Monday AM – Sliding around in Ottawa

Well its Monday morning and we have had our 2nd major weather event of the winter…  The really shocking part of it is that in both events we have had more Freezing Rain than snow….  This means for the drivers that there are no snowbanks out there to stop you from going into the ditch when you skid out of control and for the walkers like me (I don’t use the electric Vespa if I can’t see pavement) there is no snow on the ground to cushion your fall when you slip on the ice…

The City…  to its credit does use a salt/grit combination on the roads and on the sidewalks to try and keep us safe,  but it seems its never enough and gravity and momentum will come into the picture at various times in the day…

On the radio side of things the vertical is working fine with no issues caused by freezing rain and the 2m copper J pole seems to be working fine as I can hear the local repeater ID but I’m a little late to hear the morning drive in group…

The only thing radio wise I am a bit concerned about is that my S9 43 foot vertical is being held in place by weaving it through the branches in the maple tree in my backyard.. (stealth and support) and with the freezing rain adding some weight to the tree branches if there was a branch failure (depending on how high up in the tree the failure was) it could cause damage to the S9 but for now I’ll just have to cross my fingers…  It made it safely through last winter and the wind storms of the summer (the tree not the antenna) and I feel that as long as the tree is standing the antenna will be fine but if the tree ever fails…. Well we can’t blame that on the antenna can we???

Later on today I’ll let you know how things went…  Due to poor planning on my part I have to go out today…  running a couple of errands and then slide my way home…  This can’t be put off as stop number 2 on the list is Shadow’s Vet where I have to pick up some of the special diet food he needs to continue on with us….  I miss counted the cans and opened the last one this am…  so …. its out for a road trip this am… and next time I will count a bit better or at least pay more attention…

CU later today

73bob

Sunday stuff

First of all the antenna work (changing the feedline) I did earlier seems to have worked…  More on that after the weather…

As you can see… the first major Winter storm of the year is about to hit Ottawa.  From watching the Ontario News it seems that the GTA got hit pretty hard with freezing rain and all the good stuff that goes with it… And just to refresh your memory here is what it looked like earlier this afternoon…

You can find more info on the storm here…

Please drive carefully on Monday morning…. I might be walking on the sidewalks and am getting too darn old to jump out of the way when you slide off the road and onto the sidewalks…

Now back to the antenna stuff…

Not my backyard but does show the size of the vertical…

Most likely my 8 10m contacts were helped by the 10m contest but…  I did manage contacts in 4 countries along with a few states/provinces.  Previously, 10m was my weakest band and I was pleased by the fact that everyone I called… heard me…  I also made some contacts on 20m along with 40m so everything seems to be as good as it was before I started messing with it… and now I know where I have to make some improvements to once I get into the New Year…  New feed lines to go along with the new Tuner should improve things greatly…

But the bottom line is that it is working and early (I hope) in the New Year it will be working even better…

Hope to hear you on the air to prove it…

73bob

Poor band conditions … or Murphys Law

To be honest …  I don’t know if its the band conditions or a poor coax line…

The  clusters are telling me its band conditons but… I have been having trouble every time the snow falls or it rains heavy with the SWR drastically changing so…

Whats your guess???

Now seeing that last winter I did not have this trouble and all I did was change feed lines …. My first guess would be the feed line…  However just to confuse things a bit more….

Last winter I was also using my LDG Autotuner which is no longer in my possession so its just a thought but…  perhaps I am just noticing  the SWR changing more as I have to manually tune the antenna if the SWR goes above the 3:1 that the internal tuner in the FT 450 can handle…

For my Non Amateur Readers–> SWR ( Standing Wave Ratio ) The antenna should be tuned for the lowest SWR .  This can be done my physically adjusting the antenna or using a tuner (matching box device) to electrically change the SWR by adding or removing resistance.

So…

Many amateur radio operators consider any impedance mismatch a serious matter.^[3] Power loss will increase as the SWR increases. For example, a dipole antenna tuned to operate at 3.75 MHz—the center of the 80 meter amateur radio band—will exhibit an SWR of about 6:1 at the edges of the band. However, if the antenna is fed with 250 feet of RG-8A coax, the loss due to standing waves is 2.2dB, which may seem like a small loss, but is on a logarithmic scale. If running a typical 100W transmitter on the HF band, 2.2dB of loss would reduce the output power to 60W. That is a 40% reduction in power.

So now back to my problems..

I decided to replace the 50 feet of RG8X coax that had served me well over the last year with a 30 foot run of RG8 coax which was a bit newer and not been outside in the elements on a regular basis.  Normally it was only used when a 2nd antenna was needed for a special event…  Since then my antenna matching has changed every time the weather changes… As this problem did not happen before the coax change I will guess coax…  Although the balun (matching transformer) might of suddenly decided to fail….  first guess is till the coax….  Its fairly easy though as the antenna is fed by coaxial cable from the transmitter to the balun which then connects to the antenna.

The antenna is 43 feet of wire supported by a telescopic mast….  This narrows down what could be wrong to really either the feedline or the 4:1 balun.

Now some of you more scientific types out there might jump in with numerous theories of whats causing my problems and you might be right…  However I will test out the changes last made first before I start tearing things apart…  Its easier to swap out a feed line…

Now also as they (The Weather Network) are predicting some nasty weather in the next couple of days I have to do this sooner than later.  Also while in the back yard I will also have to re-tarp up the Electric Vespa as I just uncovered it on Friday and went out for a ride…  But now it looks like I should re cover it before the freezing rain and snow hits…

I’ll let you know how the changes work out later today…

I guess Murphy was right…

73bob

Last night at the OVMRC Meeting

Last night I wandered over to the Science Museum  (which you might remember is a short walk from my home) and attended the monthly meeting of the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club.  The meeting served as a great meeting place as I had to drop off one piece of equipment as well as get back another piece of gear…

The gear coming home was my TAKTENNA which I had loaned out to a new ham about a year ago.

The antenna covers 10-40m and can also do 80m depending on your tuner.

As you can see from the picture its a different style design but it does work (read my earlier posts) about as well as any of the other compromise (limited space antennas) antennas do.

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It will not out perform a wire antenna stretched out but it does get you on the air with a signal that can be heard.

I proved that in the RAC Canada Winter Contest a  couple of years ago.

I was talking to another amateur about this antenna and I believe it will be leaving me shortly (again) on another long term loan as he tries to find the best way to get an apt balcony “Radio Active”

Now lets talk about the toy that just left….

A few of you might know that I had a Yaesu VX1…

Thats a .5w micro dual band handie that  Yaesu put out a few years back…   I think that now they are up to the VX3.  At the last VE3ORF/3730 group supper meeting one of the hams there was mentioning that he was going to buy one of the Chinese knock offs of the VX3….  I mentioned that he should enjoy it and that I had a “REAL” VX1 that was sitting in a box and gathering dust….  We kept on talking and to make a long story short …  We met at the OVMRC Meeting last night and now its his VX1….  As much as I hate to get rid of gear …  Its a radio I was not using…  Could not see myself using….  And I still have the VX5, the VX8gr and the FT60r handhelds still in the shack that all serve alike purposes…  The VX1 was definately surplus to my needs….

So one piece leaves and another piece returns….  Liz probally would of been happier if two left but….

As I was at the meeting anyway I took the time to watch the guest speaker (Micheal VE3WMB) who was giving an excellent talk on Portable Radio HF Operations.  Micheal and myself are both avid QRP/Portable types and we have been out on a couple of event having fun.  The last time I saw Micheal was the 2012 ChillyCon event held in early September at the Rideau River Provincal Park.

He gave a very interesting talk/presentation and it was nice to be used as a good example (as a change) as he did mention QRP SSB as well as the FT817 and W3EDP Antennas in his talk. 

Anyway the meeting ended just after 9pm and I was home by about 2130 local after a great day.  After that I worked a bit on re designing the QRZ Page of a fellow ham and then I called it a night…

Today will be spent getting gear ready for the ARRL SSB Sweepstakes Contest which happen this coming weekend….

73bob

Back on 80m

Thanks to Bob VE3MPG for the loan of a MFJ Versa Tuner II Model 941 D

I am back on the 80m Band with the S9 43 Foot Vertical and my Yaesu FT 450…

Hope to hear you this weekend in the ARRL Sweepstakes Contest….

73bob

Guess I still need a new tuner or something

Something changed….

Not sure what…

Earlier I had commented that after changing the feed line from RG58 to RG8 and adding a couple of teroids to stop some stray RF from messing up my computer display that magically I was not able to tune up on 80m with the internal tuner of my Yaesu FT 450.

Yesterday evening I was unable to to tune up on 80 but as we had a warm dry day yesterday I attributed the change back due to the leaves being dry as they are covering my radials in the back yard.  Unfortunately overnight we had some rain here and so now the leaves are still soaked and no joy with 80m….  6m to 40m works fine so its not a crisis…  Just that there are a few people who I would like to talk to on 80m and right now I can’t…

The options are to buy another LDG Auto tuner…  I am kicking myself for selling the one I used to use but I had a line on a fancier tuner and I decided to sell mine to get the new one…  By the time I got everything done…. The deal on the replacement tuner had vanished…

The tuner shown above is the AT 100 Pro by LDG.  I am leaning towards this one because it allows for two antenna inputs (switchable) which would let me tune the S9 43 foot vertical and still have the ability to tune a 2nd antenna without having to do the coax swap thing. 

Above- The last manual tuner I owned was the same as the above pic.  The Vectronics tuner served me well matching up various chunks of wire hanging into the maple tree.  I had just gotten back into the hobby and this was my first tuner as a re cycled ham so to speak.  I used it with an old Kenwood TS 430 that I got very used and it worked fine till I sold everything to buy my first FT 857 and the LDG auto tuner.  Knowing what I know now….  I would of kept the Vectronics….  it would of served me just as well as the LDG did and at a fraction of the cost…

Another option is to pick up a manual tuner at a hamfest as I just need it for the lower bands (80m)…

The third option is add a coil to my vertical just for 80m and then bypass it when I am operating 6m to 40m.  I was also thinking of putting up another antenna for 80m but I just don’t have the room….  The coil shown on the left comes from my Hamtenna CN32 Horozontal Antenna.  Its a Buddipole Clone that works well, but when put beside VA3PCJs Buddipole you can tell the difference in the construction, and packaging.

 .If you click on the picture of the antenna you will get a larger (easier to see) picutre…

Not sure how this will turn out yet….  Adding a tuner will be the short term solution as I need to get everything done in time for the ARRL SSB Sweepstakes this coming weekend and I don’t really want to start messing with a antenna before then…

I like the Adding of the coil idea….  because that would make it easier and I have a spare buddipole type coil in stock and that would be the cheapest….  and you know us hams are cheap…

73bob

6m Delta Loop update

Well it works…

After checking the SWR using the built in meter with the FT897 I can happily say that the antenna seems to like 6m (100w), 2m (50w) and 70cm (20w) and in all three cases with a fairly low SWR. 

Tonite I checked into a local VHF SSB net here in Ottawa and managed groundwave contacts on all three bands so I know the antenna is not a dummy load.

Now until we get a busier net or I find a 6m opening I can’t tell you honestly how well it works because everyone I talked to tonight was local to me.  I am hoping to get enough of a signal out there on Field day and the RAC Canada Day contest that some of the big gun stations will be out there to hear my popgun signal.

But it was fun building something that actually worked and also did not break the bank for the parts..

73bob

Early results on 6m Delta Loop

Yesterday I was mentioning that I was thinking of building a lightweight 6m Delta Loop that I could use for those few times I need 6m from the field…

Well after doing some scrounging I am pleased to announce that its a partial success…  The reason I call it a “Partial Success” is because I found no one on 6m to test it out with and I don’t think the band was open.  If the band was open then the antenna did not work as expected…

Using an old Plumbing “T” and 6m of automotive wire and a few small pieces of Bamboo I managed to make a Rotatable 6m delta loop.  Its supported by a 17 foot Shakespere Wonder Pole that used to be 20 feet before I over loaded it.   Its very lightweight and should be perfect for those portable operations where you might need 6m (and its also resonates on) and 2m for contest multipliers…

The above pictures is not of my antenna but it does give you a general idea what it looks like.

I purposely made it a bit longer than needed so I could Prune it down to what would be an acceptable SWR for 6m but it seems there will be not that much to prune as it was really close already.  Over the next couple of  days I will try and use someones Antenna analyzer and try and get it closer.  Like I said its also close on 2m as well so that could be a real bonus in the Hilltopper Catagory in the next VHF Contest…

So in actuality my costs on this one  are next to nothing…  I’m feeding it with a 25 foot chunk of RG58[ya the good stuff ] and all the rest of the parts came from my junk box or existing stock…  I don’t think the line loss will be a killer only using 25 feet…

Tomorrow (tonight actually) The West Carleton Amateur Radio Club run a VHF SSB Net at 2100 local time and I am looking to taking the FT817 out and test out the new loop and see how well it actually works…  More on this later…

But if your keeping score the hombrewed W3EDP testing today worked and the homebrewed Delta Loop for 6m worked so today I am 2 for 2.

73bob

W3EDP- Test -UPDATE

Just got back from playing in Hutton Park…  Normally I go to Weston Park, but the park was filled with people enjoying the park…  All the good operating spots were filled with moms keeping the young ones busy.  I had Hutton Park all to my self and set up by the Baseball Diamond.

 

View Larger Map

Once you enlarge the above picture you might be able to see the baseball infield on your right hand side…

The rig was my Yaesu FT817 and I was also using my LDG QRP Autotuner and the antenna was my freshly brewed W3EDP which was just completed…

The antenna was first deployed as an end fed flat top  aiming east west which would put the signal more North-South and then deployed an end fed inverted V only using one tree branch for support. 

Results on a day with very very poor band conditions were not too bad for a QRP operation.  On 40m I managed a contact into Maine and on 20m I made a contact in Texas.  Its safe to say that in both cases the other guys were doing the work as they were easy to copy but they had a rough time with my QRP SSB Signal but …  They did hear me…  Just… But they heard me…

I was able to get the antenna to load up on all bands (10-160m) although the tuner did have to sweat a bit on 160 but I won’t comment on the effiecency of the antenna on 160…  I was able to hear stations on the ONTARS Net on 3.755 but no one heard me…  80m daytime conditions in the summertime…  I was shocked that I could even hear someone…  On 15 and 17 I heard some big guns calling CQ and they were running a large pile up…  Breaking a pile up normally is an exercise in futulity when your mode is QRP SSB so I just listened for a few minutes but I did not hear much other than the Big Guns giving out 5/9 …

So I concider the build a success…  The trip was fun… even though it was short as Hutton Park in close to home.

The W3EDP will be the antenna of choice during the evening of Field Day and also for the Canada Day Contest and perhaps when NR4CB/m visits us in Iroquois later this month…

73bob

Back after a GREAT weekend

It goes without saying but… “Happy Fathers Day” to any of you are Fathers and I hope you had a great day yesterday…  Given the average age of our hobby its safe to say that most of  us were  being honoured on Fathers Day than were visiting with our own dads..  This unfortunately is reality….  Our hobby is getting older and so are we…

Well although the weekend was a “little dissapointing” on the Radio Side of things I did have fun anyway…  I managed to get a new W3EDP built but so far have not been able to test it due to what I would call “Poor” band conditions.  The cluster says no one is out there I can hear and the FT450 is confirming it…  I can’t really complain as I look at my Logbook for the last 10 months… 

 If I can make contacts in 134 DXCC entities in 10 months then I guess we can’t really call the band condition poor now can we…

However I do look forward to taking the FT817 our for some fresh air in the next couple of days and test out the W3EDP as I need it for Field Day…  If I want to make a few contacts on 80m and 160m as the Par will look after 10m to 40m and next on my build list is a 6m delta loop that I found the plans for on the WWW. 

The Delta Loop is in effect 1 full wave lenght of wire in a equlateral triangle (all 3 sides equal lenght).  Nothing fancy about it but it does work.  I had very good luck using a 20m loop in the field before and am going to use the same support system with just a shorter length of wire…  It should do fine…

 Its easy to build and I have all the parts needed in stock so…  Its easy…  Its looking like I will be operating QRP on 2m to 160m in the 1b catagory but I have not figured out from where yet so… stay tuned…

Like I mentioned earlier it was a GREAT weekend anyway or despite the Solar CRAP messing up the bands…  Managed to get 3 BBQs done and on Sunday my daughter (Erika) joined us for the Fathers Day Feast…  Two of my Three daughters made it this year so I was really pleased…  Daughter #1 has a large family (it was her daughter that made me a Great Grandfather this year) so I know she had her hands full at her place…

So whats on the go in the next little while???

First off I have to build and test the 6m delta loop and test the newly built W3EDP.  This one was made with 17 feet of 300 ohm Twin Lead and 67 feet of automotive wire…  I’m feeding it with a LDG 4:1 balun

I’ll let you know how things progress as we get closer to Field Day and the RAC Canada Day Contest… 

On the Amateur Social side of things…  NR4CB Connie  is slowly making her way north and we hope to have a group meeting with her just a day or so after Field Day…   The most convient place to meet up with her for us would be on Iroquois Island at the Seaway Lock Station…  The above link will take you to her blog  and you can see her plans for a very ambition trip…  If you follow her on Twitter you can join in on the trip.

Like I mentioned earlier in this post…  A few of the boys from the 3730/VE3ORF Group are planning to meet up with Connie after field day in Iroquois Ontario at the Lock station.  Its only about an hours drive from Ottawa and it won’t take her off her planned route by much…  Set up a Portable HF Station and an Portable BBQ and Eyeball QSO will take place… 

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 The hardest thing about this will be trying to find a time that we can get together that fits in with the schedules of all concerned…  People have other stuff to do rather than ham radio ( people actually tell me this all the time but I don’t understand) and we are trying to do this with Connie’s schedule in mind as she is the one travelling and doing all the hard stuff…  We all realize that nothing is carved in stone but we all would like to meet up if we can…

Check either Connie’s Blog or check back here closer to the date as we try and coordinate the visit…

And lets hope the bands getter better…

73bob