KN3I, John, and AF3Z, Jim, were talking on 985 about Sideswiper keys. Technically, it’s a straight key. It’s 2 straight keys together, so it’s not considered an automatic keyer. You can optionally use either key to manually key a dit or a dah. Sideswiper is sometimes called a Cootie Key. It sounds interesting, since it’ll not race me on dits.

I was able to hear a 10M beacon today at 28193.180kHz:

E E E E E VVV DE VE4ARM / B AMATEUR RADIO MUSEUM / AUSTIN MANITOBA / EN 09 E E E

My Week in Radio

• I used N3KZ 440 repeater in York from Lancaster
  • always surprised on their range.
  • thought UHF didn’t go far.
• I built an Allstar node from a PI 4 and a USB-C radio dongle to reach a fringe repeater.
• I’m looking forward to FT challenge
• I stumbled into and recognized some Olivia-8/250 on 20M, and some SSTV
• I’ve been hearing lots of ISS repeater traffic at convenient times on my good ol’ 1/4 wave antenna in the tree.
• I got the radio blog up-to-date with all my adventures.

Others

• 145.010 packet repeater
• K3EA, Greg:
  • No contests this past weekend
  • Next weekend:
    • ARRL 160m CW at night
    • FT challenge - normal exchanges
  • December 14-15
    • 10m contest, phone/CW, 48 hrs, should be great.
  • https://contestcalendar.com
  • Propagation should be normal and above normal
• WB3LNY, George:
  • Working on ISS access.
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • ARISS mission 1622UTC, 145.800
  • New satellite on Nov 4, AO-123, ASRTU, FM, 4-day pass
  • Easy satellites
    • ISS: 145.800FM, 145.825 packet, 437.800FM downlink
    • AO-123, 435.400FM down
    • SO-50, 437.795FM down
• K3DMM, Denny:
  • Travel and simplex contacts
• K3AQ, Kenny:
  • New laptop from Best Buy to run fldigi, etc.
• KB3MIJ:
  • Some fldigi on HF
  • Some repeater work at reesers.
• W3MW, Don:
  • Most bands on a vertical antenna.
  • Mounting some antennas on the roof with a contractor.
  • Built some more receive pre-amps.

Swap and Shop

• VE3HOH, Pete
  • Rohn 25 sections + brackets
  • 8 yagis for 432.
  • Kushcraft yagi for 2 meters
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • Cheap UHF radios
  • CMD-1550
  • Shortwave receivers

I finally got my AllStarLink 3 node up and running. I had registered for a node number, and I had bought the pieces to have them ready to go. The little Pi Zero W boards I have wouldn’t boot, so I used a Pi 4 instead with the USB radio device.

Initial Installation on Pi 4

I started out with the official instructions:

• Downloaded the image for the Pi
• Installed the Pi Imager by deb file instead of just dding it to the device, since the imager conveniently allows pre-configuring:
  • user
  • locale
  • WiFi network

Configured the Cheap Ausinc UHF AllStar Radio Dongle

I purchased the hardware from Amazon a while ago. It has a USB-C port, and the cable is flipped for different modes:

• one way to program the frequency via USB serial
• other way to use the USB sound device for TX/RX The product description mentioned the different modes, but I didn’t recognize it. I learned about the flip from a video

I downloaded the srfrs.py Python script to the Pi, and used it to configure frequency and tone to protect default access to it:

./srfrs.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --frequency 438.1 --ctcss 94.8

Matthew, KC3WRY, suggested this frequency in the 70cm of the band. I was reading and wondering about 446.1 or 433 or so.

More Configuration and Confirmation

I followed another video for more configuration and confirmation of the settings from intro video.

I made another pass at web-based configs and asl-menu. I set it to be a SimpleUSB device in simplex mode, and I tuned the volume settings. I had no TX until I set “Change CTCSS From = no”. I don’t know what that setting does, but the tip came from the video. Then I could use the allmon3 web interface to connect up to Parrot+ node (55553) for testing, and it reported, “volume just about right.” I could connect and disconnect to nodes from the web interface. There are other commands in the web interface to say the time or id the node on demand.

I could send DTMF commands from my UV-K5 with the F4HWN firmware:

• * starts DTMF entry, PTT sends the codes.
• *1 <node number> disconnects from a node
• *2 <node number> connects to monitor another node
• *3 <node number> connects to transcieve to another node
• other scripts, like “disconnect all” don’t seem to work yet.

The W3GMS admins granted me access to connect my node to the repeater, so I’ll have a chance to try it out there. I was also able to connect to K3IR.

I further tested my AllStar node talkin to the 985 repeater. I discovered the bit of a delay caused my node to often skip a moment in the beginning of others’ transmissions, so I’d miss a second at the start. Also, since it’s simplex, I couldn’t throw any DTMF commands at it while the node is trasnmitting. I had to use the web interface to disconnect if others were talking at the same time.

I used the N3KZ repeater system, specifically the York node on 442.050, for the first time from home. I spoke to N3RCI, who I usually hear on KX3B. He was on the node in Havre de Grace. I used the 1/4-wave ground plane antenna in the tree.

I continue to be amazed that a 70cm repeater node has such reach. I used the York node, but I often hear the nodes in Cumberland, York, and Lebanon; sometimes I even hear Chambersburg…on UHF. It just doesn’t seem like it should be possible.

I stumbled into a couple Olivia signals on 14071kHz, and on a good guess, I fired up fldigi, and I was able to decode them. They were Olivia-8/250 encoded. I found lots of good documents on Olivia to read some mmore about where they’re likely found.

Club Business

• Elections
• Ideas
  • Looking for help with fox hunt
    • have the transmitters
    • can get help from other clubs

Presentation: DMR with Jason

• originally designed for professional radio installations.
  • lots of motorola gear
• developed in europe first
• digital voice
• data
• components
  • radios
  • repeaters
  • controllers (for routing traffic)
  • network infrastructure
• lots of networking and linking over large areas.
• types
  • tier 1 - consumer
  • tier 2 - professional, trunked
  • tier 3 - trunked, large-scale
• TDMA (time-division multiple access) - 2 channels / slots
• narrow bandwidth 12.5khz band
• modes
  • private
  • group
  • broadcast
  • data: text, gps, telemetry
• radio id is assigned by radioid.net to you and your call sign
• talkgroup = collecting a bunch of radio ids into a single contact
• popular public networks:
  • tgif
  • brandmeister
• can also be a private network
• hotspots access dmr network via the internet
• delmarvadmr.com
• 3 building blockse
  • talk groups
  • channels
  • zones

My Week in Radio

• Took down my 2M antennas to straighten and resolder.
• Catching up the radio blog with my recent experiences.
• Trying F4HWN firmware on Quansheng radios
  • previous firmware, AUBSUK, for my Quansheng radio was skipping channels when I activated more than 1 scan list.
  • larger display with single VFO
  • rethinking my scan lists
  • the S-meter is calibrated differently from the other firmware
• no questions, because I should just be reading the antenna book
• FT Challenge coming up in 2 weekends. *** Others
• KD3ACF, JT:
  • acquired a j-pole for the attic
  • new ham with an HT
  • magmount on the car, tested with WA3VEE from Manheim High School
• W8CRW, CR:
  • 985 activities
  • Red Rose activities
  • Salem CCARS acitvity
• W3QP, Tim:
  • trip to HRO
  • planning trips
• WA3VEE, Ron:
  • working on an old receiver
    • re-capping
    • Hammerland hq140x
    • terrible, loud 120hz buzz, so ordered capacitors to replace them
    • cleaned
    • fixed
    • needs just a little more work, alignment
  • got over to KC3YSM, Steve’s place to help with his antenna
    • analyzed
    • Buckmaster OCF dipole
• KC3RFG, Jim:
  • watching 10m
  • Croatia, Belgium
  • repairing the 160m/75m dipole, new balun
• AF3Z, Jim:
  • testing his 1-tube QRP transmitter
  • practiced some CW with a friend on 10m
  • found sweden and belgium lower in the band.
• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • 985 net, simplex net
  • working on tower
  • helping Joe, W3GMS, assemble his new tower
• KC3SCY, Luke:
  • lots of time off from school this week
  • 10m has been wide-open
  • spent some time on 40m SSB and AM
• KC3VRW, Phil:
  • attempted to build a 10m inverted-V
  • MFJ tuner
  • trying tech HF frequencies

Questions

• W3QP, Tim: Follow up on battery measurements for the TSA, Watt-hours instead of Amp-hours.
  • bigger batteries have bigger thermal events.
  • Wh is the amount of potential power.
  • Wh doesn’t require doing the math to consider voltage in combo with Ah.
  • 18Ah at 12V.
  • The nominal voltage for the cells is less.
  • Expected usable volts are even less, so Wh is less than just V*A.
  • Nominal voltage can be different across different battery chemistries.
  • Nominal voltage may not be obvious.
  • 11.1 Nominal voltage might be 12.6V at peak charge.
  • Volts and Amps are important for application, but Watt-hours is better overall for capacity.
• AF3Z, Jim:
  • tinkering with Hartley oscillator: mica capacitors, ceramic capacitors, what’s the difference of all the different capacitors?
    • WA3KFT, John:
      • ratings: capacitance, voltage.
      • The “dry electrolytic” is a paste, not oil.
      • main purpose is filtering AC converted to DC.
      • filtering some frequencies
      • ceramic capacitors are pretty stable, until overheated.
      • mica capacitors are small capacitances, pF. used for frequency stablizing.
      • variable air capacitor
      • oil filled are higher capacitance and used for low frequencies in power supplies, etc.
    • WA3VEE, Ron:
      • film capacitors
        • different dielectric
        • used for audio.
      • paper capacitor
      • dielectric is anything that separates the plates.
      • air capacitors
    • W3QP, Tim:
      • silver mica are maybe lower loss than ceramic
      • multi-layer capacitors for higher currents
    • W3DIB, Greg:
      • negatives of certain capacitors:
        • some dielectrics leak
        • tantalums can dead-short, like in a power supply.
      • saw a cool video of people building filters for cheap radios in places with heavy RF to keep them working better.
    • WA3VEE, Ron:
      • they leak when they get overheated.
      • leads to the plate have a little resistance so generate heat.
      • capacitor can have a vent that leaks under pressure.
    • NA3CW, Chuck:
      • capacitors are deceptively complex
      • all components have some bit of capacitance, inductance, resistance.
      • vacuum dialectric for especially high voltage.
      • lots of trade-off characteristics
      • some are piezoelectric (microphone), like a condenser microphone
• WA3VEE, Ron:
  • homework: does a capacitor allow current to flow through it? KC3SQI, Wayne:
• solar telescope demos on December 11 at some park

My Weeks in Radio

• QRP on a couple hawaiian islands
• not much 2m activity
  • added some repeaters and scanned
• POTA
  • Xiegu x6100 mostly turned up to 8W
  • mostly 10m-30m and everything in between
  • challenging to be on an island where you have to go thousands of miles or you reach no one.
  • antennas:
    • 40M EFHW where I had room,
    • 41ft long EFRW with less room
    • vertical whip and coil attached to a fishing pole for a less conspicuous setup on some beaches
  • 6 parks and 2 trails on 2 islands:
    • sandy beaches
    • rocky lava fields
    • inside diamondhead caldera
    • atop steaming kilauea
  • reached:
    • west: Australia, New zealand, Fiji, Japan, Russia, China, South Cook Islands, Samoa
    • east: North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Dominican Republic, Argentina
  • practiced some CW on the beach when I didn’t get out the computer
• back to a home park yesterday, but the weather was not as nice.
• took down my home-made 2m antennas and straightened them up.
• trying F4HWN 3.7 firmware for Quansheng radios
  • from a scanner-centered AUBSUK firmware that was skipping some channels
• looking forward to that FT Challenge contest

Other News

• contests
  • CQ WW CW this weekend
  • no contests for the Thanksgiving weekend
  • following weekend
    • 160m CW arrl contest
    • FT challenge contest
• KA3TKW: R&L electronics: TYT MD-9600, GD-77 open firmware
• digipeat through the ISS
• high pass of ISS tonight at 9:10pm.
• 224.220 repeater is up and running, but not linked yet.
• KC3NNO: mini dxpedition to canada

The home-brew yagi blows around in the wind a bit, so I brought it down this morning as it started to snow, so I could straighten and tighten the elements. I realigned it for the 985 repeater, and checked it to be giving -96dBm.

I also resoldered some radials on the 1/4-wave ground plane antenna that go knocked loose in the tree.