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In February 2018’s QST was a very interesting and scholarly article, the cover story actually, on the effects of live trees on the performance of both vertical and horizontal antennas.  Things to ponder:

1. Living wood (trees, as opposed to dry dead wood such as boards) absorbs EMF from vertically polarized antennas.
2. Living wood resembles human tissue in terms of dielectric properties, so wearing your HT on your belt will greatly reduce your effective antenna power.  Presumably, unless you’re a real fathead like me, talking into HT held at your face should not be too bad.
3. A single vertical tree has next to no effect on horizontal antennas, such as dipoles.
4. A forest, containing lots of vertical trees, is even worse than a single tree like in your backyard, so for us backpackers and hikers, we need to find a clearing when trying to use our HT’s in the woods.
5. Worse, a forest will affect both vertical and horizontal antennas so when we’re operating in the field, for POTA or SOTA for example, we should look for a Goldilocks spot with enough trees to launch the, say, dipole, but not too many.  Better in Winter after leaves fall, though.

This is Wayne,  k4wk, http://www.hamdom.com.  Thanks for listening; you’re in the log.

Operating from countries outside the US can be a lot of fun. I just completed another another Slacker DXpedition, this time to the Cayman Islands. The formula for this type of operation is simple: identify an interesting vacation spot that is also considered DX, travel there with friends & family, take along some compact radio gear and get on the air. A key point is to not overdo the radio operating or the friends & family will veto any radio activity on future trips.

Licensing for the Cayman Islands is relatively easy if you hold a US FCC amateur radio license. Complete info can be found on the Ofreq web site. Licensing for the Caymans is typical of many Caribbean countries: fill out the application form, send it to Ofreq by email along with a copy of your US license, passport and $25US. Visitor call signs have the prefix ZF2 and you can request your favorite two-letter suffix. That’s how I got ZF2NR.

I was issued a Class A license which has all operating privileges. My spouse Joyce/K0JJW holds a US General Class license and was issued a Cayman Class B license, which has limited HF privileges (no phone on 40m, 20m, or 17m). So keep that in mind if you have a General Class license.

Grand Cayman is in grid EK-99 and is IOTA NA-016.

My equipment strategy was the same as my V29RW operation on Antigua (see V29RW: Slacker DXpedition to Antigua).  The basic kit is a Yaesu FT-991 driving a  end-fed halfwave (EFHW) wire antenna for the band of interest. Never underestimate the power of getting a halfwave antenna up into the air. The FT-991 fits in my carry-on bag and it covers all bands from HF through 70cm.

There is a 2m repeater (146.76 MHz) on Grand Cayman that works quite well. We received a friendly welcome on the repeater from Phil ZF1PB and several other Cayman hams.

Vacation Home

Our group rented a nice vacation home near Rum Point on the north side of Grand Cayman. This place is right on the water with an excellent sand beach. Denny KB9PDF/ZF2PF and I put up the EFHW 20m antenna supported by my SOTAbeams pole strapped to a palm tree. This setup worked quite well and we soon had a nice pileup of stations calling us on 20m. We did have some issues with local noise sources, the worst of which was traced to some dimmer switches in the house. This is one of the problems with a portable setup like this…you never know what RFI problems you’ll encounter. Later in the week, we put up a 40m EFHW and made a few contacts on that band, too.

ZF1A

Bruce/K0BJ suggested that I check into using the Cayman Amateur Radio Society club station (ZF1A) which they make available to visiting hams. I connected with Eden/ZF1EJ who confirmed that the station was available later in the week. Again, I did not want to overdo the radio thing, so we settled on operating at ZF1A during the middle of the day on Wednesday.

This turned out to be a great move. ZF1A has multiple towers with some very capable antennas. Like I always say: Never underestimate the power of using a large directional antenna on top of a big tower.  Eden/ZF1EJ met us at the station (it is literally in his backyard) and helped us get situated. Our operating strategy was simple: use the highest HF phone band that had good propagation and work as many stations as possible. We were also prepared to use FT8 if things were really bad but that was not needed. It turned out that 15m was dead but 17m was open into North America and Europe, so we did most of our operating there.

Here’s a short video to give you a taste of the pileup.

I did work some of the folks back home, which was a treat: K0AV, W0CP, K0BJ, W0RLY, W0GAS, WG0AT, KD0RQU. I had noticed that Steve/WG0AT was doing a Summits On The Air (SOTA) activation on Crooked Top Mountain (W0C/SP-090) and I gave him a call. Being QRP, his signal was very weak at my location but he could hear me with no problem.

Here’s the QSO audio that Steve recorded on his end:

Satellites

We worked two OSCAR satellite passes (AO-91, AO-92) using a pair of handheld radios and an Arrow 2m/70cm yagi antenna. The pair of handhelds gave us full-duplex capability: I ran the 70cm uplink on my HT while Denny ran the downlink on 2m. No surprise to find the FM satellites quite busy and a bit frustrating to work. I logged these stations from ZF2NR: KI0G, K3SV, TI2CDA, TI4DJ, HP2VX.

Results

My ZF2NR log shows 376 HF QSOs, most of them made by me. Joyce K0JJW/ZF2JW braved the pileup to make a few contacts. Denny/KB9DPF had some additional contacts as ZF2PF.  QSL to our home callsigns.

I’ve loaded the ZF2NR log into Logbook of The World.

Band Mode QSOs
   7 LSB    5 
  14 USB   65
  18 USB  306
 Total    376

In retrospect, I realized that we had the antenna pointed north most of the time and we probably should have looked in other directions. In particular, we only worked a few South American stations.

Most important is that a good time was had by all. Thanks to everyone that worked us while we were in the Cayman Islands.

73, Bob K0NR/ZF2NR

The post ZF2NR: Another Slacker DXpedition appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

It is time for another W0C (Colorado) Summits On The Air dinner!

Last year, we had 15 people get together for an informal dinner in south Denver (Lone Tree): Steve WG0AT, Wayne AD0KE, Brad WA6MM, Caleb W4XEN, Carey KX0R, John N0TA, Curtis KC5CW, Mark N0MTN, Bob K0NR, Joyce K0JJW, Steve K7PX, Al  KH7AL, James KI0KN, Walt W0CP and John N1OIE. It was so much fun meeting people and swapping SOTA stories that we are going to do it again this year.

Wednesday March 21^th  at 6 pm
Chili’s, 10460 Park Meadows Dr, Lone Tree, CO 80124-5413

Dinner details:
   No agenda, no organization, just have fun, pay for your meal
Please wear something with your name/callsign (name tag, shirt, cap, etc.) to aid in making connections

Please send this to anyone you know that might be interested.
RSVP back to Bob K0NR: [email protected] so we have an accurate count for the reservation.

I hope to see you all there!

73, Bob K0NR

The post WØC Summits On The Air Dinner appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

The world is divided into two groups: Bag Guys and Not Bag Guys. (I am using “guy” as gender neutral.) I am a Bag Guy. I am always looking for just the right backpack, computer bag, luggage or duffel bag. For example, I’ve got this special bag, a backpack, that I use for hauling my portable VHF/UHF radio gear. You might call it a Go Bag but it really only has radio gear in it.

My gear for Summits On The Air (SOTA) has expanded a bit, so obviously it was time for a new bag. I decided to buy this backpack because it has solid construction and plenty of pockets. I don’t plan to actually use this as a backpack, it will be more of a “toss the gear into the back of the Jeep” bag…but having backpack straps on it will come in handy. This bag will carry spare cables, chargers, batteries, etc. that I want to keep with the radios but won’t take on the trail.

I chose the “Coyote” color for two reasons: 1) my kids keep making fun of me for always buying black bags and 2) it doesn’t show the dirt as much.  This bag came with a US flag attached to it, which was a nice bonus. I kind of like patches but I don’t actually attach them to my gear or clothing very often. My interest in any particular patch changes with time and location. And I don’t want to put on so many of them that I look like a Boy Scout with a sash full of merit badges.

Well, the military has solved this problem through the use of hook-and-loop attachments (“Velcro”) on tactical gear. Feel like a little flair? Slap on a patch. Get tired of it, just take it off. Brilliant. For a little background on proper flair, see this video clip from the movie Office Space.

I thought the US Flag was pretty cool, so I found a Colorado flag to add to the collection. Then I got to thinking about using patches to label the bag. I noticed the many vendors that make custom text patches (often referred to as “Name Tapes”). These work great for labeling bags, pouches, etc. I ordered mine from a third-party on Amazon: 3 Inches/Hook Fastener/ Personalized Custom Name Tape

Of course, another option is to put my name on the patch. By name, I really mean name and call sign. If there are a pile of radio bags, everyone will know which one is mine. This is where it can get tricky because my call sign has a zero in it and not all vendors know how to handle the slash-zero thing. I decided to give it a try by just inserted a slash-zero character into the entry field on the web page. As you can see in the photo, it worked out just fine.

Do a little websearching and you’ll find plenty of military/tactical gear that has hook-and-loop fasteners built into the design. But, you may already have your favorite backpack that doesn’t have this feature. No problem, go ahead and attach a strip or two of the fuzzy (loop) material to it and you can slap your favorite patch on it.

I can already see how this may will get out of hand. There are so many packs, pouches, bags, hats, jackets that could use some proper labeling, or maybe just a little flair.

73, Bob K0NR

The post Flair For Your Radio Bag appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

I’m a fan of using a half-wave antenna on a 2m handheld transceiver (HT). These come in a variety of forms but I’ve tended to use the telescoping half-waves that mount on the HT. These include the Halfwave 2 Meter Flex antenna from Smiley and the MFJ-1714 from MJF. One of the disadvantages of these two antennas is that they are designed for 2m operation only. Put it on a dualband HT and you can only use one of the bands.

Now there is a dualband alternative.

During a discussion of various VHF radios and antennas on the SOTA reflector, Phil/G4OBK recommended this antenna: TWAYRDIO RH 770 SMA-Male Dual Band Telescopic Handheld Antenna. I was mildly skeptical in that the antenna looks like cheap lowcost economy stuff from China. However, for $16.55 (free shipping), it seemed like something I should try out.

I’ve since used this antenna on several SOTA activations and have found it to work quite well. Not having to worry about whether I’m operating on 2m or 70 cm is a big plus. I liked the antenna so much, I now have three.

Recently, I wondered how well the antenna is really performing so I did a side-by-side comparison with the Smiley 2m halfwave. Now this kind of comparison is always a bit dicey unless you have a calibrated antenna range. I got on 2m fm with another ham running a home station some distance away such that I was not pegging his S-meter. We did several A/B comparisons between the Smiley and the RH 770. Much to my surprise, the RH 770 performed significantly better than the Smiley. The other ham saw his meter deflect higher with the RH 770. I can’t give that to you in dB but I can say its a little better. I actually thought that the single-band design might be slightly better due to less complexity in the antenna. The opposite was true. Your mileage may vary. No warranty expressed or implied.

The only thing I don’t like about the RH 770 is that the telescoping sections slide up and down really easy. Too easy for my taste. I’d rather have some stickiness to it so that I am sure it will remain fully extended. But I admit this is more of a personal impression than actual problem.

The antenna is available with a male SMA connector, a female SMA connector or a BNC. That should pretty much cover it.

So thanks Phil/G4OBK for pointing out this antenna. I also highly recommend it.

73, Bob K0NR

The post A Better Antenna for Dualband Handhelds appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

I’m sure that you have heard of NPOTA, National Parks On The Air, and SOTA, Summits On The Air, and probably even POTA, Parks On The Air, The US program for the World Wide Flora and Fauna, but have you heard of the latest event that starts on Sunday, Dec 11, 2017?

Starting at 0000 UTC time on December 11, 2017 the new year long event celebrating multiple anniversaries for the NASA program will start. It is called NOTA or NASA On The Air.

With several NASA clubs doing several special event stations of the coming year, they decided to make a year long event where you, as the end user, can contact the stations to earn points through the year. You can even gets points during other events like Winter Field Day, the ARRL Field Day and others.

Losten to my latest podcast episode where I talk with Rob Suggs about it:

http://www.everythinghamradio.com/Podcast/93