TA-33jr installed on Chimney Mount

Well, “a” TA-33 is up, not the same one.

The upper bands have been heating up all summer and I was getting the urge to do something to improve on my antennas. While the HGSW antenna does a fair job all around, I wanted something better. Back around September, I was set up at a hamfest with a fellow ham, and I was sitting there, staring at a pile of aluminum about three vehicles down from my spot. I don’t remember exactly what antenna it was, it had some missing parts, and it wasn’t all that great a price, but I was getting the urge to get a yagi for the upper HF bands. I had sold off almost everything I had, certainly all the good antennas over a year ago, thinking that I would have long ago had the house up for sale. (The kitchen remodel is just taking forever, but it is almost done now.)

I kept looking at that antenna, trying to justify spending about $125 for it, but I just couldn’t do it. Finally, my friend spoke up. “Don’t you have a bunch of antenna parts at home that you can put something together?” That’s when the light bulb went on. It was pretty dim, but it was turned on. It was about that time that someone else walked right past me, with that antenna in hand. Either it was a sign that I shouldn’t buy it, or that it wasn’t going to sell until I decided that I didn’t need it.

We kept chatting about how and where I was going to put it up. I had long ago sold my push-up masts and tower sections. I had sold all my rotors. Heck, I didn’t think I even had a piece of decent mast to use. Then he started reminiscing about all the chimney mounts he’d put up years ago in New York. The light bulb started to glow a little brighter.

When I got home, I started checking all of my antenna parts and pieces of aluminum laying around in the basement and the back yard. It was getting slim, compared to the collection I used to have, but I actually found all the parts to a Mosley TA-33 junior! It was in pretty rugged shape. I had to repair one trap and splice a new end onto one element that had snapped off. The boom was bent, and straight is a term that could only be loosely applied to any element. Still, I spent about a week straightening, cleaning and repairing, but I got it put together in the back yard.

Next, a trip to Trader Joe’s followed. This guy has several tons of surplus hardware – brackets, components, antenna parts, cable, and on and on. A Saturday afternoon going through his place looking for needed parts is always fun. As it turned out, he had several chimney mount kits that looked like they were new in 1960. Perfect! That and a couple of pieces of aluminum took care of several needs.

What about a rotor? I had one, but after a day of testing and attempted repairs, it turned out that the gearing was too worn to be reliable. With no hamfests in the near future and contests comming up, I went with a standard TV rotor from the local Lowe’s.

Time to put the system up. There was a surprise waiting for me though. I checked the chimney mount kit and found that it came wioth 12 foot long straps to wrap the chimney. Unfortunately, the Chimney was about 15 feet around the outside! Hmmm. No problem, I just made a quick trip to Lowe’s again(seems like I go there every day), and picked up an 8 ft threaded rod and a couple coupler nuts! I cut the threaded rod in two, and easily took up the gap.

With the chimney mount problem solved, everything else followed easily. I had a couple pieces of mast pipe, including an 8 ft piece that filled the bill nicely. In an hour an a half, we had the antenna up and working! Initial testing showed a good match that the radio’s internal tuner could make perfect on any band from 20m to 10m.

What about antenna height? The TA-33 jr. is mounted about 6 feet above the ridge of the roof. That’s about 20 feet above the front yard or 30 feet above the back yard. (The house is on the side of a hill.) While higher may (or may not) be better, 20 to 30 feet will do a good job!

So how has it worked? I’ve run the CQ WW, the ARRL November Sweeps and 10 meter contests since then. In every one, the 3-element beam has been a champ. It has gotten me QSOs from North Carolina to Australia, New Zealand and Japan. I’ve made contacts with it on almost every continent (still need Antarctica) In comparison with the HGSW, the beam wins hands down. During the 10 meter contest, I made contacts with most of Europe, the Carribbean and South America. I made contacts with both European and Asiatic Russia. The US west coast was easy, as was Alaska. As expected, the east coast and nearby states were almost unheard.

In a word, putting up the 3 element, 20/15/10 meter beam antenna was well worth the effort at minimal cost! If you can, go for it!

73,
W4FT

Contacts came fast and furious. With the upper bands opening up, the start of the contest was different from recent years. I immediately started getting contacts west of the Mississippi. Way west! Early contacts included AZ, WY, NM, SV, ID, NM, SCV, WWA, SF, BC, EB, PAC, AK. Within three hours, I also had ND, WY, MB, NT, OR and NL.

Wow, Pacific, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and even both Dakotas early on! This is going to be another clean sweep! Search and pounce was the order of the day.  I scored section after section quickly.  In fact, I had well over 60 sections in a few hours. By the time I knocked off at 3:00 EST to get some sleep, I had about 72 of 80 sections in the bag.

Sunday started later than planned.  I set the clock for 6:30, to be on the air before sunrise.  Best laid plans and all, I woke up around 10 am and was back on the air about 20 mins later. There were still plenty of opportunities to make contacts, but I was on a hunt for 8 missing sections – OK, ORG, MS, EWA, NLI, RI, PR and SB.  Working from NC, this is an interesting mix.  Some are obvious because of either distance or lack of stations, but some should have fallen early yesterday.  I mean, New York Long Island? Oklahoma??? I should have at least heard them yesterday!

Well, it was a new day.  OK fell 21 minutes after I was back on the air. I took out ORG (Orange County, CA) 7 minutes after that.  By noon local time, MS and EWA were in the log. Now, the hunt was on for the last four. With 10 hours to go, that’s about one every 2 1/2 hours, so it shouldn’t be that hard, right?

Three hours later, I’m thinking that it just isn’t going to happen. Since the contest started, I’ve heard only one station from any of the four missing sections.  Finally, I heard something.  It was NLI.  Picked him off at 4:03 EST. Maybe there’s hope.

Or maybe not. Three hours later again and still chasing RI, PR and SB.  Rhode Island and Puerto Rico should be easy to contact, if only there were stations to contact.  SB was going to be a problem with distance, conditions and lack of stations. Now, I’m bouncing around from band to band, from 40 to 10 meters.  Finally, around 7 pm, I decided to try 80 meters.  It had been quiet there, so I spent my time on the higher bands. But around 7:40 I’m tuning around on 80 and heard a 1-call.  I’ve heard several other ones, but hey, what do I have to lose?  There it was, loud and clear, a Rhode Island station!  Time to take out number 78!  At 7:44, RI is in the log!  Two to go!

Only Santa Barbara and Puerto Rico to go! Like I said, both are short on stations. SB has another problem with distance and conditions. A little over two hours to go, it doesn’t look good. I also thought about what I did have.  How many sections had only one contact? A quick count confirmed what I was thinking.  About 20 sections only had one contact! This isn’t good.  What if a multiplier gets busted and I don’t have a backup?  Did I spend too much time searching for sections, but not making contacts?

I pointed the beam towards PR, and scanned several bands. Anytime I heard a 4 or a 6, I’d listen intently for the two missing sections.  I also had a list of single contact sections, so if I heard a section on the list, I’d make that contact.  But it wasn’t looking good. I was almost resigned to being two sections short for a clean sweep.  I had bagged VI early on, and had a couple contacts around this time, so I knew conditions were good. But as much as I searched, no Puerto Rico. I thought “Maybe I could get Aericebo to bounce a signal off the moon?” Too desperate?   Maybe not.  It’s 8:20 and I’m scanning 20 meters when I heard a 4 station, loud and clear. So clear, I thought it was a local signal.  Turned out to be Puerto Rico. NP4Z was on the air and the pileup was big!  A couple minutes later, I bagged the contact.  THANK YOU NP4Z for being on the air!

ONE section to go – SB, Santa Barbara, CA. At least now, I can point the beam in the right direction. About 90 minutes to go, will it be enough time? I’ve made about 8 more contacts now.  Most stations that I hear I’ve already worked.  I’m scanning the bands, looking everywhere. It’s well after sunset in NC, and the upper bands are quiet, but I’m something told me to stay on 20 meters.  The signals were spread out, but there was still activity. I kept scanning, with the beam pointed at SB.  Finally, I heard a weak signal from 6-land.  I listened as he made another contact and I heard the magic letters – SB!  There was no pileup, but conditions were poor.  I had to work at it, but made the contact with SB.  SUCCESS!  I had bagged all 80 sections and had my second clean sweep in three years!

I was thrilled!  Now, with about an hour left, I wanted to beat my previous best score of just over 70,000 points.  So far, each time I tried to run instead of S&P, I had almost no QSOs. Now, I thought I’d try to run on 80 meters. I parked on an open frequency and started calling. The wait was a matter of milliseconds before other stations were responding.  In short, I spent the next hour adding 59 more QSOs to the count, backing up most of those single contact sections and moving my score well past 70,000 points.

Overall, I was thrilled with the result.  I had worked much less than 24 of the 30 hours allowed, but I had made the clean sweep and beat my previous best score.  All in all, a great weekend!

How did you do?  Leave a comment!

73,
W4FT

While the beam was working well, I was having a little trouble aiming it in the right direction.  Beam headings were all off. While I definitely had good signals transmitting and receiving, I soon found that adjusting for maximum signal instead of predicted heading, I did a bit better.  And, it was repeatable.  This was a no-brainer.  I found my old-fashioned compass, set the beam to north, and went out side.  Hey, it was only off by 35 degrees! Lesson learned: the compass function in a cellphone can be dramatically off.  If it’s critical, use a real compass. Easy fix, just add 35 to every beam heading.

Everything was going well, or at least so it seemed. The sun was still up and I was easily making contacts on the upper bands. Search and pounce was serving me well. So well, in fact, that I decided that I should start using the voice keyer function in the N1MM logging software. All of a sudden, nobody was hearing me. Hmmm, was the radio cooked?

Everything appeared to be working fine.  I could hear the audio files playing on the speakers attached to the RigBlaster Advantage. Power output was set to maximum. The SWR level was nearly perfect. So what was the problem?  I kept poking around and checking everything I could think of.  Finally, I flipped the meter on the radio over to ALC and keyed a test file through the voice keyer.  Sounded great on the speaker, but the ALC meter barely registered anything.  Just to keep it legal, I threw my call out using the desk mic attached to the Rigblaster.  Full scale readings on the ALC. AHA!

The good news was that I had essentially isolated the problem.  The bad news? I had no idea what was causing it.  After trying to cure it for a couple hours (I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to blow up my radio), I was making no progress.  Well, I was missing the contest and wanted to get back to having some fun. So, I abandoned the voice keyer functions and went back to doing it the old fashioned way. Time to have some fun.

OK, so now all the technical problems had workarounds.  The contest was still going strong, but somehow I wasn’t quite as excited, so  I plodded on into the night. When the traffic fell off, I decided to get some sleep.  The next day was better and I was able to steadily make search and pounce contacts.  The few times I attempted runs though, I didn’t have much success.  Go figure.

In short, as much as I love contests, this had gone somewhere that just wasn’t as fun as usual. The results tell the story.  I was on for a little over 19 hours, made 353 contacts with 83 distinct countries and 28 sections out of 40, for 279 multipliers on 6 bands. The result was a little over 266,000 points.   Not bad for the effort.

As for the hardware issues, I have fixed them both. The antenna rotor issue was easy. Ten minutes on the roof with a wrench is all it took to re-aim the beam. The voice keyer was another story. I called West Mountain Radio and talked with tech support for over an hour.  They were very cooperative and helpful, and just as interested in resolving the problem.To make a long story short, they gave me enough info that I was able to work through the problem and resolve it.  It turned out that when I updated system drivers, the USB driver for the sound card in the Rigblaster Advantage had been corrupted. Simply reloading it wasn’t fixing the problem.  I had to delete it, and then scrub the registry to get rid of all references to it before reinstalling.  That cured the proiblem.  Now, it’s ready for the next contest – ARRL North America Sweepstakes!

73,
W4FT

Link to CQ WW WPX Contest 

I’ve been sitting around here trying to figure out what I want to do about the CQ WW SSB contest.  I’ve already challenged one of the local hams and might throw down the gauntlet in front of a few more.  But do I want to make any changes to the shack?  I still have the HGSW beam hanging in the trees above the houes (see earlier posts), but I’ve been hearing a lot about the upper bands coming to life.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a tri-band yagi up, at least for comparison?  Maybe it’ll help me get more contacts this year. These thoughts created an itch that I just have to scratch!

Okay, so I didn’t want to invest a ton of money into a new antenna.  That means working with whatever I can find around the house.  I thought that I’d sold everything off at hamfests, but after looking around, I found most of the parts to a Mosley TA-33 junior. To be honest, it is in pretty rough condition.  The bo0m is about as straight as a dog’s hind leg, even though it’s been straightened, and one of the reflector elements had about a foot broken off the end. Otherwise, everything is in worn but usable condition.  The traps don’t show any opens, and everything seems to be there. 

Next problem – how do I put it in the air and turn it?   I did sell all my push-up masts and tower sections.  At least I still have a piece or two of mast laying around.  In the past, I’ve had push-up masts buckle while putting everything in the air, and at best, only cleared the top of the house by a few feet. AB4OZ came up with an idea – try a chimney mount installation.  This immediately puts the antenna about 8 feet above the top of the house, and has the advantage of being cheap.  I found a mount kit for about 8 bucks at a local CB/ham shop and had to add in another 8 bucks worth of hardware to reach all the way around a fireplace chimney with threaded rod and other hardware. (The kit had 12′ straps to go around, but the perimeter of the chimney is more like 16′.)

Finally, I need to be able to turn the antenna.  I had an old rotor that I picked up at a hamfest for a few bucks, but when I tested it, I found the gears were worn out. Crap!  I also sold the TV rotor I bought for about $50 several years ago.  Double crap!  Oh well, time to buy a new one.  Since it’s a relatively lightweight antenna, I figure a TV rotor will work fine.  Of all places, Lowe’s had what I needed at about the best price.  It was the Phillips rotor with the newer control box – memories, a remote control, and an approximate bearing indicator. (Shows bearing  / 10 ) At $75, it’s a little painful, but better than a couple hundred for a tail twister.

So that’s where it stands.  I have all the parts together in the basement.  Over the next few days, I’ll be piecing it all together.  Maybe this weekend, you’ll hear me on the higher HF bands on a TA-33.  I’ll let you know how it works out.

And to the local hams in Raleigh, consider this your challenge to beat my score in the CQ WW SSB contest at the end of the month!

73,

W4FT

Last month brought the CQ Worldwide SSB 2010 contest, presenting an opportunity to test out the High Gain Single Wire Beam antenna (HGSW) described in my last blog entry.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I thought I’d give it some exercise.  In spite of losing a day to help a fellow ham with a broken water heater, I managed to put in several hours of happy contesting, covering every band to some degree.  The result was a log with about 242 contacts in 64 countries and 23 zones for a score of over 111,000 points.  Not a bad effort, given that I wasn’t really trying that hard.

Conditions, like appearances, can be deceiving.

On Friday, my sense was that the antenna performed great on 80, but not well on 160 or 40.  It was too late to assess 20. Somehow, I expected better.

My effort started late Friday night.  Hey,  I was tired from taking that water heater out, so I wasn’t really in the mood to work a contest. But finally, I couldn’t resist the urge any longer. Around 11:30 pm local time, the radio came to life and I started looking around. Twenty meters had already gone dead, so I dropped down to 80 meters.  A quick scan showed a target rich environment.  I spent a fair amount of time making contacts from all around North and Central America and Europe. Contacts were easy and getting through pileups was a quick effort.  Having made a pass through the band, it was time for a change.

Forty meters had different results. Like 80, I was hearing stations from North America and Europe again, but they weren’t hearing me quite as well.  Pileups meant doing battle with everyone else trying to make the contact and results were mixed. In spite of the difficulty, I still made a full pass through the band with fair success. Next, I went on to 160 meters.  Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Well I didn’t gain much.   If 40 was marginal, 160 was a disaster.  I managed only two contacts on the band.  Fortunately, most people were on the higher bands, but I’d had enough for the night.  Time for some sleep.

Saturday morning was spent putting a new water heater in (I really, really want to make sure my friends have access to hot showers.    ), so I didn’t get back to the contest until around an hour before sunset. I started with a few contacts on 20 – zones 16, 11, 7 and 9- but the band was rapidly dying for me already.  I operated sporadically for about 6 hours, making roughly another 34 contacts – mostly on 40 meters.  This time, I added three Northern Africa stations – CR3, CN3 and EF8, all on 40 meters.  Oh yeah, I added another 160 contact.

My perception was that 80 was solid, but the antenna wasn’t so hot on 40 or 160.  I wasn’t too sure about 20 either (the HGSW is designed for 20 meters.) I’m beginning to wonder if the height is the real controlling factor here. I’ve had several wire antennas up in the trees – trap dipoles, simple 80 meter dipoles, etc. – all about 65 to 85 feet above ground.  It seems like they all did well on 80 meters, but marginally on 40 and really bad on 160.  The only antenna to have even marginal performance on 160 was the B&W 160 thru 20 trap dipole.  I’ll chalk the performance on 160 to the nature of the top band in general. The band just takes a well-tuned and installed antenna to get good results.  Honestly, I haven’t had one of those up yet for the band.

On 80 meters, almost every antenna I’ve put up has had good to excellent performance.  The HGSW falls into the good category, maybe excellent, but I haven’t really had enough time on the air to be certain.  I do know that making contacts and busting through pileups is easy on this band.  I’m wondering if the antenna height is the real secret here.  I’ve been installing antennas at 65 to 85 feet, with the current HGSW at about 80 feet.  Based on some reading, that looks like the sweet spot for 80 meter antennas.

So the result looks to be good overall performance, better on some bands, not as good on others.  More to follow in later blogs.

Oh yeah, my friend is enjoying his hot showers again, all without a single leaky pipe!

73,
W4FT

For years, I’ve had an MFJ-434 voice keyer that I wanted to use with my Yaesu FT-1000MP during contests.  Sometimes, it would work fine.  Other times, the combination of the radio and the keyer would do strange things. Often, I would just disconnect the keyer and set it aside – I wasn’t in the mood to troubleshoot during a contest.  Afterwards, once I recovered, I wasn’t really in the mood to troubleshoot the problem.  I spent a lot of time searching the internet for a solution, but never found anything that worked.  In fact, I didn’t find much on the topic at all. Anyways, with Field Day approaching, combined with the relay problem that I had (see http://w4ft.com/2010/06/yaesu-ft-1000mp-transmit-relay-replacement/ )  I decided to spend some time really digging into this one.  The good news:  I found a solution – the correct jumper settings for the MFJ-434 to work with the FT-1000MP!

Strange Behavior

Sometimes, the combination of the MFJ-434 and the Yaesu FT-1000MP would start doing strange things.  The most common “strange behavior” was quite easily duplicated, once I figured out the conditions that caused it.  First of all, I had set all of the jumpers in the 434 using the default Yaesu setup as described in the manual.  This appeared to work, at least initially, but there were two problems.  First, recordings created using the external mic, the Yaesu MD-100 desk microphone, sounded terrible and very weak.  The 434′s internal mic did a much better job.   Unfortunately, this should have been a clue.  The desk mic also sounded terrible and extremely weak on the air too. 

The second problem was much more interesting, even entertaining except when I was trying to make contacts during a contest.  Under certain conditions, the radio would start changing frequency all on its own!   Specifically, if the Notch, NB-1, NB-2 and EDSP buttons were all activated while the 434 was connected and configured with the default Yaesu setup, the radio would start scanning downward when the transmitter was keyed.  It is the same behavior as using the ”Down” scan switch on the mic.  Are you starting to see the problems? For full disclosure, I don’t remember 100%  if I had to key the radio to start this behavior.  I’m also reasonably sure that it did this when I used the Heil headset and boom mic too. These would be easy enough to duplicate and verify. Either way, the EDSP was a no-no when the 434 was hooked up.

So, two serious problems – low mic output and unwanted retuning when I used all the noise supression tools.  Definitely unacceptable.

Two Solutions Are Found

By now, you’ve figured out what I instinctively knew, but didn’t want to accept for a long time.  The default Yaesu jumper setup inside the 434 doesn’t work with the FT-1000MP.  So, with Field Day approaching, I decided to spend an evening diagnosing and researching the problem.  It took a couple hours, but I solved both problems and the system works just as you’d expect.  It just takes a couple undocumented jumper settings.

1. The microphone problem:

One of the microphone pins carries +5 volts to power the microphone.  Unfortunately, the default Yaesu setup suggested in the instructions for the 434 doesn’t pass this through.  There is a setup that puts +5v on the 434′s mic connector, but it doesn’t seem to work as well.  The solution has three steps:
         1. remove the jumper between JMP-3 (Yaesu) pins 15 and 16 (8th pair), and,
         2. install a jumper across JMP-4 (Icom) pins 5 and 6 (3rd pair).
         3. remove the jumper from JMP2.  (When installed, it shorted the +5v directly to ground.)

This routes the +5v signal from the radio through to the same pin on the 434′s microphone connector.  The result is that the MD-100 or any mic that requires the +5v supply will now work approximately as expected.  It may not be perfect, but it works. I say this because mic audio quality might be slightly degraded.  You may find that recording messages with the 434′s internal mic may still be the best, but now you can effectively use your mic while attached to the Voice Keyer without a serious dop in audio levels.

2. The Scan Down problem:

  Okay, I confess, I have no idea exactly what was causing this or why.  Pin 3 carries the ”Scan Down” signal and is a straight passthrough, according to the schematic.  Logically, it should not be a problem. I do know that once I sat down and traced the connections through the schematic of the 434 and made sure that each pin had exactly the right connections or passthrough, the problem disappeared.  If I were to guess, I’d say it had to do with the ground signals, but that’s just a wild guess.  I really haven’t figured it out yet.  I just know that my final setup (below) solves both problems.

MFJ 434 Jumper Setup for a Yaesu FT-1000MP

So here is the complete setup.  Note that for jumpers JMP-3, -4 and -5, the pins are numbered fron left to right and top to bottom, starting at the back of the unit and working towards the front.

1. JMP-1: Leave this jumper set.  It enables PTT Automatic Override (See manual, pg. 6)
2. JMP-2: Remove jumper.  When set between “Y” pin and center pin (default), it shorts the radio +5v line to ground.
3. JMP-3: There are 8 pairs of pins.  Set the jumpers on all pairs(default), EXCEPT remove the jumpers on pair 2 (pins 3 & 4) and 8 (pins 15 and 16).
4. JMP-4: Set a jumper on ONLY pair 2 (pins 3 & 4).  This enables +5v for the mic connector to power an external mic.
5. JMP-5: Set a jumper on ONLY pair 3 (pins 5 & 6).  This enables the pin 5 ground from the radio to the mic.
6. JMP-6: Leave the zero volt setting in place (default). The radio is providing the voltage.  
7. HD-1: Leave default jumper between pins 7 and 8 (default).

Using these settings enables the desk mic to function correctly and eliminates the downscan problem.  It also works with my Heil ProSet Plus.  If you’re using a different microphone, or some other combination of hardware, your best bet is to examine the schematics of all the equipment involved and trace it all out. 

Finally, note that this is for the MFJ-434 and the Yaesu FT-1000MP.  It may or may not work with the MFJ-434-B or the Yaesu Mark-V, or any other subsequent models, but this discussion should give you a lot of ideas on where to look!  Good luck!  If you try this, or try it on another combination of hardware, leave a comment here so that we can share the knowledge. Let’s share what works, what doesn’t and why!

73,
W4FT

W4FT at the W4DW 2008 Field Day 80m/15m SSB station

It’s that time again! Field Day 2010 is a mere 8 weeks away. Or as one of our local hams calls it, that High and Holy Day of Field! Around here, the local big gun is the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society. 

So what does all this mean? Simply that it’s time tostart working on getting everything ready. There are other web sites that will detail a broad range of preparations and I urge you to google them and get ideas.  My plan is to do a series of posts on different preparation topics. I don’t claim to be an expert, but they should get you thinking! 

Since becomming a ham, I have been participating in the RARS effort in some form almost every year.  RARS has consistently hosted an outstanding Field Day operation, usually placing in the top three in class 7A or 8A, depending on the year. One year, we even made it to 8th place overall!   Last year, we once again took the top honors in 7-Alpha. While being highly competitive, we also strive to be a very friendly environment for new hams to get their feet wet in contesting and at Field Day.  With 7+ stations and a little planning, it’s not that hard to satisfy all of these goals.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been the band captain for the 80 meter/15 meter phone station.  Since I like my creature comforts, I’ve been setting up my trailer as a portable radio station. A bit dark, but much cooler with the air conditioner (in the photo background) when the weather is over 100 degrees during the day and 80s at night.  I try to run a station where new ops can get the feel for contesting and where we can also run a strong contest effort with experienced ops through the night.  Did I mention that the trailer keeps the chiggers and spiders out? 
Some of the topics that I’m considering are:

• Generators – what to do before, during and after field day.
• Radios, Computers and logging software.
• Antennas
• Coax, feed lines, rotor cable and such.
• Tuners and accessories
• The Field Day “Ham Cave”
• All the other stuff.

OK, it’s not an all-inclusive list, but it should get the ball rolling.  Please feel free to post other ideas and input.  Let’s see who has that bright idea.
73,
W4FT

Over a decade ago, when I was first licensed, there was an active effort by the local club and its members to educate and enlighten new hams on good amateur operation and etiquette.  They have my thanks for helping me quickly gain the skills to be a good operator, by both their example and education.  Lately though, it seems like the pendulum has shifted. Fewer operators and clubs are actively passing these skills along.  New operators are learning more by example and less by education.  Adding to the problem, experienced operators are picking up bad habits and passing them along by example.  The experienced ops, myself included, can always benefit from refresher education.  Over years, bad habits, like the fastest microphone in the land, become embedded as accepted practice.  Can’t we start teaching our fellow hams the best practices again?  Or reteaching our fellow hams, as is often the case?  And if we’re on the receiving end of some of this re-education, can we accept it at face value and consider changing our practices instead of feeling upset?

So this is about good operating practices, and in particular, about leaving more than milliseconds before keying the mic. Yes, leave more than a half-second of dead air.  Give someone a chance to insert their callsign in the conversation.  Someone might have something interesting to add to the discussion.  More importantly, there may be an emergency and someome needs to break in.  Give them enough time to do so! 

During net check-in, this gets really stupid.  As soon as the net control op calls for check-ins and unkeys his mic, Joe Lightning will key up and chime in, even before the repeater has a chance to drop.  It’s a race to be the first to check in to the net.  A little irritating, but easily tolerated.  The fun begins when Joe’s cousins all try to check in at the same time. The result is usually a double, but it’s really fun when you get a triple or more. Why?  Just slow down a little and avoid the collisions!  Let the repeater drop.  Wait a moment or two before keying up. It’s a simple thing, but it makes for a much more pleasant and orderly experience for everyone.

Oh yeah, contesting – that’s a different flavor of the story.  Sometimes you have to be fast, but even here, being a little slower than everyone else can mean success!  While Joe Lightning and 200 other hams throw out their calls just as soon as someone calls QRZ, the station that is the object of the pileup may not hear any of them in the cacophony.  However, the hams that wait a second or two may well be heard instantly after the insane pileup clears a little. So again, fastest isn’t necessarily best, even in contests.

For clubs and net control ops, when was the last time you did a training session or presentation on good ‘netiquette’?  Or even a few seconds during a net or a meeting to pass along a simple good operating tip?  C’mon gang, we can all do better!

OK, the ham radio world isn’t going to h*(( in a handbasket, it’s just one of several ways that we are slowly, gradually, losing our skills and our reputation as exceptional communicators. To steal from Dennis Miller, That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.  

Feel different?  Something to add?   Leave a comment.

73,
W4FT

Over the next two days, I scanned the band, looking for stations, mostly with no success.  Late Sunday, I did find a few more signals, probably from sporadic-E, coming in from Oklahoma, Kansas and South Carolina.  

Ultimately, conditions were just so poor that, except for checking the band occassionally, I didn’t do much.  While these conditions make for a real challenge, I’ve never been interested in sitting for hours, calling out into the ether without response. This was a great contest back in the mid 90′s when I got my license and maybe it will be again when the sunspot cycle peaks again, but this year…. oh well.

After Field Day, this is one of my favorite contests.  Since I operate A-precedence, or Single Op Low Power, I don’t have any illusion of being a top gun in the contest, or even in my section.  My goals are simple – do better than previous years and, most important, get a clean sweep!  Two years ago, I set these goals, figuring that a clean sweep would be easy, so I just need to score high.  Boy, did I have a surprise in store for me.  Hitting 70 sections is fairly easy, but getting them all can be almost impossible!  The big surprise is always which sections are the last to be found.

While some sections are holdouts every year, the last few sections seems to always be different.  From North Carolina, the trend is usually the same – start with everything east of the Mississippi  through the evening hours on the first night. The following morning, take out the western US, Alaska and Hawaii.   Canadian sections will be interspersed throughout, moving from east to west throughout the contest.  So who are the tough sections?  The usual culprits generally include North Dakota, the Western Canadian Sections and Rhode Island, probably as much about population as about location.  But there are always a few strange ones that defy explanation.  One year, it took me forever to get South Carolina – just south of here! The same year, along with Alaska and WCF, I didn’t get West Virginia, just to the north!  Maybe local conditions weren’t meant to be that year.  Almost every year, one of the last sections I get is WCF, West-Central Florida.  Population again?  Maybe.  Last year, I missed 4 Canadian sections (NL, QC, MB, SK) and one US section, MS!  Why couldn’t I get Mississippi? 

This year, at least Murphy stayed away. Last year was a battle, but that’s another story. (See my sidebar article on the ARRL Website.)  Some minor problems with the computer again, but nothing serious.  The hamfest was a week earlier and my antenna stayed in the air.  I started with a quick sweep on 20 meters, making contacts with about a half-dozen stations in CA and zero-land. As expected, the real action started on the lower bands with most of the contacts during the evening on 80 meters, coming in from anywhere east of the Rockies.  Around 2 a.m., I shut it down to get some sleep.  Back on at 1430 z, I started playing on 15 and 20 meters.  This picked up a lot of west coast stations, plus a fair number of stations across the rest of the country.  A few hours later, I picked up Alaska and Hawaii, not too far apart. 

So who were the last few sections? The final ten (see table) took about 6 hours to clear. Only the last six looked like they wouldn’t happen – British Columbia, Southern New Jersey, Santa Barbara, West Central Florida, Alaska and Virgin Islands.  Alaska and Virgin Islands came in close together, on a surprisingly productive 15 meters.  Those two marked the transition from easy pickings to few and far between on the section hunt.

Of the last four, British Columbia is understandable – western Canada, low population and about as far from me as it could get.  But the other three,  SB, WCF and SNJ, why didn’t I have them a lot earlier?  OK, so Santa Barbara is almost as far away as BC, but I’ve been getting California stations all day!  Where’s SB?  WCF?  That’s about 700 miles and I already had the rest of Florida!  Population issue again?  And the big surprise – Southern New Jersey?  Less than 500 miles?  Why isn’t SNJ in the log?  Whatever the reasons, persistence paid off.

Of all the section chases this year, two had interesting stories – SNJ and BC.  First, SNJ.  Throughout the contest, I was chasing stations.  Occassionally, I tried to start runs on different bands, but the result was the same.  I would call and call on a given frequency, but would get no contacts.  Over an hour of calling cq on three different bands resulted in only one contact.  I’d stop calling and go back to hunt and pounce and would immediately start making contacts again.  This was unusual for me.  Anyways, while chasing contacts, I would frequently tune in a station and prepare to make a contact, only to realize that I was listening to a SNJ station, a teenage (or younger) voice making the contact with the station that had the frequency.  Before I could even think of what to do, he was gone. (Or was it a she? No telling.) So how did I get SNJ? Just for grins, I decided to scan 80 meters.  It was a little early for the band, but what the heck.  The same thing happened again, only it was another SNJ station.  As they ended their contact, I keyed up and threw out “SNJ, up 3!”  To my surprise and delight, he answered, “QSL” and we made our contact!  He was only the second SNJ that I heard all weekend.

That left British Columbia.  BC was a frustration point for me now.  I really should have had it already.  I made a contact with a BC station several hours ago, got all of his exchange info, but he was having trouble hearing me.  After only three attempts, he gave up and threw the exchange out, with nobody waiting to call him.  I wish he hadn’t given up so early.  Now, I’m scanning every band, on a mission to find the last, elusive section.  I was also starting to look for backups for the 16 or so sections where I only had one contact, just in case some of the calls get busted in log checking.  While scanning 20 meters yet again, I stumbled on a strong station.  Let’s find out where he is and put another contact in the log.  Big surprise, it’s BC, and not much of a pileup!  I made the call, put him in the log and thanked him for the sweep!   He told me he was getting close, but still had a ways to go.

With a clean sweep under my belt and over three hours to go, I worked another 54 stations, backing up some sections and adding points to the score. I did notice that during the last hour, the pressure was getting to people.  The tempo of contacts on the air seemed to be picking up. Operators seemed less and less inclined to participate in the occassional “How are you doing in the contest?” chats.  Finally, with 6 minutes to go, I stumbled on a station in a section that I needed to back up.  He was pretty loud, but there was a pile up and he was taking a long time to make contacts.  With each contact taking a full minute, I guess he hadn’t learned the concept of efficiency of words yet. No matter, I had my sweep and was happy with the whole contest!

The result:

The previous two years yielded almost the same results – 253 QSOs reported and 10 busted contacts both years!  In 2007, 77 sections reported, one busted.  In 2008, a little worse with 75 reported and 2 busted sections. That put both years at around 36,000 points.  Still, not a bad performance for about 15 hours each year.

So how did this year end?   80 sections, 327 contacts and 52,320 points claimed.  Let’s see if I do better on busted calls this year.  Woohoo! Time to order that Clean Sweep mug!