Following on from my ST2AR contact on Friday night (all time new one #172) I worked another new one on Sunday evening, this time it was Tajikistan in central Asia worked on 40m CW. Two new ones in three days but two very different situations.
The Republic of Tajikistan in central Asia
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Further to my previous comments about pile-ups - this was very much the calling until blue in the face type scenario rather than the ‘getting lucky’ type scenario (see below, ST2AR recently worked).
Ken (K4ZW) is in Tajikistan for a little over two weeks and operations commenced on the 27th so it’s no real surprise that the pile-up was pretty intense last night (it being Day 1 of Ken’s operations as EY8/K4ZW).
Signals were up and down but he was peaking over S9 with me and working stations at a good rate at the bottom end of 40m, listening 1-2KHz up (more at times if you believe some of the DX cluster spots - pinch of salt works for me). |
Having listened up the band to see where other stations were calling I found what seemed to be a relatively quiet spot and started calling, commencing about 22:20 UTC. Ken had a good rhythm and he did seem to be tuning up the band repeatedly working stations before dipping back down to his stated UP 1 listen frequency. I spent a while at +1.5KHz and heard him work many stations close to my frequency but for whatever reason he wasn’t hearing me - either too weak or just overwhelmed by bigger signals.
At times I tried my luck just below the pile, around 950Hz up but this was also unsuccessful. As time wore on he did at times ask EU and Asian stations to stand by while he worked a run of NA & SA stations and I could again hear stations being worked but nothing below his stated 1KHz up.
During one of these NA/SA periods I found what appeared to be a relatively quiet spot around 1.25KHz up and waited. When next Ken started working any station I still seemed to be in a pretty clear spot so with fingers crossed (at was getting late and bedtime was looming) I began calling again and around 55 minutes after joining the pile I heard Ken come back to me with a G0RIF 599 - I replied with R TU 599 73 and that was that, another all time new one in the log.
Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures CW, DXCC, G0RIF, K4ZW, Tajikistan
I wrote back in June that I was making good progress toward working 100 countries since moving to Lichfield in September of 2008. Well I can now report that coming out of the CQWW CW contest this past weekend I have now reached that milestone - 100 countries worked from this location.
The details are 100 countries worked with 74 on CW, 66 on RTTY and 60 on SSB. This includes 8 all time new ones in the form of Anguilla, Desecheo Island, St. Maarten & St. Eustatius, Bermuda, United Arab Emirates, Alaska, Montserrat and the British Virgin Isles.
This brings the overall numbers to 170 worked with 119 on CW, 122 on data modes (RTTY & PSK31) and 111 on SSB. Here’s to the big push towards 200!
Dean Amateur Radio, Blog CW, DXCC, G0RIF, Lichfield, RTTY, SSB
It is always nice to receive QSL cards and the beauty of the bureau system is that you get a lot of cards delivered all at once. It’s great to then look back through the log and remember some of those contacts.
Many contacts can be short & sweet though - this is the case with contest or special event stations who are intent on logging as many contacts as possible as quickly as possible. The cards shown here from OE2008A and HB2008VC are from two such special event stations setup to celebrate the Euro 2008 football tournament co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland. There were many such stations and I received over 30 of their cards in my most recent delivery, a mix of Swiss and Austrian stations for SSB, CW and RTTY contacts.
a selection of the more colourful QSL cards received from the bureau
Here (bottom right) you can also see the card received from Peruvian station OA4WW, this means that of 168 countries logged I now have 151 of them confirmed by paper QSL (rather than some electronic form such as LOTW or eQSL).
Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures bureau, CW, Euro 2008, G0RIF, LoTW, QSL, RTTY, SSB
Three envelopes containing some 80+ cards arrived at the G0RIF QTH over the weekend. It’s always a nice surprise when cards arrive from the bureau because it only happens about twice a year.
I’ll sift and sort and scan a few and upload a few pictures - there look to be some nice cards in this latest batch, including a new one confirmed in the form of OA4WW (40m CW) in Peru!
Dean Amateur Radio bureau, G0RIF, QSL
A trip the Barr Beacon this past weekend allowed me to trial and test a simple end-fed antenna comprising a 65ft wire and a 9:1 unbalanced-to-unbalanced (unun) transmission line transformer. According to the manufacturer “the 9:1 unun is a transformer bringing high [impedance] values such as 450 Ohms to a…more manageable 36 to 90 Ohms, thus allowing a much better match to coax feeder”.
9:1 unun
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There are many who will sniff at this kind of device suggesting “it couldn’t possibly work” or suggesting “you’d be better off with a simple doublet fed with ladder line”.
Unfortunately I’m not able to deploy large centre fed antennas with unsightly feed lines. I need to keep my antenna discrete and low profile - this pretty much limits me to simple end fed wires. Furthermore, my policy is always to try this kind of thing and see if or how well it works before passing judgement, fully accepting that it is a compromise solution. |
For the Barr Beacon test the antenna was arranged in an inverted-L configuration, fed at the bottom, with no ground, radial or counterpoise wires (the SRC 9:1 unun used has no ground lug anyway). The 65ft wire was suspended on two fibreglass poles with a 30ft vertical section and a 35ft top section.
In use the antenna tuned on all bands 80m thru 10m (30m was not tested) and received signals were good. Contacts were made on 15m, 17m, 20m and 80m with most activity on 20m where I received good reports across Europe peaking at 59 +5 from Rudy (HB9CCL) in the eastern Alps with whom I had a good long chat. I also got through a minor pile-up to work Hans (JW4EU) on Svalbard.
Whatever it’s limitations the antenna does radiate and on 20m it seems to work just fine. Contest stations worked on a pretty quiet 15m band heard me first call, so it also works ok there. A few stations worked on 17m were a bit more difficult but there were other stations calling. The single 80m contact with GB1SS was difficult copy for him so for now I’ll reserve judgement on both 40m (yet to make a contact) and 80m.
Overall, given the simplicity and convenience of the unun device, and the possibilities if offers for a simple multiband antenna with either a 65ft or a 23ft wire (the latter giving only 40-10m coverage), I’m satisfied that it works well enough to warrant further experimentation. Having tried it with the 65ft wire I’m very interested to see how it performs with the shorter 23ft wire.
Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures 9:1, antenna, G0RIF, portable, unun
You may or may not have noticed that I’ve changed the title of my blog. It now makes it quite clear whose blog it is and what the content relates to.
I also thought it appropriate I highlight the amateur radio aspects because they did seem to be taking over anyway. Over half of all posts to date (38 of 67 at the time of writing) are amateur radio related!
Dean Amateur Radio, Blog blog, G0RIF
simple setup with the Yaesu FT-857
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Just a quick one following an enjoyable 5 hours out in the sun working mostly 20m SSB portable from Barr Beacon. Myself (G0RIF), Richard (M0SNR) and Luke (M3VVB) took the usual assortment of wires, cables and poles to see what we could throw up & see how it worked.
As is often the case the Par End Fedz 20m dipole was pressed into service in a vertical orientation, suspended on a 10m pole - this also supported a quick & dirty 15m dipole hastily constructed from the remnants of the broadside doublet previously tested.
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You may recall a previous post in which I’d had a less than fulfilling time with the doublet so for now it’s back to resonant antennas and coax feedlines. Todays results suggest that the 15m dipole works well, although the 15m band wasn’t particularly busy so only a few stations were worked.
On 20m the vertical performed as expected, which is to say, pretty well. Nothing particularly exotic but worked DX both east (RV9LM) and west (W1OP) with a good selection of European stations, many of which were participating in the Portugal Day contest. A contact of particular interest was with Geoff (G8BPN) working 20m mobile while on a driving holiday in France, logged as F/G8BPN/M.
Dean Amateur Radio antenna, dipole, doublet, FT-857, G0RIF, portable, SSB, vertical, weather
…are blowing through amateur radio station G0RIF! I have made the decision to finally commit to getting a radio that I believe will be with me for a very long time, a Yaesu FT-950 (pictured). The reason? Digital IF filtering! For too long I have put up with adjacent channel interference, even with the 500Hz filter in the TS-480. With the FT-950 (with the PEP updates) this will be [mostly*] a thing of the past.
In addition I am now moving to a ’single radio setup’ with a single interface unit (MyDel SB-2000) for PSK31 and other soundcard data modes, FSK RTTY, CW keying and rig control.
Yaesu FT-950 HF/6m transceiver
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To that end I have agreed a sale on my TS-480SAT that has been a faithful servant for the past few years, mainly used for RTTY and CW.
Other gear for sale includes my LDG AT-200Pro auto antenna tuner, my SignaLink USB radio interface, my Rigblaster Plug & Play radio interface and my Yaesu FT-857 radio, used primarily for portable operating.
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The net result of this change will be that I have one radio (the FT-950) with one interface unit (the SB-2000) and one antenna tuner (the SEM Tranzmatch - see earlier posts for details). The FT-897D currently in use as the primary PSK31 set (and standby HF rig) will then be used for portable work (as and when required) and will retain it’s role as a spare HF set.
* I do accept that even modern digital IF filtering has its limitations and that there will still be occasional circumstances where signals are so close together (or when one is particularly strong) when interference may still occur. I believe that such occurences will be significantly fewer with the FT-950 than with the TS-480.
Dean Amateur Radio, Life..., Pictures FT-857, FT-897, FT-950, G0RIF, PSK31, Rigblaster, RTTY, SB-2000, SEM TranZmatch, SignaLink, TS-480, Yaesu
Following the recent post regarding countries worked since moving to Lichfield, I had a quick check last night to see what progress I’d made towards my DXCC objectives.
Just to recap - I aim to work at least 100 countries on SSB, CW and datamodes (RTTY and PSK31). I also want to work 100 countries on each of 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 30 and 40m bands (basically all the bands where my antenna works).
In the first instance I’m concentrating on getting the 100 countries on each mode and the scores to date are:-
- 109 countries on SSB
- 116 countries on CW (morse code)
- 129 countries on datamodes (117 RTTY, 74 PSK31)
- 168 countries worked in total
Of the 168 countries worked I have 151 confirmed (QSL received) with 146 by paper card and 110 LOTW (Logbook of The World).
Dean Amateur Radio DXCC, G0RIF, morse code, PSK31, QSL, RTTY, SSB
My Kenwood TS-480SAT HF/6m transceiver is the primary radio in my ’shack’, used for all CW and RTTY operating. It also gets used for HF/6m SSB although this is shared with the Yaesu FT-897 (which also handles 2m & 70cm SSB/FM).
The TS-480 remote head unit
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The TS-480 was purchased used about 2 years ago as a dedicated digital/data mode radio and is paired with a Rigblaster Plug & Play radio interface unit which provides FSK keying for RTTY as well as CW keying (used for sending contest exchanges). The Rigblaster also provides audio drive to the radio for other soundcard based digital modes like PSK31, PSK63, Olivia and many more.
I’ll explain why I chose the TS-480 when there are more capable radios out there.
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To be perfectly honest, cost was a prime consideration - if I’d had the money I would have gone for an Icom 756 ProII or ProIII, widely considered to be the best RTTY radios ever made. But, even second hand, these radios cost between two and three times more than the TS-480. So, within my budget, I looked around for a radio that had three important properties - 1. good basic RF performance on the HF bands, 2. DSP noise reduction and audio bandwidth filtering and 3. was designed with digital modes in mind. The Kenwood TS-480 was an obvious candidate and following a period of researching the alternatives, the TS-480 was chosen.
I will be posting a more thorough review of this radio at a later date when I hope to expand this blog site by adding a number of additional pages detailing all of my amateur radio equipment and activities.
Dean Amateur Radio G0RIF, Kenwood, RTTY, TS-480