My Week in Radio

• R1CBU 0.26.0 firmware for my X6100
  • I continue to maintain a fork of the code that modifies the database to show boundaries of US privileges and recommended usage.

Questions

• W3MFB, Mike: increased tower height, switched to 60ft of new coax. 35W 1.9:1 SWR, so worse than it was before. UHF is bad too. Checked it with NanoVNA. Seeing 1.3:1 SWR. Trying an analog SWR meter. Using Yaesu 991A. Showing 2:1 SWR. SWR goes up with different power.
  • NA3CW, Chuck: Test the tester. SWR shouldn’t change with power. Could be something heating.
  • W3QP, Tim: He does see different SWR at higher power due to reflections from his car. Shorter coax is better, but stay away from quarter wavelengths.
  • W3JAM, Jeff: Test the tester. Hearing him fine on the input, so it’s good.
  • AF3Z, Jim: RF, common mode current, into the meter can cause erratic behavior.
  • NA3CW, Chuck: RF on outside of the feed line is sometimes hard to avoid, and can cause reading issues. Grabbing line at different places will cause readings to change.
  • W3QP, Tim: Some antennas recommend at least a turn of cable at the antenna to choke.
  • KC3OOK, Bill: 1.2 to 1.3 is a 0.9% loss.
  • W8CRW, CR: is that antenna tune-able.
  • W3MFB, Mike: may try ferrite beads at a height he can reach.
• W3MOW, Mike: Looking at Electric Vehicles. Who knows a reputable electrician to run power? Drop him the email you find on QRZ.
• KC3TMZ, Matt: Getting noise with random wire on G90. 71ft 9:1 wire. How does one run the counterpoise?
  • KC3MFB, Mike: 17 ft, opposite direction, if at all.
  • KC3RFG, Jim:
    • try different places.
    • choke at the radio, especially if you don’t
    • run a counterpoise
  • W3QP, Tim:
    • There is always a counterpoise, so provide one so you can control it.
    • Number of turns or number of beads will be effective at different frequencies.
  • NA3CW, Chuck: There’s an article on 985 website.
  • KC3NZT, Harvey:
    • The further from a balanced antenna, the more it’ll force a counterpoise, and that means your coax, so changes around your antenna (body) can change things as well.
    • Run the counterpoise opposite a sloper or flat topper,
    • you can get some gain in the direction of the counterpoise.
  • KC3TMZ, Matt: Propagation to light/dark places?
  • W3MFB, Mike: wire runs NE-SW, and it doesn’t matter for direction too much.
  • KC3NZT, Harvey: Do you hear them? How do you know you’re not getting to them?
    • Can hear them, but they don’t hear him. Did manage Belarus once.
    • Do they have other stations calling them? Is it a pile-up?
    • He’s getting beat for only 20W.
    • Don’t get discouraged. It takes some technique.
  • W3MFB, Mike: Don’t worry about 20W. Don’t call QRP.
  • W3QP, Tim: Operates a lot of 10W. Propagation depends on radiation pattern. EFRW can have weird patterns with spiky lobes.
  • KC3TMZ, Matt: lots to learn, will take a recording from Ron.
• KC3WWC: Headed to Hawaii for a couple weeks and taking radios for all bands. What should I expect/try while traveling?
  • W3QP, Tim:
    • SOTA from volcanos!
    • salt water will give a great boost for DX.
    • lots of asia
• WA3VEE, Ron: the virtues of broadcastify

I can set a repeater offset from Chirp, and that works fine, but it displays incorrectly in the SHIFT setting on the radio. It displays as 7.60MHz for every repeater frequency. Apparently, visiting the setting in the menus gets the really bad value (7.6MHz) applied until you leave the channel and come back.

Reversing the repeater frequencies (assigned to P1 on the microphone) shows the right frequencies. Programming it from Chirp as a split (instead of +/- offset) works, but still doesn’t show correctly in the menus.

The radio also only allows setting by 10kHz manually, so setting my 605kHz shift for W3GMS is impossible to program from the radio.

There’s already a bug filed for Chirp.

I added some sections to the flag pole to reach 37 feet, and I increased elements on the home-made yagi from 2 elements to 4 elements. Upon adding elements, I needed to stretch the driven element a couple millimeters longer to tune it. In testing, I’m seeing about -100 RSSI listening to W3GMS on a Quansheng. It was about -105 RSSI when mounted lower and only 2 elements.

My Week in Radio

• I received a couple images from ISS, but it ended quicker than I realized.
• JARTS RTTY contest coming this weekend
• I did a little CW for POTA.
• Trying to reach a little further over a hill and to the East
  • building a yagi on a flag pole from a calculator using ARRL spacing
  • 50W TYT radio
• This Week in Ham Radio Podcast Ham Radio History:
  • 1916, amateurs exploring propagation
  • 1917 first, faster trans-continental relays with ARRL

Others

• K3EA
  • Upcoming ARRL Sweepstakes for CW
  • Munsters had a Ham Radio episode
• KA3TKW
  • W3UU Harrisburg Ham Fest this Saturday
  • ARRIS mission on 24 Oct, 11:15AM, 145.800MHz
  • Tri-repeater is up: 224.210 PL 123.0, 449.925, 53.21
• KK4KKW
  • Sudden SWR reading on 40M antenna

I went camping and activating Pine Grove Furnace, US-1398, and Michaux Forest, US-5471. I stretched the EFHW over the parking lot, because I thought it wouldn’t be busy. I got 21 FT8 contacts and 2 CW contacts to other parks.

Tilt-up Flag Pole

I figured out to do a tilt-up flag pole against the house reaching 25 feet into the air. It sits on a stake in the garden, and is secured to the house with paracord in an eyelet and hook screwed into the side of the roof.

2-Element Yagi

I built a new 2-element yagi using an online calculator It tuned OK with the banana-clip adapter directly connected to the driven element. I first tuned the dipole, and then added the reflector element. As predicted, it shifted the tuning slightly, so I trimmed the driven element to retune. The nice thing is that the spacings and sizes of the original elements don’t change as you add more director elements, so I calculated it with 2 or 3 directors, but put none in for the first iteration. I can add more elements later.

I gave it a try to reach 985 with the TYT TH-9800 running 50W. It was scratchy, but copy-able. I have more flag pole sections ordered to make it a little higher.

My week in Radio

• I saw aurora for the first time, and I got some nice photos.
• I visited K3IR tower sight in Mount Joy during PA QSO party
  • I listened to people contesting, but didn’t participate.
• TYT TH-9800: 50W into the tape measure yagi, tried it on the roundtable, still have work to do
• I threw my main 71-foot EFRW higher into another tree.
• I watched my flagpole and yagi in the wind
  • walked it down while I had a kid here to help
  • scoping a new location for it as a tilt-up attached to the house
  • collecting pieces for some experiments in engineering

Questions

• W8CRW, CR:
  • National Electronics Museum is hosting a class for general license.
  • How far from the mast should a vertical yagi antenna be installed?
  • Can it be installed 45-degrees to be used for both horizontal and vertical?
    • WA3VEE, Ron: some have had success at 45 degrees for satellites.
    • KC3SQI, Wayne: 45-degree will lose you 1.5dB
• WA3VEE, Ron: what is the ideal thickness for a bus-bar to which you’re mounting a lightning arrester.
  • KC3RFG, Jim:
    • 1/4-inch minimum. thicker won’t hurt anything.
    • mechanically strong (bolted) instead of soldered
    • woven ground strap is best, but 6AWG stranded is good.
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • avoid inductance, so use strap or bar, not wire
    • no right angles, no coils, no spirals
• KC3RFG, Jim: Hearing ignition noise on HF on battery or on truck power. How best can one eliminate that noise?
  • KC3SQI, Wayne: Remove the mast from the coax and see if you still have the noise. If it’s still there, then it’s coming from power cables. Try a better ground directly to the battery. On vehicles that rust, bolts don’t ground so well after a while, so then you get lots of grounds connecting back through the antenna.
  • KC3KZB, Aaron: go for a short ground, and keep ground wire away from ignition wires
• KC3SQI, Wayne: What’s the mechanical strength for 1.5-inch conduit?
  • WA3VEE, Ron: See Ugly’s Electrical Reference.
  • KC3RFG, Jim: that’s right.
• KC3WWC. John: I like that I can build my transformers and cut, measure, and test wire antennas, Is it practical to build, iterate, expand a homebrew yagi?
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • blatant plagarism: they’ve been around for a long time.
    • modeling programs, manuals, existing antennas.
    • different goals: gain, bandwidth, front-to-back ratio examples in the antenna book
    • software
    • moxon antenna: 2 element yagi with bent ends, massive front-to-back ratio
      • great for direction-finding: forward to get in the neighborhood, then reverse to find the null where it disappears
      • not much gain though
• W8CRW, CR: Is there a program for windows to map out a computer network?
  • W3DIB, Greg:
    • there are lots of tools to probe and fingerprint machines to try to disclose the host OS.
    • also ping, angryping, etc.

My Week in Radio

• I saw some antennas at the Ham Fest, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy any. I’ll build.
• I passed extra at the Ham Fest
  • I guess enough workbench discussion sunk into my brain.
  • Found I can download and search a copy of the entire ULS database like some of those other helpful websites that show available callsigns.
• POTA along the Susquehanna River.
  • Normal FT8 to get to 10 contacts.
  • 1 CW contact, and it wasn’t painful.
  • I tested out my newest printed EFHW antenna winder.
• Running and comparing Meshtastic and APRS more
  • Why use it?

Other News

• WA3VEE, Ron, PA QSO Party this weekend.
• KC3SCY, Luke, switched his loose couple radio from diode to cat whisker.
• KC3ZSJ, Gary, is playing with new antennas.
• W3FES, Fred, has a new FT-60R
• AF3Z, Jim, is headed to Cornwall Ranger Station for PA QSO Party

Questions

• KC3SZO, Chris: How can I overcome some terrain in the way of my RF?
  • WA3VEE, Ron: Antenna in the attic
  • NA3CW, Chuck: VHF isn’t exactly line-of-sight, so there is hope.
  • KC3WWC, John: Lower YAGI inside had advantages over a higher outside ground plane quarter wave.
• AA3LH, Leon: Let’s confirm repeater settings for this old radio and new antenna going in the car.
• KC3WWC, John:
  • I could change my callsign now.
  • I’ve only used this one for a year, so not super-attached.
  • For contesting, I see the benefit of a shorter call, so I might ultimately consider phonetic and morse weight.
  • How did you choose your vanity call? What strategies should I consider?
  • NA3CW, Chuck: initials.
  • W8CRW, CR: initials.
  • AA3LH, Leon: initials, and wanted an “A” call.
  • AF3Z, Jim: assigned by FCC. Consider how it sounds in CW.
  • WA3VEE, Ron: assigned, and sounds cool.
    • He also has K3DTS for the campus location of his old club.
    • quick and simple for CW
    • 1-by-1 is for special events.
    • easy to understand, so stay clear of confusing letters; V, C, Z, etc.
    • sound in sideband: normal or phonetic.
  • KC3OOK, Bill: assigned.
    • catching phonetic for DX
    • NA3NA was catchy.
    • KC3QQD is funny: Quack Quack Duck
  • Callsign ideas:
    • KD3FN
    • KB3VI
    • KC3VI
    • AA3WW
    • AA3KK

W3RRR Ham Fest

I passed the test for Amateur Extra: 40/50 correct. I needed 37 correct.

US-4567, Captain John Smith Trail

• POTA with Matthew, KC3WRY, at the boat launch under train tracks south of Marietta.
• FT8 on 20M
• 1 CW P2P contact on 20M. I didn’t fumble so much.
• I used the newly-printed and rebuilt EFHW winder and throw line. The velcro strap remains a problem for snagging the line.

My Week in Radio

• I moved the tape-measure yagi to the top of a 25-foot flagpole in the backyard.
  • 10 W, but not quite doing it.
  • There’s still too much of a hill.
• I upgraded the X6100 baseband, stock firmware, and 3rd-party firmware.
• Some CW
  • barely got 2 CW contacts hunting POTA, but I got into their logs
  • heard AF3Z on 40m out on his trip
  • morsle app to practice copying CW words and call signs
• I redesigned and printed a new antenna winder.
• I heard some AM and some RTTY during contests.
• I cleaned up and organized all the radio stuff from the move instead of contesting.
• I’m going to try for my extra ticket at the next Ham Fest.

Others’ News

• KB3RFG, Jim: all the bands open today in lots of directions
• NA3CW, Chuck: lot’s of AM fun
• AF3Z, Jim
  • spectated some RTTY contesting
  • 10m CW conversations
• WA3VEE, Ron: LMR400 (KMR400) coax is lowest loss practical

Questions

• KN3I, John: How does one make an AM rig sound good? Carrier power, modulation, etc.