AmateurLogic.TV Episode 191 is now available for download.

Can’t find the tool you need? Make it.
Economical heat shrink tubing labels.
Emile’s out of this world NASA adventure.
Mike’s BitX40 build part 2.
Kicking the tires of Icom’s IC-905.

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Last week a new toy arrived a Nanovna and I have been playing around with it and learning the ins and outs of the unit. This unit allows me to check antenna SWR, attenuation and coax switch isolation to name a few things. I am not going to get into the details of the Nanovna as there is lots of information for those interested available on the internet. My first project was to check the attenuation on one of the common mode chokes I made. It was made from RG316 coax, FT 240-31 mix toroid and had 10 turns on it. I never put this common mode choke through any testing as I did not have anything to test it. I was going by some charts, the type of toroid mix and the number of turns needed for 40m to 10m. 

Now that I had a Nanovna I could perform an attenuation test on the common mode choke I was using and see some actual numbers. I have been reading and -30dB or more across 40m-10m is great for a common mode choke. I calibrated the Nanovna and performed an attenuation test and to my surprise, the common mode choke I made failed! The common mode choke I made was above -30dB from 40m to 10m. It was not time to fix the problem and bring my readings below -30dB. 

The red line is the results

I tried reducing the windings around the core increasing them and doing a Nanovna sweep each time to see the results. My final result was 14 windings and that gave me the ideal results. The Nanovna indicated -35dB on a full band sweep (6.5MHz to 30MHz) on individual band sweeps the readings were 10m -44dB, 15m -34.5dB, 20m -35dB and 40m -35dB. I am much more pleased with these readings. 

Full band sweep

Pikes Peak is a great summit for a SOTA activation. You can hike up, drive up, or take the cog railway to get to the top. Pikes towers over eastern Colorado and has an excellent radio horizon in all directions. It is easy to work a bunch of stations on 2m FM. With a bit of effort, you can work Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and New Mexico on VHF.

Fraser/MM0EFI was visiting from Scotland, operating here in the US as W0/M0EFI. Here’s his HF operating experience, with cameo appearances by Carey/KX0R, Christian/F4WBN, Elliot/K6EL, and Steve/WG0AT.

Now for the VHF fun on 2m FM. I happened to be on South Monarch Ridge (W0C/SP-058) that day and we completed a Summit-to-Summit contact on 146.52 MHz, at a distance of about 80 miles—easy contact using just HT’s on both ends.

Fraser, thanks for the fun videos from America’s Mountain.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Fraser Does Pikes Peak appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

In this episode, we join Martin Butler M1MRB, Chris Howard (M0TCH), Bill Barnes (WC3B) and Leslie Butterfields (G0CIB) to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin Butler (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and the episode's feature is Getting Ready For Successful Portable Operation.

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• Bob Heil, K9EID, Silent Key
• YLRL Celebrates International Women's Day with Special Event
• ARISS Celebrates 40 Years of Hams on the Radio Space
• Lunar Lander Still Functions Despite Landing Issues
• UK Amateurs Start to Use New Privileges
• Brandmeister Adds TETRA Based Network
• Applications open for YOTA Czechia
• Pop-Up Net Celebrates National Pi Day

Hello and welcome to the 535th installment of LInux in the Ham Shack. In this short topics episode, the hosts cover changes to the Parks on the Air (POTA) program, HDMI's AMD denial, the passing of ham radio icon, Bob Heil (K9EID), KDE's new mega release, SDRtrunk and much more. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew