Reason for change:
While the HGSW beam performed well on 80 meters, it was only marginal on 40 m and not dramatically better than a dipole on the higher bands. Lately though, it has become almost impossible to tune it on 40 meters. The MFJ 993b auto tuner sounded like a machine gun, firing all the relays during the tuning process, and often failing to attain an optimal SWR. This condition needed to be fixed!

In addition to the degrading performance, I have always preferred to have an antenna that the radio’s internal tuner could handle. (Most internal antenna tuners built into radios will not tune an antenna with an SWR above about 3:1.)

Finally, I needed to put something up that was a lot less visible – a lot less conspicuous. I am nearing the end of a remodel project and will be putting the house up for sale soon, but I don’t want to have to take down all my antennas while it is for sale.

The Skywave Loop:
Enter the Skywave Loop design. According to my research, this antenna is resonant on all of the upper harmonics, unlike dipoles that are only resonant on odd harmonics. It also gets a lot of wire up in the air. Think about it, an 80 meter loop puts a full wavelength up at 80, 2 wavelengths at 40, 4 at 20 and so on.

Antenna length is not super critical.  Most of the discussion on this antenna say that, for instance on an 80 meter loop, the length of the loop wire can be off by several feet with little or no noticeable effect.  However, it should be near the resonant length of the lowest planned operating band and not simply the longest random length that can be put in the space.  While a random length will work and will tune up, performance is somewhat degraded by comparison.

Loop antennas can be installed in two basic orientations, either in the horizontal plane or the vertical plane. In the horizontal plane, the antenna will have horizontal polarity no matter how it is fed.   If installed in a vertical plane, the placement of the feed point and the shape of the antenna (square, triangle, etc.) will determine the polarization.

Additionally, height above ground will affect takeoff angle for the horizontally mounted loop. The higher the installation, the better.  Also, the antenna need not be in a flat plane.  Some corners can be above or below the general plane of the antenna.  However, if the antenna is installed close to the ground, it can become an NVIS antenna. Of course, this may be what you want – think local emergency operations on 40 and 80 meters or portable operations, where you want to talk out to up to about 300 miles.  (I’ll leave it to you to research the heights that will induce the best NVIS performance, but figure about 0.15 to 0.2 wavelengths above ground.)

Loop Skywave Antenna Installed:

So, last week, I spent a warm afternoon outside with my spud gun, launching more strings and ropes over trees in the yard.  It’s so much easier in the winter when there are no leaves left on the trees.  I put up four suspension points, each with a 3″ pulley to support the loop. None of the support points are fixed at any position along the loop wire, so it is free to move in response to winds. The feed point is about 1/3 of the way between the two eastern supports, and the slack on the overly-long ladder line feeder is pulled away fron the house with a string to keep it vertical and at least 10 ft above ground. (Deer and other wildlife will forage directly under the feedpoint. It’s their main foraging trail through the area. I need to keep everything high enough so they don’t snag antlers on feed lines.)

After I instaqlled it, I did find a reference to feedpoint location on

Loop Performance:

I was immediately impressed with the performance in comparison to the HGSW. It tuned up easily on every band from 80 to 10 meters, using only the radio’s internal tuner. I’m now able to retire any external tuner.  Reception of signals appears comparable or better. Noise levels seem to be lower too on the lower bands. The next surprise was a comparison to the TA-33jr 3 element beam. On 20 meters and above, the Loop antenna is picking up signals almost as well as the beam antenna! Occassionally, it will do better.

I’m wasn’t sure about DX operation yet though.  So far, I haven’t been hearing much DX on 80 or 40 meters. I was starting to think I had an “extended distance” NVIS with a range of about 1500 miles. I just wasn’t hearing anything beyond North America or the Carribbean. Over days, it just appears that conditions haven’t been good. In comparing signals with other local hams, I found that I’m getting as good or better reception as anyone else in the local area. I was also able to make a contact last night with South Africa, so it looks like the antenna is doing just fine.

80 meter loop on 160 meters:

A surprise was waiting here. All the articles say that you can’t use a loop antenna below the design frequency, so don’t expect to tune up an 80 meter loop on 160. I can tell you that this is a fact. I tried, and all I saw was an infinite SWR. That means no transmitting on 160. However, I noticed that as a receive antenna, this loop was fantastic.  Previously, with the old antenna, the band was pretty quiet.  Now, the band is loud and crowded. It’s frustrating, because now I can hear it all, but can’t transmit!

Hope is not lost though. Those same articles that say the loop will not tune on a lower band also say that the two leads on the ladder line can be connected together and the system behaves like a vertical antenna.  The feed line becomes a vertical and the loop acts as a capacitance hat!  This is something that I will have to try.

Summary:

It was well worth the effort. The Loop Skywave antenna performs well, is somewhat quieter, tunes nicely with the radio’s internal antenna, and is much less visible above the house. It’s making operating a much easier and pleasant activity.  I’ve been able to make contacts with little or no difficulty. (HK0NA, Malpelo Island DXpedition took about 5 minutes effort – they were working 5 to 15 up and had to find me in the pileup.) I just wish I had room to go to a 160 meter loop!

73,
W4FT

Does this mean that solar activity is suddenly ramping up in intensity? Will we be getting better and better HF propogation in the immediate future? We’ll have to wait and see.

For more details, check out http://www.spaceweather.com/

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

I bought the new Rigblaster Advantage because I had a problem during a recent contest.  I was running an old Rigblaster, one of the originals that I’ve had for several years, as a voice keyer connected to the computer and the N1MM contest software.  I wanted to run everything from the computer instead of having a seperate physical box for a voice keyer.  It worked fine on 10 and 15 meters, but I was getting distortion and other problems at times on the lower bands, especially 40 meters.  At the Charlotte Hamfest, I had an opportunity to speak with the reps from West Mountain Radio about it.  They suggested that it was probably time for an upgrade and introduced me to a new product- the Rigblaster Advantage.

The old Rigblaster worked fine, but I was confident that RF was getting in on all the audio cables in the rat’s nest behind the station desk.  I figured that since the Advantage has its own sound card built in and is connected to the computer by USB cable, this might solve the problem, or at least mitigate it by eliminating the audio cables between the computer and the Rigblaster.  Besides, I really liked the idea that it had its own sound card.

So, with the new Rigblaster Advantage in hand, I started testing.  To summarize, the transmitted signal was distortion free on all bands, and most of the problems were gone.  However, I was still getting some distortion on my local speakers (I use the computer speakers, fed out of the Rigblaster for monitor audio.  I’m still working out some of the setup.) 

As if that wasn’t enough, my friend noticed something new.  When I was transmitting but not speaking, he could hear a broadcast signal.  It took a while, but we identified it as a local talk radio station, WPTF.  This is a 50kw station and the transmitter antennas are only about 8 miles away. The WPTF signal was in the background on every band!

Now, the hunt was on!  I started the diagnostic process, to try to track down the culprit.  I disconnected the Rigblaster from the radio and plugged the mic directly into the radio.  That removed the problem, but that’s kinda like saying the disease is cured because the patient is dead.  I hooked the Rigblaster back up and disconnected all of the cables from it to anything except the radio and mic.  Again, no errant signal.  Next, I plugged the USB cable back into the Rigblaster, but not the computer.  Still no errant signal.   But as soon as I connected the USB cable to the computer, WPTF was back in the background, clear as a bell.  I continued the process, plugging and unplugging everything from the computer, shutting down the computer and/or the monitor, removing the keyboard and mouse.   In turn, everything still managed to put the WPTF transmission on my signal. 

Finally, I unplugged the computer from the power strip that everything else was plugged into.  Amazingly, the WPTF signal disappeared! I plugged everything back in the way I wanted it, EXCEPT the AC power for the computer.  Still, my SSB signal was clean.  The moment I plugged the AC power back in, the WPTF signal reappeared. 

Here’s what surprised me.  I unplugged the AC cord from the power strip – one of those 6 foot long industrial strips – and plugged the computer AC cord into the same duplex plug where the power strip is connected.  No WPTF signals! By just moving the plug, the problem was fixed!  So now, the signal is cleaned up, everything is hooked up for the contest this weekend and I’m ready to go. 

Sometime after the contest though, I’m going to have to do some troubleshooting.  Who would have ever thought that a power strip would make a good AM receiver!

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

Testing began the next day, but the results weren’t good.  SWR readings were in the 9:1 or higher range.  So what did I do wrong?   I had installed the antenna at about 75 to 80 feet up, with the last 15 feet on either end hanging down because of space limitations.  I thought about it for a while and decided that the likely culprit was the feed line, or at least, it’s a starting point. Another issue might be the hanging ends.  Anyways, I pulled the antenna back down and replaced the RG-8 coax with 100 ft of 450 ohm ladder line.  I also put a 4:1 balun on the end of the feed line.  This gave me moderate improvement on some bands:

I should point out that there was a change in design by the author.  The January 2010 edition of QST has a letter from the antenna’s designer and the author of the original article, Rob Wilson, AL7KK.  Rob had found that simply removing the inductor at the feed point resulted in a close match to 50 ohm coax, so a direct feed was possible.  In emails that I exchanged with Rob, he also suggested that feeding with 80 ft. or 100 ft. of 450 ladder line would yield good results on most bands.  Given the performance we had with two of these antennas cut for different bands, I believe they will operate nicely on all bands.

So here I sit, with mixed results on match, but a pretty good first glance at the receive on this antenna.  I just haven’t had a chance to tinker or do much operating yet.  I’ve seen this antenna in action at Field Day and it produces good results.  I’m just not convinced that I’ve really done it justice in this installation.  I still need to throw an antenna tuner in line and test it.  When I get more info, I’ll pass it along.

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