Visits to GM1DSK and GM0GAV

Whilst over in Scotland over new year, I made my usual pilgrimage to visit my Elmer. His call is GM1DSK, but to me, has always been Meeeeeester Steve! Steve is as active as his other commitments allow him to be, and up until now using a 100w and all wire antenna station. As luck would have it, Steve just recently got a 30' tower, a 3 element tribander, and a 3 element dual band warc beam, and the day I went to visit, it had just been installed and up and running:

Although in the photo it doesnt look too high and has tres around it, what you can't see is the nice dropoff to many of the more interesting DX áreas, as the QTH is on a clifftop with a river below. When we went to get on the air and see how it was working, Steve stumbled across 1A0KM, an entity he hadn't worked yet. Here's the moment of glory as Steve gets another "new one" in the log:

Next on the whistlestop tour, Steve drove me across to Gavin GM0GAV's place. I hadn't seen Gavin since the days when he worked in the Antartic as VP8GAV, and it was great to see him again. I knew he'd built up a good station but I don't think I was prepared to see such a level of workmanship or such a well thought out design. In the shack is nothing special, but the purpose-built house on a 4 acre plot took antenna placement into consideration at inception, something most of us can only dream about.

The first antenna you notice as you drive up is a relatively modest force 12 XR5 on an 18m high crankup tower, with a 5 element 6m yagi on top.

But as we came along the driveway, I noticed a couple of verticals laying on the ground. We then went out and had a look and it turns out to be a 2 element phased vertical on 80m. The whole field has an extensive radial system laid out under the grass. Each antenna is on a pulley system so that they can be lowered in case of high winds.

Once parked in front of the house I noticed another tower, wound down, with another HF yagi on it. This is a motorised korean made tower which goes up to 28m high and is crowned with an Optibeam OB12-4.

 

For top band, Gav uses an inverted L with elevated radials.

 

There are also 3 250m long reversable beverages, conveniently installed along field and road boundaries.

 

The whole system is controlled from a central switching system in a small shed in the garden.

 

My thanks to Steve and Gav for their time and for the guided tours (not to mention food, tea, and coffee!). CU in the pileup!!

 

 

SALT WATER BEAMS: Where to go from here?

As previously reported on this website, experiments with centre fed two and four element beams have been done on 10 metres with some degree of success. The design is easy to set up and can be rotated without a huge degree of difficulty and does give some gain, all important factors in my operating. I also tried a two element phased switchable end fire-broadside array with inconclusive results.

However, those antennas have some issues, namely:
- The centre fed design gets to be pretty big for lower bands, requiring bigger supports and/or guying.
- The coax feed did not give me much confidence, difficult to keep it coming off at a right angle, and "hot" mic was a sure sign of common mode currents on the outside of the coax cable.

Since those experiments last autumn (2012), I have been thinking about different options, that might keep the good points of the centre fed designs, and overcome their issues. When considering antennas, I consider them for two different kinds of use. One is for "working a new one". For this kind of use, I put more weight on a quick setup, high gain antenna, and less weight on rotatability.

Parallel to that though, I was also wondering how much of a difference there was between setting up a 3 element yagi and two x two element phased yagis. I asked Elías if he could do the simulation for this one for me and this is what he came up with:

His conclusion is that the 3 element yagi is probably a better choice, giving a broader pattern, easier installation, and only a fraction less gain on the main lobes.

END FED DESIGNS

I have used commercialy made end-fed antennas with some success, both at my mountain house in EA1 (on 20m) and also portable (on 10m). After the difficulty installing the centre fed two element phased beam, I looked at the possibilty of using end-feds for this.

I mentioned this on the air one day to my friend Jim ZL1BOS, who suggested I contact KH6MB Martin, a gentlemen he'd met on his travels in Hawaii and who used end fed beams by the water there. As luck would have it, that very same day Martin answered one of my CQ calls and we talked briefly about the matter. I zipped off an email and got some info back from Daryl W7TAE but never did get all the information I needed. However there is a nice pic of Martin's variable matchbox kit at http://ham.aditl.com/ham-radio/techie-stuff/efhw-tuner/ and some nice photos of their setups on the KH6TE QRZ.com page

The nature of end fed antennas, with high impedance feedpoints, worried me with possible problems with common mode currents, so I had a look to see what W8JI had to say on the matter. And basically he says that while these antennas can be made to work, there are significant possible problems. Since these antennas are often used QRP or low power though, the symptoms at this power level are often not appreciable and therefore go unnoticed. You can read the full story here.

So, although I haven't completely discarded the endfeds, especially thinking of low power and perhaps phased antennas on the higher bands, the end fed is not without its problems.


ROTARY YAGIS

When considering possibilities for a fixed antenna on a tower, in the case that one day I might be granted permission to do this at the port, I thought about rotary vertical yagis, using the same design criteria I used for my fixed centre fed yagis, but set up like a traditional yagi, the only difference being that the elements are vertical instead of horizontal.

The 2 element design was quite easy to make, using the MFJ 2299 as the basis for this. It could be set up quite easily on a mount like the one I used for the 2 element quad for 15m:



The two-dimensional design of the yagi would make it much easier to install, I could use a rotator, it wouldn't be too hard to change bands, and it would be easy to tune each element with the analyser and then short out the reflector just by screwing in a shorted PL connector.

One of the disadvantages of this system is that it can only be either 2 or 4 elements, since a 3 element design would put the bottom part of the centre element right next to the metal mast. 2 elements is maybe not enough gain, 4 elements is starting to stretch the mechanics of the thing. I couldn't think of a suitable non-conductive support, so I asked on eham just how much the metal mast was change the pattern in any case of a 2 element design. A kind person modelled this for me and you can see the difference here . It shows a significant distortion of the pattern which whilst not making the antenna unuseable, does mean I should probably keep thinking about other options.


TRAILER TOWER / TRAILER YAGI

If you're wondering why I'm not considering using the quad in the photo, it's because the setup is really difficult. However I did look at the option of using a trailer tower for this. I guess there are more manufacturers, but the ones I was looking at were made by Tennamast , a good scottish company :)

Whilst looking at the trailers, and seeing if there was a local manufacturer who might do something similar, it struck me that I might be able to use a trailer as a basis for a three or even four element vertical yagi. But instead of being a vertical dipole design, it would use the "vertical with two elevated radials" design. This way, I could overcome the metal mast problem. And being on a trailer with wheels, to rotate the antenna was a simple matter of turning the trailer round.

I really like this idea. It makes for a really quick setup, since much of the hardware can be left assembled on the trailer and its a case of installing some pre-assembled elements and away you go (a very important aspect for me).

What has made me decide not to go for either of the trailer options in the end is a practical problem of where to store it! In my underground car park at the home QTH there is no space. And whilst I could keep it at my QTH in La Eliana during the Winter, I'd need to move it for the summer for when guests come to the house.

MY CURRENT "BEST IDEA"

As a "variation on a theme", I reckon I can probably make the "vertical yagi with elevated ground planes" work on my car, placed on a roof rack or ladder rack. At first sight it sounds like something that our 11m cb brothers use, but from what I can tell, their installations don't seem to be very well optimised and looks like they get more benefit out of their 10kW amps than the antennas! Installation would not be as quick as on a trailer, but I reckon with a bit of careful thought and planning, I will be able to make this work.

I already tried a basic version of this (see http://www.ea5on.com/2012/11/more-on-2-element-vertical-beams.html) but neither element used tuned radials, nor was the spacing optimum, which would lead me to hope that a properly installed one should work better.

 At this moment in time I am sourcing parts if I don't come up against a "DUH I hadn't thought of that" moment, this will sooner or later become a reality.....watch this space, but don't hold your breath!

EA5ON CQWW CW 2013

CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: EA5ON
Operator(s): EA5ON
Station: EA5ON

Class: SOSB(A)/15 QRP
QTH: Valencia
Operating Time (hrs):

Summary:
Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                   
   80:                   
   40:                   
   20:                   
   15:  351    28      100
   10:                   
------------------------------
Total:  351    28      100  Total Score = 93,056

Club: Torrent Contest Club

Comments:

Wow! What a fun time!

I am an almost exclusively phone op and only started very low-key CW contesting
in 2010. This year I hadn’t taken any decision about CQWW until the Thursday
evening when I decided I would once again do a s+p QRP monoband effort. I also
decided that since I hadn’t done any practice in the last year, and hardly
any CW DX QSOs, it would be a good idea to go assisted. Normally I don’t use
the cluster for SO phone contesting but for this event it would probably reduce
my busted calls a lot and help me out a bit. It looked like I had an SWR
problema with the antenna and was all set to do 20m but a niggling thought made me take
the amp, ATU, and low pass filter out of line and test directly at the rig.
Bingo! Low SWR, so I decided on 15m. I downloaded N1MM to my new PC, did a half
hour session on Morse runner, and went to bed.

Saturday looked good to start off and I managed to make a good number of QSOs,
once I remembered how to send my call and check the cluster calls were OK. No
CAT from computer to rig, so I had to tune the rig manually to the spot
frequencies and do all the sending with the paddle. After a while I tried CQing
at the top end of the band, but following a couple of disastrous attempts at a
QSO I decided to revert to s+p. There were lots of calls not on the cluster but
a lot of those ops were so fast it was impossible for me to copy, so I decided
to concentrate on getting multipliers. Some of the pileups were pretty tough
and no way to break the KH0 or KH2 piles, I could also hear KL7 but didn’t
even attempt it. Slowly the count kept creeping up, but unlike other contests,
very few USA stations spotted. At evening mealtime the band was dead, a quick
check revealed a half time score of 178 qsos, 22 zones, and 73 countries. This
was already better than my best previous score. After dinner I decided to take
a spin round a dead band and was rewarded with multipliers from HK and Z8.

Sunday I decided that it would be hard to pick up many more multipliers with my
puny 5w and decided to try to work the bandmap a bit more intensively. At first
most eastern stations did not copy, with their beams all towards JA, but slowly
but surely the band opened up a bit and I was able to get a few in the log. I
was also able to work Japan, China, and Mongolia, all for double mults. As we
were sitting down for lunch I saw a spot for VK2IM pop up and I tuned to his
frequency, there he was and no pileup! But the dirty looks from the family put
paid to that and by the time I got back, he was gone. Another afternoon without
much in the way of spots so I ended up using my ear, who knows what my busted
call rate will be for those ones. I managed to break a few pileups for mults
like Iceland, Greenland, and Isle of Man, but no such luck with Jersey,
Shetland, or Crete. Once the band was almost devoid of stations I tuned around
again and to my astonishment a barely audible 9L1A pulled me out of a pile for
country number 100. I then tried for ZF1A but no such luck and finally after
working a few Brazilian stations, called it a day.

I realized after doing this that I could have tried using skimmer/RBN for this,
as a phone op I forget these things exist! This might have helped me boost my
score. I also continue to be amazed at the skill of so many ops who were able
to pick my 5w signal out of the noise over and over again. I take my hat off to
these people, hardware helps make a big score but in the end these guys are
just super ops and I congratulate all those who made a big score through their skill
and effort.

Thanks to all for the QSOs.

Rig: IC765
Pwr: 5w
Ant: Optibeam OB6-3M

73 de Duncan EA5ON

ED5T CQWW SSB 2013

The link is posted on the contesting page too but here it is again:

http://www.3830scores.com/showrumor.php?arg=kJaRzLfcmamiX

The video:

And the spanish extended text:

Por fin llegó la hora de la verdad, la prueba del algodón: CQWW! El momento de poner en marcha todas las mejoras de la estación para ver si todo funcionaba en su conjunto.

 

ED5T tiene su QTH en el alto de El Vedat (Torrent). Es desde luego un lugar privilegiado para hacer radio, y no es por nada que allí estamos rodeados de torres de radiodifusión, televisión, y telefonía. Para una estación de concursos de HF tiene una ventaja adicional, que es la caída brusca del terreno hacia el norte. No obstante, tener una estación de estas características no está exento de problemas. Al pertenecer al ayuntamiento y estar cedido a la STL de URE, estamos sometidos a una serie de restricciones en cuanto a qué antenas podemos montar y luego mantener. Y, cada vez que hay que hacer algo, tenemos que desplazarnos de nuestras casas. Esto quiere decir que muchos de los trabajos se hacen contrarreloj y no se puede hacer pruebas exhaustivas. También quiere decir que algunas cosas se tienen que montar de forma provisional cada vez que hacemos un concurso.

 

Durante el último año se han hecho bastantes cambios. Es cierto que la yagi de 40m se había probado bien en el concurso de la ARRL, y después de hicieron unas mejoras en base a los resultados. Las dos antenas para 15m se probaron bien en el concurso de la IARU y funcionan correctamente. Pero teníamos las antenas nuevas para 10m que no se habían probado apenas, y también la L invertida para 160m que no se había hecho ni un solo contacto, solo habíamos comprobado el ROE. Los juegos nuevos de stubs para combatir la interferencia entre las dos estaciones se había hecho esta vez meticulosamente usando el mini-VNA y mostraron un rechazo muy bueno, pero se habían montado en su caja el miércoles antes del concurso y sin hacer ninguna prueba de si funcionaban o no. Un año más, habíamos decidido montar antenas de recepción tipo Beverage. Esto implica montar dos antenas muy largas a poco altura, en un bosque donde hay senderos y pueden pasar personas, bicicletas, y hasta caballos. Se monta a última hora, y como siempre, nos pilló el toro, poniendo las picas y coaxiales con linternas, todo el mundo sudando y jurando.

 

Con esto quiero decir que aunque a priori una estación de este tipo tiene buena ubicación para radio, normalmente llegamos todos muy cansados antes de siquiera empezar a operar. Por lo menos este año hemos introducido un elemento lúdico que es la barbacoa antes de empezar el ´test.

 

Arrancamos muy bien. Yo me había ido a dormir y al venir a las 7 de la mañana me encontré con Victor EA5KV. Primero me contó las buenas noticias, que en lugar de quedarse en las bandas bajas, se había quedado en 20m haciendo running de americanos casi toda la noche. El horario ponía que se turnaba con nuestro invitado Andreu EC5AA pero Andreu quiso quedarse haciendo multiplicadores y la verdad es que los dos hicieron una noche memorable, ayudado por Elías EB5KT y Juan Carlos EA5UF. Las malas noticias, que nadie le había dicho a Andreu que el rotor T2X en torre 2 se engancha con frecuencia y que no se debe acercar a los topes por si se enganchaba allí. Tuvimos la mala suerte que pasó justamente eso y se nos quedó la yagi de 40 mirando hacia el este y la yagi de 15 mirando hacia el sur. Intentamos arreglarlo de noche y a lo bruto, pero no funcionó. Afortunadamente Andreu pudo encontrar una solución y cuando era de día ya giraba todo otra vez.

 

En ese momento, parecía que la meta que había propuesto quizás se podría alcanzar. No obstante conforme iba pasando la mañana, se nos iban disipando las esperanzas. Nos costaba mucho mantener buenos rates en 10 y en 15 metros, a pesar de tener un SFI de unos 160. Al parecer, la buena propagación se había quedado más al norte, y aunque pudimos trabajar bastantes multiplicadores, no entraban una gran afluencia de corresponsales, ni de Asia ni de Europa. Por la tarde cuando ya debían estar entrando USA con fuerza, notamos otra vez lo que había sido la tónica de la semana anterior, que era la banda abierta hacia el este hasta bien entrada la tarde, con algún americano intercalado, y luego sobre las 6 de la tarde, alguien abrió la propagación a Norteamérica de repente. En este sentido fue de gran ayuda tener este año los stacks, pudiendo trabajar en dos direcciones a la vez, y luego tener más zona de USA abierta al mismo tiempo.

 

Por la noche probamos las bandas bajas en running pero en 40 era imposible encontrar un hueco para trabajar USA en simplex y acabamos en Split, como en los buenos tiempos. Aunque las antenas de RX no estaban pensados para 40, hicieron un papel bajando bastante el splatter que había, así no era tan cansado para el operador. A pesar de todo llegamos a tener buen rate y solo decidimos volver a 20 al ponerse uno muy fuerte al lado de mi frecuencia de TX. El FT2000 parece que tiene algún problema con el segundo receptor, así que transmitía con la sub y escuchaba el Split en el Main, que era donde llamaba la mayoría de la gente. Más de una vez me llamó algún americano en mi frecuencia de TX. Y lo divertido era ver que los canadienses, que pueden usar toda la banda, llamaban indistintamente por un oído o por otro! 80m era terrible, oíamos que contestaban americanos pero el ruido era tan alto que no se entendía nada. Así que, otra vez a 20m a terminar la noche, pero esta vez sin la gran afluencia de estaciones.

 

El domingo era una repetición del sábado pero que se notaba durante el día que era más difícil oír a las estaciones más débiles. Aun así, fuimos capaces de trabajar algún que otro multiplicador durante el día y poco a poco iba subiendo la puntuación. Notamos por la tarde en 10m que la antena de abajo era la que mejor funcionaba para la costa oeste, mientras que la de arriba iba mejor para el centro y costa este. Llegamos a pensar que estaban conectados al revés! Pero no, era así, incluso con esa antena y haciendo americanos, me llamó E51USA desde las islas Cook y un neozelandés. A dos horas de terminar, Elías me pasó los cascos, que había americanos débiles que a lo mejor yo podría sacar con más facilidad que él. Me puse, y opté por cambiar de frecuencia, buena decisión porque pude hacer un run de unos 400.000 puntos en una hora, que nos acercaba otra vez a la posibilidad de igualar el record de EA en Multi Single. A falta de una hora, me empezaba a notar cansado y que me bajaba un poco el rate así que se lo pasé a José para que terminara. Hizo todo lo que pudo pero al final nos quedamos un pelín por debajo de los 12 millones de puntos. A destacar en esa última hora, un minuto donde hicimos 4 multiplicadores!

 

A partir de allí, otra vez a desmontar. Ya habíamos quitado los beverage por la tarde (1km de antenas y 400m de coaxiales), y cuando ya no quedaba propagación en 10, quitamos los cables del stack de 10m, pero aun así tocó recoger los radiales de 160m, bajar la torre motorizada y dejarla arriostrada, recoger los equipos, amplis, cajas de antenas de RX, volver a poner los equipos que normalmente están, y hasta barrer el suelo…..

 

No somos una estación líder en EU, ni lo seremos nunca, pero este año nos ha dado mucha satisfacción tener una buena puntuación y sobre todo, ver que todo el trabajo hecho nos ha valido la pena. El único ataque de Murphy fue el rotor, el resto de las cosas han funcionado según previsto. Aunque nunca estás a salvo del todo de Murphy, también es cierto que las cosas bien planteadas y bien acabadas suelen dar menos problemas. En este sentido es destacable la labor de nuestro amigo Juan EA5GIE, con un montonazo de experiencia en temas tanto mecánicos como electrónicos. Juan siempre está a pie del cañón con sus ideas, sus inventos, y sus sugerencias. No opera fonía, pero eso no ha sido motivo para no estar con nosotros este fin de semana, hasta el final de la recogida de trastos a las dos de la mañana. Desde aquí, gracias Juan, por tu incansable aportación al equipo.

 

Como siempre, nada de esto sería posible sin la ayuda de mucha gente, nuestras familias, el ayuntamiento, y nuestros compañeros de URE Torrent, gracias a todos por la ayuda, directa o indirecta, que nos permite disfrutar de esta afición.

 

 

Countdown to CQWW

Two weeks to go and as usual we still have loads of things pending.

Today we had a short morning session to do a few more things. First off was to prepare the new stub location. Up until now the stubs were just thrown on the floor of the shack, since as we used to use two tribanders, we often needed to change the stubs on the coax of both tribanders. Now that we have monobanders for 10 and 15 metres, there will be virtually no stub changing to do, so we are going to locate the sixpack (and later eightpack) relay box and all the stubs in a cabinet outside the bunker.

The cabinet came from a scrapped tile factory and our first job was to empty it, here is Victor with the completed article:

 

 

Next, we needed to make sure that the stubs would fit. The biggest one is still missing, but we reckon it'll be ok.

 

 

A nice job by Juan and Elías, especially the double stub for 40m. These have been tested on the VNA and give over 50dB attenuation.

Here's the cabinet ready for hanging and then installing the relay box and all the stubs.

That will be a job for another day.

 

We then went on to look at the cabling for the 10m stack, which we finished last week and looks as above. Elias couldn't come today so we were left wondering which of the following cables was the one for the stackmatch controller:

Jose and Juan helped Victor get this all sorted while I went away to the bunker to check the EQ settings on the FT2000D. When I finished, the guys had already got it all hooked up, and also reeled together with the coax cable and rotator cable, all ready to roll out to the tower on our new hose reel, courtesy of Juan.

Eventually we will bury all of this but in the meantime this is a quick and practical solution.

More updates to follow as and when available.

Only two weeks to CQWW phone!



 



Stacked yagis - getting closer to completing our 5 over 5 stack on 10m

As usual in the summertime our antenna antics take a back seat. Metal is too hot to touch, we are all busy doing other things, and its not until summer is almost over that we get back to work.

In July we already had a lot of the prep work for the tower and antennas done. In fact the yagis were already assembled and we had done some provisional tuning of one of them.

Yesterday we got together to do a bit more work. First, we had to tilt over the tower. Right now its just 6 metres high with a rotator cage and mast at the top

This tower is on a hinged base

We turned the antenna round so we could remove the 1:1 balun and replace it with the phasing lines to the stackmatch, with rf choke coil incorporated

Elias and I each brought our own RigExpert AA-30 analysers

These are great little toys. They are not at all affected by the high level of RF radiated by the cellphone tower nearby. Our old MFJ 259 was completely unusable here. Antenna number one was checked, approved, put up in the air to ensure it was the same at 8 metres high, then taken down and taken off the tower. Antenna number two was put in place and we did the same, putting on the coax and choke assembly and checking resonance.

Both antennas are home made, built to the YU7EF specs you can see here

Next job was to cut and prepare guy wires. The tower had been held up over the summer with provisional ropes.

The tower went back up, and while Elias and I checked out the curves on the analyser, Jose Belar and Vic got to work on terminating the bottom ends of the guy wires.

Here's Belar tightening the tensor clips at one end.

And here's what it looks like after finishing. We did a quick test hooking it up to my car to make sure the SWR on the rig was the same as on the analyser, and also to check there is no QRN problem. I made a quick contact with a UA6 station with the antenna pointed towards the states, seems all is OK.

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks and before CQWW and the wet weather come around, we can put up the complete tower with both antennas, rotator, and stack match.

HamLog from Pignology, a solution to portable logging

I'm an old fashioned kind of a guy and pretty much behind the times in a lot of things. I guess it runs in the family, since my dad classifies himself as "low-tech" :). Although for contesting we have lots of fun devices and use computer logging etc, I've only just started using computer logging at home this last year (I use logger32, after seeking a lot of advice). And in the car, since I don't have a computer, its old fashioned log book and pen.

However I suppose its inevitable to get caught up in change and last year I found myself wondering if any of the electronic gadgets I carry around in my bag could be used for logging. I shot out a few questions on forums and while it seems like Android users had an option with Amateur Radio Call Log, there was nothing for BlackBerry or for iPod. I asked the Maclogger developers if they were considering making that App available for iPod touch but no reply.

Whilst looking something up on QRZ.com the other day, I saw a banner ad for a firm called Pignology, and out of curiosity clicked to see what it was. Pignology is a small company run by Nick N3WG that produces apps for amateur radio, amongst which is HamLog, an logging App available for iPhone, iPad, and,...iPod touch! So, 89 cents and a download later, I am now set up to run a digitalised log, which in theory I will be able to export later to my PC via iTunes. This is not only great for the car, but also for when I finally manage to get my bicycle mobile back on the radio. Thanks, N3WG!