CQWW CW 2009 Plans

So I discovered a neat tool on the EI6DX web site that has aggregate data of all of the CQWW Logs for 2007 and 2008.  You can apply lots of filters, but the most useful (at least I think the most useful) is the filter where you can see all contacts originating from a particular zone, that ended in a particular zone.  For example, I selected all contacts that originated in zone 5, and were completed with zones in Europe (14, 15, 16, 20, and 40).  Then you can see a graph that shows the number of contacts that were made each hour on that path.

I then created a schedule that shows what band I want to operate on, when, and where I should be focusing my attention (towards Europe, or Asia, etc.).  Here’s my schedule – it’s ambitious for me – 36 hours.  We’ll see what actually happens next weekend.

Contest Hour	10	15	20	40	80
0				Run EU	SA/EU/AF mults
1				Run EU	SA/EU/AF mults
2				Run EU	SA/EU/AF mults
3				Run EU	SA/EU/AF mults
4				Run EU	SA/EU/AF mults
5				Run EU	SA/EU/AF mults
6	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
7	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
8	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
9	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
10	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
11				OC Mults	OC Mults
12			Run EU	AS/OC Mults	AS/OC Mults
13			Run EU	AS Mults	AS Mults
14	AF Mults?	AF Mults?	Run EU	AS Mults	AS Mults
15	AF Mults?	AF Mults?	Run EU
16	AF Mults?	AF Mults?	Run EU
17			Run EU
18	SA Mults?	SA mults	Run EU/SA? Mults
19	OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF
20		OC Mults	OC Mults	Run EU
21		OC Mults	OC Mults	Run EU
22			AS Mults	Run EU
23				Run EU
24				Run EU
25				Run EU
26					EU Mults
27					EU Mults
28	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
29	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
30	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
31	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
32	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
33	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
34	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep	Sleep
35				OC Mults	OC Mults
36			Run EU	AS/OC Mults	AS/OC Mults
37			Run EU	AS Mults	AS Mults
38			Run EU
39	AF Mults?		Run EU
40	AF Mults?		Run EU
41	AF Mults?		Run EU
42		SA mults	Run EU/SA mults
43		OC Mults	OC Mults
44				Run EU
45				Run EU
46				Run EU
47				Run EU	EU Mults
48				Run EU	EU Mults

So, I hope to see everyone on next weekend.

73 de Al, KE1FO

Field Day is coming?

Already?  Yep, Field day is only 2 months away. Remember that getting elected officials, the press, etc. to show up takes planning.  You may be able to get the station equipment together in a week, but important people’s schedules fill up fast!

As usual, I’ll be operating wtih the W1MOO group here in VT.  We’re a group of folks who like to pack as much radio into a weekend as possible, and therefore always make lots of contacts.  We’ve never enjoyed fooling around with low dipoles or longwires.  We always put up at least 2 military surplus towers with Yagis on top, and operate FD as a contest.

This year will be no exception.  Plans are already underway.  You can check out w1moo.wikispaces.org to see the planning that’s gone on so far.

Hopefully this year I’ll have my QRP PSK station available and we can use that to make our 5 alternate power contacts.  It will consist of an FT-817 and NUE-PSK modem.  Should be fun.

So, start thinking about Field Day.  What are you going to try out this year?

73 de Al, KE1FO

It’s been a while!

It’s been a while.  After Sweepstakes, the holidays hit and I’ve been straight out ever since.  Between Christmas, recovery from Christmas, work and family sickness it’s been an overwhelming 2009.  

My main radio excitement right now is that it is almost “work season”.  During th spring, summer and fall I enjoy working on antenna projects.  This summer may include work on phasing verticals for 40 and 80, and maybe putting up a 160 antenna.  We’ll see how the craziness factor goes.

One thing I have been able to work on of late is exploring some new programming languages.   I’m fairly familiar with Visual Basic for Applications, and I’ve dabbled with VB.  I’ve now started picking up PHP to do some work with MySQL and web page access.  Should be fun and interesting!

Maybe I’ll get on for WPX CW.  That might be fun.

73 de Al, KE1FO

The Saga of the Serial to FSK interface

So about a week ago I decided I wanted to build two Serial to FSK interfaces and try out the Software Generated FSK feature of Writelog.  After a quick trip to Radio Shack, I sat down and started to work.  I used the circuit descriptions from AA5AU’s RTTY contesting site.  Not knowing what my rig (TS-940) would need, I built up the first circuit on the page – using an NPN general purpose transistor and a 1K ohm resistor.  Plugged this in and all was well – almost.

My FSK was inverted, and the TS-940 has no “menu setting” to change the FSK polarity.  So, back to AA5AU’s website, and at the bottom of the page is a circuit using a PNP transistor to use if the NPN version above transmitts inverted FSK.  So, got the soldering iron hot again and built up the circuit.  Much to my surprise and dismay, nothing!  Ok, maybe I wired something wrong, or had a bad transistor, or got the transistor too hot.  Tried rebuilding it, again to no avail.  So I joined the RTTY reflector and sent out  a message.  Lots of answers, some helpful for their thought provoking, others notso helpful.

I spent a 2nd evening after getting these responces from many folks trying to figure out what I had done wrong.  I tested transistors to make sure the pins were not mis-marked, I tried using a heat sink, I tried connecting pin 5 to the shell of the connector.  Nothing.  Off to bed in frustration.

Third evening at the bench I tested to make sure that something hadn’t happened to the RTTY input of the rig.  Sure enough, shorting the tip to the ring of the rca connector caused the signal to shift.  So that was working OK, but for some reason the circuit wasn’t doing the job.  I could see that the port was changing states as the USB/Serial converter has an LED to show activity.  What was goign on.  In my testing, I just happened to connect the FSK interface to the radio while the rig was keyed – the tone shifted!  In it’s regular state, the circuit was closing the RTTY line and causing the tone to shift.  Very interesting….so I left my “just follow the directions” mode and put my logic hat on.  What I wanted to happen was for the RTTY line to be grounded when the FSK was keying, not when it was not.

In testing the transistor, I remembered that there is contunity (or should I say low resistance) between the collector/base pair and the emmitter/base pair when there is nothing connected to the transistor.  So, if you look at the PNP circuit at the bottom of AA5AU’s page, you’ll see that the setup will ground the RTTY line when it’s connected, because there’s low resistance between the collector (which is connected to the rig) and base which is connected to ground).  I don’t want a connection in that state, I want the connection in the shifted state.  So maybe the collector should go to the rig, and the emmitter should go to ground, and the base should be connected to the signal line from the serial port.  That way when there is voltage present on the base, it will cause there to be a low resistance path from collector to emmitter.

So, I put the hypothesis to work and built up a circuit.  Phew – no smoke AND it worked.  Here’s a schematic of what worked for me to key my TS-940.

I’m no technical guru, but it doesn’t seem to me that the circuit shown on AA5AU’s page will work.  Hopefully I havnen’t done anything that will cause grave harm to my computer or rig, but I built two interfaces using the circuit above and both work just fine.

I forgot to upload the pictures I took of the interface last night, so I’ll be adding some pictures to this post later today or tomorrow.  I think it came out looking pretty good as I was able to build it into a DB9 all metal connector shell, and the panel mount RCA connector fits perfectly where the cable would normally exit the “back” of the shell, making for a neat little package.

Now hopefully I’ll see you all in the ARRL RTTY Roundup in January – I should be able to hear you better as I’ll be able to use my narrow CW filters instead of the wide open SSB filters!

73 de Al, KE1FO

2008 ARRL November Sweepstakes Phone

ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB

Call: KE1FO
Operator(s): KE1FO
Station: KE1FO

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: VT
Operating Time (hrs): 8
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
Band  QSOs
————
160:    0
80:    7
40:  204
20:   25
15:   14
10:    0
————
Total:  250  Sections = 66  Total Score = 33,000

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Had some fun.  Tried out a new set of .wav files this weekend, and they seemed
to work pretty well.  Numbers are still a little hard, and fills are not the
easiest to give, but it worked.  More practice will make it better, but I doubt
there will be much of that as this event was a great reminder of why I don’t
care for phone contests.  Can’t wait for next week’s CQWW CW!

Mostly s&p with a couple of short runs.

See you all soon.

73 de Al, KE1FO

ARRL November Sweepstakes CW 2008

I really do enjoy CW contesting.  What a fun 22 hours I had this last weekend.  For all that are interested, here’s the nitty gritty details!

First some goals.  Historically I’ve been able to do about 450 or 500 q’s in sweepstakes – either mode.  If I could get just over 600 q’s and a sweep, I’d break 100k points.  That sounded like a good and reasonable goal.  This year I’d made some antenna improvements and thought this was a modest yet good goal to shoot for.

My contesting dedication for the weekend was facilitated by spending Saturday with 3 of our 4 kids and cleaning the house at the same time.  I had promised this to my wife as a “trade” for my being able to focus on the contest the rest of the weekend (and the weekend of CQWW CW coming up soon).  Unfortunately this tapped a fair amount of my energy and affected my ability to concentrate and focus.  This specifically effected my abaility to work Q’s on the 2nd radio when any extra fatigue set in.  More on this later.

My wife had gone shopping for the day with our youngest (6 month old Siobhan).  She had hoped to return at 4 so I could get settled in before the start at 5pm local time.  Unfortunately, she didn’t return until almost 4:45.  During the day I had spent a few minutes making sure the station was ready to go as this is the first contest after some shack work.  I discovered that I couldn’t find my headset, and there was no suitable set of headphones in the house.  So as soon as she arrived home I ran out to the local variety store to try and find some headphones.  I was sucessful in finding some “over the ear” headphones (I don’t like the kind that rest on your ear or go in your ear – at least not for contesting).

So, at 5:15 I got into the chair, about 1/2 hour after I had hoped.  Started out on 15, and called CQ at 21033 while S&Ping on 20M on the 2nd radio.  It was clear that 15 wasn’t producing all that much and my attention to the S&P was not good with my fatigue, so I focused on the S&P on 20.  By the end of the hour I had 21 q’s and a bunch of mults.  At 6 it was time for a short 30 minute break to have dinner with the family.

I was back on at 2235z and started right in on 40M S&P.  After about 1/2 hour fo S&P I found a spot at 7050 and settled down to call CQ and work S&P on the 2nd radio on 20M.  At 2321z I worked my last q on 7050 as things had gotten pretty crowded.  I started S&Ping on 40 and 80 simultaniously and found another spot at 7068 and started CQing again wihle continuing S&P on 80.  Then at 0200z I moved my CQ machine to 80 and S&P’d through 40.  I continued this flip-flop through 0546z when I called it quits for the night.  I decided to call it a night then because I was finding that I couldn’t concentrate on the 2nd radio at all.  I had to just shut down the audio and focus on one band at a time, and with the rate so slow it wasn’t quite so much fun any more.

It was back onto 40 at 1140z with a run on 7029.  Then at 1230z I decided to move my running to 20M and S&P on 40.  I quickly went back to 40 (about 1/2 hour later) as the rate was better on 40.  From 1324 to 1423 I had my best hour with 60 q’s in that hour on 40M, but shortly thereafter I moved to the higher bands and left 40 behind.  I think this was a bad move in hindsight and seeing some of the 3830 reports wtih huge q totals on 40.  My thinking was that I might pick up some of the more distant mults on 20 that I wouldn’t get on 40.  This may have been true, but I worked stuff all around the sections I missed on 40, and obviously didn’t hear the ones I missed on 20 either.

The other thing that really hurt me was my inability to focus on the 2nd radio.  My running rates are not stellar (little pistol station), so I’ve got lots of time to S&P on the 2nd radio.  However it just wasn’t happening for me.  One thing I found hugely distracting was my AL-80 amplifier.  Whenever it transmits it emits a loud buzzing noise – always has.  I’ve never thought much of it, except that my SB-200 is absolutly silent except for the fan.  When I was CQing using the AL-80 my focus would get severly distracted by the buzzing “CQ SS KE1FO KE1FO SS” emenating from the amplifier.  Maybe my lack of focus was more due to that than any fatigute?  So this lack of focus caused me to just listen to myself CQ instead of combing bands over and over again for new q’s and possible mults.  It seems lots of east coast guys got their AK mult on 15M.  I missed that one.  Might have found it if I had done more S&P as I never had one call me.

After about 1400z the family had returned from church and I took a break to have lunch wtih them.  After lunch it was alternating slow runs on 20 and 40.  Never really dry, but just not moving very fast.  After the contest I had an e-mail conversation with Gerry, W1VE who had operated from K2NNY.  He and I discussed how CW speed may effect the run rate.  I was CQing at 25-28pwm all of Sunday as when folks were coming back to me, that was the most common speed.  In addition, I felt like I wasn’t getting as many calls when I was sending at 32-35wpm.  His observation was the opposite.  I wonder if my q rates would have been better had I been sending faster?  Faster CW speed means a quick in/out qso for a good op.  Faster CW speed menas less time to wait for the q to be over.  Faster CW speed means less time to wait until you hear my callsign again.  Hmmmm.  Maybe next year I’ll keep the keyer cranked up and see what happens.

This also got me thinking about my cqing tactics.  I’ve always felt like I should have a CQ that sends my callsign twice, includes CQ and identifies itself as a CQ again at the end somehow.  This year I used “CQ SS KE1FO KE1FO SS”.  I then have my timed CQ wait 3 seconds before starting the CQ again.  Thinking about timing and waiting around etc, it may be wiser to use something like “KE1FO SS” and wait only 1.5 seconds or so between transmissions.  Something to think about before next year.

As the sun set and 20 died out my 2 radios were on 40 and 80.  Things really slowed down towards the end and my focus on the 2 radios was dismal.  I literally shut the 2nd radio and amp off.  When I surpassed 600 q’s (which was my goal) my desire to listen to the cacophony in the headphones dropped considerably.  Also, I wasn’t feeling loud any longer and almost every station I tuned across was a dupe.  The chances of working the 5 sections I’d missed was very slim, so at 0231z I put down the headphones and called it a contest.

So on to some stats.  As I said my best hour was on 40M with 60q’s between 13 and 14z.  Overall I had 606q’s and 75 sections in 20 hours of operating.  Missed VI, UT, AK, MB and NT.  Heard lots of folks missed EWA, I worked W7WMO and K7OX.  Worked them both the first night on 40 and they gave reasonable numbers, so it seems there was a fair amount of activity from the section.  As I spent a fair amount of time running, lots of sections called me.  Even a few I thought I’d have to find like PR, NL and MAR.   The log stats program says 42 probable 2nd radio qsos, whic is probably pretty close.  I’m sure times where I was S&Ping on both radios it counted that as band changes rather than 2nd radio qs (92 band changes – which is pretty high).

I felt my CW copying was much stronger this year than in the past.  Much less need to ask for fills.  Still felt shaky many times with numbers, but much more confident than in the past.  Overall 20 hours of great fun, and I can’t wait for next year!  Met 1 of 2 goals, and improved my q total by keeping my butt in the chair more.  Next years goals will be better 2nd radio concentration/use and better runs.  Here’s the full stats:

                   ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW

Call: KE1FO
Operator(s): KE1FO
Station: KE1FO

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: VT
Operating Time (hrs): 20
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:   88
   40:  378
   20:  130
   15:   10
   10:    0
------------
Total:  606  Sections = 75  Total Score = 90,900

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Cabrillo Statistics      (Version 06g)         by K5KA

Callsign: KE1FO
Category: SINGLE-OP ALL HIGH CW
Contest: ARRL-SS-CW
Operators: KE1FO

-------------- Q S O   R a t e   S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour     160     80     40     20     15     10    Rate Total    Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2100       0      0      0     14      7      0     21     21    3.4
2200       0      0     18      1      0      0     19     40    3.1
2300       0      4     27      1      0      0     32     72    5.2
0000       0      7     22      0      0      0     29    101    4.7
0100       0     24      5      0      0      0     29    130    4.7
0200       0     11      4      0      0      0     15    145    2.5
0300       0      0     42      0      0      0     42    187    6.9
0400       0     16     10      0      0      0     26    213    4.2
0500       0      8     15      0      0      0     23    236    3.8
0600       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    236    0.0
0700       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    236    0.0
0800       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    236    0.0
0900       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    236    0.0
1000       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    236    0.0
1100       0      0     14      0      0      0     14    250    2.3
1200       0      0     19      8      0      0     27    277    4.4
1300       0      0     40      4      0      0     44    321    7.2
1400       0      0     28      4      0      0     32    353    5.2
1500       0      0      0     39      0      0     39    392    6.4
1600       0      0      6     16      2      0     24    416    3.9
1700       0      0     35      4      0      0     39    455    6.4
1800       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    455    0.0
1900       0      0      2     29      0      0     31    486    5.1
2000       0      0     19     10      1      0     30    516    4.9
2100       0      0     35      0      0      0     35    551    5.7
2200       0      0      4      0      0      0      4    555    0.7
2300       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    555    0.0
0000       0      6      8      0      0      0     14    569    2.3
0100       0     12     14      0      0      0     26    595    4.2
0200       0      0     10      0      0      0     10    605    1.6
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0     88    377    130     10      0    605

Gross QSO's=612        Dupes=7        Net QSO's=605

Unique callsigns worked = 605

The best 60 minute rate was 60/hour from 1324 to 1423
The best 30 minute rate was 66/hour from 1336 to 1405
The best 10 minute rate was 72/hour from 1343 to 1352

The best 1 minute rates were:
 2 QSO's/minute   44 times.
 1 QSO's/minute  517 times.

There were 92 bandchanges and 42 (6.9%) probable 2nd radio QSO's.

Number of letters in callsigns
Letters  # worked
-----------------
   4       416
   5       144
   6        43
   7         2

------------ M u l t i p l i e r   S u m m a r y ------------
Mult     160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
MDC        0     13     22      3      0      0     38    6.2
IL         0      7     24      3      0      0     34    5.6
VA         0     16     16      0      0      0     32    5.2
OH         0      4     21      0      0      0     25    4.1
SCV        0      0     11     11      1      0     23    3.8
MN         0      0      9     14      0      0     23    3.8
MI         0      5     18      0      0      0     23    3.8
WI         0      2     15      0      0      0     17    2.8
EPA        0      5     12      0      0      0     17    2.8
TN         0      2     10      4      0      0     16    2.6
NTX        0      0     12      4      0      0     16    2.6
SV         0      0      9      5      1      0     15    2.5
NC         0      1     13      1      0      0     15    2.5
CO         0      0     10      5      0      0     15    2.5
STX        0      0      8      4      2      0     14    2.3
IN         0      3     10      1      0      0     14    2.3
AZ         0      0      8      4      1      0     13    2.1
GA         0      0      9      4      0      0     13    2.1
IA         0      0      5      7      0      0     12    2.0
NFL        0      0      6      4      0      0     10    1.6
WMA        0      2      8      0      0      0     10    1.6
SC         0      1      7      1      0      0      9    1.5
SFL        0      0      4      4      0      0      8    1.3
KS         0      0      4      4      0      0      8    1.3
OR         0      0      3      5      0      0      8    1.3
WWA        0      0      1      5      1      0      7    1.1
NM         0      0      5      2      0      0      7    1.1
MO         0      0      6      1      0      0      7    1.1
ON         0      2      5      0      0      0      7    1.1
WPA        0      1      6      0      0      0      7    1.1
CT         0      1      5      0      0      0      6    1.0
SJV        0      1      2      3      0      0      6    1.0
ORG        0      0      2      4      0      0      6    1.0
SNJ        0      4      2      0      0      0      6    1.0
EMA        0      0      6      0      0      0      6    1.0
WCF        0      0      3      2      0      0      5    0.8
AL         0      1      3      1      0      0      5    0.8
AR         0      0      1      3      0      0      4    0.7
SDG        0      0      3      1      0      0      4    0.7
EB         0      0      1      2      1      0      4    0.7
NE         0      0      3      1      0      0      4    0.7
MAR        0      1      3      0      0      0      4    0.7
NH         0      2      1      0      1      0      4    0.7
SF         0      0      3      1      0      0      4    0.7
LA         0      0      2      2      0      0      4    0.7
OK         0      0      3      1      0      0      4    0.7
NLI        0      0      4      0      0      0      4    0.7
KY         0      1      2      1      0      0      4    0.7
NNJ        0      1      3      0      0      0      4    0.7
WV         0      0      4      0      0      0      4    0.7
ME         0      3      0      0      0      0      3    0.5
VT         0      2      0      1      0      0      3    0.5
RI         0      2      1      0      0      0      3    0.5
LAX        0      0      2      1      0      0      3    0.5
NL         0      0      1      2      0      0      3    0.5
SD         0      0      2      1      0      0      3    0.5
MT         0      0      1      2      0      0      3    0.5
BC         0      0      2      1      0      0      3    0.5
SB         0      0      1      0      1      0      2    0.3
ID         0      0      2      0      0      0      2    0.3
EWA        0      1      1      0      0      0      2    0.3
ENY        0      1      1      0      0      0      2    0.3
PAC        0      0      2      0      0      0      2    0.3
NV         0      0      1      1      0      0      2    0.3
WTX        0      0      1      1      0      0      2    0.3
AB         0      0      1      1      0      0      2    0.3
WNY        0      0      2      0      0      0      2    0.3
QC         0      1      0      0      0      0      1    0.2
NNY        0      1      0      0      0      0      1    0.2
DE         0      1      0      0      0      0      1    0.2
PR         0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.2
MS         0      0      0      1      0      0      1    0.2
SK         0      0      0      0      1      0      1    0.2
ND         0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.2
WY         0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.2
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0     88    377    130     10      0    605

Sweepstakes Checks
Check  QSOs    Pct
----------------------
  00     4     0.7
  01     0     0.0
  02     1     0.2
  03     2     0.3
  04     2     0.3
  05     3     0.5
  06     1     0.2
  07     0     0.0
  08     0     0.0
  09     0     0.0
  10     0     0.0
  11     0     0.0
  12     0     0.0
  13     0     0.0
  14     0     0.0
  15     0     0.0
  16     0     0.0
  17     0     0.0
  18     0     0.0
  19     0     0.0
  20     0     0.0
  21     0     0.0
  22     0     0.0
  23     0     0.0
  24     0     0.0
  25     0     0.0
  26     0     0.0
  27     0     0.0
  28     0     0.0
  29     0     0.0
  30     0     0.0
  31     1     0.2
  32     0     0.0
  33     0     0.0
  34     1     0.2
  35     0     0.0
  36     1     0.2
  37     0     0.0
  38     0     0.0
  39     0     0.0
  40     1     0.2
  41     1     0.2
  42     0     0.0
  43     0     0.0
  44     1     0.2
  45     0     0.0
  46     3     0.5
  47     1     0.2
  48     2     0.3
  49     3     0.5
  50     1     0.2
  51     5     0.8
  52     9     1.5
  53    10     1.7
  54    21     3.5
  55    28     4.6
  56    16     2.6
  57    22     3.6
  58    33     5.5
  59    26     4.3
  60    20     3.3
  61    14     2.3
  62    41     6.8
  63    22     3.6
  64    17     2.8
  65    19     3.1
  66    14     2.3
  67    18     3.0
  68    22     3.6
  69    15     2.5
  70    13     2.1
  71    11     1.8
  72    18     3.0
  73    13     2.1
  74     8     1.3
  75    11     1.8
  76    25     4.1
  77    15     2.5
  78     9     1.5
  79    12     2.0
  80     6     1.0
  81     6     1.0
  82     1     0.2
  83     7     1.2
  84     1     0.2
  85     2     0.3
  86     8     1.3
  87     5     0.8
  88     3     0.5
  89     2     0.3
  90     2     0.3
  91     1     0.2
  92     7     1.2
  93     2     0.3
  94     1     0.2
  95     3     0.5
  96     3     0.5
  97     3     0.5
  98     3     0.5
  99     3     0.5

Callareas   Worked
Area   QSOs    Pct
------------------
   0    72    11.9
   1    50     8.3
   2    36     6.0
   3    71    11.7
   4    89    14.7
   5    50     8.3
   6    73    12.1
   7    41     6.8
   8    53     8.8
   9    70    11.6

Sweepstakes Precedents
Precedent  QSOs    Pct
----------------------
    A      256    42.3
    B      152    25.1
    Q       41     6.8
    M       27     4.5
    U      129    21.3
    S        0     0.0

More station work gets done!

Over the last two weeks I’ve gotten a lot of station work done.  I’ve put up the new 15M 2 element beam and I’ve done more work on the single point ground box project.

When I got the 15M beam up, I checked it with the antenna analyzer.  Much to my dismay, it didn’t tune anywhere.  A quick e-mail to the YCCC reflector revealed that what I was probably seeing was bad coax – most likely a short between the shield and center conductor.  When i got around to checking things out a few days later, I realized that I had not connected the balun to the antenna correctly, and had accidentally created a short (there are 2 sets of leads from the balun – the 2nd would be used for the original 12/17M element and the way I had dressed them they were shorting to the boom).  Fixing this fixed the issues and the antenna now tunes nicely in the 15M band.  Unfortunately, it tunes also around 30MHz.  It would be nice if that 2nd resonant point were in the 10M band, but oh well.

I also got a lot more work done on the NEMA box this weekend.  I drilled all the holes for the connectors.  This went very smoothly as the box has a removeable “entrance panel” on the bottom.  This connects securely to the box with 10 screws and a gasket.  I used a 5/8″ hole saw for the coax connector holes and drills of appropriate size for the rest.  This went very smoothly.

I also realized that I cannot get away with only 2 Polyphaser suppressors.  The antenna must connect to the side of the suppressor that passes through the bulkhead.  So I’ve ordred 3 more suppressors from DX Engineering.  These should be in later this week and I can finish this project.

Here are some pictures of the NEMA box work that got done this weekend.

The RCS8V switches are connected to the backplate of the NEMA box with machine screws through their plastic cases.

The NEMA box with 2 of the 5 Polyphaser suppressors installed and the two antenna switches installed. There will be a lot more cable when everything is in place.

Two of the five Polyphaser surge suppressors installed on the NEMA box. The polyphaser suppressors bring each antenna feedline into the box, and the two bulkhead connectors at the left connect to the two lines that enter the house for the left and right rigs. The single hole to the left of the two bulkhead connectors is for the switch control lines.

Here is a view of the bottom of the box. It was easy to drill the holes because the box had a removable panel on the bottom. I used a 5/8" hole saw for the coax connector holes. The three empty large holes on the right are for the remaining Polyphaser suppressors (you can see their matching machine screw holes above each one). The large hole on the left is for the switch control lines. The two small holes at the top left and right are vent holes and will get covered with screen on the inside. The box will be grounded by running copper strap, heavy wire or braid from under two of the screws that mount the panel to the main box.

More Lightning Project Work

Today I was able to spend about an hour doing more work on the entrance panel project.  The antenna switches are moving farther away from the shack, so I needed to install new control lines.  I also ran the coax from where the NEMA box will be mounted into the shack.  There was also a fair amount of labelling that I did tonight.  Here’s some pictures of that labelling.  I used a Brother P-Touch labeller for the labels.  The only downside of this unit is that the backing is very difficult to remove from the labels.  Here’s a few pictures of some of the labelling.

Start of Lightning Protection Project

Over the last couple of days many of the parts for my lightning protection project have arrived.  All I’m waiting for at this point is the NEMA enclosure which I orderd from Electrical Replacement Parts (an ebay seller).  It seemed like it had shipped, but then the tracking number was coming up as invalid on the UPS site.  An e-mail to the seller revealed that they had started the process, but the package was not ready when their daily pickup occured.  I was told it would ship yesterday, but I have yet to see a new tracking number.  Hopefully it gets on the road soon.

Tonight I started prepping my SO2R antenna switching to move from the basement to the new enclosure just outisde the house where the coax comes in.  The switching uses two Ameritron RCS8V switches and a modified control box in the shack.  Each antenna will come into the entrance enclosure through a bulkhead connector, and then be divided with one lead going to each switch.  Here’s a picture with only one of the “dividers” attached for clarity.

These switches are quite old.  The one on the left has some damage from when I first installed it on a crank-up tower about 15 years ago (and I got it used from another ham then).  When I first cranked up the

tower one of the coax cables got caught on the base of the tower and ripped the connector off the switch.  I have the ability to connect an antenna to this broken port, but have not since only 1 of my 2 amplifiers is capable of 160M operation, I just use port 5 for that band.  The switch on the right was acquired from KV1W along with the control unit.  He had built this switch up very early on in the SO2R days and upgraded to a SixPac or similar later, then sold one RCS8V and the control head to me.   To the left is a picture of the control head.  It’s a modified RCS8V control box.  The rotary switch has been replaced by a power on lamp.  The selected antenna leds have been replaced with dpst switches.  Throwing a switch to the left connects the antenna with the left radio – throwing a switch to the right connects the antenna to the right radio.  The only way both transcievers could be attached to the same antenna would be through a circuit failure of some sort.  The switch works very well for my purposes, and could be automated if I so desired using band decoders and source driver boards.

I’ll be using PolyPhaser IS-B50LU-C0 surge suppressors to keep the lightning outside the house.   These will be inserted in the line after the switches, just before the coax enters the house.  Eventually I’d like to add 3 more of these supressors and put them in the line before the antennas get to the switches, but due to funding for this project, there are only 2 suppressors, and they’ll go between the switches and the radios.

Again due to cost, I ordered all my coax jumpers from R&L Electronics.  They have a “house brand” called Jetstream, and have many legnths of pre-made coax jumpers.  Since all my connections will occur inside a 16×16x8 enclosure, I choose 2 foot jumpers so there would be no tight connections.  These jumpers were 6.95 each with nickel Amphenol pl-259’s.  For a couple of bucks more I could have had silver plated connectors, but since I wasn’t soldering them, and they were all going to be inside an enclosure, I choose to go with the nickel plated ones.  Here are some pictures of the cables.  All the solder joints look good, and I’m very happy with the quality I see – time will tell how well they hold up.  As you can see, these jumpers are RG-8X.  I use mostly 8X throughout my station.  I run 1000 watts max, and my coax runs are short due to my small lot.  I’ve found the price for 8X to be good (especially through R&L) and the quality has been good as well.  I’m willing to deal with the loss associated with this type of coax in my situation.

I hope to sepnd a good portion of Monday working on putting up my newly modified MA5B 15M beam, and then some time in succeeding days finishing this lightning project – once the NEMA enclosure arrives.

Keep watching for more updates.

73 de Al, KE1FO

Antenna work – finally!

So I’ve finally gotten around to some of the antenna work I’ve been planning since the spring.  Today I worked on modifying the MA5B.  I had ordered 4 6 foot pieces of the appropriate diameter aluminimum from Texas Towers back in the spring.  This replaced the section just out from the middle of each element (the piece that connects to the “traps”).  I’ll have to re-measure so I can post some accurate measurements, but basically I did the “cut and test” method to find the right spot.  For better or worse, the reflector is 5% longer than the dimension I ended up wtih for the driven element.  This should at least give me some foward gain.  I was able to get the antenna to tune well on on 10 or 15 meters (this was 10 feet off the ground on a mast).  If it’s tuned for 10M, it resonates at 17M as well.  If it’s tuned for 15M, it resonates at about 30.5mhz.  Since we’re at the sunspot minimum and 10 is a dream, I tuned the beam for 15M, that way I can always be on two bands when contesting (using the tribander on 10 or 20 and this new antenna on 15).   On the 13th I hope to get the antenna up in the air.

It has become clear that I’m not going to get the tower moved over to a permenant base this year.  Say a prayer that the rope guys hold through the winter.  Next spring I’ll have to get the base dug and poured.  Oh well – like I said, hopefully the rope guys hold up through the winter.

Another project that I’ve decided I’ve got the money for is to install a single point ground where all the coax lines enter the house.  I’ve got a 16×16x8 NEMA 4 box on order from Electrical Replacement Parts (an ebay seller).  My local distributor wanted about $175, I was able to get one for $110 with shipping.  It should arrive in a week.  I’ve also ordered 2 polyphaser bulkhead surge supressors, 5 bulkhead so-239 connectors, a bunch of coax jumpers and a K5FD SP12 Surge Protector to put into the box.  The box will hold my two RCS8V coax switches as well as all this stuff.  The Polyphaser protectors will be in line after the switches.  If I had to replace those two switches due to lightning damage, I’d be fine with that.  They’re both at least 15 years old.

I’ve also orderd an EZ Hang.  I’ve had many hours of frustration getting one end of my 40M diople up.  Hopefully with the EZ Hang I can get it up in the top of the tree at around 50 feet instead of at 30 feet where it is now.  If I can get it up that high, I plan to install it as an inverted V with the apex up in the tree rather than a flat top like it is now.  I hope to get this done on the 13th as well.

Obviously, I’ll have another update after the 13th.  Hopefully with some pictures.

Until then,

73 de Al, KE1FO