|
Part of the ARRL DX SSB weekend was spent lending a hand at N1LN/N1YXU. Bruce and Laurie’s aluminum farm has sprouted a nice shiny new 5 element 15m monobander at about 95 feet. Really nice. That gives them three choices on the 15m tower, or beaming more than one direction for contest runs. Way cool. After discovering that the Samlex was so ‘very similar’ to other well known brands, I bought one to replace my dead switching supply. I’ll need to make some updates to my FP-1023 page. The new Samlex has some changes in the output filtering section. The new supply has a toroidal inductor for L2(instead of the rod) and different, larger value capacitors for the RF bypass at the outputs. An initial comparison and search for birdies turned up very little, and nothing of concern, compared to the loaner Astron RS-35. The switcher had a few more birdies on 15m and 10m, but actually had NO birdies on 40m, while the Astron had three or four(one significant). Most of the other birdies were consistently present with either supply. I plan to put the supply under load(i.e., the second radio transmitting into a dummy load), and hunt for birdies under load. After that, I’ll update the page, including photos of the new parts layout. This would have been a good year to be at some else’s station. Ick. This contest was an interesting test of the new dipoles. The 20m dipole is now officially deemed functional. (Time for an antenna experiment!) This is the first time I’ve worked Hawaii on three different bands in the same ‘test. No joy on 80m. But I worked HI on 15m, 20m and 40m. No other pacific stations were heard, but the KH’s seemed pretty loud in here on Saturday. Also on 20m, the 20m vertical did help with many SA QSO’s. Since the dipole is now favoring EU, South America is down a couple of S-units on the dipole. The vertical seems to be better for some of the EU’s too, but I didn’t make any notes to look for the pattern. Well this will be just a bit of fun for me, certainly not serious effort. I’ll probably spend more time SWL’ing than trying to make QSO’s. I’ve been looking for a spot for an 80m or 40m vertical, but I don’t think I’ll have it up in time. If I’m having a really good night with CW, I may spit out a few CQs just to see what happens, but it will probably be strictly S&P, and no time wasted on packet pile-ups. I’m also interested to see if the 80m and 40m dipoles will work differently since they are now re-oriented from last years configuration. Last year I got 14 mults on 80m. It will be interesting. It sure would be nice to catch a 15m opening. The past weekend included hoisting a 4-el 20m yagi at the growing N1LN antenna farm. This was the last yagi(I think) for the 20m tower. Bruce still has a lot of work ahead before the towers are filled. Next up is a 5-el 15m yagi to top off the 15m tower. There is also work left to be done on the 40m/10m tower, including pulling the mast, rotor, etc. for the top of the 40m tower. Its going to be a real hoot to hear this station play at the top of the sunspot cycle. I am sure it will ruin me forever. I’ll spend the rest of my radio daze pining away for lack of such a set up. -sigh- Gentleman’s band? Hardly. Maybe because it was a contest. I have seldom heard more lids congregated together at one time. It made the antics found during a contest on 80m SSB seem tame. I sure lacked motivation for operating in this contest. In fact, it was so bad, that I spent more time trying to decide how to tidy up the shack than operating. When I was actively using the radio, I spent much more time listening around than trying to make QSO’s. So rather than force it, I just didn’t. The tuner-uppers, never-listeners, and drop-my-call-five-timers just made the decision an order of magnitude easier. I ran across this article on making progress. It seemed so accurate, I thought I’d put a link to it here. It does seem to apply to all facets of life, aina? I’ve come to realize that side-walk superintending is one of mankind’s vices. But I like to think I’m learning how to stifle my own tendencies towards it. I suppose there is a technical reason for this to be true, but why do so many of the modern day ’12 volt’ radios actually require 13.8 volts to function? I suppose their specifications all clearly state 13.8 volts+/-, but it sure would be nice if you could actually use the radio from an ordinary automobile car battery. I know it would sure would make life easier in a genuine emergency situation. Running the car just to maintain voltage is a waste of fuel. It sure would make things easier for quick and dirty portable operating too, and certainly be good for camping and Field Day. I know there are radios out there that are tolerant of lower voltages. Elecraft comes immediately to mind. A couple of years back, I watched N4YDU belt out ten or so Field Day QSO’s on a TenTec Scout using a battery that was straining to supply 11 volts(ur rst 592 om…). The problem is, I didn’t realize it was a problem I should address until I already had the other radios. I have only myself to blame for not educating myself sooner. Yet another reason to go Elecraft. As always “Age and guile beat youth and a bad haircut”(hat tip P.J. O’Rourke). After mostly aborting an attempt to gin up interest in forming NAQP teams before the CW portion, I got interested again. I aborted my first attempt to get a few of the guys, mostly from the local PVRC chapter, when I found there seemed to be little interest and my own plans for the weekend were shifting. A last minute e-mail exchange put N4YDU and myself out there as ‘Team QLF’ for CW. Then my power supply blew up during the CW portion. NT4D provided a loaner for SSB. Given a new lease on operating, a few e-mails to those showing interest previously in SSB teams soon had a core available to construct ‘TEAM VoxLox’, and after some rabble rousing a few late inquiries resulted in a partial second, ‘TEAM LoxVox’. On a ‘better late than never’ note: I made just a few QSO’s(only 33) in the Stew Perry contest, but it was interesting SWL’ing the run stations. I heard several EU stations on the K9AY that were inaudible on the transmit antenna. The noise on the transmit antenna was high enough to make using the K9AY on receive preferable. Sometimes listening is more educational than transmitting, and I wasn’t being heard very well anyway. |
||