W1MOO Field Day 2008

This past weekend was the ARRL Field Day.  For several years I’ve participated in this fun operating event with the W1MOO group in South Burlington, VT.  This year was no different, and as usual, we had lots of fun, made lots of contacts and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  There is a full album of pictures which can be found here.

I arrived on Friday morning around 11am to help assemble antennas, campers, etc.  When I arrived, KK1L (Ron) and W1CX (Loyd) had already assembled the 20M 4 element monobander, the KT34 tribander and most of the Cushcraft 2 element 40M beam.  K1LI (Brian) arrived shortly before I did, and the four of us completed assembling antennas and then hit the deli next door for lunch.

We returned to the field day site around 1pm and found that KM1Z (Fran) had arrived, but the towers had not.  We socialized until 2pm when WJ1Z (Bob) arrived with the “‘MOO Trailer” full of the towers.  Once he arrived, the assembly of the towers began full speed.  The towers are AB-577 military surplus towers, and we have become very familiar with them over the years.  The group owns 3 of these towers, this year we put up two of them.   The  guy anchors and bases were installed, and the antennas were put on the towers.  One tower held the 40M beam and the tribander for the phone station.  The other tower held the 20M monobander for the CW station.  Then we put up the 40M/tribander tower up to 50 feet.  At this point we went to put the 20M monobander onto the second tower and found that the boom to mast clamps were missing.  It was decided that we had made enough progress for Friday afternoon, and agreed to reconvene by 9am the next morning. to complete setup.

The next day the 20M antenna went up smoothly.  Coax was run, stations were setup, and the logging computers/network was setup.  As the 80M antenna was tested, we found that the antenna was not resonating where we expected it to.  It was decided to worry about that antenna after the event started at 2pm local time as we would not need the antenna until around 8 or 9pm.  Eventually we found it must be the center insulator.  Once that was replaced with a homebrew version, the antenna looked much better on 80/75 as well as 160.

At around 1:45 I sat down in front of the phone radio to find a frequency and warm up the band.  Many others were doing the same, and I eventually found a clear spot near 14.250.  I began to work stations, and it was clear that our antennas were playing well.  At the starting gun we began running on both modes, both on 20M.  Things went fast and furious, with the rate meter jumping almost immediately to over 200/hour for both stations combined.

This continued for the bulk of the event.  The “rate meter” dropped below 100 QSOs per hour for about 1 hour on Sunday morning.  There were some nice runs and pileups.  It was amazing how late into the evening we were able to work 20M, and there always seemed to be stations to work. Sometimes during Field Day there are lulls in the action as stations across the country break for meals or rest time.  That didn’t seem to be the case this year.

With our antennas pointing southwest, we only worked 1 or 2 europeans of the back of the beams, but we did work several vk/zl stations with good signals both ways.  In the end we worled close to 3500 contacts during the 24 hours, which is an average rate of about 145 QSOs per hour for both stations.  Not bad for 150 watts and temporary antennas.  I know we missed several bonus point opportunities, but our aim was to have a good time, and that we did.  I don’t yet have a summary sheet, but as soon as I do, I’ll add that to my post.

Thanks for the QSOs, and see you next year.

‘MOO

73 de Al, KE1FO

Weekly Links

Again, I’ve been somewhat off schedule with this post, but here’s some links from the past couple of

Amateur Radio Still Going Strong according to Louis E. Frenzel of Wireless Systems Design Magazine.

K1VR, Fred Hopengarten, maintains a nice site about antenna zoning. If you ever need a zoning permit for a tower, this site may come in handy.

K5LAD has a good site about maintaining a HyGain Tailtwister rotor.

The K7NV Notebook on towers has some great resources.

Dunestar 600 Characteristics by K0TO

N1LO has a neat “notebook” about tower construction (and some other topics as well).

73 de Al, KE1FO

Weekly Links

Here’s the next installment of links gleaned from the ham radio reflectors I frequent.  It’s a little late this week - I usually try to publish on Sunday evenings - but didn’t get to it this week.  Look for another installment next week.

K3LR has the slides from the 2008 Contesting and Antenna Forums posted on his website. He also has the files for 2004-2007

AB7E has a great website about his tower and antenna construction project, and he’s got a section on homebrew cadwelding molds he made for attaching ground wires to ground rods.

W0QE has made an independent comparison of the AIM4170 and the HP8753 up to 170 MHz.

Tom, K8CX has finished loading the 2008 photos that he took at Dayton. This is the 12th year in a row that Tom has posted Dayton photos on his excellent web site.

Weekly Links

Here’s another set of interesting links from the reflectors and my own research.

NN4ZZ sells the Tilt Plate accessory for tilt-over towers allowing working on the antennas at ground level.

Good information on using the Falling Derrick method of raising a tilt over tower can be found on N6RK’s website.

Ever wonder who has how many DXCC Entities on RTTY confirmed via LOTW? If you do, check out this page by Andrei, EW1AR/NP3D. All the information seems to be self reported, so check your LOTW RTTY standing and enter your information!

K1IR has a revamped website to a blog style site. His first post is a review of the Dayton Hamfest through his eyes.

The Bolt Depot has been recommended on TowerTalk as an online source for hard to find bolts, u-bolts, etc.

ARRL announced a new Contest Branch Blog today. Might be worth keeping tabs on!

Need slashed zero fonts for WriteLog or other Amateur Radio purposes? Here’s 8.

Here’s a helpful website by AB5K about using a “trolley” system to get an antenna up to the top of a tower.

Morse Code in the news

ทท –/-ท — -/-ทท ท ท- -ทท/-ท– ท - *
Stephen Moss
The Guardian,
Wednesday May 21 2008

About this article
This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday May 21 2008 on p3 of the
Comment & features section. It was last updated at 11:42 on May 21 2008.

One had assumed that Morse code’s last hurrah (that’s ทททท ทท- ท-ท … oh,
life’s just too short) had been in about 1944. But one had assumed wrong.
The writer Alan Sillitoe, who trained as a wireless operator in the second
world war, this week revealed that he still practises taking Morse every
day, listening to chatter across the airwaves, including a French station
that broadcasts poetry in Morse.

So how much Morse, in iambic pentameters or otherwise, is out there? “Radio
amateurs are still using Morse code worldwide,” says Carlos Eavis, amateur
radio manager at the Radio Society of Great Britain. “It’s something that
every radio amateur needs to learn.” Eavis points to several advantages
Morse, which has been around since the 1840s, has over its modern rivals.
There is no language barrier - the dots and dashes are the Esperanto of the
airwaves; you don’t need an expensive computer, so the four-fifths of the
world that doesn’t have internet access can still communicate; the
simplicity of the signal means it can be easily picked up, even when
reception is poor; and only the most rudimentary transmitter is needed to
send messages.

Morse can’t compete with computer-based systems in sending long messages -
though tests have proved it is faster than text messaging on mobile phones -
and most military services have abandoned it. But the SAS is still believed
to teach Morse, in case its solders need to rig up a simple transmitter in a
remote location and send a distress call. It also comes in useful in
prisons, where prisoners can tap out messages to each other on pipes. “Morse
will continue to be used,” says Eavis, “because of its simplicity. You don’t
need anything hi-tech - it will just work.” Samuel Morse’s name will live
on, which, says Eavis, is unfair on Alfred Vail, who actually invented the
code. Morse just financed it. Dash it!

Weekly Links

Here’s a collection of links that I’ve seen over the last week on one of the ham radio e-mail reflectors or I found through surfing and thought they were interesting.

Penninger radio is an interesting source for aluminum masts and mast hardware.

K1ZM.com has updates this week. Lots of great pictures radio information, including audio recordings of KC1F (SK) operating.

K6NR has several pages showing the instillation of a US Tower Crankup. This is one of the few well documented instillations I’ve see online.

Radio Manuals back several generations are available from the manufacturer websites:

Kenwood - scroll down the page and use the pulldown menu to find your radio - lots of older rigs as well (as old as ts-120, ts-930, etc.)

Icom - scroll down to the amateur radio list and pick your radio out of the list

Yeasu - the manuals are in with the product list. For the current line of HF transcievers, just scroll left or right, then select the files tab below and find the link to the manual. For the previous generation, click on “General HF Transceivers/Amplifiers” then scroll as above. Only seems to be the current and one previous generation available through their site.

Alinco - Use the pulldown menus to search for a manual, service manual, etc.

K7LXC on crankup cables

QUESTION: US Tower recommends replacing the cable every 2-3 years, which may be overkill but is definitely erring on the side of safety. Since my tower is 7 years old I’d like to start out with fresh cabling.

ANSWER: The UST recommendation is known as a “weasel clause”; that is, if something happens to your tower and you hadn’t changed the cables, they can weasel out of any liability. Tower manufacturers are insurance-driven enterprises so it’s no surprise they are reluctant to provide any helpful information.

The other gotcha is that there isn’t anyone around who can do the cable change anyway. I spent a couple of days at the factory to learn how to do it and what I found out is that it’s an involved and semi-complicated
endeavor. It’s not something I would try myself.

I’ll bet you a nickel that you don’t have to do anything other than lube the cables and you’ll be good to go. The actual circumstances that would require cable replacement are:

1) Excessive broken strands. Industry standards allow you to have six broken strands before replacement is necessary.

2) Excessive rust - not surface rust but real cancerous into the strands rust.

3) Damaged cable. This would be kinks or flat spots in the cable. I doubt that your cables meet any of the above criteria.

OTOH you should lubricate the cables annually at a minimum. Champion Radio products sells PreLube 6 which is recommended by the wire rope manufacturers.

You should exercise the tower a couple of times a month by running it up and down. You should also park it at different heights rather than just at the limit switches all the time. The cables can take a permanent set by sitting on the pulleys at the same spot for years. By doing these 3 things, you will prolong the service life of your cables.

BTW I have never personally seen a ham tower that the cables were so bad that they had to be replaced. Some were pretty grungy but didn’t meet the aforementioned criteria.

Lube it and enjoy it and don’t worry about replacing the cables.

Cheers,
Steve K7LXC
TOWER TECH -
Professional tower services for hams

Grounding & lightning/surge protection e-mail reflector

Interesting resource posted to the TowerTalk reflector today:

Grounding and lightning/surges questions answered:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LightningProtection

Technical references:
http://www.polyphaser.com/technical_notes.aspx
http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lhm.html

73 de Al, KE1FO

A Ham’s Guide to RFI, Ferrites, Baluns, and Audio Interfacing

At the Visalia International DX Convention,  Jim Brown, K9YC, hosted
an excellent presentation on “Coaxial Transmitting Chokes” as they
apply to Amateur Radio. In his professional life Jim is a consultant
in the audio systems industry. He has many years experience in
designing audio systems and resolving RFI problems in all types of
audio systems.

His presentation included some interesting data on commonly used
commercial chokes and baluns available to hams. He also describes how
to easily build chokes that far exceed the performance of those
commercially available units, at a lower cost.

The presentation is available here.

Enjoy.

73 de Al, KE1FO

Remote Station Listserve

This appeared on the TowerTalk reflector today.

I have set up a new reflector for those of us that are interested in
remote stations, operating, contesting, etc. It is called remoteoperating.
It is my hope that those currently using remote stations, or are thinking
about it, please subscribe and help kick this new reflector off.
There are many of us that have a lot of experience, technical know how and
have been there and are doing it now. I know I have had a lot of successes
and failures in my endeavor to get the remote station operational. I want to
share, and I still have a lot of what if and how do I do this type of
questions.
Hopefully this list will be where we can get together and help each other.
If you know of others who are interested, or other lists that we can get the
word out about this new reflector, please let them know. The more we get the
word out, the more we will enjoy each others comments.
Thanks in advance, and I hope to see you on the new list.

General information and subscription info on the mailing list is at:

http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/remoteoperating

73 and thanks,

Paul K2DB - K2NNY

Paul, thanks for setting this up. I’m not going to join right now, but I’ve thought about remote operating in the past, and probably will again in the future. Hopefully when I’m thinking of it again, this new listserve will be a wonderful resource.

73 de Al, KE1FO