RaDAR challenge April 1st Saturday

Not a contest but a challenge. If I would have time this Saturday I certainly would give it a try. The challenge sounds most interesting:

The RaDAR “Challenge” is a unique event aimed at promoting the use of Rapidly Deployable Amateur Radio stations. Categories may be changed at any time during the challenge. The points system is so structured as to encourage portable RaDAR operations especially moveable RaDAR stations.

RaDAR operators are encouraged to be self sufficient during each challenge, not only with power supply and communications equipment but food, water, protective clothing and shelter, not forgetting the first aid kit.\

The challenge is on for 24 hours from 00:00-23:59 UTC but you have to pick a 4 hour period during this time to make your contacts.

Best description of the rules can be found in the SARL contest manual: http://www.sarl.org.za/Web3/Members/DoDocDownload.aspx?X=20161222085537waqSliCvbT.PDF

However, I found the description of the rules a little difficult to read. A short 10 point summary:

1. All legal modes can be used, all legal amateurradio bands can be used. Repeaters cannot be used.
2. Exchange: Callsign, Name, RS(T), QTH, Grid locator (6 digits, better 8 or 10 digits)
3. Scoring: 1 point every QSO. If the stations has moved you can make QSO again with a previous worked station.
4. Multipliers: 1x fixed RaDAR station (in building away from home), 2x field RaDAR station (camping), 3x Moving RaDAR station.
5. Bonus points: 5 points for one sat or digi QSO, 5 points for one RaDAR to RaDAR QSO on same continent, 10 points for one RaDAR to RaDAR intercontinental (DX) QSO.
6. After 5 QSOs you have to move, of course you are allowed to make more QSOs but they are not counting.
7. Distance to move see picture!
8. Use a log sheet for every different location see: http://radarops.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/11046905_10152762072212759_727315224761083499_n.jpg
9. A photo of the station should accompany every log entry including each new
location that moveable RaDAR stations visit.
10. Log sheets must be submitted by 15 April 2017, 29 July and 18 November 2017 and
sent by e-mail to edleighton@gmail.com


Extra link: https://zs6bne.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/radar-calling-frequencies/

See Eddie ZS6BNE's blog for background info: https://zs6bne.wordpress.com/

#cqww WPX 2017 contest review

Event: CQWW WPX SSB 2017
Section: LOW power SSB
Logger: N1MM+ latest version
Station: Icom IC-706MK2G at 100W
Antenna 1: 84m horizontal loop @7m agl
Antenna 2: Coppertape vertical (7,1m)  @9m agl
Antenna 3: 10m HB9CV @6m agl

A litte late with the review, just didn't have the time to review the log and things. I didn't spend all the time at contesting. It actually was less then expected. Therefore I probabely missed some nice openings on 15m. The weather was great and there were some chores that had to be done. My little girl already asked if I would build the trampoline again for her and so it had be done. After that I had to play with her of course, a lot of fun. I really don't know how on earth I managed to make 455 QSOs after all and reasonable DX as well last weekend. I attended a rock concert at friday and was back home at 01:30 local time in the morning. Up 06:30 local time (5:30 UTC) and started with the contest. Propagation was great on 160/80/40.

I managed a New Zealand QSO on 40m with ZL4YL Xenia, absolutely my best DX this weekend. She made many operators happy, although she was very very weak her high voice was cutting through like a knife making many QSOs to Europe. I heard her on Sunday morning as well. Unfortenately I never heard a whisper from S21 or E51 not even on other (WARC) bands as well. So, no ATNO this weekend...however I made some nice DX even on a almost dead 15m band.

The propagation on 20m, 15m and 10m was on and off. Like bursts. The only station I heard on 10m the whole weekend was 9A1A but I was not able to make any QSO there. When I tuned over the 20m band Saturday evening it was already completely dead very soon after sunset. But later on around 22:30 UTC it came to life again when I heard and worked several USA and Canadian stations. It was difficult to get into the shack at daylight but when I sometimes did for 5 or 10 minutes I luckely worked some DX. Sometimes the DX station was the only one on the band strange enough, like there was a pipeline between us. I noticed many strong stations were S9 at one moment and 5 minutes later they were covered by noise and signals were decreasing very fast. The low bands were much better, I even heard a few stations from the USA on 160m SSB although I was not able to get my tiny signal through and make a QSO. I noticed A lot of stations from the USA now between 3,6-3,7 MHz, they suddenly discovered this part of the 80m band? Or is it a change in restrictions? In the years past I always worked USA split were they transmit above 3,8 MHz and listen between 3,6-3,7 MHz. Propagations were indeed great sunday morning as most of the USA stations were S9 here on 80m. Last contacts were made on 80m sunday night, I struggled to get to 400 when suddenly I was spotted by good friend PB7Z, followed by a huge pile-up getting my 72 QSO extra in the log that hour. Tnx Bernard!

There are several ways to analyze the log. I have choosen a map per band worked to view:

15m only propagation tp the south and especially Africa. Daylight propagation when I had not much time playing radio.

20m always the DX band. Best DX with Japan

40m was exceptional good. Best DX New Zealand

80m was very good as well with some transatalantic contacts

160m was in very good shape for Europe. Although USA has been heard here

Last year I did the 100 DXCC QRP within 100 days challenge. I was in this contest with QRP, only 5W from my Yaesu FT-817. After I submitted my log at the CQWW WPX site I obtained my certificate for last year and discovered I was number one in the Netherlands ;-) Happy with the result!

Alpha Charlie (Air Cadets) again

Last chance for dutch stations to work these rare blue ham exercise air cadet station. Is it legal? That's a question that has been asked due to the posts and my activity on 60m. Yes, in the Netherlands at least it is legal to work these stations as the transmissions were directed to radioamateurs. Both militairy as radioamateurs are allowed to transmit and make contacts on the 60m band.

So, this weekend was the CQWW contest and in between I wanted to try to work some more and shoot some video from this rare event. Unfortenately I only heard a few MRE stations and they were weaker as last weekend. However, I managed to work some of them and shoot the video I wanted. It shows the difference in calling. This video is certainly a lot better compared the my previous one.

I didn't qualify for a certificate unfortenately. Only a few have made more as 25 contacts needed. Wish they send a certificate for at least 5 contacts made, it's difficult enough!

My results from their site:

Contacts for PE4BAS = 6
MRE71(5.395), MRE31(5.403), MRE41(5.395), MRE65(5.404), MRE31(5.395), MRE65(5.398),
Contacts for PE3BAS = 1
MRE21(5.395),

MRE21 logged me wrong, it doesn't matter. I can imagine you make a mistake if you're not used to listen to SSB signals. And MRE21 certainly was a young cadet and not a experienced HAM radio operator.

A map of their contacts from their site:

#cqww WPX SSB 2017 what's interesting?

Well, in the weekend that our time changes from winter to summertime (or vice versa) it's contest

time. So is this weekend. I've been looking at the announced operations for this contest. So far the

only interesting DXCC that's a ATNO for me personally would be E51 (South Cook Isl.) and S21 (Bangladesh). I will look out for them definitely. If I would plan a major DXpedition I would always try to do that during the biggest contests weekends, it gives so many more QSOs. However propagation is a bit low but chances for DX are always there. I will not be on for 48 hours but slip into the shack whenever possible, probabely most times during the night and early morning. The PE4 suffix is not that common so I expect some nice pile-ups.

Hear you on the air! 

Alpha Charlie (Air Cadets)

In between busy familie chores I found some time to be in front of the radio and work some of the air cadets in their blue ham radio excersise. I think many stations did not know what it was all about as the air cadet stations don't use the radioamateurs language and codes. They call CQ with "Alpha Charley". Unfortunately I was not able to get that on video but will try to do that next weekend. I made a video from my contact with MRE31S but unfortenately the audio doesn't sound very clear.
Most of the activity was outside the frequencies allocated for most countries as the region-1 60m allocation. We dutch radioamateurs are still lucky to be allowed outside these frequencies and so it was possible to work these militairy style stations again.

I found a interesting report from a participating air cadet station of last year, nice read:

http://www.centraleast-atc.org.uk/archives/3715

Another interesting page is the wiki page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force_Air_Cadets

There are also dutch air cadets, but will they ever organise a radio excersise?

http://www.nlac.nl/air-cadets.html

RX VK 160m JT65A

Amazing, I received VK5PO a couple of times on 160m. Strongest signal was -18dB. Several stations were replying but he didn't make a QSO. My own signal was spotted across Europe and part of Russia. There was one transatlantic spot from VO1HP. However I've never been able to make a real QSO on 160m that direction...

Correction I just made my first transatlantic QSO on 160m. Used 30W on my vertical. Never thought it was possible....with Canada I would believe it. But the first one was with KA1R Matt from Massachusetts USA. Propagation on the low bands has to be amazing tonight...

Other bands seem to be open as well. Worked 9N7EI (Nepal) on 30m CW and V21ZG (Antigua& Barbuda) on 60m RTTY.

Blue HAM excercise 2017

Remember excercise blue ham from last year. A unique event on the 60m band. And it seems it tasted for more. Luckely the organisation planned another time of the year as well and divided activity over two weekends. 18/19 and 25/26 March. I think they will get busy this time as there is a lot more activity on 60m now. Last year it was just impossible to work the 25 contacts needed for a certificate. Hopefully this year will be easier. You can work the same stations every day again counting as separate contacts.

See for info/rules: http://alphacharlie.org.uk/exercise-blue-ham/

Some tips if you like to work these military style stations:

- Listen before calling!
- Speak slowly and articulate well.
- They want to have your call, signal report and location (6- digit maidenhead locator).
- Don't use Q codes, they don't use it.

Remember that most of the operators are excersising and not used to make QSO's every day. However some of them could be regular HAMs of course...

You can't have all the DX

Some activity on 80m JT65/JT9 from my station yesterday evening. After trying to reach TU7C (Ivory coast) on 40m were he was S9. I gave up after 10 minutes, pile up was just too large over 15KHz. TU7C kept calling but worked only few. JT9 activity was no that busy and after some calling I gave up again, no replies. JT65 was a lot better. I was spotted in Australia to my surprise! Theoretically it would be possible to make a contact. I saw HS0ZEE from Thailand calling CQ but I could not get my signal visible on his end, he probabely does not use JTDX yet? Had to go QRT after a while, worked a lot of stations but no real DX. You can't have it all.

QRPver 20m PSK version test

I already announced on several sites I won a QRPver transceiver. Yes, I won! Remember the post from AE5X about the QRPver? Well, I did....and a few posts later John did a "give away". Well actually you had to do something for it. To keep a long story short: I won! The QRPver surprisingly arrived the same Saturday as the PACC contest started and John wrote me a e-mail if I received the package just that day. Of course it was just the QRPver and no cables so I had to search for those first. Then I had no spare moments to properly test and document my findings. So things moved on till last week. I finally hooked up the small transceiver to my old laptop and after some fiddling I could receive something. Of course it was late in the evening and normally 20m band is dead at that time. So it surprised me that the little thing was actually receiving DX, it has to be quite sensitive. I also made a small transmitting test and monitored myself to see if the signal was clear. The QRPver is very easy to setup, just a 12V power supply and 2 cables with 3,5mm stereo jack plugs are enough to connect it to your computer. It switches to TX internally by VOX as soon as audio is detected.

The next day I was at home in the afternoon and could finally test if I was able to make a QSO. That was no problem at all. RW3QW answered my 1W PSK63 signal. Actually the QRPver is a complete 1W output single frequency transceiver and it does a surprisingly good job. It is as small as a package of sigarettes and consumes approx 300mA when transmitting and only 20mA when receiving. You can imagine all kind of ideas you can do with this 20m transceiver like a 1W DX station working as many DXCC you can on 20m PSK, monitoring station, beacon station or whatever you like. Find a tranceiver that fits you best on the QRPver site. I'm shure it is possible to pick any frequency you want if you want to buy one. Personally I think I would like to have a 20m JT65 version but I know if you want to use it for example in portable communications a 40m model would be a good choice.

Well John, I really enjoy playing with it. Although I've not yet decided what to do with it?
I might set it up as a beacon for a while. Or keep it as a demonstration transceiver if someone likes to know how digimode works. It is easy to bring with you. The only other thing you need is a 12V battery or small PSU, some coax and a 20m antenna. Thanks very much for this tiny gem and the best wishes from northern part Netherlands.

MP73N

M1KTA announced he will be QRV as E51KTA on MP73-N narrow band SSTV from 10-20 March. It would be cool to at least receive him. Transmitting on the 10.132 MHz NBTV frequency is a problem as we are not allowed to use that mode below 10.140 Mhz as far as I know the rules in the Netherlands. I never heard of this narrow band TV mode before but is sounds interesting. You can receive it with MMSSTV. Personally in his situation I would prefer FSQ as it has message capability and at the same time you can send pictures with (almost) the same quality as MP73N.

A nice page to read about NBTV is the K2UK's Quick and Dirty Guide to Narrow Band TV wikipage.

I was not aware this NBTV seems to be populair as there is even a N-SSTV group you can find it here: https://narrowsstv.wordpress.com/

I will be monitoring 10.132 MHz SSTV at least this weekend and hopefully I'll catch a picture....

Pain in the....

It seems so easy to write a blogpost. But sometimes things change because you did something stupid or even without your own fault. It costs valuable time I want to spend to write a new post. Last year I purchased a second hand laptop, a lot better than my previous one. It has W10, plenty of RAM, SSD, i5 processor and starts in 18 seconds. This is certainly the fastest computer I ever had. The problem only is that W10 seems to be very vulnerable for adware and virus attacks. Since I did make some videos for my blog I installed a converter I previous used on my XP and Vista computer in the shack without any problems. But it seems to infect W10. This is the second time this happens and I am not happy about it. I do have antivirus tools on and they do detect a few adware and trojans but not everything. Its a pain to remove everything as the malicious software blocks installation of anti-adware tools like Malwarebytes etc. I did have my share of virus programs in the past starting with a bootsector virus in the early nineties, so far anti virus software did detect everything on previous MSDOS and Windows versions. But W10 seems a complete different story....

630m WSPR again

Results 630m WSPR RX till now.

It gets boring, 630m again. I got 35th place at PE1ITR's WSPR challenge. That's average. See results here from 5-3-2017. Not impressive. Max. distance was southern Italy 1600km. I know for sure my horizontal loop is not the ideal receive antenna for MF. If I want to improve I should make a dedicated antenna.

I attended a clubmeeting lately were PA2DTA showed some kind of direction finding receiver. It was capable of receiving in what I think the medium wave range. One of the things he showed was the difference between a attached longwire and a small dipole made with windings on a ferrite rod. I have to admit the dipole received a lot better as it didn't receive electric noise. However it was directional and that is nice to track a station but isn't when receiving WSPR signals around you.

However I found a commercial made MW antenna somewhere on the attick. So I thought I give it a test. I just have it on my radiodesk inside the house that is. And indeed the medium wave stations came in very clear but signals were significant less. All the noise received with the big loop was gone.

Would I receive WSPR signals on 474,2KHz? Yes, not as many but I did! I think this design could be much better as just a single wire outside the house. Thinking of a bigger loop outside the house. The only problem is the directivity. If you call it a problem of course as you are able to null out the QRM/QRN. It would be nice to experiment with it in the future. It also shows that you are able to pull WSPR signals out of the noise with a simple antenna inside the house on the 630m band.

#ARRL DX SSB contest

I took part in the ARRL DX SSB for little over a hour at Sunday afternoon. I'd choosen to be on 20m at around 16:00 UTC as it was the best time according to VOACAP. Propagation was not that good but managed to work 36 USA/Canadian stations. Not bad for 100W and a vertical. I did comparisations between the horizontal loop and the vertical and this time the vertical won with 6 to 12dB average.

630m band OPERA

No, not a opera here. It's OPERA digimode. Really don't know what I'm talking about. But PA1SDB Peter asked if I could monitor the 630m band with OPERA. So I installed the software and it seems to be easy enough.

I managed to receive 5 stations in 24 hours. I guess it's just the popularity of this digimode. It's not as well known as WSPR. I might test it another time again. In the mean time I'm back on WSPR.

630m band WSPR

Neighbourstation PA1SDB Peter requested a couple of times if I could do some receive tests on 630m. He recently started to transmit on 630m with a Raspberry Pi. I didn't have much time for radio last couple of weeks but yesterday evening I managed to set the FT-817 on WSPR 474,2KHz and attached the loop only to the center of the PL connector. After some fiddling I managed to receive some WSPR stations.

Best "DX"was EA5DOM over more then 1700km. Peter also requested for a OPERA test. So I will probabely try this evening or in the weekend.

Some pictures of Peter's setup can be found on his QRZ page. Additional pictures of the antenna system he uses below.

Inverted L fed with a variocoil seen below

Spring!

March....spring! I didn't have much time for the radio hobby last couple of weeks. Hopefully I will have some more time this month...

To have a good start I participated in the UKEICC contest on 80m SSB this evening. So much fun and it only lasts one hour. You need to submit your log within 1 hour after the contest finished. I will see the results tomorrow. I like this type of contest. Simple, fast and easy.

Below a four minute video taken in my shack. When watching it I ask myself how on earth I dig stations out of that noise. But right in front of the radio is a totally different sound.

EI7GL wrote a nice review of the contest here:
https://ei7gl.blogspot.nl/2017/03/ukeicc-80m-ssb-contestwed-1st-march-2017.html