift.

The resulting receive window will allow both to be received. However this does risks problems should QRM occur in the pass band as the decoder can lock on to this, luckily the improved dashboard software discriminates between the signal and noise much better than previous versions.

The dashboard below is receiving the FUNCube-1 signal (click to enlarge)
 

The data is being uploaded and checking the real time display on the warehouse confirms this (my old callsign M6GTG) however you might not show up every single time and the FUNCube-1 Flight Model tab must be chosen as seen below.


As the pass finishes and UKube-1/FC2 comes overhead and due to the omni-directional X-50 I don't need to change anything.


The dashboard soon detects the new signal at the lower frequency and begins decoding.


The received payload ID is shown in the bottom right of the dashboard


Again the upload can be confirmed by viewing the real time data page on the warehouse by selecting the UKube-1 FC2 Payload tab. It should be noted that it seems FC2 is sometime sending spurious data elements in the telemetry which the warehouse is rejecting so some uploads may not be displayed.


It is really that simple.
Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Recent comments on the ON4KST 6m chat page tend to indicate that the summer's Sporadic-E season is rapidly drawing to a close...."time to move to 160?" ..."how long 'til Es season? " ..... "is that it for the year?". Peaking around early July, I'm always surprised at how rapidly the three-month propagation-party zips by and, as always, leaves us wanting just a little bit more.

Unlike the past several summers, I had no European QSO's this year. The July 27th VE6 - Europe event was as close as it came but who knows what might have been missed during some of those predawn propagation periods when most west coasters are still sawing wood. Ever-vigilant KL7KY was alert enough to find Europeans at 0300 his time, on two separate July occasions, making me wonder if the same thing might happen down here as well? After Kevin's over-the-pole success, I started all day and overnight scans of the northern Canadian beacon segment (50.010 - 50. 050) with the 756PROIII's versatile (non-squelched) scan mode and the yagi pointed at 035 degrees. Even considering my somewhat late-season start, I was surprised at how often the beacons were making an appearance, often popping-up late in the evening or in the middle of the night....without the scan, these conditions would normally go unnoticed. I probably began my scans too late in the season and next summer will begin earlier, about mid-June through mid-July, hopefully giving me a better chance for Europe. John, VE7DAY, has also expressed interest in pursuing this more diligently next summer as well and has even spoken of daily 0300 over-the-pole CQ's during the mid-season's peak period.

The season highlights for this summer are very few....contacts with LU5FF, BV2DQ, EA8DBM, several dozen JA's and one new U.S. grid for the FFMA struggle.










I still need 49 grids to have all 488 continental U.S. grids confirmed but at this year's rate I'll need to live until I'm 115.









Six meters may yet still hold a late-season surprise for us but if the fat-lady hasn't already sung then she's just behind the curtain ....clearing her throat.


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

I’ve been considering getting a Raspberry Pi for awhile.  Several folks have asked me if I would port my Arduino Keyer code to it.  So I decided to take the plunge and acquire a Pi from Newark / Element 14, along with some “fixins”.  I got the Model A Pi, along with a WiFi dongle, and a cute little enclosure.

Big Things Come in Small Packages

I didn’t realize just how small the Pi was until I held one in my hand.  It’s just amazing this is a full blown computer.  It’s quite a leap from the VIC 20, the first computer I used 30 years ago as a teenager.

Raspbian Installation

The Raspberry Pi was surprisingly easy to fire up.  I bought a 16 GB SD card locally and burned a copy or Raspian on it.  After plumbing up a monitor to the HDMI port and connecting a USB keyboard and mouse, the unit booted right up, displaying messages familiar to anyone who runs Linux.  A few minutes later I entered startx and I was in XWindows.  Of course I just had to bring up a terminal window and verify this was really a ‘nix box and run top.

Nifty Little Pi Enclosure

Now that I have my Pi humming away, what projects should I do?  As I’ve mentioned a few folks have inquired about porting my keyer code to the Pi.  Googling around I found someone has ported the Wiring development platform , which is the basis for the Arduino environment, to the Raspberry Pi and aptly called it Wiring Pi.  Naturally it’s not 100% compatible and it’s not as easy as just plugging in the Arduino IDE and uploading compiled code.  I’m debating whether to take this approach of getting the keyer code to run under Wiring Pi, or just start from scratch with good old C and gcc for the compiler. I could get the core functionality going and then port over parts of the code from the Arduino for ancillary functions, if it makes sense.  Certain things don’t make sense to port, like the CW memories code.  On the Pi you don’t have to deal with EEPROM like you do on the Arduino.  Anything that needs to be persistent across reboots can just be written to a good old file on the file system.  While certain things like persistent memory and sound support are easier on a Pi, deterministic and precise timing, which is needed for CW timing, is challenging on a multi-tasking environment like Linux.  This realtime kernel may be just the ticket.

Compared to the Arduino, there aren’t a whole lot of interfacing pins on the Pi.  To really get the power of this board you need to do I2C.  I’m thinking about what it would take to port my antenna tuner to the Pi.  That project uses I2C for controlling many relays, but there is also a need to monitor the voltages of the SWR bridge.  The Pi doesn’t have this capability natively, so an I2C device would be needed to supply this functionality.

All in all the Raspberry Pi is a versatile and powerful little board.  To get my feet wet I think I’m going to write a little bare bones C and see if I can get a basic keyer working and see where this takes me.  This is going to be fun.

 

Anthony, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com.

What do you do to complete these hamfest bargains? 3D printing for the win!

The best thing about it is that you can color-code the connectors, too! Finally, props to a CAD-ninja coworker for whipping up the beautiful SolidWorks model in a couple of minutes.

Ethan Miller, K8GU, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Maryland, USA. Contact him at [email protected].