Antenna issues solved

I guess the biggest problem once I switched over to the LDG from the FC 40 was the length of the driven element.  I trimmed 2 feet off the end and now we are back to being fully functional on 10m to 80m…

I’m also noticing that this setup seems to be a bit quieter than the previous setup as my noise floor seems to be around a S3 to S5 as compared to the S9 if I was lucky before. 

So far signal reports have been very favourable on 80m and as my noise floor is lower I can hear more as well…

The FC 40 will go back to being the tuner for the FT897 and I guess I will have to look at some sort of tuner for the FT857 for the few times it makes it out into the mobile…

73bob

Freezing Rain and Ice shows antenna issues

Well on Friday late afternoon/early evening we had quite a great weather change…  Ottawa went from temps around +2 to +9 and rain to -20 or so with ice pellets then snow…

What this did was show me a problem with the antenna system that I did not have before…  With the FC40 hooked up to the 847 I could not get the system to load up on any band…  When I swapped out the 847 for the 897 everything went back to normal…

Decisions…. Decisions….  Do I go with a great multiband antenna  with a radio that has a high noise level and average filtering or do I go with a fantastic radio with above average filtering but will force me to spend time working on antennas…

The decision is to keep the 847 in line and freeze my fingers off doing antenna work this weekend…  Right now I am using my LDG Z100 Auto tuner with the same long wire that was attached to the FC40 and the results are not as good… 

Pictures courtesy www.ldgelectronics.com

Now in the past this tuner has been doing FANTASTIC work for me in the mobile attached to my FT857 in a simular fashion to the below picture…

As well as working GREAT up at my trailer with I string out the G5RV.  So I know everything works but as with any tuner sometimes you need to work on the antenna length just a bit and as we all know some tuners have issues with 1/2 wave lenghts and multiples of the same .  I know the long wire is about 60 feet or so long and by strange coincidence that is just a bit shorter than a 1/2 wave on 40m so ….  Guess what the problem might be!!!

Anyway I guess although the 847 will recognise the FC40 as a Yaesu Tuner as it was discontinued before the FC40 was in production it treats it (FC-40)as the FC20 instead.  I can rememmber helping a local ham install his G5RV at his house and his FC20 would not load up what so ever.  We swapped out tuners and then there was no problems…  Thats the only thing I can think of as to why the 897 loads up fine but the 847 has problems…  I guess the FC40 is a bit stronger than the FC20…

I have emailed YAESU Tech support asking for their opinions and when I get an answer I will let you know…

So as this weekend is an antenna work weekend now….I will have a report back to you later on how lucky I was…

73bob

Friday contact of the day KE5YTA- Roger

Tonight I had a very nice QSO with K5YTA Roger in Richardson TX…  This was an ECHOLINK contact…  I had the computer running in the background while I was doing some renovations in the shack…  I am in the process of changing some things here in the shack in anticipation of a visit from the plumber who will be here on Monday to fix a couple of newly leaking pipes in the laundry room which is beside the shack.  I figures as my coax lines go out the laundry room window this would be a good time to get them a bit neater before the plumber gets upset…

So anyway getting back to the Echolink contact…Roger connects to my laptop and we have a great chat….He was saying it was cool there today around 70 deg F and was cold at 45 tonight…Chance of it getting below freezing tomorrow…  Lets see…  our high today would of been close to 45 dec F and it was just raining most of the day….  Then we had the flash freeze and the temps dropped about 30 degrees real quick…. The rain switched to freezing rain then snow….

I like his bad weather more than I like my good weather today….  Anyway it was a great contact…  

73bob

Just to prove that Feb 13th was not a fluke

This evening after heading back into the shack after supper and NCIS (again) found me spinning the dial on the 80m band…

Just as I posted on Febuary 13th I heard Canadian stations sitting around 3.747.5 having what they called “The Manitoba Evening Phone Net”.  Now it could either be the fact that I have a powerful station with an excellent antenna or just that the band conditions are very long but either way the NCS who was VE4JIM (Jim in St. Anne MB) heard me with no problems…

Its good for the ego to make a long contact and even though I am starting to look at DX my roots so to speak are still with ragchewing and a Canadian Station is always a treat…  None of this your signal is 5 and 9… what was you callsign again…pse repeat…

Next contact was Lynne  VE3JBL who is the NCS for the North West Ontario Net on 3.750.  Her signal into Ottawa was a honest 5/9 with the pre amp off and 20 over with the pre amp on…  Not bad from Dryden Ontario to Ottawa…

Not bad for a chunk of wire in my maple tree

73bob

Why DXPeditions work split

Even thought I have had my “Ticket” for many years now I really have not worked or chased that much DX… 

Amateur Radio was to talk to home…  When I was camping with the kids it was the late nite chats on 80m with friends back in Ottawa that kept me sane… When I was working out of town the G5RV in the motel parking lot was my lifeline to my friends and phone patches to family…  Driving down the I95 close to Washington DC and being able to check in on the ONTARS Net and have a contact with an Ottawa Station and get all the local news was great…

So why am I taking the trip down memory lane????  Because now I am starting to look at different parts of our hobby and for now DXing is the latest thing I am looking at… 

I listened to a pile up tonight on 40m caused by the last night of operation for the K5D Dxpediton and tonight they were not working split…. MYGAWD… WHATA MESS….  Every time they called qrz…  The frequency errupted in such a mess of squeals, and a jumble of voices all of them not listening to each other let alone the poor operator saying space them out… one at a time….  It was obivious to me that they had lost control of the frequency…

Was this 40m or 11m?

Now when they were working split it seemed to go much better and smoother and it sure was quicker.  That operator had to have the patience of a saint and a high noise level threshold as it was so bad for me that I turned off the radio…  I can’t even immagine operating in conditions with that with headphones on as the early pictures ontheir website show…

So even though I did not get the third band for K5D which would of been 40m I will be content with 15 and 17m….  To be honest I have no choice as my 100w could not compete with those hardcore dxers…

But just to prove a point there was Tom DL2OBO calling just below the DXpediton frequency and I gave him a quick shout…  Got him on the first try with my 100w getting a 5 by 7 report.  My report to him was an honest 5 by 9 but he was using a 3 element beam (for 40m) and 700w and that sure made him armchair copy….

So this week I have made 4 different countries…  Ireland, Germany, USA and Desecheo Island…  If I could keep this up I will have my DXCC in only 15 weeks…  But some how I think the next 96 contacts will get progressivly harder the higher up I go…  And then I have to get the cards back to make it all happen…

73bob

New RAC President

I got the following in my email this afternoon:

February 25, 2009

Radio Amateurs of Canada has a new President

   At the February 24th, 2009 Radio Amateurs of Canada Board teleconference meeting, President Dave Goodwin, VE3AAQ/VO1AU, announced that he was resigning his position effective immediately.

Dave indicated that his decision was motivated
by his inability to devote enough time to RAC affairs because of a recent increase in personal and professional responsibilities.

  Dave became RAC President on Jan 1st, 2008 at the end of President Earle Smith’s tenure. All attending the teleconference thanked Dave for the time he could devote to RAC’s affairs both as a Director and then as President.

At the same teleconference meeting, the RAC Board elected Bob Cooke, VE3BDB, to be the RAC President until the end of the current term on Dec 31, 2009.

Bob has a long history of working with RAC. His involvement started in the early 1990s as an Assistant Director and he was elected and served as RAC Ontario South Director from November 2001 to January 2005. He was then elected by the RAC Board as Vice  resident for Field Services, serving from January 2006 to February 2009 when he resigned to accept the
appointment as President.

Daniel A. Lamoureux, VE2KA,

Vice President for International Affairs

Radio Amateurs of Canada

–

Vernon Erle Ikeda – VE2MBS
Rédacteur de service des nouvelles RAC.
RAC News Bulletin Editor
———-
Sent by the RAC Bulletins from RACHQ mailing list robot.
Send comments to: rachq@rac.ca
For more information about the email robot, please visit:
http://rac.eton.ca/racbullemail.htm

I would like to thank Dave V01AU/VE3AAQ for the time he spent of the helm of RAC.  He did one hell of a good job (in my opinion) as President of RAC  and he was/is a very active amateur.  If you remember back to my blog entry on the Champlain Trail Activation…  the entry when I operated 2m, 70cm and 6m ssb from the Champlain Lookout my first clean sweep of all 3 bands was with Dave from his home in Ottawa. 

You heard him on HF, you heard him on VHF and you heard him on the local repeaters…  Even when I griped about something I was not pleased with about my membership status he took the time to look into the problems and let me know what was happening… 

I wish him good luck in his new endevors and also wish him good dx…

73bob

This DXing could be harder than it looks…

Well it does seem that there is more to this than picking up the mike and screaming “CQ CQ CQ Dog Xray…”

Earlier around 1600 eastern I found some time in the shack and so I checked the cluster and picked the frequency and started looking for K5D on the 10m, 12m, 20m and 40m.  I figured it was a bit too early for 80m.  Now I’m wondering if the first two contacts (15 and 17m) were flukes as although I could hear them on 20m…

” There was no joy in mudville tonight folks….VA3QV had struck out…”

Normally if I can hear em I can work them…. but tonight the concept of splits were eluding me…  The cluster lists the recent siteings but by the time I dial them up the next siting shows a different split…  I guess I also need to work on terminology as they rapid fire out terms that everyone else seemed to know but me….

I guess I am one up on the operators who could not figure out that they were operating split and calling directly on top of K5D who was calling on 14.170 when the listening was much higher….Up in the US general portion of the band…

Later in the evening I tried listening on 80m but no joy whatsoever….could not hear a peep out of them…  Oh Well there’s always tomorrow night…

73bob

Spinning the dial a bit…

Well I do have one video that shows the contact on 17m but I did mess up with the 15m video…  Somthing about not wearing my glasses and tiny buttons on the camcorder but…

Status of K5D log : (89269 Q’s)First QSO: 13-Feb-2009 at 16:00:00
Last QSO: 22-Feb-2009 at 23:38:00
 

 

–>

Call  Band   Mode   QSL Sent  QSL Rcvd.  VA3QV 17M SSB - - VA3QV 17M SSB - - VA3QV 15M SSB - - <!–

K5D information: QSL Manager -> N2OO and SJXDA

And yes you did read it right where it said 2 contacts on 17m.  The first contact had a bit of QSB and I could not confirm that we had made the contct…  The band got a bit stronger in time for the 2nd contact…

Here is picture of the island we all wish we were on…  I have been on the receiving end of a pile up and it can be a blast…  However the two DXPeditons I have been on to CISA Islands are very small in comparison to what I am seeing and listening to…  I wish them all the best and also thank them for their efforts…

picture courtesy www.kp5.us

One thing to remember from all this is that if I can contact them with my longwire then just about anyone who has a dipole should be able to do this.  Just imagine how great this would of been if we had contitions just a bit better than we do now…  But if I can do this with 100w and a length of wire someone with a beam or a loop or…well you get the general idea should have no troubles getting K5D over a few more bands…

I did hear them on 12m but the conditons were not the best along with the fact I had troubles figuring out where they were listening for us…  “Listening down between 5 and 10″ is not a term I am used to…  I don’t usually DX and yesterday was the first time working split on HF ever…  If they had said listening on 24.9XX it would of been a bit easier…  But I do have a few more days and so there is a chance of  6, 10, 12, 20, 40 and 80m.  But even if I strike out due to band conditons or whatever…  The chase was worth it!!!

Also in the email today came this QSL card:

We hold a local Experimenters Net every Sunday evening here in Ottawa.  The idea is to get experience in operating some different modes so when we get up on the HF bands we don’t mess up quite as bad…  Now perhaps that not the real reason for the net but its one of the reasons I try and check in.  My digital skills are lacking for the sake of a better word and when I practice locally on 2m less people see my mistakes…  CAPS LOCK and power levels come to mind almost immediately….

Anyway it is a learning experience and I do have fun…

73bob

A winning combination…

This afternoon I did something I do not usually do….  And that is to CHASE DX….  Today I actually watched the DX Cluster programmed the FT 847 for operating Split and went for the brass rings…

The latest addition to my shack the YAESU FT 847 pictured above and along with my YAESU FC 40 Auto Tuner pictured below…

Used in conjunction with about 150 feet of automotive wire (80 feet of radials/counterpoise and about 66 feet or so for the driven element)folded around a Maple Tree  successfully made contacts with the K5D DXPedition on Desecheo Island. 

A contact on 17m SSB was made and a contact on 15m SSB was made.  The power setting was 100w. 

I did remember to turn on the Camera for the 17m contact so you can check out the Video Clip Here…  however I did hit the wrong button and the 15m video is no longer with us…  They put such tiny buttons on these camers and I was not wearing my glasses so….  At least I have a record of the first contact…

I’m not sure if I could take the stress of doing this every day but it sure was fun today…

73bob

Sundays activites so far…

Well so far Sunday has been relaxing to say the least…  “Toby” woke me up at 7am and I put him out in a “Snowy Back Yard”.  The light covering of snow we got overnight made everything look clean and bright…  “Toby” changed that soon after but it looked nice for a fewe minutes….

Picking up from the last post I did have a great ragchew with Don VA3GFD on 2m ssb (144.250)   Even though 144.250 is the local Ottawa calling Frequency for 2m SSB we had no one jumping in to say hello…  I had dialed back the power to 5w and we still had no trouble communicating….

Back to Sunday morning found me in the shack after bringing “Toby” back in the house.  The band conditions were far from good. 

My first contact was made on 3.768 with Paul VA3PC who was the NCS of the North Bay Net. 

I made a quick video of the contact and you can find it on my You Tube Site.  Look for FEB_22_2009_NORTHBAYNET_80M

After the North Bay Net came breakfast and then I dropped down to 3.760 for the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club 80m Pothole Net.  VA3CMD Patrick was the NCS and he was operating VE3JW from the Science Museum in Ottawa…  Participants were the regular crew consisting of VE3GX, VA3QV, VE3UUH, VE3EJJ, VE3WEH, VE3NPO and VE3XRA.  With the poor band conditions these days this has been delegated to a Groundwave Net as we never seem to get any visitors checking in from out of town…

After the Pothole net I had asked Larry to meet me on 50.150 USB so I could test out a simple 6m dipole I put up last week for the Tuesday night VHF Net.  After breakfas this morning I had re installed the antenna and I just wanted to see if it was working…  My goodness….  Activity on 6m when the band was closed…suddenly Larry and myself were joined by Don VA3GFD and Glen VE3XRA and we now were in a rountable rag chew.  A brief discussion on the comparison of beams vs loops for vhf followed and then we all went our seperate ways but it was an enjoyable time while it lasted…

So far today (same as yesterday) I have been able to spend lots of time in the shack…  This afternoon I do have some other chores but I think I will be able to keep the radio on in the background.  As I make this entry I am listening to 7.055 on the 40m band and its the Sunday Morning Roundtable Net which serves as the warm up for the Ontario Swap Shop.  From what I am not hearing this morning I have a feeling that the band will no cooperate and I will have some time on my hands to get some of the things on the honey do list done before the Trans Canada Net on 14.140 in the 20 m band this afternoon… 

This will be the last big test of the FT 847 as far as my normal schedule goes.  I have tested it on 2, 6, 20, 40 and 80m and so far have had no problems working DX or Locals.  The final test is just a formality as I like checking in and talking to my fellow Canadians every Sunday Afternoon..

In the meantime I guess I will get to the list as the bands right now are quiet…

73bob