46 and counting…

Another sunny Saturday afternoon found me (G0RIF), Richard (M0SNR) and Luke (M3VVB) at Barr Beacon for what might have been our last portable operation from there this year. I was working a bit of HF (20m and 17m) while Richard and Luke worked VHF (2m) and UHF (70cm) with a SOTA beam on an 8m pole.

I set-up on 20m with my FT-857 (80w SSB) and one of the Par Electronics EndFedz in a vertical configuration. I found 20m to be quite busy and the band seemed to be in decent shape. Unfortunately the Scandinavian activity contest started at 13:00 local time after which the band was very busy. In a little over an hour on 20m I worked stations in Ukraine (EM0WFF), Switzerland (HB9VELO), Hungary (HA6NW), Belarus (EV6DX), Finland (several including Greg, OH2FFY/m with a full size 20m vertical), Sweden (several) and Japan (JA7NVF). Greg has posted a video he made during our 20m QSO which you can see here.

Eventually, due to the number of contest stations, 20m got a bit too wall-to-wall with big signals so I switched to 17m, again with an end fed vertical dipole (another of the Par EndFedz). Conditions on 17m were pretty good and I worked stations in Cyprus (5B8AP), USA (long chats with Andy, KB1KYN on Nantucket Island and Frank, K0FPL in Kansas City), Madeira Island (CT9/SP9CTT) and the Canary Islands (EC8AVA) before the DX catch of the day. Calling CQ at about 13:40 UTC I heard a good solid 58/59 signal come back to me in the form of Des (ZS1ZY) over 6000 miles away near Cape Town! We had a nice chat before QRM at his end overwhelmed my reported 33 signal. I think this demonstrates what can be achieved with a modest portable station and I was very pleased to work down into South Africa with my simple vertical dipole antenna and 80 watts of single sideband transmitted signal.

All in all we had a good afternoon in the sun. My little bit of HF DX was supplemented with some nice continental catches for Richard and Luke on 2m (Germany and The Netherlands). We’re all now waiting and wondering when we might next get out…and wondering whether or not conditions will be as favourable next time. I sure hope they are.

Dean Amateur Radio antenna, dipole, DX, EndFedz, FT-857, Par Electronics, portable, propagation

simple setup with the Yaesu FT-857

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.

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

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.

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-950, G0RIF, PSK31, Rigblaster, RTTY, SB-2000, SEM TranZmatch, SignaLink, Yaesu

Not quite what I was expecting or hoping for. I’d read a lot about how well a 44ft doublet antenna worked when fed with a balanced line. Unfortunately my little test this afternoon left me a bit disappointed because I certainly didn’t see the kind of performance I expected. I’d taken the time to construct what I thought was a pretty well made antenna. I’d got the right kind of feed line and I’d found myself a good balanced tuner in the form of the SEM TranZmatch (pictured). I was hoping for great things. For one reason or another though the antenna was very difficult to tune on all but 17m.

SEM TranZmatch

I tried all the bands that the antenna is designed for with the exception of 40m. This includes all of 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m and 20m. I wasn’t able to try 40m due to time contraints and some pretty grotty weather (see yesterdays post).

Using a Yaesu FT-857, my transceiver of choice for portable work, I connected the radio to the TranZmatch with a separate SWR meter in line, connected the antenna to the TranZmatch with 20m of 300 ohm ladder line and set about 17m which wasn’t in great shape but did seem to have the usual early afternoon clutch of Asian stations (including VR2XMT, Charlie, coming in loud & clear as usual).

I tuned the TranZmatch for maximum noise on receive and then tweaked it with a bit of RF - quick & simple and a low SWR <1.2:1 across the band. I tried to reply to a few CQ calls but either wasn’t heard or just wasn’t getting out. I didn’t hang around trying to work stations though because this was primarily a test of the antenna/feedline/tuner combination so I moved on to see what 20m was like.

It was at this time that I got the first inkling that all wasn’t quite as I’d hoped. Getting a good match on 20m was really difficult and the lowest SWR possible was no better than 2:1. Now I know this isn’t terrible but I was hoping that the TranZmatch would do better. Maybe I was expecting too much because the same was then true on 15m, 12m and 10m. All of these bands had very sharp tuning and a minimum SWR no lower than 2:1.

I have a few questions in my own mind as to where the problem might lie. Is the feeder a ‘bad’ length - at twenty metres long it’s a full wave on 20m and might just present an extreme mismatch to the tuner. This doesn’t explain why other bands should be just as difficult to tune. The doublet wasn’t level - it was in an inverted-V configuration and the included angle was probably a bit small at around 100 degrees - 120 degrees is recommended. There was a lot of ’spare’ feedline just lying on the ground, loosely coiled - is it better to trim the feedline to prevent this?

For now the jury is out and I have more work to do before deciding one way or the other whether or not I’ll adopt the 44ft doublet as one of my regular portable antennas. And it’s just started raining again!

Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures antenna, doublet, FT-857, ladder line, portable, SEM TranZmatch, SWR, weather, z-match