Ben and I grabbed dinner and headed to the Columbia Riverfront Park to activate US-4567, Capt John Smith Trail.

Since there were more people around, I setup the simple GRA-1900T next to our picnic table instead of throwing wires. 20m was very busy, so I was getting a bit lost in all the traffic. I moved to 40m and re-tuned to rack up my more local contacts. As the sun set, our reach got better on 40m. Of course, I accidentally crossed 0000UTC again into the next day, so it was 2 activations: one (incomplete) with 5 QSOs, and the other with 14 QSOs. I operated all digital, since it got dark, and we were looking to pack up soon.

I headed back to US-1418, Sam Lewis to tried a quick activation on my way to my parents’ house, but I got sidetracked. KN3A, Scott, was already there, so I chatted with him for a few minutes, and then setup my station on the other side of the park. I used my GRA-1900T for a quick setup on 20m. I saw Scott hunting up the band with his big, very local, signal, and then set out to do some FT8. The band was busy, but then just shut off nearing 1900UTC.

I heard about a storm coming from the local repeaters. I tried a bit on 15m, but decided to pack up as I heard more thunder. I only got a few contacts, since I didn’t give myself near enough time.

My Week in Radio

• During last workbench, I used the TYT HT in crossband for the whole net. It gets hot but works.
• I found a bug in the Aubs firmware on my Quansheng radios. It skipped lots of my repeaters for a day.
• Trying the TIDRadio TD-H8 tonight on M/5W power with the good old tape measure Yagi. It’s sounding really nice here.
• On linux, I found cwcp for CW training. I run it at 20wpm with a very slow 20-dot gap.
• I’ve been trying APRS with QRZ-1, an 8-year-old Nexus phone, and a btech APRS cable.
• POTA in York:
  • I had a terrible time throwing into trees that were too high.
  • Resorted to an inverted-V EFHW, 2ft-10ft off the ground with telescoping fishing pole.

Questions

• KB3ILS, Keith
  • How does a hack learn to read basic schematics: conventional or electron current flow?
  • Tips for reading schematics?
  • Chuck, NA3CW
    • Except when dealing with tubes, work in conventional current.
    • Diode and transistor arrows show positive to negative (conventional) flow.
    • Inside tubes the electron flow is shown negative to positive.
    • Reading schematics:
      • Look up different circuit functions
        • Amplifier
        • Audio oscillator
        • etc
      • recognize those groupings as a “block diagram”.
      • learn to read like a block of functions
      • trace with your finger
  • WA3VEE, Ron
    • Think of circuit groups as mechanical operations.
• KC3YIG, Dave
  • Recommendations for distributing power to multiple radios?
  • Astron powering 2 kenwoods: 25w and 65w, 2m and HF base stations.
  • W3QP, Tim
    • Ham Radio Workbench has a nice power distribution block as a kit:
      • 1 anderson power polse for input
      • 5 anderson power poles for output
  • WA3VEE, Ron
    • PowerWorx gear for power poles
  • KC3NZT, Harvey:
    • Anderson power pole has become standard in ham radio.
• KC3NZT, Harvey
  • Operating internationally, in Canada, do we just add “/ve3” to call?
  • W3QP, Tim
    • That’s right for Canada, as long as you’re there temporarily, up to 180 days or so.

Upcoming Hamfest

Reading Radio Club will host their hamfest in Sinking Springs.

At US-1418, Sam Lewis, I tried setting up down near the low playground on the corner near the road. There were no trees with good spots. All the viable branches were very high, and I couldn’t quite get a line over them.

I resorted to an inverted-v supported by fishing pole in the middle at 9ft or so. I operated mostly FT8 on 15m, 20m, and 40m, and I did a little SSB on 40m. I got Canada, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, etc.

I have my UV-K5 and UV-K6 running aubs 00.07 firmware. I added a simplex frequency (446.100MHz) to use as with my local cross-band repeater in position 110. I added the new channel to scan list 1.

Upon powering on the radio, I could scan lists 1 (local repeaters) and 4 (satellites) together. When I press the up arrow to advance off an active channel, the scan would now skip list 1, and go right to 4, and continue to skip list 1. Before I realized it was happening, I thought the day was super quiet.

I dropping the repeater frequency from scan list 1, and the scanning behaved correctly. I tried removing another channel from scan list 1, and reintroducing channel 110 to the list, but that didn’t fix it, so it’s not an issue with the count.

Much of scan list 1 is lower in the channels, so I moved my new repeater frequency from channel 110 to position 30, right after all my other simplex channels. That seems to work fine, so that’s how I’m leaving it.

I may need to try some more things and figure out a reproduction to file a bug on the project:

• Is it something about the frequency of 460.100?
• Or is channel 110 the problem?
• Would another frequency in that spot be a problem?
• Are there other channels that would trigger the issue?

At the previous week’s meeting, many people built EFHW kits and untangled some wire to use with them. No one finished the build and brought them back, so I offered a quick demo of tuning such an antenna.

I connected my 49:1 unun that I’ve been using to a new wire we had hanging. We connected a handful of different analyzers to see how they operated.

My Week in Radio

• Great to see everyone at the breakfast, especially Luke’s loose couplers.
• POTA after the breakfast at Marsh Creek with Vic, KC3TYX
  • 20m was the place to be, but 2 of us operating, so we had to take shifts with our own radios.
• Prime Day Shopping
  • microcord
  • TYT HT for 10w crossband repeater
    • I’m using it now as the repeater
    • Less tethered to the outside antenna
    • Top of the radio/sma is 50C after repeating for an hour on power
  • TinySA
  • Raspberry Pi Zero W kits
• APRSDroid: phone & radio
  • email gateway
  • POTA spotting

Notes from Others

• solarham.com
• Reading Ham Fest coming up
• VE session at Stateline Radio Club

Questions

• KC3WWC: What’s cool about APRS?
  • APRS weather station
  • PWS monitor app to find weather stations near me
  • Other gateway frequencies?
  • Check with CCAR/ARES/RACES nets for their uses.
• KC3WWC: In Galenium detector, how does one know when the cat whisker is right?
  • Joe, W3GMS
    • put on headphones
    • move spring arm with stiff wire (cat whisker)
    • touch it to the galenium
    • move around to find the hot spot where it’s louder
    • germanium diode conducts at very low voltages, so easy
    • loose couplers don’t work so well in a crystal set, since it’s lossy
    • spark era - 1913
    • before galenium, there was a tube with metal filings, a “coherer”.
      • activate a buzzer
      • tap that would fall and reset the coherer
    • after galenium, then audion tube
    • imperative to have a very big antenna to capture as much signal as possible.
    • drive diode into forward current
    • Heathkit made a collectible kit
      • tightly coupled
      • voltage increase in the second coil
      • higher Q, so could be made more selective
    • Luke, KC3SCY, counted 20 different stations one night
  • Chuck, NA3CW
    • fox-hole radio: rusty razor blade, lead pencil, coil, safety pin, oatmeal box, wire
    • galena: ore of lead sulfide
    • immerse the galena in base of lead solder
    • grope around quietly to find magic spot where it works best
    • same thing with foxhole radio
    • uses oxide for detecting, not stainless
    • galena has 0.4V drop, like germanium diode
  • Ron, WA3VEE
    • has a marconi cat whiskey receiver
    • 0.4V can be converted to dBm, and it’s a pretty large signal required
    • predates any amplification
• WA3VEE: What is the most important measure of solar activity we need to consider?
  • most profound affect on propagation?
  • KC3RFP: a-index (9 or lower) k-index (5 or lower)
  • Tamitha Skov website and youtube

985 Breakfast

It was good to chat radio with everyone, and Luke talked about restoring his antique loose coupler radio.

US-1380 Marsh Creek

After breakfast, Vic KC3TYX, and I made our way to US-1380 Marsh Creek for a park activation and to compare notes on how we operate.

The weather was pleasant, and Vic started on 20m with a vertical ham stick and faraday cloth for a ground plane.

I tossed a EFHW to slope from the picnic table up into a tree. I got it in a good spot with the first try. I was on 40m to give him some room, but the band was pretty dead in the middle of the day. I still had a little interference, since Vic was running 100W. I eventually switched to 20m when Vic had enough contacts, so I could finish my activation. Only 15m and 20m really worked for much. I did all digital + 1 phone to another park in Tennessee.

Prime Day popped up a few good-enough sales, so I bought a few things.

• 50w dummy load
• TIDradio TD-H8 - HT, 10W, bluetooth, clear case, etc
• TYT TH-UV8000D - HT, 10W, crossband repeater
  • This should allow me to crossband relay to a repeater via the outside antenna and wander the house with a smaller HT
• BNC adapters for HTs.
  • Everything goes to BNC for easy swapping to external antennas.
• 4 HSY Telescoping VHF/UHF antennas with BNC connectors for HTs
• TinySA
• Sony headphones, wired, as backup for the ones I use now for POTA
• 2 Pi Zero W kits with cases, connectors, and all that
• 375ft of micro cord for throwing antennas into trees

My Week in Radio

• I saw Ron’s photos from Sussex County Ham Fest
  • I only go looking for connectors and gadgets, not real gear.
• Enjoyed Luke’s talk at breakfast
  • cat whisker and spark gap
  • reminds me of the books I read as an elementary student
    • crystal radios
    • want to build one again and see about tuning it for medium and shortwave
• POTA: Caledonia
  • used the 12.5M EFRW instead of EFHW
  • afternoon, 40m was dead
  • 20m and 15m was very busy with SSB contesters
  • 15, 17, 20: all EU, and very little local, via FT8 and SSB, but they couldn’t hear me.
    • atmospheric diode?
  • only made 4 contacts in the hour I tried
• Tape Measure YAGI is amazing for hearing the workbench
  • I didn’t want to need to pick a direction, but seems OK for these longer sessions
• Purchased an inexpensive variac
  • so now I need an old radio with some questionable capacitors. :)
• I’ll be at the breakfast, then finding a park to activate afterward.
• Writing a bit for the blog in down times

Others’ News

• Ron, WA3VEE
  • Sussex County Ham Fest
  • photos
• Luke, KC3SCY
  • spark gap and cat whisker
    • receiver working
  • GOJO cleaner without abrasive is good for cleaning wood
• Keith, KB3ILS
  • Lots of extended propagation on 2m
• Jack, K3YVQ
  • listening to longer-distance simplex on 2m calling frequency
• Jim, AF3Z
  • some CW
  • contests upcoming
    • IARU HF contest
    • SKCC Sprintathon
    • Flight of the Bumblebees QRP

Question

• Perseids meteor storm coming this month, What’s involved in working meteor scatter?
  • Widen topic to: Any special propagation modes?
  • Jim: e-skip?
  • Row, WA3VEE:
    • Tropospheric ducting
      • temperature inversion
      • listen to FM broadcast in the morning
        • difficult to hear local
        • hearing much longer distances
        • it’s a mess of overlap
        • means there’s an opening in 2m
      • dxinfocentre.com for tropo forecasts
    • Meteor showers
      • listen to 6m.
  • Chuck, NA3CW
    • Signal around the world
      • 1-2 second delay to hear your own “hello”
      • Japan at 10w
      • 1-way propagation
        • atmosphere is turbulent
        • photons strike into ionized air molecules and electrons
        • the wave jiggles the electrons in the air, and they retransmit
          • this “reflection”
        • signals going the other direction may hit different conditions along the way.
  • KC3WWC: antenna orientation?
  • W1RC, Mike:
    • Digital modes for studying propagation, since it can be monitored
  • WA3VEE, Ron
    • EM energy is released when an electron drops into a lower orbital
    • RBN and pskreporter