Ron :

I'll have to pick up a mic for my iPod Touch but I was planning to do
that anyway. Thanks. I will drop you an email.

BTW I did have another thought regarding future enhancements to MorseTest. There was a recent (i.e within the past 6 months) article in QST that included a list of the most popular words used in Ham Radio QSOs (or maybe it was the most used in the English language, can't remember but I can look it up). It would be a great enhancement to provide an option to allow MorseTest to pick from this list randomly and send these words. I suspect that people will grow tired of random 5 character groups and this would certainly appeal to Hams who already know code but want to improve their speed, especially for head-copy.

If you really want a killer app then you could further expand the functionality ala MFJ Morse Code Tutor to generate "Mock" QSOs.
Their generator has a "formula" that gets to be a bit predictable but I personally found it very useful in helping to get my code speed up after a few year absence from Ham Radio.

Best of luck with these apps ...

Michael VE3WMB

I agree with Mac, have a look at the SWL Freq-Mite, it is a great solution
and pretty cheap. I have put these into some of my SW-x0+ rigs as well as some OHR mono-banders and even an MFJ9420 SSB travel radio.

Cheers,

Michael VE3WMB / VA2NB

Ron :

I downloaded MorseKey and played with it for a while. It works great.
Its a simple app but a great way to get a little bit of sending practice in. I'll leave some feedback on the Apple App Store for this one.

BTW if you are looking for another idea for a Ham Radio app for iPhone, how about a variation on your inTuna app that could be used for tuning a CW signal?  The idea would be that you preset whatever frequency is the center of your RX passband (i.e usually something in the range of about 600 hz to 1000 hz), then you can use the app to ensure that the received CW tone is the right frequency so that you know that your transmit frequency is zero beat.  All you would need is a version of inTuna that allowed you to set a preference for the frequency.  A lot of people have trouble "spotting" CW signals and having a visual indicator as a tuning aid would be great !

Cheers,

Michael VE3WMB / VA2NB  

You will get some cancellation, but it will still work.

If you can keep the center straight and bend the ends (for instance,
in a Z pattern) that is actually better as most of the radiation happens in the middle of the antenna for a center-fed dipole.

The Z-shape trick is often used by folks putting indoor dipoles into attics as you'll get a longer straight run if you put up the antenna diagonally in the attic.

Michael VE3WMB

Carlo :

To answer your question, the Norcal Doublet (ie 44 ft doublet) works fine as an inverted vee with a single support such as a Black Widow 20 foot fishing pole. This setup is by no means a DX antenna, especially on 40m but it works quite well for a casual portable setup. I often use this with a couple of 5 foot long neon-yellow fiberglass driveway markers to support the ends of the vee, especially when operating in a park where I am concerned that dogs or kids might accidentally get caught up in the antenna.

We have also used this particular Norcal Doublet for our QRP club 20m CW station during ARRL field day using a DK9SQ mast (about 10m long) as the center support with the ends tied to nearby trees to create a flattop and we could quiet easily work everything we could hear on the first call using an Elecraft K2 @ 5 W.


The impedance range for this antenna generally presents an easy match with most of the ATUs out there such as the Elecraft T1 and LDG models (I use both), so it is a very convenient antenna for portable operation.

Cheers,

Michael VE3WMB

P.S. If you have any follow up questions you can email me directly at
ve3wmb @ rac.ca

I agree the an end-fed half wave wire deployed downward with some kind of weight once under canopy is likely the safest. I would stick with something pre-tuned on a single-band (20m ?) to avoid any hassles associated with band changing.  The Par End-Fed might do the trick.

As someone else suggested, if you can jettison the wire within a few
hundred feet of landing then your are not likely to have any issues with power lines.

I would suggest you make a trial jump from a lower altitude where you just practice deploying and releasing the antenna to make sure that you have no surprises.

Its been a few decades since my last jump. I was only a couple of jumps away from getting my "A" license, but alas I was a poor university student and decided that I couldn't afford it.

Cheers and best of luck

Michael VE3WMB

For what it is worth, I use #24 AWG Teflon Coated Silver plated wire as both an antenna and feedline for one of my portable antennas (44ft aka Norcal Doublet) with very good success at QRP power levels.

The feedline portion is loosely twisted (about 2 twists per inch) and I found that because the insulation is slippery that I ended up having to use short lengths of shrink wrap tubing every couple of feet to keep
the twists in place.

The advantage of this over CAT5 is that the teflon make a very good insulator at HF frequencies and it likely results in lower losses.

The whole antenna, including integral feedline is also quite light.
The feedline portion is quite short (i.e. ~28 feet) basically enough
to feed the antenna when supported by a 20 foot fishing pole, more or
less following the design of the Norcal Doublet.

I did some calculations a while back and figured that the impedance of the feedline is something in the range of 100 to 200 ohms.

We used this antenna one year for our club field day on 20M CW with the center of the antenna supported by a Dk9SQ mast and it worked very well for us.

Cheers,

Michael VE3WMB

David :

Take a look at Hellschreiber. There is a active and growing group of folks operating this mode and it is a lot of fun. Most of the operation is using FeldHell and it is easy to spot on the bands as it sounds like "scratchy CW" or a dot matrix printer (remember those).
It is really easy to tune and like PSK31 you don't need a ton of power (20W is fine).

Here are some links to get you started :

http://www.qsl.net/zl1bpu/FUZZY/

http://sites.google.com/site/feldhellclub/

MixW is a pretty good application (written by the same guy who wrote Digipan) but its not free.

Lately I am gravitating to using fldigi (runs on Windows and Linux both) and it is free.

I think that there are some advantages of using one of these multi-mode programs as once you have figured it out it is really easy to try a new operating mode (i.e you don't have to learn a completely new program each time).

Best of luck

Michael VE3WMB

If you really want to put the 4BTV on 80m why not build or buy a trap and use that along with an appropriate length of wire (could be run horizontal to form an inverted L)that will resonate the antenna on 80m?

I seem to recall the ON4UN suggests something similar in the antennas section of his Low Band Dxing book.

cheers,

Michael VE3WMB

I highly recommend the Palm Paddle (available in the US from Morse Express www.morsex.com). It has a very decent feel and it is extremely compact, portable and durable.

I found that the optional base magnets work very well and I fashioned a homebrew legstrap mount using a stainless steel Cross Country Ski scraper.

pictures at: http://www.qsl.net/ve3wmb/palmlegstrap.html

I have a second scraper (unmodified other than making the edges a bit more blunt) that I use as a base when operating from picnic tables etc.

Depending on the rig used, you may be able to attach the paddles directly to the side of the rig, using either magnets, or screws to attach the snap-on base.

Cheers,

Michael VE3WMB

If the wire is truly a random length then it is likely that it will present a high-impedance (which could difficult to match)on one or more bands, as it is likely that the wire will be close to an even multiple of 1/4 wavelength on at least one desired band.

I recommend you read the following for some suggested
"magical" wire lengths that are non-resonant on most of the amateur bands and thus generally easy to match with
a tuner.

http://www.mail-archive.com/elecraft@mailman.qth.net/msg17765.html

Michael VE3WMB

P.S. Also try a Google search on W3EDP - this is an end-fed wire antenna that works quite well.

I have fldigi V3 running on the Linux version of the Aspire One.It works fine with my Signal Link SL1+.

 I have some issues with using the Signal Link USB as the Linux on the AAO (it is Linpus Linux which is a very small deritive of Fedora Core is missing some core USB sound stuff and I haven't had the time to figure out exactly what additional packages need to be loaded to make it work.

I went with the Linux AAO as I liked the almost instant ON capabilites of the SSD and Linux, plus the added stability. Some of the reviews of the AAO mentioned that the WINXP version seemed a little anemic. However, some folks have bought the WINXP version with the hard drive and loaded Ubuntu Linux on it instead of Windows, with good success.

The AAO is a great little machine, that is very usable and cheap.

Cheers,

Michael VE3WMB

P.S. Anyone interested in running fldigi on Linux should join the linuxHam Yahoo group.
BTW fldigi runs great under Windows as well!

Also /PM = Pedestrian Mobile (i.e walking mobile).

I have had some very memorable CW QSOs with my Elecraft KX1, using a linear loaded 14 ft wire supported by a 13 foot fishing pole and a dragging 28 foot ground wire.

Michael VE3WMB / VA2NB

I haven't seen the ball bearing version but Lee Valley tools has a similar product that does the same thing.

http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=57817&cat=2,40725,45454&ap=1

Another consideration is maybe you could use the windmill tower to support the apex of a Delta loop
(ie triangular loop) with the base of the loop attached to the edge of the house roof. Dimensions don't matter a lot if you feed it with ladder-line. It would slope slightly but that wouldn't matter much. You could place the feedpoint where ever is convenient, but it would be best if you feed it at a lower corner or part way up one of the mostly vertical legs to give vertical polarization as this will generally give you lower takeoff angles.

I have a ~30m delta with the apex attached to the edge of my roof (2 story house) and the base running along my back fence (6 feet) and this is a pretty good performer and exceptionally quiet on receive compared to my vertical.

Michael VE3WMB