AmateurRadio.com

Turned the PRC-104 on today while I was out and left it on spotting signals.

I was using a 3 element yagi pointed South during the 6 hour period.

The radio in use was my PRC-104 military manpack using a signalink USB and Acer notebook.

The following screenshots show the stations that were heard at my location in EN58hh, or Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Hanz W1JSB and I hiked to the cabin at Knox Mountain this afternoon. We set up a 20 meter dipole as a vertical and worked London, Ontario on SSB and Guadeloupe on CW.

The first bridge has nearly collapsed. Two out of the four main timbers have fallen into the brook. We took a chance and scampered across the far north end of the bridge which still has some cross-boards attached. We went one-at-a-time and made it safely across. My guess is… the bridge won’t be here in the spring.

We had a grand time hiking to the pond. We hadn’t seen each other since sometime in July. At several spots along the trail, we could see where a bear had scraped up the earth, perhaps in search of food below.

The pond is always a beautiful sight after the darkness of the woods.

We had brought two rigs and one antenna. Hanz had his Norcal Cascade, an SSB rig set up on 20 meters. I had the little DSW by Small Wonders Labs.

We tossed a line over a 40 foot branch on the wild cherry tree behind the cabin and set up the dipole as a vertical. The bottom end was weighed down with a water bottle.

Hanz took the first turn.

There were plenty of stations to choose from. VE3LHU was calling CQ from London, Ontario and had a very strong signal. David answered and gave Hanz a 56. “You’re doing a fine job with 3 watts,” he sent. With that Hanz handed the antenna to me.

I went down toward the bottom of the band and right away heard TO10RR in Guadeloupe calling CQ. He had a hard time copying me on the first call, but came back on the second. We exchanged quick 599s and I considered myself lucky to have made the contact. Right away a large pileup formed. Had I waited, I would have missed the QSO for sure.

By now the shadows were lengthening and we were anxious to get back before dark. We couldn’t have had a better outing… it was 52F, and perfectly pleasant for a great radio adventure and hike.

Stories you’ll find in the November, 2014 edition:

TSM Scanner Buyer’s Guide 2014
By Chris Parris

Are you interested in buying your first scanning radio, or are you planning on adding a newer model with the latest features to your radio room? The current choices of scanning receivers available today offer a wide range of features and capabilities that have not been seen in the consumer market previously. TSM Federal Wavelengths columnist, Chris Parrish looks at some of the better scanners on offer today.

TSM Review Follow-up: Uniden 563 HP – Six Months Later
By Chris Parris

In April Chris acquired his Uniden BC-536 HP scanner and published a review of it in the May 2014 edition of The Spectrum Moni-
tor. At the time, he had not had a chance to truly explore all of the capabilities and potential that this new Uniden scanner offered. But, over the last six months he dove into the radio’s Dynamic Memory Architecture (DMA) and discovered how it can be useful for someone who travels around various regions of the country.

TSM Radio Buyer’s Guide: “Round up of Amateur HF Transceivers,” and Price Guide: “The Good, the Better, the Pricey”
By Kirk A. Kleinschmidt NT0Z

It’s a fantastic time to buy an HF transceiver: Features are up, RF performance has never been better and, adjusted for inflation, prices have never been better. But, the radio technology we’ve depended on for the past 50 years has passed the performance baton to software-defined radio (SDR). And there’s really no going back.

TSM Shortwave Radio Buyer’s Guide: Portable, Tabletop and SDRs
By Thomas Witherspoon K4SWL

Although many large government shortwave broadcasters are departing the shortwave radio scene, there’s no shortage of great prod
ucts being introduced to it. Indeed, growth in the portable and SDR (software defined radio) markets is reasonably rapid. This suggests, perhaps, a new kind of future for shortwave. Thomas Witherspoon looks at all of the best sets in each category.

TSM Reviews: Elad FDM-S2 Software Defined Shortwave Radio
By Thomas Witherspoon K4SWL

At this year’s Dayton Hamvention, Thomas Witherspoon made a point of checking out Italian radio manufacturer Elad’s SDRs, He
found himself interested in the FDM-S2 receiver as he instantly liked the GUI (graphical user interface), the features, and the specifications of this model. Elad provided a demo unit for review and Thomas gives you plenty of reasons to consider the Elad FDM-S2 for your listening post.

P25 for Hams: Amateur Radio and Project 25
By Cory GB Sickles WA3UVV

Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International Project 25, known also as “APCO 25” or “Project 25,” has been around since 1989. But, for some reason, P25 hasn’t been covered all that much within ham radio publications. Even the ARRL’s “VHF Digital Handbook” has only four pages of its seven chapters dedicated to it. Once you read this article, Cory hopes you’ll be motivated to start exploring P25 as another interesting digital voice methodology on the air.

Linkbox 8000 Local Premium FTA Receiver has Terrestrial Advantage
By Ken Reitz KS4ZR

With the loss of the Manhattan RS-1933 receiver, is there a replacement Free-to-Air satellite TV receiver? Yes! But, the Linkbox 8000 Local Premium FTA receiver is even better; it has added local Over-the-Air digital TV reception to an already packed list of features.

The Spectrum Monitor is available in PDF format which can be read on any desktop, laptop, iPad®, Kindle® Fire, or other device capable of opening a PDF file. Annual subscription (12 issues, beginning with the January 2014 issue) is $24. Individual monthly issues are available for $3 each.

See http://www.kanga-products.co.uk/ .

Kanga is one of the classic names in QRP kits both in the UK and the USA. They make some fine products at quite reasonable prices. Shown below (linked from their website) is their OpenQRP transceiver.

http://www.kanga-products.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76&Itemid=78

I’ve been busy lately producing video of each talk at the ARRL/TAPR 2014 Digital Communications Conference, held in Austin TX this year in early September. There will be a total of about 24 of them when I’m done, and eight are online now, along with a few peripheral videos like operating mobile (HF, VHF, D-STAR) on the long drive home, and setting up a portable station at the beach (where I spent most of my time producing video instead of relaxing). So far you’ll get an update on stuff from FlexRadio (including new APIs for SmartSDR, the software that runs their new 6000 series); a rant from Bruce Perens K6BP on patents for the AMBE vocoder used by D-STAR and DMR; a couple talks on Digital Amateur Television (we don’t have to, but you’ll probably want to); a demonstration of bringing up three SDR receivers (where the problems are generally getting the Windows software and drivers to work); and updates on SDR products from Ettus Research and NWDigitalRadio.

Also on the way back, I was invited to stop by the North Carolina Mountain State Fair, where several clubs got together to stage a major ham radio demonstration tent. I’ll include that video here. For the rest, stop by HamRadioNow.tv and scroll down the list. I’ve added a link to a YouTube Playlist that has all the DCC videos I’ve done over the past several years.

Dig a little farther back for Episode 161, a supplement to my QST review of Yaesu’s FTM-400 and FT1DR System Fusion C4FM digital voice VHF/UHF radios.

73, Gary KN4AQ

Look at this huge sunspot, the largest yet of Sunspot Cycle 24! It is about the same diameter as Jupiter! Notice how tiny Earth is, in comparison. Sunspots are regions on the Sun’s photosphere, formed by the “convection” of solar plasma deep inside the Sun, causing the twisting and shifting of magnetic fields. They look like spots on the photosphere because they are cooler than their surrounding solar material, giving them their dark, blemish-like appearance.

Close-up view of NOAA Active sunspot Region AR 12192 (short: 2192)

The sunspot is the largest since November 1990, and is larger than a monster sunspot that spawned a series of major solar flares over Halloween in 2003. AR 2192 was one of the biggest observed sunspots of all time, ranking 33rd largest of 32,908 active regions since 1874, according to NASA scientists C. Alex Young and Dean Pesnell.

Interestingly, this sunspot never released any major coronal mass ejection (CME), because the magnetic fields were too strong to let any significant plasma escape! However, this sunspot group unleashed a fair number of moderate to strong x-ray flares (see one of them in this video at < http://g.nw7us.us/1s7L0vF >). All told, AR 2192 popped off 26 M-class flares, and six X-class flares! Of course, during the last sunspot cycle, Cycle 23, there were many active sunspot regions unleashing flare after flare within hours of each other. That’s typical during the active phase of most sunspot cycles. This cycle, however, is one of the weakest on record, so this large sunspot with its many flares is exciting.

A Close-up of AR 2192

Each sunspot region gets a consecutive number assigned to it by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This sunspot region is NOAA AR (active region) Nr. 12192 (we often drop the first digit when speaking of a sunspot, so in this case, this region was often referred to as AR 2192).

One of the many x-ray flares originating from Active sunspot Region AR 2192 – this one seen in Extreme Ultraviolet at 131 Angstroms.

This sunspot region increased the ionization of the ionosphere, creating excellent conditions on all of the high frequency spectrum (shortwave, or HF). Even ten meters was alive with world-wide propagation. And, the best news is that this provided an exciting playing field for the CQ WW SSB contest in late October, 2014.

This sunspot region has now rotated away, but may return on about 24 days.

Credit: NASA/SDO/HMI

Check out: http://SunSpotWatch.com

Get the space weather and radio propagation self-study course: http://NW7US.us/swc

Darn it! Yet again I forgot this most excellent contest last weekend, although I would have been very restricted as we had our little grandchildren staying. They take priority. I must try next year. Last year I missed it as I was in Addenbrookes Hospital still very ill. The last time I caught it was 2012.

Although I do not much like contests, this one is always a good test and I often fill a few logbook pages with DX contacts. Exchanges are simple and quick. CQWW is usually a good way to increase the DXCC score. I always use real QRP power.

I dislike CW contests as they are too much like hard work. On SSB you can usually work stations, even with 2-5W QRP, especially later on when the big stations have already worked loads and are glad of extra points.