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31
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eHam Forums / Station Building / RE: Array Solutions Power Master II vs. Telepost LP-100A
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on: February 05, 2013, 11:16:43 AM
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I've owned a Bird 43 wattmeter for years, and have decided to purchase either an Array Solutions Power Master II or the Telepost LP-100A.
Any comments, as to "Pros" and "Cons" of each. It appears that both are very accurate traceable to NIST standards, but am looking for user comments as to user-friendliness, reliability, the included software for interfacing to a PC, customer support, etc. - i.e. overall satisfaction.
Tnx,
Don W9CW
I have a LP100 and like it a lot. A great feature of the LP100 I think the others don't have is the ability to calculate impedance. That was very useful when I was shunt-feeding my tower on 160...my antenna analyzer was useless because of BC interference. Tor N4OGW |
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32
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eHam Forums / HomeBrew / RE: Surface mount anyone?
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on: January 31, 2013, 10:54:35 AM
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I recently built a SDR-Widget kit here (see http://www.yoyodyneconsulting.ca/pages/SDR-Widget.html). Soldering the LQFP144_20 CPU was a challenge! With this kind of part it is basically impossible to solder to individual pins. But it can be done using just a good soldering iron, solder, and solder wick. Basically: 1) tack the chip down on two sides. Getting the pin alignment perfect is what matters, don't worry about bridging pins. 2) run solder down each rows of pins- get plenty on, again don't worry about solder bridges. it will look terrible after this step. 3) suck off all the excess solder with solder wick. Just the right amount of solder will remain on each pin! There are some videos at Sparkfun explaining this technique. It is great if you just have a few parts and don't want to build/buy stuff for reflow soldering. Tor N4OGW |
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33
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eHam Forums / DXing / RE: At what point does DXing become "hard"
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on: January 25, 2013, 08:27:37 AM
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I just can't get excited about a bunch of band fills.
I've come to think just the opposite - I think total band-country count says more about an operator/station's effectiveness than a simple overall total. John AE5X I think it mostly says the operator lot a lot of free time to click on all the various spots for all the latest DX-peditions....  Tor N4OGW |
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34
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eHam Forums / Antennas and Towers and more / RE: HF9V On School Flat Roof
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on: January 24, 2013, 10:36:18 AM
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W5YD has a HF6V in this kind of installation on the top of one of the engineering buildings. In our case the vertical is mounted on a tripod which is 3 or 4 feet tall. We did that because the tripod was already available. Then we used two tuned elevated radials which slope down from the tripod to the edges of the flat roof for each band we were interested in. In this case we only put up radials for 40 and 80, because there is also a tribander which is much better for 20-15. We also added a choke balun at the feedpoint. It works well, although there is a lot of electrical noise coming from stuff in the building.
You could also mount the vertical closer to the roof and put down a bunch of radials directly on the roof. In that case you won't be able to tune them (metal in the roof), so you just want a larger number of radials which can be a random length.
Tor
N4OGW
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35
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eHam Forums / Software Defined Radio / RE: What's the next big topic here?
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on: January 18, 2013, 02:43:51 PM
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Good one, ZENKI. We already know beam forming can be done with phased arrays (Ticonderoga AEGIS cruisers with SPY-1 radar is a great example). And we can manually do diversity receiving with multiple receivers in teh same rig.
It would be REALLY cool if we could construct an antenna array and use the SDR to do the steering and delays.
K1LT is doing this on 160m (for receiving) and has an article about it. See: http://www.k1lt.com/To do an ionosonde you really want to be able to transmit wideband RF. That is a problem because amateurs can transmit only with narrow frequency bands. Tor N4OGW |
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36
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eHam Forums / DXing / RE: What was more memorable?
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on: January 18, 2013, 10:58:49 AM
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I also remember unusual band openings most:
Sometime in the 1990's I was operating the NAQP cw contest from Ralph K9ZO's qth in IL. After
the contest was over (0600z) we were tuning around on 160. The band was full of European stations
with S9+ signals. Ralph's 160 antenna was not great- a 1/4-wave sloper from a 70 ft tower. It was mostly
a high-angle antenna, normally really bad for DX (at one 160m contest from there I think I worked every
W8 and W9 but little DX). But in this opening it just took one call (using 100w, no amp available) to work
any of the eu guys- it sounded like they were in the next state over. I have never heard 160 like that again.
Not on HF, but in IL I remember catching a big sporadic-E opening on 2M. I heard a bunch of far-off stations
on my 2M HT which was attached to a little ground plane vertical. Rushing to the campus club station (W9YH)
I worked a bunch of GA and FL stations with 10w on 2M SSB using a little yagi just 20 ft off the ground.
Most recently it was working 3A2LF on 15m from here (MS). But this was via long path, and at the same time 15
was open to Europe via short path. Long path to Asia is pretty common here, and to long path Europe from the
west coast. But I didn't think long path to Europe was possible from here on 15 or 10.
Tor
N4OGW/5
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37
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eHam Forums / DXing / RE: Vertical & 1.5Kw VS Tribander & 200w
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on: January 11, 2013, 02:19:29 PM
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One comment about the OWA designs: They look great on paper, but it is mechanically hard to stack the OWA's that are designed for shorter booms. For example 6 elements on 10 on a 24 ft boom, or 6 on 15 on a 36 foot boom. What you will find is that there is usually an element very close to the center of the antenna. This makes it very hard to mount and rotate them when mounted in the middle of a tower in a stack. The long-boom monster OWA's don't have this problem.
Tor
N4OGW
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38
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eHam Forums / DXing / RE: Vertical & 1.5Kw VS Tribander & 200w
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on: January 10, 2013, 10:58:57 AM
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Hams that go to that bother with 100 foot towers are WAY more OCD than I am about ham radio and DX-ing.
I thought that too before I put up my 100 foot tower (and 66 foot tower) Actually, if you have the space, putting up a 100 foot guyed tower is not hard. And you will find out that maintaining the tower and yagi takes MUCH less time than say maintaining a collection of wire antennas in trees (what I did before and still partially do). I did work BS7H on 40, 20, and 15 from here (MS). The 15m CW qso was really lucky and I still don't understand what the propagation mechanism was. Remember in 2007 solar conditions were way down. Listening to the stations they worked on 15, they were all in this general part of the country (MS, AR, LA, east TX). Normally if 15m is open to Asia, the W6's will crush us. But I didn't hear them work any west coast stations- at first I thought it had to be a pirate. The beam heading seemed to be the normal short-path direction. Tor N4OGW/5 |
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39
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eHam Forums / Antennas and Towers and more / RE: Coaxial Inverted L for 75mtrs
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on: December 12, 2012, 10:12:39 AM
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Well for those who care I tried the coaxial inverted L for 75mtrs, it was easy to convert it back to a basic L cause I used pigtails at the end. The results on local qrn was better using it as the coaxial L over the basic L, about 6-10db lower qrn and the difference in transmit was none as tested with a local ham but either way the antenna works. I could only see a 25khz improvement in swr so the broadband idea was not a great deal but what it did show is before the swr starts to rise it was flatter at resonance. The antenna is 6-10db better than the 43ft vertical I have at my qth and does a better than expected job on both local and DX. For only 30ft vertical it really surprised me and I am trying to see if I can build another then phase the pair. I matched the antenna at the base with a simple hairpin match like what was used on a F12 40mtr yagi I used to have back over 10 years ago, this also may help bleed off rain static.
Moral of the story sometimes it pays to just go out and build it over modeling it to death, modeling help you to a point but I feel some ham's have lost the field testing approach cause some antennas just don't model all that well.
Jim
KE2TR
How did you conclude it had "lower qrn"? Did you have both antennas up at the same time? Tor N4OGW |
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40
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eHam Forums / DXing / RE: LOTW
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on: December 06, 2012, 07:24:00 AM
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One of the problems is that very little status is given on LOTW about just what the system is doing other than a generic "x days behind" news. A display showing the number of unprocessed files would be great.
Uploaded files should also be shown in your "Log Book Activity" as soon you upload them. Right now no status on a file is given until after it is processed.
Tor
N4OGW
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41
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eHam Forums / DXing / RE: ZL9HR-Campbell Is Dxped feedback forum
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on: December 06, 2012, 05:54:00 AM
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Well right now, about 9:45z, they were on 160m, but Nothing heard here in NC. I heard some W6, W7 and USVI
station work him. He was there for like 15mins and then left. He should instead be on 80m and is not.
The same on 80m. They came up around 0700z and were there for less than 15mins and then left.
I guess after 4 days of poor sleep, it is time to call it quit. No predictable pattern apart from cw and phone
alternate on 40m.
krish
Couldn't copy them on 160 either here this morning. They were also on 80 RTTY with a good signal there. Tor N4OGW |
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42
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eHam Forums / DXing / RE: ZL9HR-Campbell Is Dxped feedback forum
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on: December 04, 2012, 07:19:06 AM
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It sure would help if information (like about overnight plans) could be posted to the main dxpedition webpage instead of having to dig around in various random threads on different dx forums... Tor N4OGW There is another way to get real-time info w/o having to glue yourself to the rig or a computer - if you have a droid-based phone: http://www.ae5x.com/blog/2012/12/02/dx-cluster-app-for-droid-updated-improved/Set it up to alert specifically to ZL9HR on your band of choice by a W, VE, whatever. When he's spotted and the criteria fits the filter, your phone will chirp. Many chirps mean get outta bed and go work him! This way, the info comes to you - you don't have to go looking for it. John AE5X http://www.ae5x.com/blogI'm not talking about DX spots, but other information that could be placed in "news" on the web page: dates they will be on the island (late due to WX, but no extension to departure), plans to stay overnight, etc. Tor N4OGW |
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43
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eHam Forums / DXing / RE: ZL9HR-Campbell Is Dxped feedback forum
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on: December 04, 2012, 06:00:47 AM
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It sure would help if information (like about overnight plans) could be posted to the main dxpedition webpage instead of having to dig around in various random threads on different dx forums... Tor N4OGW |
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44
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eHam Forums / Elmers / RE: 10 Meter Worked Alll States Award
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on: November 15, 2012, 12:30:29 PM
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It is not that hard to get WAS on 10m, you just have to operate more. Other contests that are good are the North American QSO parties. Also Field Day and the IARU contest are good.
Tor
N4OGW
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45
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eHam Forums / DXing / RE: PT0S active
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on: November 15, 2012, 12:15:16 PM
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Yea, that's what worries me. I am about to give it up and continue my search for number 303.
20 CW 11/13 @ 14:47
10 CW 11/14 @ 16:52
12 SSB 11/14 @ 18:44
17 CW 11/14 @ 17:10
15 SSB 11/14
12 CW 11/13
10 SSB this morning.
Except for 10 SSB these are the ones that, according to their upload date & time, should be in the log. I'll see and hope that the 10 meter contact this morning makes it into the log, if not I'm off searching for number 303 elsewhere.
They busted your call at least once: WA8FG is in their log on 20CW. Tor N4OGW |
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