Breakfast and POTA

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.

pota  efhw  tdl  antenna  hf 

SPARC Meshtastic Channel

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=

ATU Bug in R1CBU 2.29.2

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.

r1cbu  atu  hf  x6100 

Fixing the 4:1 Unun

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.

985 Workbench: 2025-03-03

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

Newly-Tuned Slim Jim

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.

SPARC 900MHz

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.

985 Workbench: 2025-02-24

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)

Reconditioned HF Antenna

a header at h3

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.

hf  antenna 

21 Tech Net: 2025-02-23

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
tech  21  ka3tkw  net