10 Meters = Gud DX

10 meters is proving to be a fertile band for some good DX. I rarely use more than 20 watts here at VE3MPG. My preferred mode is digital; today I was monitoring 10 meters while getting some odd jobs done around the house and in the garage.

The great conditions on 10 remind me when I finally got my voice privileges way back in the early 1980s. After six months or a year, I can’t accurately remember I took my logs in to the Department of Communication here in Ottawa. The inspector had a look to see how active I had been on CW and stamped my log and gave me voice privileges on 160 and 10 meters. Ten in those days was very active and I installed a mono-band yagi on my roof up about 40 feet. Wall to wall signals and my TS-520 buzzed the ionosphere for many pleasurable hours working DX.

Back to today – my first contact was ZB3R in Gibraltar. I had worked Stephen a couple of weeks ago on 15 meters. Great signal and got him on the first call – power out about 15 watts to my Cushcraft R6000.Stephen uses an FT-950 and you can see how professional his station looks. Have a look at his QRZ profile for more pictures of Gibraltar itself and more about Stephen’s station.

The second DX contact today was ZL4AD, Brian in New Zealand; again with 15 watts out and an honest 599 report from Brian. I’m using the latest Beta version of Ham Radio Deluxe for digital contacts and logging.

Now if the conditions continue into the weekend that would be great.

Yaesu FT-950 – Solid Performer With PAR End Fedz

After over two years of owning the FT-950 it’s still a solid performer. In the field, during Field Day 2008 with auxiliary power and a PAR EF-40 End Fed along with a Buddipole it was exemplary. At home in the shack it’s even more fun. The menu system offers lots of settings for personal preferences and I often change parameters if I see something on the Yahoo FT-950 group that I find interesting. I keep copious notes in a small notebook of all the settings I’ve ever tried, with dates and comments. The primary use of the 950 is on psk and cw modes; I rarely run more than 30 watts to my antennas which include the Cushcraft R6000, and several PAR End Fedz dipoles. The PAR antennas have survived two brutal winters with ice storms. The last ice storm a few weeks ago saw the PAR antennas coated with almost 2 centimeters of ice but they held up very well. The EF-40 is over 20meters (66 feet) in length so that’s a lot of ice load to carry. We also get terrific winds out here but the PARs just keep going – a testament to their engineering and design. I have plans to erect a full G5RV and an end fed loop this year on my 2 acre property south of Ottawa. I would like to get back on 160 meters in time for next winter.

Since the release of the FT-950 in the fall of 2007 Yaesu in Japan has released firmware updates – numerous updates called the PEP950-Performance Enhancement Program with updates available for download on the Yaesu website. Each update added features and improved functions – with feedback garnered from the user community and Yaesu’s monitoring of the FT-950 group on Yahoo. Dennis Motschenbacher K7BV, (Yaesu VP of Sales) often drops by the group with information and comments. Dennis was even kind enough to send me a poster of the new Yaesu 5000 transceiver including the Yaesu world map. It’s really great to see a company interacting with users and potential users in this way.

In 2010 it’s hoped that Yaesu will continue to improve and update the firmware in the FT-950. With the release of the new FT-5000 Yaesu will continue to be at the forefront of cutting edge communications gear.

Some of you may be aware of free amateur radio publications such as WorldRadio online magazine available for download. There’s another publication free of charge from the Robert F. Heytow Memorial Radio Club called the KY9A Telegraph. It’s by subscription so an email notification is generated and sent to you when a new issue is ready for donwload. Both of these publications are in the Adobe PDF format. Highly recommended reading during these long winter nights.

 

 

Interview with Dale Parfitt – PAR Electronics

Antennas Survive Ottawa Winter

My antenna farm survived the brutal, windy, snowy, freezing rain type weather known in this neck of the woods. Some good planning, engineering and blind luck allowed my PAR EndFedz and my Cushcraft R6000 to survive unscathed through the arctic like conditions up here. A 3-point guy system protected my R6000 from self-destruction. The PAR EndFedz were securely anchored with enough slack to survive the windy conditions south of Ottawa. We do get some extreme winds out here. A couple of years ago, during a micro-burst type summer storm I lost some siding on the upper story of my home. Anything not anchored down gets blown to the next county.

DX has been hit and miss but throughout the season there's been some good conditions favourable for long haul communications. D44TXF on Cape Verde - 17m, NH6I Hawaii on 40 meters, ES3RM - Estonia on 17m, 5D0IPY - Morrocco on 17m, ZS6GAV - South Africa on 17m, and many more. The 17 meter band has been open during the very early morning hours during dawn and stays open for at least a couple of hours. Despite the low sunspot numbers there's a lot of DX to be had. I'm working these stations with a multi-band vertical and low power and on digital modes. Power reaching my R6000 vertical can't be more than 10-15 watts. I'm feeding it with 100 feet of RG59 75 ohm coax. At the transmit end I have my FT-950 set for 20 watts output.

The new Yaesu PEP FT-950 enhancements have made the FT-950 a superb DX rig. The receiver is quieter, the noise reduction settings now work great, and the AGC and Contour functions have been improved 100%. Check out the eham.net ratings for the FT-950 with the PEP enhancements. Satisfaction all around, and Yaesu is continuing to enhance the FT-9000, FT-2000 and FT-950 family of transceivers with regular firmware and DSP updates and features. The latest update to the FT-950 required a new operating manual to be released by Yaesu, such were the number of changes to the radio.

In conclusion the PAR EndFedz 40 and 30 meter antennas survived quite nicely through the rigours of an Ottawa winter, as did the recently refurbished Cushcraft R6000. Proper installation and guying were the key points that kept everything running with zero maintenance.

A Good Cold Snap

Winter has arrived in the Capital, Ottawa. Power is out this afternoon to about 17,000 people on the outskirts of greater Ottawa. There's been some terrible winds in excess of 50Km/hr and gusting higher out here near Metcalfe about 19 miles south of Parliament Hill. Temperatures have been dropping all day and stand at -12C at 3pm. Expected low temperatures overnight will hover around the -20C mark and that's not including the wind chill. Affected areas include: Orléans, Alexandria, Alfred, Clarence, Cumberland, Hawkesbury, North and South Plantagenet, Osgoode, Rockland, Russell, South Gower, and Winchester.

I've been listening to the Emergency Measures group repeater VA3MV, 146.985- (100.0Hz tone) but there's not much going on. Power in FN25fe has been on all day with no hiccups so far and the band conditions have been very very good on 20 meters. Last night 40 meters was extremely quiet; so quiet that I kicked in the preamp on the FT-950 so I could hear band noise. Signals really jumped out of the noise floor with very deep qsb on all the sigs.

My R6000 is surviving the windy onslaught largely due to the guying I installed when it went up a few weeks ago. I can see a very slight side to side movement of a couple of inches which isn't too bad. The PAR end fed dipoles of course are rugged enough for even Arctic use, which today's weather approximates very well.

FT-950 Back On The Air

It's been a few months since I've fired up the FT-950. Got it dusted off and moved back to the shack. The last time it was used was at the MARG Field Day at the Long Island Marina in Kars. It's hard to forget how great the receiver is in the 950.

Late this afternoon I worked TK5IH in Corsica and ZP8AE in Paraguay, on PSK, with 589 and 599 reports using 20 watts to the Cushcraft R6000. Earlier in the day using the 'old' FT-100, I worked Maria, SA2YLM on 20 meters. 17 meters opened just after lunch for a short time and managed to snag a few Europeans with great 5NN reports.

The nice 'width' feature of the FT-950 allows me to narrow down the passband and get rid of high powered stations close to the DX that I want to work. The HRD* waterfall below shows the passband with many signals.



The HRD* waterfall below shows no signals, on either side of the received psk track. This eliminates desensing of the receiver by narrowing the passband so strong signals on either side of the track being decoded dissapear. The FT-950 can also notch out a signal on either side of the decoded signal.



I use Ham Radio Deluxe as control software and Digital Master 780 for digital modes. I find it is one of the most intuitive ham software suites. It keeps track of my logs and can be used for just about any digital mode now current on the amateur bands. There's an excellent satellite tracking module included. Simon Brown, HB9DRV, is continually adding features and tweaking the software. The Ham Radio Deluxe forums are a repository of information pertaining to any subject about digital modes and how to connect Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood, and just about any transceiver to sound card interfaces and to your shack computer. HRD works with Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Some PSK tips:

In PSK modes use UPPER CASE characters sparingly. Lower case text in PSK31 varicode transmits fewer bits of data. You'll increase transmit speed and improve the likelihood of proper decoding on the other end by using lower case text as much as possible. (For example, the difference between a lowercase “e” (11) and an uppercase “E” (1110111) is three times more bits.)

*Ham Radio Deluxe

The R6000 Rocks!

Finally got the antenna connected late this afternoon and got on 20 meters, PSK. Worked Florida and Cuba with about 15 watts to the antenna. 599+ reports so I could lower the power a bit more. I’m a bit hesitant to do this as I’m feeding it will el cheapo RG58 coax; about 110 feet of it so the attenuation is about 3.5db. Have to get some connectors on the good RG213 stuff that I have still coiled, new, in the basement.  

Conditions seem to be very good as most signals are way over S9. There’s been some very recent sunspot activity. My favourite site for checking solar activity belongs to Kevin, VE3EN, down in Cornwall Ontario. There’s been a good bit of traffic in the forums these last few days. Check it out.

SOLARCYCLE24.COM

Technorati Tags: R6000,sunspots,PSK31

R6000 Up and Running

Spent a few hours yesterday getting the 20 foot R6000 set up – it worked right away and tuned very nicely on all of the band portions that I use. I used guy ropes to steady this vertical. In previous years at this location the winds are brutal and the R6000 used to sway precipitously. I am positive this had much to do with weakening the joints and accelerated wear and tear. It’s so windy in these parts that one farm a few lines down from us uses wind turbines and some solar panels for their only power source. Testing the antenna with my MFJ-259 analyzer shows it’s right on the frequencies that I measured for in the instructions.

The above photo shows the fibreglass repair to the main insulator – this was all shredded and weather beaten. Three coats of black bumper paint were applied for protection. The control box was also sprayed with 3 coats of bumper paint and the seams sealed with Silicone II.

The antenna is mounted on a solid metal fence post knocked into the ground about 5 feet and a round steel post was knocked in beside it about 4 feet down and wire wrapped together for stability and strength. The R6000 then slips on to the round fence post about 4 feet above ground. Not the best installation but it’s easy for one person to service and maintain at this height. I’ve worked lots of DX this way.

 

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: R6000,DX,vertical,Cushcraft

Cushcraft R6000 Repaired and Refurbished

My R6000 is several years old now. I took it down 2 years ago intending to repair and refurbish it in a few weeks. Typical of my many projects lying around the garage this one always seemed to take longer than usual. If any of you are familiar with the R6000 it is quite a tall antenna. I've had it lying across a portable workbench and plastic lawn chairs for support. Last winter I took the traps inside and spent a couple of weeks cleaning adding new stainless hardware and sealing the traps. The original hardware nuts inside had become corroded due to moisture so they were all replaced. Everything was double checked and then new caps installed and then sealed with Silicone II to waterproof them.

The most complicated part of the project was the repair to the main insulator base. Originally an unprotected tube of fibreglass, UV had deteriorated it so the polyester surface had evaporated and left bare fibreglass fibres that absorbed dirt and moisture.

Show here as an example is the R5 fibreglass insulator in the same sorry state mine had become after 6 years exposure to Ottawa weather conditions.

I purchased a fibreglass repair kit at Canadian Tire where you mix resin and hardener and paint the resulting mixture on the old surface. You have about eight minutes to work the mixture before it hardens. I did this in two stages, sanding between the coats and re-opening the bolt holes with a cordless drill. After the final coating of resin, sanding and making sure the bolts fit through the holes I spray painted the repair with bumper paint, flat black, with 2 or 3 coats. Bumper type paint is very tough and now provides a UV blocking layer to prevent any further deterioration.

Here's what the repair looks like. Again this is a Cushcraft R5 photo the repair looks very similar to my Cushcraft R6000. The R6000 is still sold retail in Canada for about $450CDN. I purchased my copy second hand and used it for a season out here till the brutal winds loosened everything up. Every piece of hardware was replaced with stainless steel. In a refurbishment like this a Dremel tool in invaluable for cutting new stainless steel hardware down to size and removing corrosion and polishing. The R6000 is a great performer and have worked Antarctica using 20 watts on PSK. The R6000 uses a set of elevated ground radials and there's no need for installing a ground radial system. The antenna instructions require the antenna to be at least 10 feet off the ground. I have mine sitting about 4.5 feet above ground but may elevate that when I erect the antenna this coming week. I'll post actual close-up pictures when I get it mounted in place. I also intend to add three guying ropes to stabilize the antenna during high winds.

Technorati Tags: R6000,Cushcraft,psk,refurbished