W4FT on Amateur Radio

It looks like my B&W 160-20 trap dipole is having some serious issues.  I noticed during the Nov. Sweeps contest that contacts on 40 meters were almost impossible, but 20 and 80 meters was working like a charm.  When I put the antenna analyzer on it, I discovered something disturbing.  Everything below 20 meters was 6:1 or worse! ( The match on 20 meters is still around 1:1)  Today, I pulled the antenna down and started checking it.  Everything looked ok mechanically, so I started checking for opens across the traps. Results were inconsistent, and not repeatable on the ohmmeter.

To make a long story short, OXIDATION!  I should have soldered all the connections instead of depending on just the mechanical connection of twisted wires.  The oxidation looks to be disrupting the antenna connections between the wires and the traps.  One of the 40 meter traps may be bad too. 

Now, I’m thinking that it is time to replace this antenna with something else for 160 through 40 meters. 160 is a bonus, but 80 and 40 are absolutely required.  I have 20 and up covered with a yagi.    I’ve been thinking about loops, dipoles, etc., but this probably needs to be some kind of wire antenna.  I do have several trees to serve as supports.

Throw out your suggestions!  What would you go with?

73,   W4FT

With the sun cycle at or near the bottom, 10 meters is a real challenge right now. Last weekend, I spent time on and off trying to make contacts on 10 meters. As you might expect, contacts were few and far between.  But, I thought I’d give it a shot.  At the start of the contest on Friday night, I started tuning around, looking for stations.  Most of the band was dead.  I did make a contact with a station in Virginia, which must have attracted local attention.  My next 4 contacts were all local Raleigh stations.

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.

A Clean Sweep!  Contacts with every section in the US and Canada during the contest!!!!  This was about my third or fourth November Sweepstakes, but I finally did it — maybe.  Yes, I know that I made contacts with every section, but will it survive the log checking process?  With about 16 sections having only one contact in my log, there’s a chance that a busted call could rain on my parade.   One year, I lost three sections from busted calls. Another year, no losses.  It all depends on how well the  exchanges were handled by me and by the person on the other end.  Fortunately, the clean sweep mugs are based on submitted logs, not on post-processing.  Since I know that I made solid contacts with all 80 sections, I’m getting my mug! Read more…

TA-33M and Cushcraft 11 element Yagi are halfway up!

I’ve been remodeling my house for a while now, so the radio shack and the antennas have seen frequent changes and moves.  Earlier this summer, I found myself wanting more than just my B&W 160-20 trap dipole hanging in the trees.  This would be a temporary install only. Sometimes, you just have to scratch an itch.   Read more…

We did it again!  Each day last weekend, a small band of hams covered 4 different routes, 7 rest stops and well over 100 miles of roads in and around New Bern, NC in support of the annual MS Bike event.  That works out to about 13 SAGs, 7 rest stop operators and a handful of shadows and others, or about 25 hams in all.

Was it fun?  Absolutely!  Worthwhile? Of course!  To quote Gary, KN4AQ, from a few years back, “Where else can you go and play radio all weekend and do something worthwhile at the same time?”

This is one of the biggest public service events that we support in NC all year. As great a job as we do each year, it would be so much better if we had more hams participating.  Think about it and plan on helping out next year!  At the very least, reserve a hotel room very early, even if you’re not sure.  Best to book a room by Christmas for next year!

73,
Cliff, W4FT

The MS Bike Event is less than two weeks away.  The GPS files can be downloaded at http://w4ft.com/public_service_support/msbike-2009-new-bern-nc-sept-12-13/ 
Check that webpage for more details.

73,
W4FT

Yesterday was the August SSB edition of the North American QSO Party, a 12 hour event - a great time to test the TA-33M antenna that I put up a few weeks ago.  For single ops, this is a 10 hour event out of 12, starting at 2pm local time.  For once, I had just about everything ready. Overall, I’ll give this year’s effort a B- grade; moderate fun, but not enough to leave me super excited after the event. 

Conditions are what they are at this time in the sunspot cycle, not spectacular.  On 20, the new antenna performed nicely, giving me contacts from CA to ME to FL. Fifteen meters was a lot weaker, mostly I think, due to just fewer operators.  As for 10 meters, nothing!  I didn’t hear a single op anywhere on the band!

My biggest problem was 40 meters.  Something tells me I need to make some repairs on that antenna – a B&W 160 thru 20 trap dipole. The match on 40 is a bit off and I could hear more stations than could hear me.  It’s frustrating when you hear an S-9 signal and they can’t hear you at all.  No pileup, just them calling and calling and not hearing my answer.  There were a lot of loud signals that couldn’t hear me.  Eighty was easier to make contacts on, but fewer ops.  On top band, only two contacts, but that’s not too surprising.

All in all, I had an OK to good experience.  I found a few station issues that need resolution – mostly noise from computer equipment – that need to be addressed; found that my newly installed beam is working pretty well (still need more op time to make sure),  and maybe it’s time to put up some new wire antennas in the 90 ft. trees for the lower bands.

Oh yeah, how’d I do?  135 QSOs over about 9 1/2 hours and 68 multipliers for 9180 pts.  Not bad, about middle of the pack for North Carolina ops in past years.  I even heard Alaska and Hawaii on 20 meters.  Too bad they didn’t hear me. 

73,
W4FT

Over the last year, I’ve had a few articles published in the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society’s monthyl newsletter, the Exciter. 

• RARS Field Day 2008 – The Results Are In – Dec 2008, as AG4XR
  A review of the RARS efforts on Field Day over the last decade, the latest results and suggestions for the future. Following mine is an article by Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, with a different view of Field Day.  Both are worth a read for Field Day fans.
• Contest Time Off: How Do You Measure It? — Feb 2009
  Some of the contests have rules about how many hours you can operate and about what constitutes off-time, but the rules aren’t clear on how to handle two windows of non-operating time: the time at the start and at the end.  This article clarifies how they count time in contests.
• How Big *Is* RARS? Or, Why Are Some Countries So Hard To Get? — Mar 2009
  Our Section Manager noted that RARS is the largest club in North Carolina.  At about the same time, the IARU added two new entities.  Surprisingly, there are over 100 countries and 33 entities that are smaller than RARS!
• How Far Should Your Go-Kit Go? — Jun 2009
  Have you thought about what purpose your Go-Kit should serve?  This article is a discussion about setting up a Go-Kit for your specific needs.

Any comments? 

73,

Cliff, W4FT

ARRL: 2008 ARRL November Phone Sweepstakes Results

http://www.arrl.org/members-only/contests/results/2008/SS-Phone/sidebar3.html

After last year’s November Phone Sweepstakes, I put a few words up on the ARRL contest website’s soapbox section under my old callsign.  It looks like it caught someone’s editorial eye.  They posted it as a sidebar article to the results!  Wonder if it makes it into QST?    If you want to read about this exercise in frustration, just click on the website above.

73,

Cliff – W4FT

Welcome to W4FT ver.2.0!  I used to have a website on the free space provided by my ISP, but they decided to change everything to pure flash content and a system that requires development on the site.  Since all of my tools and skills became useless, I decided it was time to build a site somewhere else. Along the way, I decided it was time to switch to a more blog and content management friendly system.  This is the result. 

Over time, I will try to add some useful tools and commentary on ham radio and maybe some other assorted topics and off-topics along the way.  Mixed in, at least for a while, may be some content from my old website, maybe for historical reasons or just to make me smile. Hopefully, you’ll find some stuff here that you can use or even makes you laugh.

This site welcomes comments and feedback, but is a 100% moderated site.  All comments will be reviewed before being published and may be edited or outright deleted.  Edits range from spelling corrections to minor cleanup for acceptability. Consider this site to have a rating somewhere between PG and R.   This doesn’t mean that I don’t accept dissenting opinions, but I will delete any flame wars, spam, insults, slander, or anything else that isn’t appropriate.  See my Terms of Service (as soon as they are published) for full details.

Enjoy your time here and feel free to comment.

73,

Cliff – W4FT