AmateurRadio.com

The old timers reading this are going to be laughing I think!

Ten metres was in good shape today and I’d just finished some programming work on the Anytone rig in the car. I tuned up around 29MHz to see if there was any AM coming through. Sure enough there was.

Barry N1EU was coming through nicely, running an Apache labs SDR which was sounding great. Barry was kind enough to pull my 10W/whip signal out and give me an S5.

Really thrilled to have made my second AM QSO! Hopefully there are more to come.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Things around the house are slowly getting packed away but the ham radio bug still bites. It's true what they say....."you don't know how much you miss something until it's gone.....or semi packed away" Ham radio is not gone from VE3WDM, the antenna may be sold and gone, coax all rolled up and boxed. The Elecraft K3 sits idle at the desk but all is not lost as the KX3 and Alexloop are calling my name!! On Saturday once our Thanksgiving preparations  were going smooth...the turkey was in the oven and the side dishes were slowly cooking it was time to feast on some missed ham radio time. The night before, I charged the batteries in the KX3 having them ready to go if the opportunity came about. It did on Saturday afternoon so I setup the Alexloop in the living room and fired up the KX3. It sure was nice to hear some atmospheric noise and even the woodpecker QRN from some offending appliance was ok as well. (the KX3's NB and NR took care of any offending interference)
I had been reading about some hot openings on 10m's from some of my blog buddies but I found 10m to be dead. I ended up hanging around 20m at the QRP watering hole. My power was reduced from it's normal 5 watts to 3 watts. Julie was on her Mac beside me and since our living room TV had been sold it was a Sony boom box radio entertaining her with tunes. The Sony radio along with it's antenna was only 10 feet from the Alexloop anymore power than 3 watts could be heard over the radio. The way Julie see's it CW is NOT music to the ears and it's much better to be on the radio and have Julie happy thus down went the power.
As for contacts I only made 2 short contacts as I did not have much time and was up and down checking on dinner. I was able to make it into Utah to WA7LNW and N3PDT in Missouri, not much but from the ground floor, indoor antenna and 3 watts I was happy with the contacts. I kept tabs on my signal using the Reverse Beacon Network and it showed only U.S stations were copying my signal. I was on again Monday evening and could hear PV8ADI from Brazil at S8 but I was not able to make contact with him.
The KX3 now is resting on the radio desk and the Alexloop is away in it's carry case until next time. I was please to get this short radio time in and the results were pretty good as well.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

This evening I managed to successfully send some APRS messages to the International Space Station that were successfully digirepeated. It might not be a major technical achievement but after monitoring and decoding many passes in the past to now actually send something myself 300 miles up to something traveling at 5 miles/second left me feeling a little chuffed!

I screen capped the evidence from the website http://ariss.net which documents Amateur Radio data digipeated by the ISS. In order to appear on the page, a position report in a valid APRS format must be received and then digipeated through the ISS system, then be heard by an internet gateway station, which then forwards it on to the APRS Internet System.

Okay it sounds a bit more impressive when put like that ;-)

The map showing received stations, M6GTG is me!

The detail of my report

List of stations with time stamps, showing me!

List of digirepeated messages

The equipment I used was very similar to that I used for the APRS IGate setup last month.

It consists of a small embedded PC running embedded XP, the sound card output was connected to the microphone input of my Baofeng UV-5R+ operating in VOX mode set to 145.825MHz. The radio was connected through my power/SWR meter in to the X-50 antenna. I used the UV-5R+ instead of the UV-3R since it has a little more power and better audio. I had a SWR of around 1:1.2 and outputting 4W.

The software I used was UISS from ON6MNU and the AGWPE packet engine. It has taken a little time to work out how to setup UISS into auto-beacon mode and putting in the time of the next decent pass (approx 45 degrees elevation) I set it to broadcast position and text data messages every 30 seconds.

The embedded PC running UISS

UV5R+ in VOX mode on 145.825MHz

The power meter showed 4W output, SWR about 1:1.2

I stood out in the dark, hoping to see the ISS pass over but the cloud cover was too thick and monitored using a handheld scanner. I heard my transmissions obviously and the ISS broadcasts as it repeated received messages, but I didn't know if any were mine till I got back to the PC.





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

Last night as I was driving back from the station, there was the sense on SSB that 28MHz was in good shape with some loud signals coming through from North and South America.

I tried a few CQ calls on 29.000MHz AM, but didn’t hear anyone at all. I wondered if there would be anything on the FM segment. Sure enough the KQ2H repeater from the Catskill Mountains in New York was coming through well – at times well over S9, although fading somewhat, making me think that what had probably been a good afternoon’s opening might have been coming to an end!

I listened for a few minutes before hearing KC2OBW call through a connected UHF link and decided to give him a call. Although my signals (10W or so to the whip) were not strong, it was enough to have a simple QSO. Good fun!

Remember the 29MHz repeaters have a 100khz repeater shift, so if you hear the output on 29.620, you need to transmit on 29.520. Fortunately, the ability to program the Anytone rig makes it easy to set up memories with different transmit and receive frequencies.

Maybe see you on KQ2H?

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

The graphic shows the comparison with both antennas.

Results on 10 meter tonight.

Paul Stam, PC4T, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from the Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].

of lunchtime QRP sessions.  I did not get skunked all week, unless you count yesterday, when I had to work through lunch and didn’t get a chance to get outside. The bands seemed decent and this is the week’s tally:

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

Today was Indian Summer. Judy and I walked over Shute Hill to Swain’s Farm. I worked Belgium, Netherlands, Morocco and England.

Indian Summer is what we call the last few days of extra-warm weather before the cold settles in for the winter. It was a gorgeous day. It may be the last good day with beautiful fall colors. It was 72F with a crystal blue sky.

The pathway over the hill is about 2 miles. We walked on a crunching carpet of rich colored leaves. Judy got a quick snapshot of me as we neared one of Swain’s fields.

The view from the hay field is fantastic. We gazed out on the Belknap Mountains. In the foreground the rich grass shimmered in the sunlight.

I heaved a line over a maple branch nearly 50 feet above the edge of the field, and I pulled up a 33 foot wire. I hooked up the KX3 and tuned around 10 meters. It was active, and I quickly landed a QSO with ON7DU. Johan was a 599 and gave me a 579 from Belgium. Then I worked the Netherlands. PA5WT was calling CQ and I answered. Kees gave me a 449. He was a strong 599.

Then I switched to 17 meters. Med was calling CQ from Morocco. CN8YR gave me a 339 and he was a 579. I went back to 10 meters for a final QSO with M0UNN in England. I exchanged a quick 599 with Jay and packed up the gear.

The view from the operating position was the greatest! In the past I’ve worked the QRPARCI Fall contest from here, but I couldn’t make it this year. Rain is forecast for tomorrow. I sure am glad I was able to get out today.

Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].