10m open last night.

Went along to the radio Club last night, and after a discussion about trying to contact a station in Central Africa on 12m, I ws asked if I've had any luck on 10m.

Weeks ago, yes, a couple of PSK31 contacts into S.America, but nothing since, in fact I said I am yet to make a voice contact on 10m, and would dearly love to having been an 11m op in my past radio life.

Anyway the club finished and I switch on the radio in the truck, to hear a very good 5/9 EA8CDI, Luiz in the Canary Islands calling CQ, not one to miss out I call back and am instantly acknowledged, despite a mini pile-up.

We continued to have a conversation as I drove home, he was never less than 5/7, with him 5/9+ at home, though gone about 15 mins later at 22.00 BST, looked like the propogation just went suddenly.

Absolutely chuffed to have made this contact.

1st Amateur radio QSL card recieved.

Had a nice little surprise in the post this morning, a QSL card from IV3PTU, Valenti, from Northern Italy, for a recent 40m PSK31 QSO.

Looks like I am going to have to get some of my own cards printed, as I have only been using eQSL.

Dartmoor portable op's

After our walk around Haytor on Sunday, the GL had to go to work on Monday, for me it was my final day off before going back myself today, so what better way to spend it than going back up the Moors and throwing some almost random wire up in the air.

Procured from work for such activities were some aluminium poles, these have been drilled and can be bolted together to form a length of around 20', along with the homebrew 3 band dipole and a nice quiet tourist free location around 1300' ASL after an hour's setting up I was ready to hit the bands.

20m was very open to Europe and Stateside, with 15m absolutely dead, and on 40m mostly Germany and a few inter 'G' heard.

I made no contacts on 20 or 15m, but did manage 3 inter g's on 40m with Bob, G3ITH in the Midlands, and Ian, 2E0IMT around 8 miles from Bob.

Also I made contact with another portable, this time well 'up north' with GM8UPI, Dave, in his caravan on the Isle of Skye, I was given a solid 5/5.

And here is picture of the mobile with the homebrew portable set-up.

To round off a great day I also spoke with Adam, M6RDP and Eddy, 2E0EDY, from Torquay and Exmouth respectively on 2m from Haytor Rocks, where we also tried accessing a couple of echolink nodes, no contacts though.

A couple of snags cropped up with the portable op's, one is that the pole needs a base as when I was guying one side of the dipole the pole swivelled in the scaffold bracket and crashed to the ground, resulting in lots of tangled wires.

Also with the 2 wire dipole, I need to figure out an easy way to pack and unpack it, so that I dont spend ages de-tangling wire, takes me back to my early kite-buggying days.

I did think about building a collapsable vertical, but I like the 2 wire dipole as it is truly resonant on 3 bands, a vertical would not be, two bands at best.

Working Weymouth and Walking..

Last minute idea as I woke up this morning, said to the GL, lets go up on Dartmoor and do a walk, only proviso is that I get to do some radio, I was greeted with a somewhat mute reaction, as she loves walking, but does not share my love of the radio.

All did not go to plan as I could not find the keys to my 'truck' a trusty old over-tyred jacked up Vitara mobile radio shack, so also missing was the key to my other car and the house key, not good.

As I have not used either vehicle since Thursday I could not remember where I had put them, anyway after turning the house upside-down as you do, they were found in my electronics tool box in the radio room...??

So were off, stop off at the local supermarket for lunch nibbles and we are up on Haytor (457 m, 1,499 ft ASL) by around 1300.

We have several books of walks published by Bossiney Books (http://www.bossineybooks.com/) who make a lot of local walk books for Devon and Cornwall.

The walk we did today takes in Haytor Rocks, but better still the disused Haytor granite quarry, which supplied granite for many of London's buildings including the 1832 London Bridge.

There are distinctive tracks with granite kerbs around the quarry, this was part of the Haytor granite tramway built in 1820.

Here you can clearly see the old track.

Here you can see a hole in the granite - this was the hinge for the moving part of the points.

This is a 'tourist' pose of me and the Icom IC-E7 which brings me nicely to my first contact on 2m simplex to a G7 (did not have pen/paper) in Weymouth.

Shortly after a mobile on dartmoor and finally a G0, Colin in Exmouth, this was on the Torbay repeater, which I accessed easily even behind and down from Haytor.

Overall a really good afternoon, which nearly never happened, thanks to my bucket-brain.

Homebrew Dipole SUCCESS !

I lengthened the 40m element (just the 'hot' side) and managed some compromise SWR readings as follows

7000 - 1.2
7100 - 1.8
7200 - 2.5

21000 - 2.5
21200 - 2.0
21400 - 1.5:1

I already had some good swr readings on 20m, so the antenna is very useable on the 3 bands, which was proved by contacts with DJ3HJ, Rudi on 40m and EA8AOC, in the Canary Islands on 15m.

UPDATE - Just worked two more stations - 4ZIUF in Isreal, on 15m and Mr New York, Mike, W2YP on 20m for a 5/7, 2nd time I have worked Mike now, he's a BIG station, illuminating Europe, you have to hear him, love it !!

Hope you aren't planning on flying anywhere ?

The volcano eruption on Iceland and the consequent ash cloud has caused the suspension of all flights to and from the UK and most of Northern Europe.

All of this made me chuckle, with the recent BA strikes grabbing the headlines, here we have our planet showing who's the Boss, it's most certainly not us and definately not BA management or the Unions !

We are all of us only tenants here.

Homebrew Dipole.

I have been working on a multi band dipole for 40/20m which should also be resonant on 15m, it is based on a design by GI4JTF, where wires are cut for 40/20 and 10m fed from a common point.

The idea is that when the required frequency is applied, current flow through the dipole cut for that particular band, as the other dipoles present a high impedance, like us all why do it the hard way when the easiest is well, easier.

The original design was for 40/20 and 10m, fed with twin feeder, as I only wanted 40 and 20m and to feed it with coax, I have installed a 1:1 current balun, and cut wires to around 20.5 metres for 40m band and 10.3m for the 20m band.

To keep things simple I purchased the balun and dipole centre, and used some multi strand wire I had around as you do, for the spacers I used 1" diameter pvc pipe cut into sections and 3 holes drilled in each, one for the rope, and the other 2 for the 40/20m wires.

The ends were allowed to hang down around 10cm, this allowed for trimming for a low SWR mid band, the dipole has the following swr readings according to my MFJ analyzer..

7000 - 2.5
7200 - 1.4
7500 - 2.5

I can see I need to lengthen the 7Mhz elements, so it shows around 500 Khz bandwidth for a 2.5:1 swr, easily good enough for the 40m band of 200 Khz.

With regards to 20m I got the following readings -

14000 - 2.5
14200 - 1.2
14400 - 2.5

So again very useable from 14000 to 14350, as I dont do CW I wasnt too worried about the swr at the bottom of the band or for data modes as this antenna will be used for portable and garden op's !

According to the research I have done, the diploe should also be resonant on 21 Mhz, as my analyzer only tells the swr and not the impedance etc, I cant be sure that it is or isnt, however the swr is around 4:1 on 15m, with a low swr at 22 Mhz.

No contacts as yet when tried yesterday, and much warmer indoors in the shack today !

Many thanks !

To Adam, M6RDP who as promised dropped round a 1:1 balun I need for an antenna project, but also he gave me a map of the US States he found in a charity shop, Adam thought I may like it and he was right !

I have stuck some pins in showing the 5 states I have worked so far.

It's all too easy to say 'sure I'll do this or do that' and then not bother, I've had a lot of that and it really riles me, dont bother saying anything if your'e not going to do it.

So now I can crack on with a multiband dipole I am building, I wanted to feed it with coax, hence the balun requirement.

Nice PSK31 QSO and 40m groundwave propogation.

I met Rob, G3XFD on the waterfall last night, Rob is the Editor of Practical Wireless, we had a really good conversation with virtually no macro's !

Here is a picture of Rob from his QRZ.com page -

And here is a copy of the QSO -

-------------------------------------------------------------------

20:08:56> Main

G3XFD G3XFD de M6PCZ M6PCZ M6PCZ pse kn
nt-ÅGOOD EVENON OM I JUSTSAW YOU CALLING AN UR5 STATION I THINK! NICE SIG 599. MY NAME IS ROB AND QTH IS BOURNEMOUTH HOW COPY? BTU K

-

zs
20:10:18> Main
G3XFD G3XFD de M6PCZ M6PCZ M6PCZ pse kn
COPYING U 599 OM TRY AGAIN UR 599 DE ROB G3XFD K

-

*e
20:11:14> Main
G3XFD de M6PCZ are you copyoing me Rob please confirm
SOLID COPY FROM UR FIRST CALL OM GA PSE K DE ROB G3XFD Ks t? r le
20:12:01> Main
G3XFD de M6PCZ Ok Rob used to all the macro confiming copy, hows Bournmouth tonight, I can see you on qrz.com....are you in the magazine I seem to recognize your picture BTU
et

Atef aiedo

NOT SURE IF YOU'VE GONE BACK TO ME OM BUT HERE WE ARE. BEEN NICE IN BMTH TODAY COOL CLEAR AND SUNNY. FIRST DAY FOR TWO WEEKS WITHOUT RAIN. NOT IN MAGAZINE OFFICE TODAY - AT HOME INSTEAD. WHAT'S YOUR QdH? runmninc an alinco dx7Øth here 5ØW BTU HOW COPY? KI

-

t oh
20:15:01> Main
G3XFD de M6PCZ Ok Rob used to all the macro confiming copy, hows Bournmouth tonight, I can see you on qrz.com....are you in the magazine I seem to recognize your picture BTU OK all understood - qth is in Torquay, I have emailed carl Harris with some HF happenings as I am a new license though been into radio for nearly 3Ø years hope you are copying my 1Ø watts BTU Rob...

et

sGOOD SIGNAL OM Crl mason will be pleaaed to hear from you. your 1ØW doing well 599. i WILL BE AT THE PLYMOUTH CLUB NEXT WEDNESDAY. YOU ARE WELCOME TO JOIN US. 73 CUAGAN FURTHER DOWB THE LOG GL AND WELCOME TO THE BANDS. DE ROB G3XFD GL 73 AND GN K
20:17:44> Main
G3XFD de M6PCZ Ok Rob all recieved - I may well come along have to see wheat i am working, think I may be off, work shifts, thanks and enjoying the bands------OK well Rob, 73 and thanks for the qso, good to type and not auto-macro, 73 for now and hope to catch you again soo, - G3XFD de M6PCZ 73 bye bye...
oyegeo 73 LOOK FORWAERD TO MEETING YOU FACE TO FACE AND ON THE AIR GL AND GN! DE ROB G3XFD

--------------------------------------------------------------------

According to Rob there is a meet at a Plymouth radio club next week on Wednesday, have to look into that.

 
Also last night I hooked up with Adam M6RDP with Hugh 2E0HOO who was at Adam's QTH, Alan M6DXU and Paul 2E0XVI - We all live within a mile of each other, though talking on 40m LSB at times it was quite difficult to hear each other with 5/9 at best from any of them, quite in contrast to a qso I had just prior with a German station coming into me at a genuine 30dB over S9.
 
For someone who has done a lot of groundwave on the cb freq's on various modes it just didnt add up, in fairness the band was quite noisy, around 4-5 's' points, perhaps if we had worked on FM it would have been better.

Bienvenido a Argentina a la 10m

Best DX to date and my first South American country was with LU4FW, Diego from Rosario, about 100m west of Uruguay.

PSK31 was the mode of transmission - I am starting to hear voices around 28500, not good enough to work yet, however some of the PSK signals are very strong to me, yes quite a lot of QSB, still a good sign of things to come for this band.

The distance was 6736.5 mi (10841.4 km), so easily my best DX so far.

I used the Sirio 827 as the long wire is around 5 's' points down.

Here is the antenna array at LU4FW, with that sort of system I could have worked him on a piece of damp string !

On google street view look for the guy in a blue t-shirt and the smart car...

View Larger Map

10m band open-ish..

Here at my qth I have the 130' long wire and a Sirio 827, which is a 10/11m (CB) 5/8 vertical.


Normally I use the long wire for HF as it hears better with lower noise than the vertical, however on 12/10m the vertical definately has the edge, which it should do really.


I keep hearing about 10m opening up and each time I goto the PSKy freq's, nothing until around 1630 UTC when I see some signals from the Caribbean and S.America.


This is really exciting as in a past life I have worked a lot of S.America on 11m.


I managed to contact NP4BM in Peurto Rico on 10m PSK31, then KP4ED on 12m RTTY, also in Peurto Rico.


Tried to contact the South Americans, but nothing as yet.


It was nice the use the old bird again, I had this antenna on 2 houses, so over 12 years now, it's a little bent up and it lost one of it's eight legs a few years ago.


Perhaps it will get some more use soon, hope so.