I don’t make it out for this event every year, but when I do I can usually count on a few curve balls being thrown my way. Usually the pitcher is Ma Nature, but sometimes it’s me. One year it snowed several inches overnight as we slept in our tents. Another year we endured a snowstorm just before the event but were lucky enough to discover bare, dry ground when we arrived at our camp site. Of course, it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect anything different this year.

Steve N0MHQ was my unwitting co-conspirator for this year’s event, and we hit the road early Saturday morning. Destination: the Ute Creek Trail in the Lost Creek Wilderness in Colorado. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the trail head. It usually takes an hour or so of hiking from there to arrive at our campsite on a little-visited ridge line off the trail, but this year would be different.

We began our hike up the trail, arriving at the point where we usually jump off the trail and begin a fairly steep ascent up the ridge line to the area we usually camp. But I was thinking back to ten or fifteen years ago when I decided to hike farther up the trail and subsequently discovered another jumping-off point that allowed an approach to our camp site from the opposite direction. This alternate route was longer but the climb was gentler, and I suggested to Steve that we could go that way if we wanted. Steve was looking forward to the steep climb even less than I was, so he was agreeable.

He should have known better.

Consider the following facts:

1) I’m over fifty years old, and anything that I remember from ten years ago or longer is probably wrong or may not have even occurred.

2) I didn’t bother with bringing a map, compass, or GPS because I had been on this hike (the usual route, not the alternative I’d proposed) about a million times.

So, there I was leading an expedition up the trail looking for a bush-whacking route that I only vaguely remembered from a decade or more ago. Not only would I need to recognize the right spot to jump off the trail, I’d also need to remember how to go cross-country to get to the right destination with no map. What do you suppose the chances were for success?

That’s right: zero. We hiked up the trail well past where I thought we should have found the jumping-off point without any hint of its presence. Finally, after about 45 minutes, I admitted defeat and we turned back, giving back all the elevation we’d gained.

At least it was a nice day for a hike.

We ended up turning an hour hike into about two and a half hours, finally reaching the top of the ridge line about 11 AM, Steve reminding me the whole way that we’d now climbed this twice. We decided on a camp site, dropped our packs, grabbed some lunch, and then we decided it was time to get the ham gear set up and start making some contacts. The first order of business was to get an antenna up in the air, and Ma Nature supplied a bounty of potential antenna supports in the form of majestic pine trees.

Getting an antenna up in the air in the woods is generally a matter of throwing a line over a tree branch and then hoisting the center of our dipole antenna up the tree. We’ve done it successfully more times than I can recall. Usually, I’ll tie a rock to the end of the line and then heave it over the branch. This day, though, Steve offered me a two-ounce lead sinker that he’d painted fluorescent orange. I took it, fixed my line to it, and prepared to throw. As I stood on the proverbial pitcher’s mound preparing to hurl the sinker, I felt a bit of concern over the fact that I’d not even warmed up in the bullpen before throwing this pitch. I gave it my best effort anyway but the sinker fell woefully short of its target.

Steve, standing by and watching the buffoonery, looked at me with a certain disdain, like he was wondering whether my IQ exceeded that of the lead sinker I’d just heaved. Apparently, there is technique to be used that I had overlooked. Sheepishly, I handed Steve the line and the sinker and asked him to demonstrate.

Steve demonstrating proper technique with the throwing line

Steve began swinging the lead sinker vertically in a circular motion, apparently with the intent to release the line at just the right moment so that the sinker would travel over the target tree limb, taking the line with it. That was the theory, anyway.

The sinker sailed left. The sinker sailed right. The sinker sailed just under the target limb. The sinker once sailed on what looked like the perfect path, only to jerk back to the ground because Steve was standing on the line. Once, the sinker sailed over the limb but refused to fall down the other side far enough for us to reach it. After that toss, Steve decided to use his very thin line instead of my heavier line, and to his credit he was finally successful. We used his thin line as a pilot for my heavier line, and eventually we’d managed to hoist the center of the dipole a good distance into the air (though having taken many more attempts to do so than ever before).

Steve and I began extending the legs of the dipole in an inverted-vee configuration, thinking that the battle was one. All of a sudden the center of the dipole began a free-fall that was interrupted only by another branch in its path. Our success had turned into failure! The zip tie that I’d used to secure the line to the center of the dipole had failed to hold, causing the center to fall.

Curses! I’d had it with this antenna. It clearly did not desire to be hung in the tree. Or perhaps it simply did not want to be forced to radiate. Regardless, it was clear what had to be done. We went to the relief antenna. I suggested to Steve that he put up his inverted Y vertical for 20 meters, and we’d use that to get on the air.

Instantly, our fortunes shifted. Steve erected his antenna efficiently and without fanfare while I took every opportunity to berate my dipole as I repacked it. The dipole gave no indication of embarrassment or remorse, though, as I stuffed it into its bag.

Finally, we were on the air. I pulled out my trusty Elecraft K1, a reliable friend for many years, and within minutes we had bagged our first contact for the event. Steve and I leisurely took turns at the controls, working a station or two at a time in between the various tasks associated with getting our campsite ready for the evening. When not actually at the controls, we left the K1 running so we’d have the melodic CW playing in the background while we set up shelters and enjoyed our peaceful surroundings–in complete contrast to the clownishness experienced earlier.

Steve working a station for QRP to the Field

To be truthful, Steve and I didn’t exactly knock ourselves out trying to maximize our score for the event. We took a relaxed, balanced approach to ensure we enjoyed the outdoor experience as much as the radio play. Between the two of us we barely made more than a dozen contacts, but neither of us ended up being particularly concerned about that. Despite doing everything the hard way–having taken the long way to our campsite, the antenna-launching debacle, and the low score–the weekend was definitely considered a wild success.

(You can see more pictures from our outing here.)

First Place, 2011 ARRL DX Contest, CW, Single Op 20m Colorado

Of course, you know what that means:

I was the only entrant in that category from Colorado. For the record, I had 21 QSOs and 17 multipliers, running 100 watts.

I owned this category. Literally.

I even printed out some log and dupe sheets and dug out my old clipboard. I noticed the clipboard still had a square of hook-and-loop material that I used to use to hold my old Handspring Visor PDA in place for logging. Ten years or so ago, I wrote a Palm contest logging application that I named GOLog, and I designed and constructed a companion device I called the Serial CW Sender that interfaced GOLog to my transceiver to handle contest keying. All in all, it was a pretty neat system. Its chief drawback was that data entry on the Visor (and other PDAs, for that matter) was pretty awkward–you either used Graffiti or the onscreen keyboard. While it’s true that you could buy nifty fold-up keyboards for these PDAs, it wasn’t possible to use a keyboard and the Serial CW Sender at the same time, since they both wanted to occupy the single serial port on the Visor. I did, however, pick up a Targus keyboard at the time so that I could make sure that GOLog would work with a keyboard (GOLog could be used with or without the Serial CW Sender).

I hadn’t used my Handspring Visor in years, and since I bought my new notebook computer six months ago, I didn’t even have the Palm Desktop synchronization software running on any of my computers. I wondered if I could even still use this stuff–after all, the hardware is more than ten years old. So, naturally, I gave it a shot.

Palm Desktop is still available for download from Palm’s website. It turns out that Palm Desktop won’t run properly on a 64-bit Windows 7 computer, so that eliminated using my new notebook. Instead, I installed on my MSI Wind netbook running 32-bit Windows 7. Palm Desktop runs like a champ on that platform.

My Handspring Visor is the original Visor Solo, and it came with HotSync cables for both serial and USB. Once I got Palm Desktop installed and running, I connected my Visor to the netbook using its USB cable and initiated a HotSync on the Visor. Much to my surprise, Windows 7 found a driver for it and installed it! I thought for sure I’d have to go hunting for a driver for the thing.

I wasn’t out of the woods yet, though. The HotSync process kept causing a fatal exception on the Visor. Apparently the Palm Desktop software was trying to sync with an application that didn’t exist on the Visor. I fixed this by turning off synchronization of all the apps. It would then HotSync, but nothing was being transferred. (Later I went back and enabled selected applications for synchronization–it’s safe to enable Date Book, Address Book, To Do List, Memo Pad, Install, and Backup. Enabling Package Installer caused the Palm to lock up, so leave that disabled.)

Next I re-enabled the application installation feature so that I could at least install the GOLog application, and that went without a hitch. GOLog was up and running on the Visor, but it’d been so long since I used the software that I had to consult the user’s guide (that *I* wrote) to remember exactly how to set up for a contest. So far, so good.

I had no intention of using the Serial CW Sender, but I thought I might try the Targus keyboard to see how that’d work for Field Day. Miraculously, I still had the CD containing the installer for the Visor keyboard driver. The installer wouldn’t actually run–it said it couldn’t locate the executable for Palm Desktop–but the driver file itself was located on the CD and was easily installed manually. Once I figured out that I had to reset the Visor before the keyboard would work, everything was up and running!

The last test was to see if GOLog would properly synchronize with Palm Desktop. When I wrote GOLog, I also wrote a conduit that transfers GOLog’s log files from the Visor to the PC as a text file. Thankfully, the conduit worked like a charm, and I was able to get a sample log off the Visor and onto the PC. All was set!

My first opportunity to try the system under actual contest conditions was the monthly Spartan Sprint, conducted by the Adventure Radio Society. While the Spartan Sprint doesn’t offer anywhere near the activity of Field Day, it did give me enough to shake down the setup and assess it for Field Day use. I managed about 10 contacts in an hour or so, with no surprises from the equipment. The keyboard made it a breeze to use the Visor for logging, and GOLog did a great job of handling logging and dupe-checking. Since I operate in search-and-pounce mode during Field Day, I wouldn’t really miss the Serial CW Sender’s ability to handle the contest keying.

One of the best thing about the Visor and other old monochrome LCD PDAs is that you can run them for an entire weekend on a couple of AAA batteries. This is a definite contrast to more modern color devices that drain batteries pretty quickly. Also, with the Visor, you can swap batteries in the field if needed. Almost all modern devices use rechargeable batteries that are built-in and can’t be changed. In this case, older technology is definitely better suited for my needs.

So I’m all set for Field Day, at least for my radio gear. No one will be able to accuse me of running the latest and greatest stuff. I’ve definitely turned the calendar back about ten years or so.

I have, at last, identified the one glaring difference between my generation of Amateur Radio experimenters and the current batch of 2 meter obsessed appliance operators.

In our day, it was our job to create emergencies. The new EmComm oriented hams are intent on “fixing” emergencies.

Although I didn’t become a ham until I was in my late thirties, I was an experimenter by the time I was ten. My parents detected the “mad scientist” gene in me at an early age, and foolishly nurtured my tendencies by giving me a chemistry set. Remember, this was back in the 60′s, when chemistry sets hadn’t yet had all the fun extracted from them by product liability lawyers. Mine had an alcohol lamp, glass test tubes, and plastic bottles of a variety of chemicals whose names I couldn’t even pronounce–the potential for both fun and disaster was thrillingly high.

I set up my “laboratory” under the stairs in the basement utility room (shared by the laundry and my dad’s workshop) and proceeded to wring as much chaos out of that set as I could. The stink bombs, and my cleaning my test tubes with bleach in the laundry sink, drove my mother nuts at times, but I never burned down the house or otherwise forced its evacuation. But I certainly had the potential, and that’s what mattered to me.

Then I graduated to electricity. We had an old model train transformer that powered many of my experiments and gadgets. My older brother showed me how to build electromagnets by winding wire around nails, and I was soon building my own telegraphs, burglar alarms, and anything else I could think of. Sparks definitely flew on occasion.

About this time one of my uncles gave me an old Knight Ocean Hopper shortwave receiver, introducing me to the wonderful world of alternating current. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the AC plug had to be plugged into the outlet in the proper orientation to avoid experiencing an unpleasant tingling sensation when I touched the metal front panel. This radio had a separate coil for each waveband, and the front panel regen controls gave you no way of knowing what frequency you were listening to. Of course, it didn’t matter anyway, as I had no idea of where to listen for different types of signals. My antenna was 20 feet of wire strung along the ceiling of the basement–hardly optimal, but I still managed to experience the occasional foreign language broadcast. Way cool when you’re twelve years old.

I knew about ham radio at that time but I didn’t know any hams, and I couldn’t afford to buy any ham equipment anyway. It was probably just as well, as geekery gave way to sports and other things as I grew older. My “mad scientist” side went into hibernation, awakened again when my wife gave me a shortwave radio for Christmas when I was in my thirties. That gift recalled the days of my youth, and I realized that I now had the knowledge and resources to become a ham. I’m not sure whether the “mad scientist” side of me has fully emerged again, but now that I have all sorts of electronics, tools, soldering irons, torches, and power supplies, all the pieces are there for once again raising the potential for emergency household evacuations. As KL7AJ put it at the end of his article,

I want to leave this hobby with eyebrows smoldering and ears ringing.

Me, too.

Up until now, I hadn’t really given that antenna a good workout. But last weekend was Field Day, and this year I had to settle for working Field Day from the shack. Sadly, I was disappointed by my antenna’s performance. Although I managed to work 50 QSOs in four or five hours, I struggled to hear and contact other stations, even when running 100W. The noise level was very high, and signal levels were underwhelming. I worked only two SSB stations, the rest being CW contacts. It was time to rethink my antenna situation.

Up to now I’d ruled out a dipole or similar antenna because I had no trees to support one. I hadn’t really considered using the house itself (it’s a two-story) to support a dipole. The house is wood-frame construction with wood siding, so having an antenna wire running along the side of the house shouldn’t be too bad, I figured. I decided it was time to experiment.

One of my favorite antennas is a half-size G5RV (I suppose a full-size one would be my favorite if I’d ever had enough space for one). My main HF antenna at my previous QTH was a half-size G5RV in a vee configuration supported about 25 feet up at the center by an aspen tree. And when I take my ham station out to the field, my main antenna is usually a half-size G5RV constructed with twinlead and lightweight wire–the entire antenna fits into a gallon freezer bag.

I did a little measuring and came to the conclusion that I could get a G5RV up about 20 feet if I used the side of my house to support it. The feedline could run up the back corner of the house. One leg would run along the side of the house from the back to the front, and the other leg would run through the air toward the back corner of my property and be tied off at the privacy fence. But would it work?

It took about an hour of time to put up the ladder and add some small hooks in strategic places on my house (hoping my neighbors wouldn’t get too nosy about what I was up to), and I soon had rigged a system that would allow me to easily hoist my feedline and wire legs up the side of the house and lower them again. I got everything rigged up, hoisted up, and connected up, and I went into the house to fire up the radio. I didn’t know how the antenna would tune up in a less-than-ideal configuration, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. This configuration beat the vertical hands-down! Noise levels were lower and the signal strength was much improved, and the antenna tuned sufficiently on every HF band except 30 meters.

My installation was far from stealthy, though. While the feedline and the leg on the side of the house were difficult to spot from the street, the leg running through the air in the back yard stuck out like a sore thumb–both the wire and the string supporting it were clearly visible. And since I wanted to save this antenna for portable work, I knew I’d have to rebuild it using a more stealthy approach. So I ran over to my favorite junque store and acquired some light-beige-colored 26-gauge stranded wire, and a stop at the sporting goods store yielded some nice invisible monofilament fishing line. I rebuilt the antenna using some extra twinlead I had laying around, hoisted everything back up, and tested again with the same happy result. And now the back leg of the antenna, while still visible, is much less noticeable. Hopefully, my neighbors won’t notice that any more than the vertical that I’ve since taken down.

Up to this point, hamming from this QTH has been a struggle. Hopefully this antenna will restore more of the fun. Tonight is the Adventure Radio Society’s monthly Spartan Sprint. I’ll let you know how the antenna performs.

I consulted with the smart guys on the AMSAT-BB mailing list, and the general consensus was that I would indeed need a preamp for best results. And then I read the last paragraph in the QST article:

On the downlinks, a low noise (1 dB NF) preamp mounted at the antenna was employed.

Duh. So, last week I ordered a 70 cm low-noise preamp kit from Down East Microwave. I’m looking forward to assembling it and trying it out as soon as it arrives. And while I’m waiting for it to arrive, I’ll be trying to repair my Samlex SEC-20 power supply. It went kaput last week. Luckily, Samlex tech support was kind enough to send me a schematic, parts list, and some troubleshooting info (let me know if you’d like a copy).

At any rate, I’ll update you on the Lindy and the preamp as soon as I have something to say.

So last weekend I was at the local Ace Hardware store with a list of parts in my hand. This list included items like:

• 1/2″ x 1/2″ gray PVC insert connector
• 1/2″ x 1/2″ gray PVC insert-to-threaded adapter
• 12″ x 1/2″ threaded gray PVC riser
• 5″ x 1/2″ gray PVC ferrules for spacing rain gutter nails
• 1/8″ aluminum tubing
• conductive grease

Some pretty obscure stuff, eh? I wasn’t having much luck finding the ferrules, so I enlisted one of the employees (an older guy) for some help. I showed him my list, and he squinted at it for a moment. Then he turned to me and asked, “Are you building an antenna?”

I laughed, “Yeah–how’d you know?” He chuckled and replied that another guy had been in the store recently with the same list. What are the odds of that? At any rate, he helped me round up the rest of the parts I needed, and construction begins today. I’ll post again with the results of the effort and my impressions of its performance.

I certainly made things interesting for myself last week when I purchased a 2007 Pontiac G6 GT hardtop convertible. It’s quite a car–200-hp 3.5L V6 (not overwhelming, but adequate), power everything, heated leather seats, awesome Monsoon sound system with XM radio and a 6-CD changer–it’ll be nice and comfy for my half-hour-each-way daily commute.

Any mobile ham radio installation in a modern vehicle presents challenges, and this car has them in spades. Things are a little easier with today’s crop of rigs where the front panel separates from the rest of the radio (meaning a smaller box to find a place for around the dashboard), but there’s still the problem of locating the rest of the radio, routing cables, placing speakers, and slapping an antenna someplace.

Now, don’t think for a moment that I’ve solved any of these problems yet. I’m still cogitatin’ on every one of these issues. Probably the first thing I started to think about was where to put the antenna. I normally favor a trunk lid mount. But watch this video of the roof retracting into the trunk:

(Is that cool, or what?) You can see that, at the very least, routing the antenna feedline needs to be well-thought-out. And when the top’s down, there’s very little room in the trunk, so it may not be possible to mount the radio body back there. On the plus side, there’s a fuse box in the trunk, so it might be possible to draw power from it for the radio if I can find a place to mount the radio back there.

Another challenge is getting the rig’s audio into the passenger compartment. On almost all mobile rigs, the speaker is contained in the radio box rather than the control head, so if the radio box isn’t mounted inside the passenger compartment, you’ll need to mount a speaker for the audio, or perhaps make use of an aux input to the car’s sound system. In my case, the Monsoon sound system doesn’t have a built-in aux jack, but I found a cool little add-on unit from PAC Audio that interfaces directly with my sound system to provide an iPod input as well as an aux input (or HD radio input). Installing this particular unit (at least in my car) requires removing dash panels and the radio, but the result is a seamless integration with the existing sound system. I’m seriously considering one of these just for the iPod interface. You can get this unit with the appropriate wiring harness for about $130 from several places on the web–much better than the $169 MSRP from the manufacturer. Other manufacturers make similar devices, such as Axxess Interface. Another option would be to use one of the FM transmitters on the market for playing the output of MP3 players on your car radio, but they don’t appear to work that well. And any solution that plays the rig’s audio through your car sound system makes it impossible to listen to the car stereo and monitor your rig’s audio at the same time.

So I’m nowhere near actually installing a rig in my new car at this point, and I’m not even sure whether I will install a rig. It’s a pretty sweet-looking car, and I don’t want to junk it up with a less-than-optimal installation job. If I can find a way to integrate a rig cleanly into the car (and be able to take it out again without leaving any residual effects), I may go ahead and do it. If I do, I’ll be sure to post about it here.

]]> http://eksfiles.net/2010/01/new-ride-new-radio/feed/ 0 http://eksfiles.net/2010/01/new-chinese-amateur-radio-satellite-ho-68/ http://eksfiles.net/2010/01/new-chinese-amateur-radio-satellite-ho-68/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:51:34 +0000 Dave http://eksfiles.net/?p=902 On 15 Dec 2009, AMSAT China launched a new amateur radio satellite, now designated as Hope Oscar (HO) 68. This satellite not only has a V/U FM repeater but also a V/U linear transponder for SSB and CW as well as a packet BBS system. This one should be great fun to work. Here’s a Youtube video giving the details:

Now I really need to get crackin’ on that backyard satellite antenna–maybe W4RNL‘s turnstile antenna (from the Aug 2000 QST), or W6NBC‘s quadrifilar helix antenna (from the Oct 2009 QST). Or maybe it’s time to concoct that servo-driven crossed yagi for auto-tracking the satellite…

So, a few days ago I received a note from Steve announcing the opening of his new GoatWare shop on Cafe Press. Now you, too, can have your own “Old Goats Rule!” t-shirt, water bottle, or coffee mug! And if you’ve never seen the goats before, check them out on Steve’s Youtube channel.