TS-520S Boat Anchor #2

Spent half the day yesterday dusting off my venerable TS-520S. I acquired this almost 45 lb. (20.5 Kilos) radio a couple of years ago from an on and off short wave listener. It was in pristine condition, had never transmitted and it was stock – no filters of any kind. I spent time taking both covers off checking for leaking or bloated capacitors and had anticipated blowing dust out of it. The interior was in factory condition and I just used canned air to blow out the cooling fan area from mostly accumulated light dust of 30 years. There are no scratches anywhere on the covers, and the plastic bezel is blemish free too. I checked all the boards for tightness and got it put back together after well over two hours of eyeballing most of the components for defects. I had the radio connected and on the air the day I brought it home so I knew it all worked just fine – a testament to the quality and durability of Kenwood ham equipment designed over 30 years ago.

A good coat of car polish on the covers finished the job – I use Nu Finish liquid wax and it makes the radio look out-of-the-box new. Any good car wax will work and I’ve always done this to radios that have a smooth finish like the old line Kenwood gear. The Nu Finish was goes on very easy – and no rubbing – it does a superb job and lasts a long time. The wax is available at Canadian Tire or local WalMarts.

This long weekend will give me the opportunity to get the radio on the air – on 40 meters phone and work some of the local nets. Eventually I’d like to get a CW filter for it and use it exclusively on morse code.

Some great links:

Kenwood Hybrid Transceiver Sales, Restoration & Service

Kenwood Hybrid Tune-Up Procedure

Ken's K4EAA K1 Knob Page

Kenwood TS-520 HF Transceiver Capacitor Replacement Kit

QRP DX

Operating QRP these last few days has been fun and a challenge. I can work lots of DX with 5 watts from my FT-817. Most stations don’t know I’m running 5 watts until my brag macro informs them. I run digital modes 100% here. The challenge is that many stations run excessive power; some run dirty signal that wipe out the psk segment of the bands I’m working on. Here’s a screen shot of a Cuban station with sidelobes so strong the band segment was wiped out up here in Ottawa. Setting up your station for proper operation using digital modes takes some effort. Excessive power into yagi, verticals or dipole antennas isn’t necessary; it’s important to monitor ALC (assure that the ALC setting of your S-meter shows no movement) when ones changes band and even moving within the passband where you’re operating. Proper adjustment and judicious use of RF output makes it a whole lot easier for everyone using the narrow psk segments of our shortwave bands. Of course the little FT-817 doesn’t play as nice as the Ft-950 – I have no filters installed and there are no DSP controls to make things easier on digital modes.

Working QRP is a challenge; I usually wait until a station signs off with another station and then I call them and usually that gets me the DX. When you’re working with 5 watts you want to make sure all of your power gets out to the antenna. That means no antenna tuners. Make your antenna resonant for the band you’re working. 99% of the DX stations I’ve been working give an honest 599 report with a few 569 reports so my setup is doing something right. I always make use of an antenna analyzer to check my antenna a few times a month to make sure all is working as it should.

Here are a few stations worked from my QTH in south Greely – FN25fe – F5FMO, PA3HDG, RA3FO, G0UAN, ES4MM, 2E0GHQ, SM0EJR and RA6AN. Some of these stations are well over 7,000Kms away yet with 5 watts most gave consistent 569 - 599 reports– there was the odd dropped character due to fading and interference from strong stations but the DX is out there – you don’t need a lot of power and it’s fun once the other QRO station finds out you’re only running 5 watts to a vertical antenna. I’m able to work both strong and weak stations – it doesn’t seem to matter too much.

I have plans to order a CW filter to install in the FT-817 to make things a bit easier. I also plan to do some portable operating like I did almost ten years ago when I first got the 817. I used Hamsticks in those days with a large magnetic mount. Hamsticks work very well when conditions a good but they did get the job done during Cycle 23.

QRP Blogs and Websites via K4UPG.com

QRP Amateur Radio Club International

QRP on 17 meters with the FT-817

In my previous post from late last evening I decided to get my 817 back on the air and attempt some qrp contacts. I was really surprised at what 5 watts into 130 feet of coax to a vertical can do. I’ve been working all over Europe and to the southern U.S. states with this barn burner. Most contacts took one call with the real DX taking 2 to 3 calls. There was lots of QSB and the band was wall to wall digital signals. Low power and high power stations and stations with sidelobes – lots of sidelobes.

Setting up the 817 took a bit of effort since there are no DSP filters like in the FT-950 – nada, nothing. I had to resort to the RF gain control and the RX control on the Signalink USB interface to dig the signals out. The 817 performed admirably. I had the 817 stored in an Eagle Creek pouch for protection and its little log book with the last entries dated in 2001.

The 817 was an early 2001 copy with no filters installed. Way back in 2001 I was still able to make SSB contacts (before I lost all of my hearing) and these QSOs (log book above) were made from my car with monoband Hustler verticals – not the most efficient antennas. They were cheap and they worked and allowed me to operate mobile from quiet locations. At that time I still lived in the downtown core of Ottawa – a very noisy environment, even before the days of plasma TVs. I traveled south to one of the locks on the Rideau Canal near Manotick and operated parked near the lockmaster’s building. As you can see from the log conditions during that Cycle 23 were very good.

Today’s contacts included IK7EJT, LB1TE, YL2JZ, DL5ZAA, IZ4BEZ, and KB0QC all on psk. I had a 569 report and all other sig reports were 599. Conditions are very good and the 20 meter band stays open quite late here in North America. 17 meters fades out at sunset.

QRP is lots of fun and a bit of a challenge for simple transceivers lacking all the new DSP controls of the new radios.

I hope to fill out my little log book with more contacts during this year’s upcoming Field Day. I will be operating with the Ottawa Valley QRP Society from Bate Island on the mighty Ottawa River.

For the record space conditions as follows:

Solar-terrestrial indices for 25 March follow. Solar flux 88 and mid-latitude A-index 5. The mid-latitude K-index at 1500 UTC on 26 March was 2 (12 nT). No space weather storms were observed for the past 24 hours. No space weather storms are expected for the next 24 hours.

SpaceWeather.com

The Firmament – Jan Timmermans

QRP With the FT-817

Conditions on the bands have been extremely good for a few weeks. I rarely use more than 20-25 watts with my FT-950 on digital modes. Starting today I’m dusting off the 817 and using QRP power on 17 meters. In the last few days I’ve worked CR1Z, OM1ZL, ES7FQ, YL3BF,1B1AB, TM7CC, Z36W and a multitude of other stations on 17 meters. Max power out averaged about 22 watts and garnered consistent 599 reports using my Cushcraft R6000. Let’s see what I can do using QRP power. Stay tuned.

Amazing that Radio works at all

Think about this:
An S9 signal (50 microvolts) at the input terminal of an H.F. receiver with a 50 ohm input impedance, is 50 PICOWATTS. That's 50 TRILLIONTHS of a watt, for the prefix illiterate.

That's a STRONG signal.

An S1 signal, (assuming a standard of 6 dB per S unit) is down 54dB below that (almost six decimal places). That's in the QUINTILLIONTHS of watts!

(Thanks to KL7AJ on QRZ.com’s public forums)

Beginnings – SWL 1967-1969

This was the beginning of my love affair with all things radio. It was the late 60s. Martin Luther King had been assassinated, Detroit was burning with race riots, and I had seen “Hair” on stage at the Royal Alex in Toronto. We could see the smoke billowing from the great Motor City during the riots. Every Sunday Detroit tested the air raid sirens and they could be heard well across the river – a long wailing lament, as if they could save us from nuclear vaporization.

My father got me an 8 band shortwave radio at the local K-Mart. Early mornings I would listen to Radio Australia with their sign on tune of “Waltzing Matilda”. I listened to Red China and even wrote to Radio Peking for a QSL. They sent a huge package, Mao’s Little Red Book and a poster of Mao Tse-tung – it was plastered inside my high school locker for a spell. Don’t know what happened to the Red Book. Dad always said that the RCMP had me on a watch list after receiving that package. I had neat QSL cards from WWV, Radio Cairo, Radio Japan, a station from Bonaire in the Dutch Antilles.

I learned much about geography and a little about electronics. I built a outboard BFO so I could zero beat cw stations and learn the morse code, but I never did. The BFO worked just fine – it was from an article in Popular Electronics and I etched my circuit board and found all of the parts over in Detroit at the old Lafayette electronics store. In those days we took a bus over through the Windsor-Detroit tunnel under the St. Clair River. One only had to show a birth certificate in those days. It was a good walk to the Lafayette store and then back home with my treasures.

The main antenna was an old single bed spring suspended at ceiling level – it worked great but I suspect it was the height of the sunspot cycle.

It wasn’t until 1980 that I got my ham license; now I’m 30 years in.

Some Upgrades, Some DX

The weather’s been beautiful in the National Capital Area. We’ve broken some temperature records, not just in the last few days but for most of the month of March. The winter was mild too. There have been robins in south Greely since Christmas week. They stayed all winter this year. Temperatures were 16C yesterday and reached a high of 15C today. With the warm weather comes antenna maintenance and improvements. I spent yesterday running 130 feet of new coax to my Cushcraft R6000 vertical. It was long overdue and I kept putting it off in typical ‘ham’ fashion. I did spend most of the winter on 40 meters because conditions were very good and my PAR EF-40 End Fed dipole performed very well.

After terminating the coax with connectors and checking my work I got it all connected and working. 20 meters was full of signals about mid afternoon and I snagged a DXpedition – TM7CC – Ouessant Island IOTA EU-065. Ouessant Island is the western most part France’s territory out in the Atlantic. They had a potent signal into Greely on RTTY and I snagged them on the second call. Signals on 20 were strong until well after dusk.

Today, signals were pounding in on 17 meters. Around supper time the JAs dominated the band with RTTY. It’s great to see the bands coming alive again and staying open late. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that much DX on the upper bands. There are some exciting times ahead for us hams – all over the world.