AmateurRadio.com

 Good afternoon everyone it's almost been a month since my last post. Now fall is upon us the evenings are a bit cooler and the leaves are starting to turn colour. The evenings are dark a lot sooner and for some reason, it just feels later than it is when this change happens. Once again my radio time has been sidelined with getting jobs done outside some major jobs and others just stuff that has to be done before the first snow. In the evening I have been spending my time reading the many blogs I follow and keeping up on ham events. As for radio time, it has been off and on but more off then on as by the time evening comes I just want to read some blogs and relax with my feet up. When we get a few days of rain it brings the outdoor project to a halt and I am able then to have some radio time. 

During my last rainy spell, I was able to flip the radio switch and get on the air BUT my PC had other plans for me. My Windows 7 pro was starting up and I was greeted with the windows blue screen. This is not the first time for me regarding this problem but unlike the other times, I was prepared for this event. I installed a backup program (Macrium reflect free edition) on my PC so I was able to clone and image my hard drive to a USB hard drive. When issues happen I would be ready and with the clone of my hard drive Macrium Reflect would guide me on how to boot from this clone and all would be good to go. 

With a smile on my face, I plugged in my USB drive and told my bios to boot from the USB. My smile turned to a frown when nothing happened! Maybe I was not following the Macrium Reflects step by step correctly. As I read past the step-by-step instructions I found the issue and it read "do not attempt to boot your backup from a USB connected hard drive as windows will not recognize the OS from this type of drive!!!!!

My next idea was to head to Windows restore and restore the system to a time I had saved when things were working just fine. I proceeded to Windows restore to find all my restore points were gone! Later it occurred while running an OS performance tool I was asked if I wanted to delete files that have not been used for a while and I said yes......well one set of those files was my restore points!!!   

All was not lost as I felt I could move the clone information from the USB drive to an internal spare drive in my PC. I still have access to my Windows 7 OS  it's funky but is working enough for me to open the Macrium Reflect program and transfer the clone from my USB drive to the internal separate drive in the PC and then I can instruct the PC to boot from that internal drive. 

Easy peasy right.....WRONG....silly me I was only paying half attention to the transfer of info and I am not sure what I did but the end result was my main hard drive was wiped clean and the PC was not able to reboot as there was no OS to be found anywhere. Next time when the program asks me "are you sure" then "are you sure you are sure" don't click anything stop and think what I did! 

All is not lost my plan now was to reformat the drive and do a clean install of Windows 7 pro and then start the transfer idea again and this time pay attention!! I want to keep with the transfer idea as that would give me all my installed programs and settings and not starting from scratch. Fast-forward.... Windows 7 installed and with many minor issues as always with Windows. I then attempted to download Macrium Reflect to begin.....FINALLY....the transfer but using Explorer it refused the download the program. After trying some workarounds I just downloaded Firefox and it was more than happy to download Macrium. It was nice to be making some progress oh and let me say that up to this point I have been playing around at this for almost 2 days now. 

Some of the issues during OS install

Paying very close attention this time I ran Macrium Reflect and was successful in transferring my USB files to the separate E drive. It was time to now instruct my bios to boot from drive E and see what happens. Something did happen but not what I expected to happen. I was asked to choose an OS it seems I somehow went from no OS to now having 2. When I chose the first option the PC restarted and I was brought back to this same screen. I choose option 2 called recovered and low and behold Window 7 was back with all my programs, settings and windows updates intact.

The last thing I did was deleted the first option OS and when I did this the OS option screen was gone and things just started in Windows 7 as it should. Lesson learned and I am now doing all my backups from an internal hard drive. Overall this long ordeal was a good learning experience and I confident that next time I will have a smoother transition if my OS goes for a crash. 

OS option screen at startup

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Chris Howard M0TCH, Martin Rothwell M0SGL, Ed Durrant DD5LP, Frank Howell K4FMH and Bill Barnes WC3B to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s features are  SDRPlay Announcements and Senhaix 8600 Review by Chris Howard M0TCH

ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS

We would like to thank William Woodward (W7DOC) along with our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

- Two VU Hams Make Six FM satellite QSOs in Single Day - Plants Grow Faster on 40m Band - Regulator responds to LABRE letter - International Radio Stations now Restricted on TuneIn - Air Force Research Laboratory Tracks Sporadic E - Old TV Caused Village ADSL Broadband Outages for 18 months - Remote Invigilation for the Full licence Exams - Australian WW2 Special Event - FMH Portable Operations Challenge allows 'Patio Portable'

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

On some SOTA summits that are established radio sites, there can be significant RFI on 2 meters. I recently wrote about that here: RFI on SOTA Summits. There have also been discussions from time to time among VHF SOTA activators on which handheld transceiver (HT) has the most robust receiver for use in high RF environments. (Hint: a Baofeng is not going to be your best choice.)

This led me to an excellent web page by Razvan/YO9IRF that tabulates the receiver performance of HTs as measured in the ARRL lab. This is arguably the most objective look at HT performance out there. You can do a sort on a particular parameter and see which models are best.

Probably the parameter to start with is wide 3rd-order intermodulation on the 2-meter band. (I am going to ignore the 70 cm performance because most VHF SOTA contacts are on 2 meters.) The wide 3rd-order intermod performance relates to interference rejection from outside the amateur band.

Here are the best performing HTs for this parameter. (Go to the website directly to see other models listed.)

Interestingly, the Icom IC-V8 jumps to the top of the list. This is an older single-band 2m radio…and I happen to have one hiding somewhere in the basement. I am a bit surprised there are two Wouxun radios near the top of the list but they performed well.  No surprise that the Yaesu FT-60 shows up…it seems to be well-regarded by SOTA activators.

The narrow 3rd-order intermod performance relates to the receiver performance inside the amateur band. Sorting based on that parameter shows these radios at the top:

The Kenwood TH-22AT takes the top position, followed by the Yaesu FT-10R, both older single-band radios. The general trend here is that some of the older radios, especially single-band rigs, have better front end filtering. Newer radios tend to include reception of a wider range of frequencies outside the ham band and have receiver front ends that are correspondingly more open. The Radio Shack HTX-202 gets a lot of positive comments from the SOTA crowd and is on the shortlist.  Again, the well-regarded FT-60 makes the list.

Let’s check a few of my favorite HTs to see how they rate.

My usual SOTA handheld is the Yaesu FT-1DR. The wide 3rd-order intermod is 73 dB, or 12 dB worse than the FT-60 (85 dB). For narrow 3rd-order intermod, the FT-1DR is 58 dB vs 67 dB for the FT-60. This matches my impression that the FT-1DR does OK for most summits but is not the best radio for high RF environments.

Another radio to consider is the Yaesu FT-4XR. I often have this radio on at the house but I don’t use it for SOTA. This radio uses the same receiver IC as the Baofeng UV-5R but has better input filtering. The wide 3rd-order intermod is only 63 dB and the narrow 3rd-order is 61 dB (about the same as the FT-1DR).  The table does not list any Baofeng radios but I would expect them to perform worse than the FT-4XR.

Regular readers of this blog know that I use a Yaesu FT-90 mini-mobile transceiver for most SOTA activations. I looked up the ARRL tests on it. The wide and narrow 3rd-order intermod are 85 dB and 65 dB respectively, not better than the best handhelds but near the top. My experience is that the FT-90 receiver is better than my FT-60 and FT-1DR, consistent with the ARRL lab measurements.

Another radio of interest is the Yaesu FT-818, which the ARRL measured as 96 dB (wide 3rd-order intermod) and 72 dB (narrow 3rd-order intermod) on the 2m band.  This puts the FT-818 at the top of the list with the best handhelds. Actually, I would have expected it to be even better, far superior to an HT, but apparently not.

So I need to dig out that old Icom IC-V8 that is hiding in the basement. It may be a good piece of equipment to have along on SOTA activations.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Which HT For High RF SOTA? appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

It's time once again for The Weekender. This is our bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio contests, open source conventions, special events, listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we're doing. We'd love to hear from you.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Welcome to the 368th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this deep dive episode, the hosts discuss several ways to operate your station from a remote location or unattended when necessary and legal to do so. The options include remote desktop operation, network audio forwarding, hardware to physically separate your radio from your head unit via network and much more. Thank you for listening and we hope you find this episode entertaining and educational.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

ZQT-263 Thunder Bay, ON (ve3gop)

It's CLE time again!


'CLE's are 'Co-ordinated Listening Events, and NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum.


This time the hunting ground is the slice from 260.0 - 269.9 kHz and 440 - 1740kHz.
 

 

 

Propagation on MF has been excellent this past week and hopefully will continue to be good.

A worthy target for listeners in North America is ZQT - 263kHz in Thunder Bay, southern Ontario, on the western shores of Lake Superior. ZQT has been logged from coast-to-coast but it's a challenging target. Listen for ZQT's upper sideband on 263.392kHz with your receiver in the CW mode.

When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB's CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.

For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmits on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier is tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident can be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone is actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone is 1054 Hz.

Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don't hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.

Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.

All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database. These databases have recently been re-vamped and are slicker than ever before!

From CLE coordinator Brian Keyte (G3SIA), comes the following CLE info:

Hello all,

Here’s our chance to forget all the current problems for a while – and get close and personal with OUR HEADPHONES! (?)

These are the final details for this weekend's Coordinated Listening Event which uses some challenging frequencies.

Any first-time CLE logs will also be very welcome, however modest.

 Days:    Friday 25 Sept. - Monday 28 Sept.

 Times:   Start and end at midday, your local time

 Target:  Normal NDBs  (not NAVTEX or amateur beacons)

      QRG:   260.0  -   269.9 kHz

      plus:    440.0  - 1740.0 kHz

Please log the NDBs you can identify that are listed in those ranges plus any UNIDs that you come across there.

North America has a modest number of active NDBs in both ranges.

For Europe listeners there are LOTS of targets in the hf range, but they are mostly well to the east, many of them also competing with strong Broadcasting Stations.

Australia has a few NDBs in both ranges.

You can find details of the beacons in these ranges, lists and maps, if you go to  http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm  and click on the 'CLE SEEKLIST' link.

If you are disappointed by having very few likely targets, you could maybe listen instead via a remote receiver located nearer to the action?

See  kiwisdr.com  (previously available via sdr.hu) and please also see the important footnote below.

Send your final CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email, not in an attachment, with CLE260 and FINAL at the start of its title.

 Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:

  #   The full Date (or Day no.)  e.g. ‘2020-09-25’ (or just ‘25’) and UTC (the day changes at 00:00         UTC)

  #   kHz (the beacon's nominal published frequency if you know it)

  #   The Call Ident.

Other optional details - Location, Distance, etc. - go LATER in the same line (or in footnotes) Any extra details about new UNIDs, especially strong ones that may be near to you (maybe their approximate direction, etc.) will help us to discover more about them. 

Please make your log useful to old and new members alike by ALWAYS including your own location and brief details of the equipment and aerial(s) that you were using.

We will send an 'Any More Logs?' email at about 19:00 UTC on Tuesday evening so you can check that your log has been found OK.

To be included in the combined results your log must arrive at the very latest by 08:00 UTC on Wednesday 30 Sept.

We hope to complete making the Combined Results within a day or two.

Good listening

Brian and Joachim

---------------------------------------------------------------------

From:      Brian Keyte G3SIA       ndbcle'at'gmail.com

Location:  Surrey,  SE England    (CLE coordinator)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

If you are interested in some remote listening - maybe due to local difficulties - you could use any one remote receiver for your loggings,stating its location and with the owner’s permission if required.

A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, local or remote, to make further loggings for the same CLE.

 

These listening events serve several purposes. They

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are actually in service and on-the-air so the newly-re-vamped Rxx online database can be kept up-to-date

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range

• will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations

• will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working

• give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed

Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted there a few days after the event.


The NDB List Group is a great place to learn more about the 'Art of NDB DXing' or to meet other DXers in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome. As well, you can follow the results of other CLE participants from night to night as propagation is always an active topic of discussion.

You need not be an NDB List member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers.

Remember - 'First-time' logs are always VERY welcome!

Reports may be sent to the NDB List Group or e-mailed to CLE co-ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), whose address appears above. If you are a member of the group, all final results will also be e-mailed and posted there.

Please ... give the CLE a try ... then let us know what NDB's can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database to help keep it up-to-date.

Have fun and good hunting!

 

Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Ridgeland, Mississippi— September 15, 2019 — The newest sponsor of the Homebrew Heroes Award Program is the QSO Today Podcast, hosted and published by Eric Guth 4Z1UG. “I am most willing to pitch in. Thanks for this kind of ham radio activity. It’s the kind of thing that is needed to shed light on the heroes who push the boundaries of this great hobby of ours.”

Steering Committee Chair, Frank Howell K4FMH of Ridgeland MS, welcomed the new sponsor with “Eric’s coming on board with a first class soldering station for our 2020 Hero expresses his commitment to our vision for this program. We welcome other sponsors who share his enthusiasm.” Eric 4Z1UG is also the host of the recent QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo which is being continued twice per year after the highly successful launch.

All sponsors for the 2019 Award are continuing for the 2020 cycle.

Jason Chonko of Siglent Ltd said, “We would love to sponsor the program again for 2020! Siglent will again give an SDS1202X-E oscilloscope to the Hero for 2020. Hans Summers’ use of that instrument to diagnose and redesign a circuit for his popular transceiver was a perfect use case for our test equipment.”

Kaitlyn Franz of Digilent, a National Instruments Company, added “This Award Program is so much in sync with what we are doing at Digilent that we are definitely interested in sponsoring again!”

Richard Stubbs of MFJ Enterprises responded with, “We are in for the Homebrew Hero Award for another year. MFJ was founded and continues to innovate on the basis of homebrew design, manufacturing and availability of parts for this community. Mr. Jue was an original pioneer in successful homebrew design with the CW filter kit back in the 1970s.”

Heil Sound founder Bob Heil K9EID complemented the other continuing sponsors by saying, “This program was so necessary that Heil Sound is on board for the long haul. We will donate key parts for great audio work by the 2020 Hero winner.”

George Zafiropoulos KJ6VU of the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, said, “Jeremy Kolonay KF7IJZ and I are more than happy to continue our sponsorship again this year. The Award is a great activity to highlight people who contribute the homebrew arts and science that our show emphasizes.”

This year’s Hero for 2019, Hans Summers G0UPL, has benefited from sponsor donations a great deal:

The sponsor prizes that get absolutely DAILY use are the Siglent ‘scope and the Heil headphones which sound great on my QCX kits. I have also made good use of the MFJ antenna analyzer and the Analog Discovery2 puck. The Benchduino PCBs did get here but I have not had much chance to think about what to do about them yet but they will be great with the Digilent AD2. These products have been a real benefit to my workbench.

Hans Summers Hero 2019

The promotional partner is the ICQ Podcast where Martin Butler M1MRB and Colin Butler M6BOY are the proprietors. Frank K4FMH is a Presenter.

Martin Butler M1MRB in London UK, a member of the Steering Committee, said, “It’s been a fast year since the Homebrew Hero Award was conceived at Hamvention in 2019. The sponsors, especially with the addition of our fellow podcaster in Israel, Eric Guth 4Z1UG, have been tremendous assets in furthering our mission of identifying and rewarding those in the homebrew and maker space.”

Another Steering Committee member, Colin Butler M6BOY, furthered that thought. “It’s clearly in the sponsor’s interests for the homebrew community to grow. What has long been missing is this program, one whose focus is to lift up those Heroes out there who are pushing, educating, demonstrating and being successful in many different ways.”

The third Steering Committee member, Frank Howell K4FMH of Ridgeland, MS, concluded, “We have received and accepted the recipient of our 2020 Award from our anonymous Selection Committee. Martin, Colin and I are preparing for the formal announcement during October 2020. Stay tuned to our website at homebrewheroes.org for that forthcoming celebration and the ICQ Podcast for relevant news!”

###

For more information, press only:

Frank M. Howell
Contact page on Homebrew Heroes website
@frankmhowell (Twitter)

For more information on the Hombrew Heroes Award: https://homebrewheroes.org

Graphic Logo: https://homebrewheroes.org/index.php/about/

Frank Howell, K4FMH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Mississippi, USA. Contact him at [email protected].