I went to the 985 breakfast and chatted lots of Vic and Jerry.

After breakfast, I hit the parks for some POTA. I started at Middle Creek where I tested my EFHW vs the Tactical Delta Loop.

Next, I setup at State Game Land 156 down the road with the telescoping antenna for a CB walkie talkie.

I had created a channel on my Meshtastic node for SPARC and at the Elmer night, we signed people up to use it.

Name: SPARC
PSK: WVaaYi2B/GJWGJwgbyXH7+na142aLwend1+UA2W2CPo=

I encountered a bug using the ATU on R1CBU 0.29.2. I had lots of tunings very near each other, so it switched a lot. It queries and uses the nearest tuning to current frequency, so lots of close tunings will cause thrashing as you move. I cleared the atu table in params.db to alleviate the problem for a bit.

I had followed the these nice directions to build my 4:1 unun to use with a Rybakov and Tactical Delta Loop, but I made a mistake:

• the wires that come from the shield continue in opposite directions around the toroid
• on my bad build, they originally both went the same way side by side.
• the diagram is clear, if you look closely, but the picture is even clearer.

I tested the 4:1 with the tactical delta loop. It consists of:

• the 4:1 unun.
• 2 17-ft telescoping whips up diagonally 90 degrees from each other.
• 25-ft wire connecting the ends of the whips with alligator clips.
• 3d-printed plastic mount to hold it all at the bottom.
• screwdriver stuck through the mount into the ground to hold it up.
• alligator clips to connect the unun to each side of the loop.
• ground spike (screwdriver) wired to the ground side of the loop/unun.
• tuner is required to work 40M-6M. 80M and 160M didn’t want to tune.

My Week in Radio

• launched the newly-tuned slim-jim antenna
  • tuned the antenna, soldered in a bit more wire at the top
  • hung right below my quarter-wave
  • compared both antennas simultaneously with the 2 quansheng HTs with dBm measurements
  • lower antenna is for the Btech radio running APRS
  • upper antenna for general scanning and local
• learned about 900MHz radio at the SPARC meeting
• learned about satellite work at 21 lunch in Harrisburg
• had the thru-window cable flake out during check-in

Questions

• W3JAM, Jeff:
  • Has anyone used delving or divining rods for finding water or power lines?
  • KC3WWC, John:
    • Tried it as a kid with copper wire rods to find water and wires around the house.
    • Seemed much like the Ouija board with wires. Probably just recognized it.
  • KC3OOK, Bill: Had some well drillers do it, but seemed like part of the show.
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • Can’t see how it would work, especially a wooden stick.
    • Would need quite the field to cause movements in the wire
    • Probably easier to attribute it to minute recognitions of the douser.
  • KC3SQI, Wayne:
    • Has known dousers for water to use Green Willow Stick.
  • N3OGF, John:
    • His Dad doused for water lots of times.
  • W1RC, Mike:
    • There’s a Dousers Convention in Vermont.
  • KC3OOK, Bill:
    • His well is 300 ft down.
    • Water doesn’t really “flow” underground.
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • Knew a custom home builder who was a douser.
    • If you drilled somewhere else, would there still have been water?
    • Stick would rotate up and back toward him near the water line.
    • Sister tried it and felt it, even though she may have tried to fight the movement.
  • W3JAM, Jeff:
    • Read an article, and he’s trying to find a conductor.
    • Doesn’t think it’ll work.
• KC3MAI, Joe:
  • QRM, HF Noise on low bands.
    • S5 noise on 40m
    • S3 on 80M and 160M
  • Is a certain amount of noise to be expected? Can it be remediated?
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • QRM vs QRN: man-made vs natural
    • Static from lightning
    • Static from wind
    • Solar panel noise
    • Man-made noise can be fixed if it’s in your house
      • Try running off battery
      • Eliminate electrical things to see if anything fixes it
      • Cut the whole breaker
      • A dead short across the antenna may still see noise: thermal noise
        • noise floor
    • Neighborhood noise might be hard to remediate.
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • Has nearby PECO, appliances, Amtrak
    • Searched and found bad wall wart power supplies
    • Neighborhood plasma TV that growls on 75M
    • Has tracked down bad power line hardware
  • KC3MAI, Joe:
    • Has several Rokus that might have unclean power supplies.
  • KC3KFT, John:
    • Pole insulators on power lines can arc depending on weather, humidity, contamination.
    • 6M AM is a good band/mode for searching for noise also 2M AM.
    • Hit the pole with a sledge hammer to see if the noise changes
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • Crackling on hot humid nights near high voltage lines.
    • Wide-band spark
    • Every wire is an antenna, so could be an emitter.
    • CFL or LED lights
  • KD3ZIM, Bob:
    • Had a noise problem several years ago.
    • Called PECO, suspecting power line noise.
    • PECO traced the noise and fixed it.
      • cool receivers and spectrum analyzers
      • checked his scope in his shack and got started.
      • found the line 100-150yds from the house
      • heard the buzzing like welding.
      • cracked insulator on the pole
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • AM transistor radio is a good sensor for the noise
    • W3GMS, Joe, has some experience working with PECO
  • KB3ZIM, Bob:
    • Call PECO or Bob or Joe to get Dennis from PECO to do the search.
    • Power lines can carry the “transmission” miles
  • KC3WWC, John:
    • I’ve seen videos on Youtube of people searching
    • Electric company is responsible for cleaning up those emissions
    • You can build a tape-measure yagi for searching
    • POTA can be low noise area
    • Hear and see the crackles of very distant lightning.
    • Check the radio power supply

I launched the newly-tuned slim-jim antenna. With it hanging from the fan, it looked tuned. Hanging right next to the siding outside the window, it looked long.

I launched it into the tree to hang right below the quarter-wave. Hanging in the tree, it looks well-tuned. I compared both antennas simultaneously with the 2 Quanshengs, and the lower slim jim measures 10-20dBm lower than the higher quarter-wave when receiving.

W3IHM, Sam, presented the 900MHz band at the SPARC member meeting.

History

• 1926 - first regulation of amateur radio
  • before 1926, ban on anything belowe 200m
    • amateurs could do anything they want above 1.5MHz
• First regulations defined bands
  • harmonically related
• Amateurs imposed legislation for technical reasons
• 900MHz has been available to hams since 1926
• People wanted broadcast interference from ham radio gone in mid 1920s
• 1930s - allow anything above 110MHz
• 1935 - people were getting up to 3200MHz with magnetrons (spinning electron)
• Commercial broadcastsers pushed hams into bands and out of lower bands in 1920s when we started figuring out propagation in the ionosphere, and they wanted to broadcast around the world.
• war-1940 - we’re allowed above 300MHz
• 1941 - all ham radio is shutdown for war
• 1947 - military is reluctant to give back bands
  • bands shifted around a little
  • allowed up to 300GHz
• 1952 - added 15M
• 1979 - added WARC bands (12, 17, 30)
• 1986 - 33cm
• 2002 - 60M
• 2016 - 2200M, 630M
• Will we get 8M, 5M, and 4M like other parts of the world?

Characteristics

• 900MHz-928MHz
• Feed line loss is double that of 440MHz
• Antenna loss
• Atmospheric loss
• Simplex is pretty dismal
• Bounces well, like off airplanes
  • Once got Harrisburg to Philly bouncing off an airplane
  • Hit repeaters with Yagis and bounces
• It’s a shared band with some other services.

Possibilities

• Commercial radios with other software and surgery
• Harris radio - expensive software
• EF Johnson - free software, but needs surgery
• Alinco had something, but not available
• Kenwood TK981/481
• Retevis RT10 - 1W $80
• Listen with Quansheng, but filters won’t transmit.
• Baofeng with dirty harmonics might TX on 900MHz
• Baby monitors?
• SDR dongle
• Transverters

Shared Bands

• Power meters are everywhere in the middle of the band, and the noise causes the FM squelch to stay closed.
• Everyone’s trying to use the slivers on the end to avoid interference.
• Amplifiers can overcome the noisy power meters.
• Surplus amplifiers and antennas can be cheap.
• K3LV has a repeater in the area.
• Use it or lose it (already to the power meters).
• Power meters may go away after a while to move up to 2.4GHz
• Lots of competition for 900MHz - 2GHz - goes through the atmosphere easily.

My Week in Radio

• I attended the breakfast and heard a little about the National Traffic System from Vic. I’ve added some nets to my calendar.
• I’m in the logs for N4T, the DXpedition to Dry Tortugas with some locals.
  • CW and on FT8
• My favorite radios have new 3rd-party software:
  • Quansheng HTs got F4WHN 4.0 which includes a code fix I contributed
  • X6100 got R1CBU 0.29.2 which has fixes for handful of bugs I reported
• I continue playing with some mobile Winlink and APRS
• EFRW was being flaky with high SWR.
  • Cleaned all the connections outside.
  • It’s an unprotected temporary build with alligator clips.

Others

• KC3SCY, Luke: listening to some CW
• NA3CW, Chuck:
  • Led the breakfast.
  • 75M PM/AM Net
  • A professor of chemistry in CT liked our answer on the workbench about ice on the antenna. We never know who’s listening, so make it good.
• KB3ILS, Keith:
  • Straight key work since field day
  • POTA, State QSO Parties
  • 15-minute ragchew QSOs
  • Slower with the straight key, so people don’t “recognize” him.
  • ARRL DX contest: used paddles, boring exchanges.
  • Heard his own QSO in a youtube video
• KC3RFG, Jim:
  • Working on mobile antenna to clean it up.
• AF3Z, Jim:
  • Jumped up from 35WPM to 40WPM in weekly practice sked, and it was OK.
  • Working on heathkit project
• KC3TYX, Vic:
  • 2M nets
  • Breakfast
  • Another ARRL DX contest coming up this weekend, giving it a try.
• AB3AP, Mike:
  • Breakfast
  • Learning about direction of arrival for signals to locate signals of interest.
  • Some CW, but slower than Jim.
• W3QP, Tim:
  • Planning trips
  • Presentation for Pottstown Club
• K3FHA, John:
  • Repairing a 65-year-old radio.
  • Implementing a service bulletin to fix AGC.
  • Some HF nets
• WA3KFT, John:
  • Digging up lost gear
    • Halicrafters S38
    • Heathkit VF1 VFO
  • 6M and 2M work
• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • All the 985 activities
  • Simplex Net: 39 check-ins
  • Spending every day in the ham shack
• AA3LH, Leon:
  • Worked West Coast on 10m.
• KB3AIS, Tim:
  • Purchased ICOM 2730a for portable radio.
• KC3YIG, Dave:
  • Breakfast
  • Simplex Net
  • Building some shelves for the radio desk.
  • Contacted N4T on SSB on 20M and 40M.
• W3MOW, Mike:
  • Good to hear everyone’s favorite interests and achievements in radio.

Questions

• AF3Z, Jim:
  • NV102 SSB CW transciever
    • CW is working
    • SSB isn’t going out
    • He has the oscilliscope for tracing, 10x probe for attennuation, AC coupled.
    • Looking at all the parts, what is the best way to couple with the circuit without interfering with the circuit?
  • WA3KFT, John:
    • 10X probe should have helped
    • There is a 100X probe with very high impedance
    • Make a 2-3 turn coil of solid wire around a pencil, attach it to a bit of coax, poke around with that.
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • Put a little capacitance (2-3pF) in series on the end of the probe.
  • KC3SQI, Wayne:
    • Another way to make a “sniffer probe”: small wire loop on a piece of circuit board.
  • K3FHA, John:
    • Since SSB isn’t working, check that audio is getting into the modulator.
• AA3LH, Leon:
  • He has a 45-ft vertical antenna, end-fed from the bottom. It’s recommended to add an automatic tuner close to the antenna. Is 7-8 feet too far away? 14 gauge, 25ft, red/black twin lead to provide power. Is that too long?
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • power delivery is OK.
    • 7-8 feet is fine. It becomes part of the antenna.
  • KC3SQI, Wayne:
    • 14 gauge is fine for auto tuner
    • Agree with Chuck
• KD3AIS, Tim:
  • ICOM 2730A can hear the repeater, but no one can hear him.
  • W3MOW, Mike:
    • Thinking it’s a hardware issue, or is it programming?
  • KD3AIS, Mike:
    • Thinks the hardware is good, and the programming is good.
    • Has programmed previous radios for the repeater
  • W3QP, Tim:
    • Has a couple ICOMs.
    • Do you see the frequency shift while TX-ing? (It should.)
    • Try turning off the receive tone.
  • KD3AIS, Tim:
    • No receive tone programmed
    • Sees the shift
  • KC3SQI, Wayne:
    • Do you have RTSystems or other software to program it?
    • He could not program the same radio without using the RT-Systems software.
  • KD3AIS, Tim:
    • Has not yet used programming cable or software.
  • KC3SQI, Wayne:
    • There should be lots of indicators on the display for every little feature that’s enabled.
  • KC3WWC, John:
    • Debug from simplex, then use other repeaters, then check configs for 985.
  • W3MOW, Mike:
    • From reading the manual, 985’s split tones could be a challenge.
  • W8CRW, CR:
    • On ICOMs, the correct tone setting is T-TSQL / 100.
  • KC3RFG, Jim:
    • Had that radio years ago, and programmed it the first time with RT-Systems.
• N3RT, Jay:
  • Meritron amplifier, trying to hit Christmas Island on 15M CW.
  • He flipped it on and it popped the fuse on the 240V line.
  • Can he remove tubes to isolate and test the power supply?
  • Are the ceramic fuses slow blow?
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • Do you have HV experience?
  • N3RT, Jay:
    • Has replaced some things, but always operated with the cover on.
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • No problem turning it on with tubes removed.
    • Check manual about the fuse
    • Could be a complex interaction causing the pop of the fuse, like start-up resistor being blown.
• About my outside connections:
  • WA3KFT, John:
    • There’s a conducting grease for head bolts of an engine that he uses for outside connections, plus black plastic tape
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • Don’t get any on the dialectric (short)

I reconditioned my HF antenna. The SWR was being wonky and variable on the 107ft EFRW: jumping to 3:1 with tuner. I cleaned up the wire ends and alligator clips with sandpaper, reconnected them, and repositioned the counterpoise. Now I’m seeing 1.5:1 SWR with the tuner.

My Week in Radio

• I like radios with open software
  • F4HWN 4.0 alternate firmware released for Quansheng
    • includes fixes for the spectrum analyzer that I contributed
  • R1CBU 0.29.2 just released for Xiegu X6100
    • includes fixes for bugs I found and submitted
• I tried some APRS to the ISS from the Btech UV-PRO
• Did a little RTTY for NAQP
• Contacted N4T DXpedition on 20M yesterday
  • My CW was pretty rough
  • I could hear them with the EFHW for 40M in a park,
    • but not the upgraded 107ft EFRW at home
    • probably orientation

Others

• K3EA, Greg:
  • contests, space weather, DX
• WB3LNY, George:
  • debugging power problems: tighten your lugs in your panel
  • “Pale Blue” is a company in Utah making rechargeable Li-Ion batteries with USB charging port.
• VE3HOH, Pete:
  • designing an NVIS for 40m, fan dipole
  • maybe also a 10m vertical in it.
  • nice presentation from KA3TKW, Tom, on working satellites
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • new FM bird: Hades R, SO-124, no telemetry yet.
  • ISS repeater and upcoming passes
  • AO-123 is new, FM repeater: 435.400 FM.
  • Ham Lunch this Thursday, noon.
    • presentation: Beginners Guide to FM Satellites
• KK4KKW, Steve:
  • some HF, but repeater started dropping
• W3MW, Don:
  • trying to purchase a spectrum analyzer, but UPS isn’t delivering it.
  • starting up attic/roof work for antennas.
  • testing 10GHz setup soon
• KC3ZBI, Ron:
  • working on antennas for some upcoming contests