Author Archive
Fire Destroys Hardened Power Systems Shop
November 7th, 2014 | 
Author: A fire has destroyed the manufacturing facility of Hardened Power Systems, a research, design and fabrication facility in middle Tennessee. Popular among radio amateurs for their portable power hardware the DHAP, and other unique equipment. Current orders destroyed, but owner Bill Harrison says they will be back.
1st Russian WW MultiMode Contest
Dear Fellow Radio Amateurs,
The Russian Digital Radio Club has the honour to invite the radio amateurs all over the world to participate in the 1st Russian WW MultiMode Contest 2014. The objective of the contest is to establish as many contacts as possible between radio amateurs around the world and radio amateurs in Russia.
We invite all fans of digital modes to take part in contest from 12.00 UTC on Saturday 15th November till 11:59 UTC on Sunday 16th November, 2014. Types of modulation: BPSK63, CW, RTTY, SSB. The repeated contacts are permitted on different bands and different modes providing that a contact will be made not earlier than in 3 minutes. The output power should not exceed 10 watts on 160 meters and 100 watts on other bands. The operator may change the bands no more than 10 times within calendar hour (with zero on 59-th minute of each hour). Only one transmitted signal is permitted at any time.
Bands: 160 m, 80 m, 40 m, 20 m, 15 m, 10 m.
Prizes and certificates in all categories:
- SOAB – BPSK63-CW-RTTY-SSB
- SOAB – BPSK63-CW-RTTY
- SOAB – BPSK63-CW-SSB
- SOAB – BPSK63-RTTY-SSB
- SOAB – CW-RTTY-SSB
- SOAB – BPSK63-CW
- SOAB – BPSK63-RTTY
- SOAB – BPSK63-SSB
- SOAB – RTTY-SSB
- SOAB – CW-RTTY
- SOAB – CW-SSB
- MOAB – BPSK63-CW-RTTY-SSB
The certificate of the PARTICIPANT to all participants who have not borrowed prize-winning places, under condition of carrying out not less than 100 test (confirmed) QSOs.
You should send your log upload via the Web interface. All logs must be sent no later than 14 days after the contest (23:59 UTC on 30th November 2014).
73! de Russian Digital Radio Club
Disturbing the Force
Smartphones keep getting bigger. Out of the noise about the rising popularity of phablets, one notable observation bubbled to the surface, and that by tech pundit and radio amateur Leo Laporte, W6TWT. Laporte likes the large phones and when chided that it would appear he was holding a waffle to his head when making a telephone call he responds, “who uses a smartphone to make telephone calls anymore?”
That sounds funny, and seems to go against the grain, however, it’s spot on accurate. We very rarely use mobile devices to “talk” with someone after the manner of the ancient rotary phone. We send texts, photos, and Tweet’s. We Facetime, Hangout, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Fact is, we do almost everything with our mobile devices EXCEPT use them as wireless telephones. It’s not a telephone, it’s a personal communicator and the demand for larger screens simply reflects the rapid changes we observe in the way we communicate with each other in the 21st century.
I find that notable because there’s an oddity in the ham radio world that might be explained by it.
Contest organizers and RBN data detectives tell us that CW activity has been on the rise for nearly a decade. We can infer by the increase in QST advertising of paddles, keys, and other such devices that the sale of Morse instruments is at nearly a fever pitch. And yet, despite that, you talk to guys who live in the code trenches and they will lament the serious lack of activity. Sure, some of that may just be the imagination of old men who dream of the better day that never really was, but that doesn’t negate the many credible observations that casual CW use, especially rag chewing, is getting harder to come by.
So what’s really happening?
Hard to say for certain but there is one possibility that would explain the observed rise and fall, at the same time, of CW. It is possible that the way we communicate in the new age has changed from the way we used to do it. The efficacy of CW is legendary and highly advantageous in a contest or when chasing DX. It’s just possible that we’re using CW more for short, rapid exchanges of information — and less for casual operation.
This would explain why the RBN is telling us one thing (way more CW activity) while the good old boys who do nothing but pound the brass tell us something different (CW is dying). Both are right, and wrong. (I told you it was an oddity).
It also explains why way back in our long ago a spiral bound ARRL logbook would last an entire year or more while these days, many of the brethren are putting 2,000 Q’s in the log over a good weekend.
Short, rapid fire CW exchanges = text messaging. Get used to it. Besides, who needs to be loquacious in the 21st century?
(But if you really want to chew the rag using CW, meet me on 7.120 and we’ll do it 20th century style!)
OMG WTF? LOL 73
Radio Scouting Adventure
The Jamboree-on-the-Air, or JOTA, is an annual Scouting event that uses amateur radio to link Scouts around the world, around the nation, and in your own community. Held on the third full weekend of October each year, this worldwide jamboree requires no travel, other than to a nearby radio amateur’s ham shack. Many times the hams will come to you by setting up at a Scout camporee, or perhaps they already have a ham shack at your council’s camp. There are many ways to get your Scouts involved in JOTA.
I look forward to monitoring IRLP reflector 9091 for JOTA traffic all day.
Ten-Tec Update
Ten-Tec Factory Relocation Update
Internet access is working, working on phones, carts, shelves, desks, etc. We are far from having enough set up to do any real work at the new location yet, but, the move is occurring, boxes are getting moved, and unpacked. Phones will transition from one service provider to another so that will be a mess for a short spell when the porting occurs, but by end of October, we “should” be business as usual, no, not “as usual”, better. We are still making rigs and will continue to do throughout the move, so, Eagles will still leave the nest throughout the rest of this month, so will Argonaut VIs and so will OMNI-VIIs.
Thanks, and 73,
John Henry, KI4JPL
TEN-TEC Engineering, a Division of RFConcepts LLC
It appears that the special transceiver pricing continues to hold. That Eagle package at $1499 is an amazing price.
Ham Radio Mystery
I wrote, produced, and recorded Cornbread Road, a ham radio mystery series in 2010 when it was released one episode per week for thirteen weeks. After a successful run, I removed the files from the server as I never intended it to be continuously available.
But ever since then I have made the thirteen audio files available once a year for a limited run — for those who might have missed it. The audio series is available again right now, but only until the end of the month. On Halloween I’ll pull down the files until next year. Download them now or wait until next year.
It’s all fun, fiction and unlike any ham radio story you’ve ever heard told.
Bit About Antenna Tuners
Something has bugged me for a long time — the way some radio manufacturers market and sell their transceivers with built-in automatic antenna tuners. These are almost always intended to be used with antennas that are sold by the manufacturer (for instance, a specific mobile antenna) but this is seldom clear in large print in the adverts.
An unsuspecting ham may think the auto-tuner in his shiny new HF rig is going to work with the new dipole he hung up between the trees, only to discover it’s a hot mess.
Due to their size, most internal tuners (there are some exceptions) can manage only a slight mismatch in impedance and cannot begin to cover a wide range like that presented by ladder line and wire antennas. The explanation for this is fairly straight forward.The antenna and feed line present a load to the output of your transceiver. Most modern equipment has been designed to work with a load impedance of 50 ohms. Get close enough to that, and the transmitter is a happy camper. But if the load impedance is something other than 50 ohms, you have a mismatch. A mismatch causes a certain amount of the power that you’re trying to get out to be reflected back down the line — where it encounters forward power from the transmitter resulting in standing waves on the feed line.
You’ve doubtless heard of this in discussions about SWR or standing wave ratio.
A high SWR can cause considerable RF voltages in the feed line — and at the output of your shiny new radio. This isn’t healthy for modern transceivers (tubes are a little more forgiving) so manufacturers have taken to protecting equipment from this condition. When it’s sensed, your rig may fold back its output power, or shutdown altogether in order to prevent damage.
And this is why hams use antenna tuners. Most of us would like to be able to operate over many frequencies with a single antenna. Since the impedance of that single antenna will change depending on the frequency of the transmission, a tuner becomes a useful tool.
Basically, a tuner is a combination of inductors and capacitors that act to balance the load reactance at the transceiver end of the feed line. With the reactance effectively canceled, the load impedance at the transceiver is 50 ohms and all is right with the world.
Well, maybe not everything. Your antenna might still be a highly inefficient radiator — but with a 50 ohm load, the transceiver will happily pump all of its juice up into that inefficient aerial system as though it were perfect.
What’s really taking place here is that the load mismatch has been moved down the feedline from the output of the transceiver to the output of the antenna tuner. The reflected energy and standing waves still exist, though a well-designed tuner should be able to handle it better than your transceiver. The tuner protects the transceiver and permits it to generate full-power output.
Higher power and wider ranging tuners are physically larger than can be made to fit inside most tiny, whiz-bang transceivers. Physics is a tough master that demands attention at some point.
The moral of the story is that wire antennas, ladder line and open feed lines are great systems for launching RF into the aether, so long as you have a proper antenna tuner in the circuit. But internal tuners offered with most modern transceivers simply won’t cut it with these kinds of antenna systems.
There are notable exceptions. The low-power internal tuners offered by Elecraft and the slightly larger internal tuners offered by TenTec are downright amazing. There may be others that I’m not aware of so do your homework but as always, the buyer should beware…
