AmateurRadio.com

My friend Matt, KB9UWU, eggs me on to buy things.  Sometimes I listen.  Sometimes I don’t.  But, eventually he wins me over and I’m usually happy with the purchase (e.g., K3 and Hex beam, although I built the Hex from scratch, which reminds me that I owe the blog a discussion of that).  I like to think that I let Matt be the early adopter and then pick and choose based on his experience.  He convinced me to buy a copy of N6BT’s book Array of Light.  Here’s my review.

If there’s anybody that knows antennas in the amateur community, it’s Tom Schiller, N6BT, the founder of Force12 and now owner of N6BT Next Generation Antennas.  He’s also a member of the very successful Team Vertical contest team, who have revolutionized DXpedition and contest expedition antenna systems by replacing trapped tri-band Yagis like the TH-3jr(s), TA-33jr, and A3S, with arrays of verticals located at the water line.  Schiller’s work has been nothing short of revolutionary so I had high hopes for the book.

My copy, like every other copy, is signed by the author.  It’s a good-quality laser print and has the same spiral binding as the Elecraft manuals.  The book is a loosely-edited collection of articles and clippings that read pretty well in series.  But, it’s bear to skim or go back to find specific things unless you’ve read the whole thing cover-to-cover a couple of times.  But, that’s pretty easy to do because Tom is a good storyteller.  My only other complaint is that there are a couple of places where I think Tom has drunk his own Kool-Aid regarding the efficiency of his antennas, especially “linear loading.”  This is a topic that I need to revisit with a pencil and paper study at some point because there is a lot of misinformation floating around about traps, linear loading, and “multi-monoband” antennas.  It’s not clear to me that anyone has sat down and really examined this in a methodical way.  It was disappointing that he quoted numbers like “greater than 99% efficiency” without going into more detail about the efficiency of a full-size antenna versus the linear-loaded one, etc.  Of course, this is difficult, but it’s something that always makes me a bit skeptical.

Array of Light is worth the price of admission for a couple of reasons—the first is the stories and the second is the antenna designs.  I’m a big proponent of not reinventing the wheel on most of my homebrew projects and this book is sure to provide some proven designs to work with.  Especially if you want a good discussion of practical antennas for DXpeditioning and contesting I think it’s a real winner.

Right on the Gulf of Mexico, not 50 feet from the water, This is my favorite venue for QRP.

The crosses are a memorial to people that drowned in a freak storm that blew in from the Gulf Of Mexico, unannounced and unanticipated. This is a beautiful spot for ham radio operation, (bug spray required)!

MFJ push up pole is neatly deployed from the 2 inch towing receiver on the back of my truck. This is the first time I tried it out. There is a 30 meter EFHW, End Fed Half Wave antenna attached to the top with a rope and pulley.

Dave, K4DFG and I operated QRP from this park today. He worked 20 meters. I worked 30 meters. Both of us use the PAR EFHW, antennas. They are very easy to put up and take down.

Kx3 for a radio, and a computer for logging and transmitting CW,

I worked a guy in OK who was also QRP and very glad to be working QRP and is back on the air after a long lay off. We hit it pretty good here today, they just finished mowing the grass as I set up.

Dave used his FT817 and worked a couple of guys in Texas.

No goats here, sorry! No long hike, just a drive up and plop!

Hiking with all this stuff is unthinkable. But for a drive up and plop style of operating. I take extra parts, batteries , just in case!

Fiberglass electric fence post keeps the terminal end of the EFHW off the ground.

The coax is the ‘other half’ of the antenna. I try to make sure its close to a 1/4 wave long on whatever band I happen to be on.

This seemed unnecessary today on 30 meters, the coax was a bit short of that figure but it worked well anyway.

We had a great time, made a few contacts and enjoyed the beautiful venue.

Air boats haunt this very shallow cove so its a good idea to have noise cancelling headphones but even then, they are pretty loud. Only one went by today.

72 de AA1IK

Ernest Gregoire

Months of less than pleasant weather gave way to a sunny but breezy weekend. Ideal for the NFD contest. There was quite a bunch of us involved but unfortunately due to a domestic planning error we had family staying.

I did my bit by helping to set up and an hour or so of logging but no operating. Shame really as, working under Andrews callsign G4VFL/P across 6m, 4m and 2m all in around 180 qso’s were made.

Nice and relaxed contesting from the top of a very isolated fell road. Well done all.

I headed up to the top of Mount Prospect to operate in the QRP ARCI Summer Homebrew Sprint. It’s not on the SOTA list, but it affords a fantastic view of Lake George. I headed up there one day last year, but unbeknownst to me at the time, we were experiencing a geomagnetic event, and there was nothing to be heard on the bands.

This year was different. I headed out early and set up the PAR ENDFEDZ, using the Jackite pole and my drive on mast support. One thing you notice when you get up there is how quiet it is. There weren’t many people up there, even though it’s an easy drive to the top and its a local tourist attraction. All I was able to hear was the breeze rustling through the trees.

Set up went easy, like a hot knife through butter. It turned out that there was a conveniently placed picnic table there, which provided a perfect operating location. Within minutes I was calling “CQ QRP”.

WB5CTS
KB5JO
VE3EDX
KB5FCF
N7RVD
K4BAI
K4KJP

All these stations were worked on 20 Meters. I tried going to 40 Meters for a while, but the static crashes and QRN were so vicious that I didn’t stay there long.  When I went back to 20 Meters to call CQ again, I knew it wouldn’t be for long as I would have to begin packing things away soon for my return trip down the mountain.

That’s when I had my “winner” QSO of the day. My “CQ QRP” was answered by DK7IT, Fred in Stuttgart, Germany. Fred was a loud 599 and I received a 579 in return. Fred was attracted by the “CQ QRP” and told me that he was not accustomed to hearing such clear QRP signals from the States. He was curious as to what the setup was, so I gave him the rundown. Admittedly, Fred’s great signals were due to him running 100 Watts into a 3 element Yagi, but I guess the mountaintop location sure helped my QRP signal.

After my QSO with Fred, I quickly repackaged everything and made it down the mountain in time before closing.  Not a ton of contacts were made, but I had a lot of fun and the DX QSO, which turned out to be a real “honest to goodness” QSO was icing on the cake. The cheeseburgers that I grilled for dinner when I got back to the cabin weren’t half bad, either!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

1. Crystal oscillator for 98.5 MHz.  Check.
2. TUF-1 and TUF-3 mixers.  Check.
3. SMT protoboard.  Check.
4. MMIC amplifiers.  Check.
5. Larcan TV exciter amp.  Check.

Do you see what I see?  Yes, a 222-MHz transverter is on the horizon.

It’s the RSGB’s Centenary Year and the callsign G100RSGB has been doing the rounds of the clubs in the UK, a bit like an Olympic torch of the air! Well, this weekend was the turn of the Harwell Amateur Radio Society and they very kindly invited me to come and join in with some operating.

I popped down first thing on Saturday morning. I decided to try some 14MHz CW operation which was modestly busy. G100RSGB is a real pig of a callsign to send on a keyer you don’t know. So, after being very gently chided for sending G1??RSDD I decided that perhaps it would be prudent to find another mode!

We got the 50MHz station setup and although there was no Es around, it was fun working some tropo contacts on the band, including a number of stations setting up for VHF NFD. I was particularly impressed to work DJ6XV and another of the team worked a GM/P. On 144Mhz, Ann found some propagation to the south, working an EA1 portable as well as some French stations down in IN93.

Mike G8CUL gets the G100RSGB station at Harwell ready for some DX!

It was great fun to join in with the celebration and many thanks to the Harwell club for the very kind invitation.

In the afternoon, I made a few 50MHz VHF NFD QSOs, I was particularly pleased to work EI9E/P and GW2OP/P – not bad tropo with my vertical antenna – so definite ‘Golden Ears’ awards for the operators there for pulling me out of the noise.

By chance, later in the afternoon, I noticed that Dave M6RPI had launched another pair of balloons, one of them, once again, carrying Kingsley, the Reading FC mascot. It was fun to track the ascent of the balloon, and noticing the temperature figures reported, showed very clearly that a temperature inversion was going on. One moment the temperature was around -17C and then another 10000m higher and the temperature was just above zero.

It was fascinating to listen to the balloon transmission and for the first time, I was monitoring when the balloon burst. It was quite apparent as the steady signal suddenly started Doppler shifting as the payload fell at around 1km every 15 seconds. Poor Kingsley the lion! But have a look at Dave’s video of the balloon burst and see some stunning video footage

Video courtesy of Dave Akerman M6RPI

Then today, I was busy writing the PW column which was enjoyable. In odd breaks I made a few QSOs on 70MHz and again was particularly pleased to work GW2OP/P and EI9E/P. I did faintly hear a GM at one stage, but nowhere near workable. Very pleasing on the vertical.

After I’d finished the column and a few household chores, I noticed an FO-29 pass was due. I decided to have a listen and put the Elk antenna together quickly. There seemed to be some FM interference, but it was nice to hear Bob G0FGX coming through nicely. It turns out Bob is close to where my Mum and Dad used to live in Cornwall.

Finally, as I had the Elk hooked up to the FT817, I decided to see what I could hear and work with the Elk, handheld in the back garden on 144MHz in NFD. I was delighted to work GW2OP/P (again) and even more surprised to work MM0CPS/P in IO84. More Golden Ears awards, fellas!

A nice varied weekend’s radio!