Food for thought

These last few days, we have experienced some of the best days of the current sunspot cycle, with the solar flux index being up around 170. Even though it's midwinter here in the northern hemisphere, and 10 metres hasn't opened up like it would at equinox with these SFI values, propagation has been nevertheless pretty good. It means that not only is propagation into the pacific good at sunrise, but also into places like Alaska and Japan at the same time, not to mention very strong local signals. It has also meant coast to coast openings into the USA later on, mostly on 17 and 20 metres, and allowing 59 contacts into Hawaii plus good contacts into southern Africa too.

This afternoon I found myself home alone in front of the radio and since things had been good from the car, I thought I'd switch on, something I haven't done for at least a couple of months (from home). First contact was with PH9HB/AM, piloting his Boeing 737-800 over Mauritania, on a flight from the Gambia back to Amsterdam. I've already had a number of contacts with another pilot on one of these planes, Cyril DF1CHB. Not surprisingly they are friends!

Next contact was with New Zealand station ZL2JBR. I was extremely surprised to hear his 59 signal punching through the high QRN with the beam still pointed to west Africa, which is sort of long path to his area, since normally in our afternoon/evening, signals would normally come through on the short path. After turning the beam back and forth a bit, I settled on a heading over south east Africa, a setting many spanish stations had used to work ZL9HR last month. John came back to me with a 59+ and we had a nice long chat. While talking, we both looked at each others respective QRZ.com profiles. John's profile shows a ham dream location, perched on the top of a 300m high cliff right on the ocean:



I also learnt how, after he had read Les Moxon's famous book "HF antennas for all locations", he tried experimenting with different antenna heights on his tower, finding on the 20m band two heights where the signals into Europe were signficantly stronger than others. And, contrary to poplar wisdom, the highest was not the best! On the 22m tower, the best spot by a long chalk was at 11m high. This goes to prove that whilst on flat land an antenna will pretty much follow a pattern of "the higher it is, the lower it radiates", on uneven terrain things can change quite signficantly due to reflected signals.

While talking, John also looked at the photos of my mobile station on the profile and wondered if I'd ever operated by the sea with a cliff either behind me or beside me. His experience is that this kind of setup can also produce extremely high gains in the direction of the reflection.

So, after this stimulating chat, we will see about using the motorised tower at ED5T to see if we can find any interesting differences at different heights, and also I will be checking out google maps to see if there is anywhere near here where I can go park up next to the sea in front of a cliff and see what happens! Results will be posted here....

VISIT TO ED1R

ED1R is without a doubt one of the top contest stations in Spain nowadays. At ED5T we have followed the fortunes of the group from their humble beginnings through to the present station they have in the small village of Papatrigo, a rural area in the province of Avila, northwest of Madrid.

The mastermind behind all of this is Jesús, EC1KR, a 29 year old native of the village but resident in the provincial capital, 20 minutes away. Jesús and myself, together with EC2DX Imanol, are the organisers of the 2013 URE team in the IARU HF championship, and since URE approved our proposal last month, we have been talking about getting together. This is not easy, since the nearest common point to the three of us is over 3 hours drive, but as luck would have it, during a christmas family visit I found myself an hour away from Papatrigo and with a morning to spare, so Jesús kindly agreed to come over and show me the station.

I arrived a bit before Jesús and his mum opened up for me so I could see around. The first thing that struck me was that the antennas are all in a relatively small lot. Basically the station has been set up in an old cowshed in the middle of a vegetable garden! There are four towers there, and the second thing a visitor will notice is that the 10 and 15m antennas first installed are really rather low. A fifth tower is "in process" but like many things in Spain, the economic situation means this plan is on ice for now.

I won't go into details about what's there, if you are interested there is plenty of detailed information on www.ed1r.com , but will comment on some things I thought of interest.

First of all the antenna setup is designed to give rapid movement in different directions. There are both fixed and rotatable antennas, plus the addition of a TH5 tribander using the novel 4O3A triband splitter (see http://www.4o3a.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=127&Itemid=509 ). All of this uses custom designed software by Pablo EA4TX (http://www.ea4tx.com/wp/?page_id=59) for easy on-screen point and shoot, plus Pablos software controls stack selection using the SJ2W stack match (http://www.sj2w.se/contest/?page_id=1557).

All of these technological innovations were very interesting to see working, and I was able to sit down at one of the stations and see how easy it was on 20m to use the 4 element DX beam pointing towards the USA, together with the TH5 fixed towards Europe, and choose between one, other, or both, either at the press of a button or at the click of a mouse. Jesús tells me it's even possible to TX all your power through one antenna, but RX through both, a nice option thought out for trying to work the states but not wanting to miss out on EU calling off the side.

Before getting down to business though, in traditional style Jesús brought some "churros y porras" and we had coffee and churros while chewing the fat a bit! Here's a photo of the two of us getting ready for the station tour:

And with that, seasons greetings to all, may 2013 bring us all lots of sunspots, good DX, and fun contesting!

ARRL 10 metre contest

I had decided a few months ago already that I wanted to make a serious entry with a view to putting in a good QRP score on SSB, operating portable-style from my usual seaside location.

 

I’d done a lot of prep work with the 10m antennas, trying out 2 element and 4 element designs, with a 2 element phased design in the works. I had the option to use the FT-1000 MkV Field in order to do SO2V, the poor man’s version of SO2R, CQing on one VFO and doing s+p on the other. So I was quite prepared.

 

At the beginning of the week prior to the contest, conditions were very poor, but the NOAA forecast was that it would get better, with an SFI forecast of 130 and low absorption. However it just didn’t happen and on Saturday morning, SFI was at a meager 95. Great for low bands, not so hot for high bands....

 

I trundled on down to the port and set up. In the end I used my Kenwood TS850, since I hadn’t had time to set up the audio on the Field and also it didn’t fit in the car. I set up the quarter wave on the car and the 2 element vertical yagi and had a tune around. Heard JY4NE and called. And called. And called. He finally pulled me out of the noise. No such luck with VK6IR. Or with RT4RO. After an hour, and only one more QSO in the log, I realized that there was no way I was going to get any kind of record on QRP, so I cranked up the wick to 100w. This time I managed to get VK6IR and a couple of others in the log but really not a lot happening.

 

I decided that since there was nothing happening, it might be a nice idea to try out the new phased design. This is based on the notes in the WX0B stackmatch. Basically it consists of two identical half wave verticals, in my case centre fed. If they are spaced a half wavelength apart, when fed together using a 0.41 wavelength phasing line from the phasebox to each vertical, it will give a broadside pattern with 4dB gain over a single vertical. It can also be fed to give endfire in both directions, with up to 6dB gain with a half wave of spacing. With the centre fed antennas, I used a third fishing rod in the centre to support the box. This meant that I was able to get full spacing (5m between verticals and 2m80 lines means the box cannot be on the ground!) and also keep feedlines quite horizontal to avoid feedline radiation. Unfortunately the clamp was too big and I needed to tape it all up provisionally. This is what it looked like:

 

 

How did it work? Well to be honest I noticed very little difference on RX. And there was hardly anyone to test it with on TX. I decided to take it down again and put up the 2 element parasitic I’d started with, on the basis that it was almost less work getting out of the car and moving the reflector every once in a while. This may be a design to think about for a more permanent installation, or for a band where antennas are so big they need to be guyed, or radials need to be moved, etc. But for vertical dipoles on 10 and maybe 15, I think the parasitic design is a better all round solution.

 

The day wore on and we continued to have what Bob K8IA calls “spotlight propagation”. I would hear one loud Finn, for example, for about 5 minutes, but only one. Then a state might come up out of the noise for a few minutes. Some were even less, the exchange having to be quick and not be left with one of us shouting,….”number?...number?....numberrrrrr?????????????!?!?!” At the end of Saturday, I’d worked all continents, 33 multipliers, but only 53 QSOs!

 

And that was how it ended. I got up on Sunday and saw the SFI had crept up to 100, but I decided to spend the time doing other things instead. I kept an ear on the radio at home and heard the states coming in at dusk, but in spite of that I think I took the right decision. Next year will be better, right??

 

Points to note:

 

 - I might try to recreate the 2 ele phased array using end fed antennas, easier setup which would allow the phase box to sit on the ground.

 

- End fed antennas also take out the guesswork on whether your feedline is horizontal enough and if its affecting the performance.

- In the afternoon a strong gust of wind blew the reflector down and the SWR went up. I checked, and on the rig it showed resonance at 29.4. I double checked on the analyzer and it showed the same. Something local affecting the SWR? Or did I screw up when I was labeling the elements after putting away the 4 element last time? 
 
- I plugged in my 12V to 19V DC to DC converter for the netbook and zas! S5 to S9 of QRN. Trying to remember what I used to power the PC last time. And thinking, last time was on 40m, maybe it was making that noise then and I hadn’t noticed? On marginal 10m, you can tune across the band even with S2 noise and think there is no one there. Need to check whether the netbook will charge on 12V straight connection to the battery.

Next contest….um, not sure. ARRL DX for sure, but maybe something in between?

ZL9HR, finally in the log

Well, I have to admit that I really had my doubts about this one. It's not so much the distance, since in spite of being a long way away (18377km), I still manage to make regular contact with "mainland" New Zealand regularly. It's more to do with the fact that it is a lot further south, 1800km south of Auckland, for example, which makes it a lot more complicated, plus the fact that it's been 13 years since there's been any ham radio activity from there.

The team set out last Monday 26th and was due to arrive a couple of days later. However large storms meant that they had to seek shelter and so were not up and running until Saturday December 1st. This meant that instead of ten days, they would only be there for a week. In spite of having a possible 7 stations on the air simultaneously, the demand for Campbell Island is high and big pileups therefore assured. Also, the NZ department of conservation, in charge of the island, had imposed two conditions that further restricted possibilities. One was that the beach area was off limits, so no low angle verticals on the beach, and secondly, no overnight stays so limited operating times.

Sunday evening I got the news on our HQ whatsapp chat that EA4ZK worked them on 20m SSB. On Monday I heard them on 20 SSB with strong signals, very encouraging, but absolutely no way to crack the pileup. On Tuesday evening a lot of spanish stations took advantage of a brief 20m opening on CW and I am also lucky enough to be in the log.

However what I was really looking for was an SSB contact from the car. Wednesday was a washout, no SSB activity on the long path and then no activity on 40m at nightfall. I went home and checked their web, where there is now enough data to get a good idea of when and where is good to work them. Between that and the spots of the DX cluster, I decided that since today, Thursday, is a national holiday, I had to get up early and take my big 40m antenna with me.

And thats exactly what I did. At around 6.30 I was already setting up the 40m full size vertical and the usual 20m full size vertical on the car, and then sat down to monitor the bands and the cluster. Around 20 minutes later, I started to hear them come up through the noise very weak on 20, and a few calls later 5 kc up, got a call back "mobile??". I gave the call a couple of times, exchanged 59, and gave my thanks for the new one, replied to with a "You're welcome!" I guess the op was Jacques ZL3CW, from the french accent.

Here's what it looked like:

(The spiderpole supports the wire which screws into the hustler mount on the car)

Since I'd gone to the trouble of putting up the 40m antenna, I stayed for a while to see if they would come up, but to no avail. I worked the 5T0SP operators and a couple of stateside stations, and when it was daylight and no real chance of hearing them even if they came on, I called it a day and headed for home.

The crazy things we do for radio.....!

CQWW CW 2012 EA5ON

Two years ago I did 15m QRP in my first real attempt in a CW contest. Last year I had planned on improving my score in the same category, but a cycling accident meant I couldn't do much with the paddle. This year, I decided to see if I could do what I wasn't able to do last year.

This weekend was busy with other things and it wasn't until late saturday evening that I sat down at the rig. I haven't made any CW contacts in a long time, although I do do a bit of practice on morse runner from time to time. So when it came to the real thing, I was pretty slow in picking up calls. I was able to work a couple of brazilians, and very surprisingly, DR1A with a weak backscatter signal, managed to pull me out of the noise, before I headed off to bed.

Sunday morning I got on for an hour and a half and more of the same, it took me ages to decipher calls but got there in the end and managed around 40 qsos. Sunday afternoon I got on again and stayed until the band closed, with 120 QSOs, 18 zones, and 43 countries. So, I didn't beat my 2011 score, but I had fun and worked some nice DX, including the guys at EL2A in Liberia, our Czech friends at C5A in the Gambia, and the lads at D4C in Cape Verde, all in zone 35. I also managed a few nice central and south america QSOs.

So, an uneventful CQWW CW, but at least I'm keeping my hand in with the CW.....

Next contest, ARRL 10m in two weeks time. Watch this space!

(Sorry no photos of this test)

MORE ON 2 ELEMENT VERTICAL BEAMS

A few months ago, I decided to try out using a parasitic element on a tripod to convert the vertical on my car into a 2 element vertical beam (see http://www.ea5on.com/2012/05/welcome-back-after-6-year-delay-to-see.html)

The more recent tests have been using the vertical dipole, 2 element yagis, and 4 element yagis, also reported on this blog.

At my current location in the port, it seems like development is afoot and shortly I may have to find myself a new spot to operate from since they are planning to build a boatyard where I usually operate from. So. before that happens, I wanted to try to operate a contest from there to see how I got on with the beams. I had thought about CQWW CW but my CW is still quite poor, so, since all the antenna trials are on 10m, why not the ARRL 10m contest?

The recent tests indicated that perhaps on some paths, propagation might not always be coming in on the expected path, and that either an omnidirectional, or perhaps better, a rotatable antenna, would be desirable in order to both check the differences, and of course work more stations in the contest! My idea is to try QRP, so every little extra dB counts.

One idea which is under way is to build a simple rotary 2 element yagi using the 6m mast I used for the quad in CQWPX, and making the vertical elements out of telescoping whips. Watch this space!

In the meantime I decided to take a leaf out of the CBers books and try to make a beam on top of the car. If it was to work, it might be a cheap and cheerful way to get some gain and easy directivity without a complicated setup.

I measured the distance from the back ball mount to a point on the roof where I could mount another vertical reasonably straight, it measures just short of a metre and a half, acceptable for 10m. I put the magmount on, measured another vertical a few inches shorter (this time using a 3 foot mast and a 4 and a half foot telescopic whip) and installed this director element on the magmount. SWR was lowered a bit, as expected.

On-the-air tests yesterday with stations in Ukraine, Canada, and the USA, indicated a more or less expected front to side pattern of between one and 4 s units, depending on the station. However since this depends on propagation and QSB (fading), and there was no reference antenna, plus I wasn't in a great place for 360º testing, I wanted to do more on-air tests.

Here's what it looks like set up:

When is an omnidirectional not an omnidirectional?

The answer is, when it's on a car.

This afternoon I made a sked with Victor EA5KV to do a local test with no QSB. Before doing anything else, I wanted to test the single vertical I normally use, to see if it made any difference depending on where the car was looking. I went to a location close by to my normal spot but where I was able to drive around in circles without any problems.

Conventional wisdom says that the best place to put an antenna on your car is in the centre of the roof. If you put it at the back or front, it will radiate better over the area of metal. That is to say, in my case where the antenna is mounted in the centre of the rear, there should be a stronger signal forward over the car roof.

The first noticeable thing was that there was a big difference while driving around in a 360º cicle, including a big null where Vic lost me completely, we hadn't expected there to be a big difference.

The second thing, which we noticed after getting the compass out to confirm, is that the antenna radiated the strongest signal at approx 70º left of forward, and the null was 180º from that. We checked this three times to make sure it was correct. I can think of no reason why it should be that way. Strongest signal was S7.

Having done the single element test we tried the 2 element, and this gave more of a text book result. About 1 S unit of gain above the single element at its strongest, but the direction was correct. Front to side and back were quite noticeable. I wanted to try FM for better S unit reading but Vic has a fixed roofing filter in his FT-1000 which is too narrow for FM use.

I wanted to continue tests against the 2 element vertical yagi on the fishing rods but the rain started getting very heavy and we had to abandon for today.

More crazyness will follow when the sun comes out!

CQWW SSB 2012 ED5T

Rather than repeat it all over again, best check out the link on 3830:

http://lists.contesting.com/archives//html/3830/2012-10/msg02787.html

Also this time I tried my hand at making a video. Being my first attempt, it's not great, but it gives you an idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_fxQEzrsCc

Since Andreu couldn't stay for the test, we took the usual post-test photo before we started!

Seated from left to right, Jose EA5GS, Victor EA5KV, Andreu EC5AA, Elías EB5KT, Juan EA5GIE. In the foreground, your scribe, EA5ON.

Thanks to everyone who called us!