I watched a video about NVIS NVIS achieves 75-90 degree take-off, very vertical, and about a 400-mile range. It can get you over obstacles. It’s most effective on 40m and 80m.

To build it, mount a dipole 1/8 wavelength above ground, horizontal. Add a reflector almost on the ground, 5% longer, to keep the ground from absorbing the signal.

Ham radio is a long hobby. I don’t really want to rag chew, so I started in FT8/FT4. I got lots of practice and learned about propagation with help of pskreporter and other operators. FT8/FT4 works with low power at home or portable.

I bridged into RTTY and PSK contesting for the next challenge and a bit of excitement interacting with another human keyboard-to-keyboard. I had to wait for contests for activity on RTTY or PSK.

Next, I’m learning CW, the original digital mode. It has the benefit of being common to see every day in POTA and in contests. CW is still low power and weak signal. It’s exciting to learn the skill to key and to copy. I can currently key, but I need assistance to copy with computer or radio.

Digital has been a fulfilling path through amateur radio so far.

My Week in Radio

• ARRL 10m contest:
  • 13 CW contacts logged on paper
  • iambic keyer set to 20 wpm somewhat confidently
  • still relying on radio to decode for me

News from Others

• KC3YSM, Steve: 10M contest - Spain, Colombia, Poland, France, Missisissippi, Florida
• K3FHA, John:
  • using a voltage reduce box to power an old piece of equipment
  • swapping meters with salvage equipment from ebay
• KC3NZT, Harvey: 10M contest
• AF3Z, Jim: weekend sprintathon with SKCC.
• KC3SCY, Luke: listening to DX (Ohio) AM MW on his crystal set.
• KV3JGB, Matt: starting a morse class

Questions

• W3JAM, Jeff:
  • Unsatisfied with antenna mount on chimney.
  • Glen Martin Engineering used to have roof towers.
  • Looking for some non-penetrating roof mounts: cinder blocks or sandbags.
  • Has anyone used any Martin or Carlson roof towers?
  • Trying to mount a 70ft tower.
  • WA3VEE, Ron: sending a link to an eham article.
• AF3Z, Jim: When is the voltage rating on a fuse important? 20A, 250V vs 20A, 35V?
  • KC3RFG, Jim:
    • the voltage rating is the max at which it’ll properly react when it opens. If voltage rating isn’t high enough, it might not melt far enough and still be able to arc at the higher voltage.
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • it may have more physical features like casing material, spring loading to break the connection more, or interrupting current quickly.
  • WA3VEE, Ron: Look for PDF called “Fuseology”.
• WA3VEE, Ron: What do we tell new HAMs?
  • WA3VEE, Ron: HT is pretty useless.
  • KC3RFG, Jim: Resist the urge to buy, but collect lots of info before making too many decisions.
  • KC3YIG, Dave:
    • Don’t by afraid to ask questions of a good group.
    • Let people know if you’re looking for equipment, so others can help you get started.
  • KC3YSM, Steve: Find yourself an elmer, and ask questions on 985.
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • The perfect is the enemy of getting on the air.
    • Good enough is good enough.
    • Get used equipment.
    • Borrow equipment.
    • Don’t make any big investments before you know what you want.
  • K3FHA, John: ARRL has an operating manual with advice.
  • WA3VEE, Ron: Even old operating manuals are useful.
  • KC3WWC, John: Don’t worry about what doesn’t work. Get some wire in the air.
  • KC3OOK, Bill: Hams are helpful, so ask questions.
  • WA3VEE, Ron: Listen to the radio, learn, get help.

I did a bit of the ARRL 10m Contest all in CW. I keyed with my 3D-printed iambic paddle but relied on the X6100 to decode incoming signals for me.

I made 13 contacts across 10 states/provinces in 4 ITU zones. I used the Web2Cabrillo website to type up my handwritten logs and produce a Cabrillo file to submit to the contest.

My Week in Radio

• Monitoring some technical discussions
  • tips on satellite repeaters, including listening duplex
  • some radios have talk-around feature, which I’ve only done accidentally when misconfiguring the radio to talk on the repeater output
• FT Challenge over the weekend
  • lots of activity on FT4, FT8, and subbands outside the usual
  • found wsjtx-improved available on my Debian machine:
    • better colors, location labels, and filters
• Learning obvious things about AllStar last week:
  • my node is simplex, so while the net is transmitting, I can’t throw any DTMF at the node to control it
  • minor delay resulted in lots of missed prefixes

News From Others

• W8CRW, CR: setting up for 10m
• KC3SCY, Luke: doing some good work on 10m
• KC3SQI, Wayne: POTA and 10m
• AF3Z, Jim:
  • worked some of Europe on CW
  • cleaning up radio stuff, workbench, dealing with excess hunks of wire

Questions

• KC3TMZ, Matt: Looking to upgrade the coax run through a window. Should he get an MFJ passthrough or better recommendations?

  • a couple people have some homebrew panels like the MFJ
  • some have the MFJ panel
  • others suggest passing a barrel adapter through the wall
  • KC3WWC, John: there’s thin coax and flat coax for the purpose

• KC3SQI, Wayne: The battery for the radio’s memory only lasts a couple weeks, so he runs a 12V wall wart to keep it powered, but also has a 35-amp 13.8V supply he wants to use. He isolates them with relays, but is there a solar controller way to switch. Blocking diodes? Recommendations?

  • WA3KFT, John: his 7300 doesn’t have that problem. He uses a 12V bus on the desk. His 12V bus is powered by AC power supply on one side, and a 12V battery on the other side. so there’s always power. A blocking diode would need to be 30Amp.
  • KC3RFG, Jim: The manual says power it a couple hours at least monthly to maintain that battery which holds clock and settings. Memories are on the SD card.

I overheard some tips from Tom, KA3TKW, on the 21 repeater: Check out the AMSAT manuals for contacting satellite repeaters, and operate full duplex, so you can hear while transmitting.

My Week in Radio

Contesting

I finished the FT Challenge. There was no special exchange this year. We could use other defined subbands in addition to the regular frequencies to alleviate crowding. We could work anyone, even if they’re not participating explicitly.

I operated QRP, so it was nice to find the quieter subbands and more FT4 activity. You earned multipliers for each 3000km, so I don’t really know on my score yet.

I found wsjtx-improved on the Debian Linux repository, so used that. I saw the color improvements, the better location labels with states, and it had filters.

AllStar

I learning some obvious things about AllStar: it can’t hear my DTMF if it’s currently transmitting, since it’s simplex, so it’s hard to control on a busy net.

Yagi in the Wind

Finally, I watched my home-built yagi flapping around on that windy day. I guess I can stop worrying about it, since it held up fine.

Listening to KX3B, I occasionally learn something. Some radios have a button or menu to do away with the offset on a repeater, so you can talk simplex on the output frequency when out of range of the repeater.

I’ve done this by accident.

I found the brand new wsjtx-improved available on my Debian unstable system. It’s the next beta plus some UI enhancements including filters, color, etc, better location labels.

This weekend was the FT Challenge.

I made about 112 contacts over 14 unique “letter grids”. I operated QRP (<5W), single operator, single radio. We scored points for each contact plus each 3000km distance on a contact, and the multiplier was that number of unique letter grids. I uploaded my logs, and it’ll probably be a while until I see an official score, but I figure I probably got about 2000 points.