AmateurRadio.com

The Grand Manan ferry coming in to dock

Before the winter hits we thought it would be a great idea to head off to Grand Manan Island for some rest and relaxation. The island of  Grand Manan is located right in the middle of the Bay of Fundy and at this time of year, the island is starting to slow down. The population goes from 5600 to about 2600 winter residents. The Island belongs to the province of New Brunswick but seems on a map a lot closer to the state of Maine. During the summer 2 ferries operate between Grand Manan and drop to one ferry from late fall to spring. The island has one main road from north to south and a max speed of 80km. I sold my  Elecraft KX3 (bad move on my part) or I would have something set up here for radio operations during the vacation. 

The island has a few beaches that are great for sea glass which my wife Julie loves to hunt for and we spend about 2 hours each doing while the tide is still out. There is one grocery store, a small hospital, one gas station, a volunteer fire dept, a small police detachment and tones of fishing boats as this is the main industry for the island. 

Our view from the cottage with the tide out.

The cottage is in a cove off the Bay of Fundy and surrounded by fishing boat docks. The only ocean wild life up to this point was a seal just off our shore. Here are a few pics. 

Our neighbor again with the tide out.

The forecast

This past weekend was not shaping up to be a stellar contest weekend. The sun was very active and blowing bits and bits directed toward Earth. The predictions were not looking good. On the contest groups I  follow the scuttle was "rough seas ahead" I planned to participate in the California QSO Party, last year was my first year dabbling in this contest. I was shocked at the amount of activity and I made 61 contacts the previous year. I marked it in my contest calendar as a must-do QSO party.  With the solar forecast, I was hoping to meet my previous year's score at least. 

Now that the weekend has come and gone I ended up tripling my score from last year and doubled my contacts! The poor solar weekend forecast was a flop and conditions were great. My best band was 10m  hands down followed by 15m and then 20m. The way I look at the solar forecast is just that it's a forecast and you have to wait and see.

For some time I have been interested in the all-in-one type WSPR  transmitter. A fellow blogger Paul PA0K posts his WSPR adventures using the SOTAbeams WSPRlite model. This unit is no longer available and when I did a web search I found very few units on the market. The unit I  purchased was the Zachtek WSPR Desktop transmitter. The desktop transmitter has great reviews on Eham. The YouTube videos I watched about this product emphasized its compact size, works right out of the box, is easy to set up and can run independently without a PC. 

The unit I ordered was the 80m to 10m WSPR desktop. The package came from  Sweden and was at my door in under 6 days. Along with the Desktop device, you also get a USB to USB-micro cable and a GPS antenna with a 3m cord with an SMA connector. If you do plan to order one of these units be aware you will need an SMA to SO239 pigtail as it does not come with the unit. They can be ordered at Zachtek's website. Fortunately, I had one as it is used with my NANO VNA unit. 

Needed cable

Some of the selling points for me were:
- It's small size.
- Great reviews.
- Option to run it with or without a PC.
- Easy setup software available on Zachtek site.
- An LED light on the unit that indicates good or bad GPS lock, when transmitting and when idle.
- Automatic band switching.
- The unit is not affected by an extremely high SWR.

It was time to connect up the unit and I went to Zachtek and downloaded the operating software. I connected the unit to my PC via the USB to micro cable for the first time setup of the WSPR desktop, I connected the  GPS antenna and connected my Hustler 4BTV to the antenna port via the  SO-239 to SMA connector.  I entered my call in the box provided and selected the bands I wanted the unit to work on. As a side note, there is also a download for USB to serial driver but I already had that and it was working with no problems with my NANO VNA. I then pressed the start button on the software. I was supposed to see GPS information and the device status. Instead, I saw absolutely nothing.

Nothing happened

 I tried changing the USB port I was using, I then downloaded and installed the USB to serial driver from Zachtek as maybe it was a more up-to-date driver. I tried again and nothing happened. I know my NANO VNA has no issues working on my PC and using the USB to serial port driver, maybe a Win10 update messed things up. I connected the NANO VNA via its USB cable and it came to life. I then plugged the VNA into the same port the WSPR desktop was plugged into and it worked fine. I plugged the NANO VNA into the cable that came from Zachtek and the NANO VNA refused to start! I  plugged the WSPR desktop into the NANO VNA USB cable and the unit came to life. The device status came up and the GPS showed connection status. The issue was the USB-Micro cable from Zachtek it was defective right out of the box. I informed Zachtek of this a few days ago but as of yet, I have not heard back. 

The unit sprang to life

 Once the cable issue was solved the unit worked like a dream. In my next post the result of a 24-hour WSPR run with my Hustler 4BTV as well why the heck did I get this thing and how is it going to help my contesting adventures?

 Now and then I hit the sweet spot regarding my CW progress. For a while now I have jumped up to 38wpm contesting style CW. At this point in my practice time, I make around 2-4 mistakes per 10-minute session but then a perfect score happens and I am thrilled. I agree that in an actual contest sending CQ contest at 38wpm may hamper more than help as some folks come across this speed and move right along. If you are spotted the station will know your call and if it's a generic exchange  (CQ zone or ITU zone) you may get a hit from more stations. If you are sending a progressive serial number you may get pasted up more than contacted. In CW contests when calling CQ contest my speed varies from 30-34wpm and depending on the contest down to 28wpm. As always if a station comes back to me at a slower speed than I am sending I tap my page down key and that drops my CW speed in N1MM+ contest software. 

So why you ask am I practising at 38wpm? For me, it's all about keeping the mind sharp and working the grey matter with high-speed CW does the trick for me. Today's results put a big smile on my face....until I go at it again and reality sinks in with a few mistakes.

This ground rod took forever to pound in.

I had the opportunity in the spring to pick up free of charge 2 copper-clad 8-foot ground rods free of charge as long as I picked them up. It was about an hour's drive for me but free ground rods were well worth the trip. Also, I was able to meet one of the hams from our contest club and have a coffee and a nice chat. As things go I had many things to do around the house and installing ground rods was low on the list.  Well, September was here and I did not want to wait any longer and the decision was made to pound in two ground rods.
I did some online searching for ways to install ground rods and one way was to rent a tool that basically pounds them in. It's like a concrete hammer drill but for ground rods. I contacted the local building store who rented them and I was told for 1/2 day it was about 250.00!!!! Well, it first was time for plan B to see how that worked out. Plan B was to put the ground rods in on my own steam! Online there were many videos of folks who lifted the ground rod and slammed it into the ground. They kept doing this and added water into the hole as they went along. When the ground rod was close to the surface they used a hammer for the rest.  Another common thread in the videos was best case was to do this job after a few days of rain as this also helped out. As plans would have it did rain here for a few days and just after the rain I thought "It's a nice day to pound some ground rods in". Out I went with my trusty water bottles, work gloves and lots of ambition. I have to say the first ground rod at the base of my Hustler 4BTV went in very easily. So bubbling with confidence I moved to the second location which was for a ground rod that was to ground my station.
This spot was not as smooth going, the first attempt came to an abrupt stop at about the 4-foot mark. The only thing I could figure was I hit a tree root from one of our Maple trees. The second attempt was a charm BUT it was not easy going. I added water and slammed the ground rod down and it did go in but very very very slowly. Finally, success and both ground rods were in and connected to the antenna and the other to a ground bus in my shack.

 

The news is out the new Icom IC 7760 is out with a bit of a lunch bag letdown feeling among hams.  As Rob Sherwood put in on the 7610 groups io site:

"Unless I am missing something, why would I "upgrade"  from a 7610 to a 7760? With minimal details at this point, why would the lab numbers be noticeably better?"

Some of the highlights are: 

A separate control head from the RF deck. This is nice to see and you can move the rig around the house but the specs say it requires a gigabit Ethernet connection to function. 

200 watts power output.  

15 separated bandpass filters. (7610 has 13)

The addition of a 2.4-inch sub-display for filter display or band stacking and so on.

A preset FT8 menu for the Digi fans. 

4 antenna inputs. (7610 has 2)

Other than a few other minor stuff it basically is a 7610 but for double the price. But if an extra 100 watts, 2 extra bandpass filters, 2 extra antenna ports and an easy FT8 setup rev's your engine then the extra money is well spent I guess.
Here is the link from Icom with all the details and you can judge for yourself.
Icom IC 7760

 It's nice we are in the upswing regarding our solar cycle but along with that comes an active sun both in a good way and not so good way.  This weekend is the running of the WAE CW contest and well the solar flux index is off the scale at 306 the sun had a few hiccups over the past few days in the way of solar flares directed toward Earth. The flares tossed out some juice (ionizing radiation) toward us and more specifically right into our ionosphere layer D! We now have a D layer that has become a suction cup for HF radio signals. How does all this translate into a CW contest you ask.....well I'm calling "CQ contest"  and no one comes back to you. When someone does come back to me due to this peculating of the ionosphere at one point they are S8 and then gone! But I can say the solar gods are fair about things in that conditions are like this all over. No sense getting upset about it as this is all part of the solar puzzle that at times we enjoy and other times we spend time doing none ham things. While at the same time checking back in now and then to see how conditions are.