Just sayin’. Read and decide for yerself.
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Just sayin’. Read and decide for yerself. I tuned in late. But this weekend 10m began to show signs of possible life. Signals from EU in the morning. Signals from South america and the west coast US in the afternoon. Hopefully they were from actual openings rather than VHF type e-skip. That would sure be nice for the CQWW on the weekend. It seems like the current sunspot cycle will be lower - an opinion based on no actual facts other than the lackluster rise in solar activity. An opinion I’d just love to have prove incorrect. Time to start paying more attention. Start checking the 10m beacons more regularly. Maybe even work a few stations. Is there room for a better 10m antenna in the wire farm? Got a heads-up from N4YDU that the preliminary scores had been posted for 2010 IOTA over at the RSGB contest web site. It looks like the 2010 N4A expedition (N4YDU, N3ND, K2AV, and W4KAZ, [W0UCE unable to come]) had a good showing in the IOTA contest part of the expedition.  In the LP Expedition category we have the high score for North America.  We very nearly snuck into the top ten in the category, which would have been a real achievement for a contest whose scoring heavily favors EU expeditions.  European participation is higher and it is usually easier for EU expeditions to log more high value QSO’s, since all of the British Isles count as 15 point Q’s.  Our QSO count and mults were actually higher than the #9 and #10 Eu LP expedition entries, but those stations must have logged more of the 15 point QSO’s, boosting their scores above ours. Congrats to my partners in crime – all three are damn fine operators. Spent some time over the last week re-conditioning an old Mosley TA-33 jr, courtesy of N4YDU. The date on the box is 1979. Gotta wonder if 30 year old aluminum is ready for metal fatigue, but its a novelty project. Some of the hardware was shot, so I decided to replace most of the u-bolts. Got a quote from Mosley on those parts, but since I needed some other hardware bits for other projects, I instead went with parts from DX Engineering. The u-bolts available from DX engineering were slightly shorter than the original parts, but seem to be a good fit. Spent some time cleaning everything up, and used a scotchbrite pad to remove some of the oxidation and crud around the joints and at the trap connections. Got all of the elements assembled on Friday evening without burning any of the chicken on the grill. That project will likely languish after testing the elements for resonance. Might assemble the whole shebang for an on the ground SWR check, but it looks like some moderately serious tree trimming would be required before it could ever actually be put to use at the QTH. More likely to use it for Field Day. The TA-33jr is a versatile bit of kit. It is light weight for a three element yagi. If space or weight were a problem the driven element and reflector can be used to make a ta-32jr, the two element version. The driven element can also be used by itself as a stand alone dipole. Mosley also sells a set of traps for converting the low power version into the hybrid light weight/high power version. Saturday morning was spent over at KZ1X tugging on ropes along with KA1ARB, with KZ1X and N1LN up the tower. Steve needed to debug a problem with his 20/15/10 yagi. We found that the coax run up the tower seemed to be the problem. After swapping that off to a different coax run, things looked better. Steve also hung a replacement 80m dipole for one that went down with a falling branch. Got a first look at the K3 panadapter while doing the in shack checks. A cool gizmo. Lesson Re-Iterated: Do NOT trust readings from an MFJ antenna analyzer when the power supply is weak. A portable supply or external battery pack is worth using when that is practical. My own MFJ-259 has long had its internal battery pack removed in favor of an external pack. The pack is about 1″x3″x”slightly longer than the 259″.   It’s a cool little pack, that has a charger and two output jacks. It is taped to the back of the MFJ-259. With 10 rechargeable batteries it supplies about 13v when fully charged. It is slow to charge, but the cigarette lighter socket makes it versatile. Note: don’t have the matching solar cell, just the charger, ac supply, and car adapter. Had a bit of R&R on Saturday unwisely spent watching the LSU-Tennessee game. Being an LSU football fan is an interesting experience - but not always pleasant. O’course, the Tennessee fans really got the short end of the stick, but their own teams last second decisions were just as squirrelly as those of “The Hat” and associates. I sure hope LSU gets their offense to pull together going into the tough part of their schedule against three current top-20 teams(Florida, Auburn, Alabama) in the next four weeks and end the season with another(Arkansas). Ouch. Tough schedule. Life in the SEC West. Glad to see the Tigers defense is working well as a unit, but the talent on the offensive side is there too, just not clicking yet. After being beaten by Tennessee(and UNC and WV) right up to the brain death of coaching staffs on both teams on the last play of the game, they really need to find their best game quick. Otherwise the losses will accrue rapidly, despite excellent defensive play. I suppose Florida will be mad as hell after their spanking in Tuscaloosa. Sunday R&R consisted of a hour or two in the shack. Turned on the radios and heard some of the California QSOP guys on 15m. I’ve sorely missed 15m these past few years, so it was a bit of fun to make a few Q’s on the band. Signal strengths ranged from S1 to a very loud S9+, and only one station was called without answer. That’s an improvement compared to 15m over the past two years. Not a lot of stations heard, but a few European QSO’s were also decent copy. 10m was still silent. Requests for audio reports indicated the RFI issue introduced on SSB when setting up the sound card DVK into the SO2R set up is now fixed. [Yippeee!] Good audio reported by all. The issue with the RFI on the PTT line for the K2 is still a mystery, but ferrites on the mike and PTT lines going into the K2 were needed to resolve the problem.  Resolving that problem has me looking forward to the coming contest season, and hoping that the bands are better during 2010 Sweepstakes. As fall rolls in it is time for some much delayed antenna maintenance on the 160m inverted L. It would be nice to get the 80m element added, and the radials need maintenance since the falling branches have taken out about half of them since last contest season. Gotta work that into the leaf raking schedule – the sooner the better. I’ve been running a bit of an informal experiment in house lighting for the past seven or eight years. Been using CFL’s since they first appeared in the local retail outlets. Hate to think about how expensive they were before they became Politically Correctified. Some of the fixtures in the hacienda have sockets for two bulbs. I’ve gradually been removing the old bulbs and replacing them(simultaneously) with a mixed pair – a regular incandescent paired with a “name brand” compact fluorescent. Just wondering if the CFL longevity claims have any merit. The sample size is pretty small, but the CFL performance has been a lot less than the hype. I had high hopes for one of the outdoor fixtures, but the outdoors CFL crapped out before the incandescent. The CFL crapped out first in one of the indoor fixtures too. CFL Bad: The bad points
CFL Good:
I also had high hopes for the longevity claims – hopes were shattered by the reality. Don’t see any improvements in either longevity or the light color with newer bulbs. Wondering what the cause for the “early” failures might be. Is it:
Whatever the reason, the CFL’s are moving rapidly to the top of the “get rid of this crap” list. Several reasons, besides the shorter than advertised bulb life. Don’t much care for the light color when they are the only source. The color can also be a positive side to the CFL’s – if you like it.  It seems worthwhile  to combine a CFL and an incandescent for workshop lighting, the two together are good. Conclusion: In general, for my purposes, CFL’s suck. The CFL’s absolutely suck for outdoor usages. CFL’s really suck most in the winter outdoors. They seem to be good for about half there rated output once temps drop into the 50’s. Time for the LED’s from Lighting Science Group.  Getting close to pulling the trigger. Sometimes common sense is everything but common. Just never can find the right adapters when hooking everything back together. Case in point: It is a lot easier to use 1/8th(3.5mm) stereo plugs, and use an adapter to go up in size to 1/4 inch.  Going from large to small just adds stress to the connections. The smaller size is also becoming the more commonly used jack on gear as the gear itself becomes smaller. Soldering the teensy connectors is more of a PITA, but such is life. Just as soon chop all of the paddle and keyer plugs now – almost all of the shack radio gear has 1/8th jacks now. But the peripherals seem to all still have 1/4 plugs. Another fun fact: It’s easier to use all stereo connectors than a mix of stereo and mono. A stereo plug can be wired tip and shell for mono usage, but a mono plug is worthless when you need stereo.  So to hell with mono 1/8th and 1/4 audio connectors. They are banished forevermore from the KazShack. Soldering Tip: When soldering RCA, 1/8th or 1/4 plugs, it is worthwhile heat sinking the connector, especially with low-quality connectors. The easiest way is to just plug them into a jack. That seems to provide enough sinking, unless you really try to cook them. This seems to really be helpful with RCA connections, where the center pin will sometimes drift if the connector is overheated. Using an RCA barrel as heat sink allows a melted connection to re-solidify correctly aligned. Good to go, unless it shorted when overcooked. Put together a WinKeyer2 in a couple of hours two weeks before Field Day. This accessory was added as part of the plan to have the SO2R station capability operational with either USB or serial ports on the logging computer. I chose the version with a serial port, and plan to use it with a serial to USB conversion dongle. In essence, the shack will be forward or backward compatible with the computer hardware, allowing the SO2R to be feasible with whatever crappy piece of computer I have available at any given moment, from an old dos box to brand spanky new. The keyer kit itself was built with only about 30 minutes of plugging and soldering. The kit was missing a couple of capacitors, but they are common values which I had in the parts box. It took another couple of hours to get the enclosure drilled and nibbled out – including a db9-sized hole in the wrong place. Oops. On hindsight, a simpler plastic enclosure would have been easier. The finished product worked without any re-work. The WinKeyer2 is the newer release of the serial port version of the kit. I tested the kit out using a USB to serial converter and the “wktest” program available for download on the K1EL site. After a quick test and config with the wktest program, I brought up writelog and tested that. Flawless performance. Hooking up the paddles was a bit less satisfying. I’m not terribly proficient using paddles and a keyer, and the WinKeyer2 seemed a bit temperamental with my shaky fist. Maybe after more practice it will become easier. But for now, the paddles will be routed through the logikeyer CMOS4, and the paddles will be combined with the computer generated CW from the WinKeyer via a “Y” connector going into the CW input. I also have the same problem using an MFJ keyer I have on hand. I’m not sure why that is, but so far the Logikeyer and the keyer built into the K2 are the easiest to use of those available. One quirk I found with the winkeyer(or my understanding thereof) was related to the pot setting for the keyer speed. Starting the programs(either logging program or “wktest”) while the speed pot was set to maximum caused a bit of confusion. To allow computer control of the speed setting, it seemed necessary to disable the speed pot via the software. Part of the learning curve. I built the Idiom Press cmos-IV Logikeyer a couple of years back, and it is the best keyer I have owned. Easy to build kit too. N4YDU has recently added one to his collection too. A great external keyer, and good for field operations. Idiom Press has two new products that look very interesting, a stand-alone voice keyer, and an outboard RF speech processor. The voice keyer looks like it is exactly what I wanted – perfect for Field Day or the IOTA expedition. Also useful if routing audio from the computer is an issue. The speech processor is yet not priced on the web-site. That’s a good thing, since I’m not ready to BUY yet. Both products would make a difference for low power operating/field day. Recent station derangements have re-introduce an RFI issue onto the K2. This is a bit of a puzzle, but I expect to find a case of “ID-ten-T” is involved. Just not yet sure where. Looking at the setup fresh may help, but I see one link in the chain I want to meddle with right away. I’d eventually like the audio transformers in the SO2R switch box at each of the radio lines. That would keep all three audio devices(computer, radio1, radio 2) isolated – currently not the case. A mini experiment is in the works there, by isolating only the computer audio before it enters the SO2R switch box. I expect a transformer at that point in the stream to have no effect on the problem, but if it works I may make no other changes. Operating under special event call N4A, for the fourth year we once again activated the South Core Banks from Cape lookout a few miles up the beach from the CALO lighthouse. Fun facts and photo strip on the N4A operation on its web site. Additional photos on flickr. Also a short youtube clip of N4YDU running them on 20m SSB. An operation on the beach as an expedition is always a great chance to learn new stuff. This year we learned that fiberglass mast is pretty flimsy and aluminum is much stronger – not a revelation. After some extensive modeling by K2AV, we settled on using ladder line fed doublets that were 56 feet(17.2m) in total length, 28 ft per side. The models show that length to have useful lobes on 15m and 20m, without loosing much over a regular 40m dipole. We ran the ladder line to just behind the radio’s into 4:1 baluns, and used the radio internal tuners for matching. [I’d have preferred outboard tuners.] We didn’t get good enough propagation on 15m to decide if they were making a difference, but two of these antennas at right angles, with their apex at 40 feet, seemed to work very well on 40m and 20m. On 20m, there was a worthwhile difference between the two antennas, several s-units in many cases. The signal level difference on 40m was more subtle. The pattern on 40m at only 40 ft high is mostly omnidirectional anyway. Lacking an appropriate vehicle is somewhat of a problem for this sort adventure. The island has only sand trails, no real roads, so 4WD is recommended. N3ND volunteered the use of his AWD Toyota Highlander this year. We were able to get everything packed inside or laid on top, but it was a snug fit. 2010 was great WX wise. We had blue skys and a steady cooling sea breeze for the duration of our stay on CALO.  Saturday afternoon was particularly pleasant, with low humidity and moderate temperatures making the afternoon very comfortable – the first time we have enjoyed such good WX for an expedition. Operating was a lot more fun in 2010 compared to the previous three years due to slightly improved propagation. Friday evening booked a few pages worth of QSO’s to both the US and Europe on 20m and 40m. When the RSGB IOTA contest began on Saturday morning, we enjoyed a decent 20m opening to EU on both CW and SSB, and even a few JA’s getting into the log then. Propagation to Europe faded during the midday, but began picking up towards mid afternoon. 15m never really opened, and 10m was completely unproductive. Its been a long term goal to make Q’s on 6m from CALO, but the e-skip never sees to coincide with our expeditions. This year was no different – nothing heard on 6m. Pulling the graveyard shift wasn’t very productive for QSO rates, but there were some great Pacific Q’s to gather there. VK7, ZL1, E51, WH6, NH2 all made it into the log then. That was fun, even if it caused symptoms of sleep deprivation later! The mast gear seemed to be in good shape, with the exception of one folded stick of fiberglass. Going to 40ft is more difficult than going to 30ft, but is not impossible with at least two people. Lifting 30ft is possible for one person with proper guying, but the mast is too heavy for one small person to lift to 40ft. Possibly with a gin pole – but the additional rigging needed for the gin pole is time consuming, and extra gear required is not available at this time. Summary: Band CW Qs CW Mults Ph Qs Ph Mults ---------------------------------------- 80: 10 9 1 1 40: 306 45 127 36 20: 412 46 286 40 15: 53 20 1 1 10: 0 0 0 0 ---------------------------------------- Total: 781 120 415 78 Total Score = 1,416,096 The Good: Great WX. Good radio conditions. We blew away all our past mileposts for the bottom of a sunspot cycle, new high of 1196 qsos and 1.4m points. K2Av was great opening 4om CW, and N3ND and N4YDU both had great runs at various times during the day. Homebrew compound baluns didn’t melt. A few day before leaving for the island, noticed that RSGB had posted the list of 2009 Trophy winners – and N4A nabbed the plaque for North American expeditions again. SWEEEET! The Bad: W0UCE missed due to a family illness. Pesky intermittent noise, we think from a UPS. Just hate using, for contest logging, N1MM. The Ugly: None! Don’t know if its practical, but its a great experiment even if it only makes it to proof of concept. A project to create a mouseless mouse. |
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