The 1/4-wave ground plane antenna in the tree dropped its feedline, so I brought it down to reattach it and resolder the radials.

I also walked down the yagi on the pole to straighten some elements, since it was a nice day. The yagi was spinning around in the wind, so I also changed the way it’s mounted to clamp it more securely.

I also added some reigns to the mast, so I can (try to) spin it from inside the window. It works well some times but not others. The pole can freeze to the ground.

I activated US-9719 Susquehanna Riverlands. The tempurature was decent, though a little bit of a mist. I got lots of practice throwing very high in the tree. I used all my throw line to hoist my EFHW into the air. Some people lingered to watch while I struggled to get just the right branch.

I found a large section of coax was bad, so had to scramble a little to get enough cable. I worked 20M to get 2 CW park-to-park contacts and 28 more FT4 contacts

My Week in Radio

• Walked down the 35-foot flagpole to do some antenna maintenance in the cold
• Hunting a handful of CW POTA contacts
• Waiting for a good snow day to curl up with the AllStar manual and ARRL antenna book
• Thinking about my path through ham radio and focus on digital modes and CW, not spending much time with SSB
• ISS will be transmitting SSTV on 145.800MHz, 25 December - 5 Januaary

Others

• KC3SCY, Luke:
  • On 10m, not so busy this past week
  • Working crystal set
• K3FHA, John:
  • Fixing up and using an antique radio
• KC3TYX, Vic:
  • Diagnosing/repairing a fan problem in a power supply
• NA3CW, Chuck:
  • 2M rig in car would shutoff during TX
    • PL259 connector was loose
• AF3Z, Jim:
  • Working 10m
  • Working a couple CW contacts: Europe, etc.
  • Organizing the shack: radio, photography, etc
• KV3JGB, Matt:
  • Fighting with a tree to get an antenna mounted
• KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • Talking to Los Angeles then Greenland
  • Propagation shifts
• W3DIB, Greg:
  • Reverse-engineering the serial protocol of a Yaesu radio

Questions

• W8CRW, CR: From the news, how would one use WSPR to find a downed airplane?
  • WA3VEE, Ron: they could be searching for the weak beacon on 121MHz
  • KC3SQI, Wayne: May have been looking at WSPR logs to look at reflected signals between stations. reddit
• AF3Z, Jim:
  • What is it about WSPR that makes people think they can use it to search for anomolies?
    • KC3WWC, John:
      • WSPR is used to test propagation and reach. you send signals for a few minutes, and others report back through a central database without needing to have a conversation or to be even able to get a signal back the other way.
      • There’s a huge volume of data that was collected centrally as the plane traveled.
• AF3Z, Jim:
  • Recounted his understanding of fuses and how they fail according to voltage rating.
  • NA3CW, Chuck: Failure means they can explode.
  • KC3SQI, Wayne:
    • Father saw huge 4-foot-long industrial fuses explode after lightning strike.

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
• Hunting some CW POTA activators through the week
• Practicing copying CW
• Latest beta of Meshtastic app on Android is reconnecting automatically
• ISS SSTV 25 Dec - 4 Jan

Others

• K3EA, Greg:
  • FT8 whack-a-mole
  • Saw some RTTY contests
  • Canadian contest next weekend
  • https://contestcalendar.com/
  • Jan 4-5 is RTTY Roundup
  • Kids day
  • Good space weather, peak of solar cycle
  • DX
    • Phillipines
    • French Guyana
• WB3LNY, George:
  • Diagnosing heating connections on large electrical panel
• NE3H, Joe:
  • Spoke at length with a bunch of old acquaintances from Taiwan
• KC3VZU, Bob:
  • Installing some coax and a 220MHz rig
• KD3AGU, Richard:
  • Licensed 3 weeks ago
  • Setting up DMR
  • Listening to a net in Ephrata
• K3DMM, Denny:
  • 16F outside, so no fun standing outside for satellite work
  • Tuned some mobile antennas
  • Worked a couple ISS passes
  • Good SO-50 pass
  • Looking forward to lunch on Thursday
• WA3WIJ, Ron:
  • Rebuilding Halicrafters radio with caps and tubes
  • Preparing for straight key night
• KC3ZBI, Ron:
  • Working on an outside antenna
  • Trying for 12 days of Christmas Event
• N7JMS, Jon:
  • Got some new countries on FT8/FT4
  • Building a 10M loop antenna
  • Is there any C4FM or Fusion available in the Harrisburg area?
    • K3DMM, Denny: 447.925

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, and I can setup even quicker without a computer. 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.