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HAKUNA MATATA

It may not have been the YASME but the recent voyage of the HAKUNA MATATA had all of the radio fun that one might ask for during the mid-summer doldrums! (more later for those too young to recall the YASME)



Crewed by Mark (VA7MM) and YL May (VA7MAY), Toby (VE7CNF) and XYL Nancy, the 31' Benateu recently completed a 14-day circumnavigation of Georgia Strait's Gulf Islands. This is a yearly adventure that has been successfully completed for the past few summers and looks as though it may now be an annual tradition.

Normally, the crew kept up regular radio contact on HF as well as on VHF when possible but this year saw a major departure.

In previous summers, near the end of the voyage, the crew has always visited us here on Mayne Island for an afternoon of vittles and libation before heading for home. There is always a good amount of time spent recalling the past-year's radio activities, winter projects and reminiscence of the 'good old days'. Last year, just as the party was ending, I jokingly suggested that 'next year', it would be cool to work them from the boat on 630m.

Although there was no immediate commitment, I knew that the seed had been planted, and with three of the four crew being engineers, I suspected it might be hard for them to resist, and ... just before departure, the local bunch of 630m ops were put on alert to be watching for CF7MM/mm on 475 kHz CW as they would be attempting to work us from three different overnight anchorages during their summer voyage!

Evidently Toby had been working quietly during the winter to make this become a reality. Here are some pictures of the system along with Toby's (the system's builder) comments.

Variometer and matching transformer

I have attached photos of the CF7MM/MM 630m setup on Hakuna Matata. The lower black toolbox holds a variometer with selectable taps and a matching toroidal autotransformer with selectable taps. At the base of the antenna is another series loading coil.

Wire vertical and loading coil

The antenna wire is 14 ga 38 ft long with plastic Unadilla "END-sulators" at each end. Ground was the boats's cast steel keel and a couple of 30 ft wires near the gunnels. The rig is an IC-746 with my power-mixer transverter. Transmit power was about 20W TPO.

Toby (VE7CNF) working the pileups!

Tuning and matching was done with a resistive voltage divider setup, signal generator, and portable oscilloscope. Once the matching was figured out, I could re-tune the variometer to give a dip on the transverter's RF voltmeter and check that we had the same RF voltage as with a dummy load connected.

Tuneup

The antenna equivalent circuit is approximately 100 pF in series with 27 ohms. Coil losses were 23 ohms for about 50 ohms total load resistance, so the matching autotransformer was not used. The base loading coil is approximately 170 uH and the variometer is 950 uH, for 1120 uH total inductance.

The route, heading north from Vancouver

We tried disconnecting the gunnel ground wires and leaving only the keel, and found that the antenna capacitance and resistance did not change. When we disconnected the keel and left only the gunnel wires, the antenna capacitance dropped to about 87pF and antenna resistance dropped by a few ohms. It appears that the keel provided most of our ground coupling to sea water and it would have been a sufficient ground on its own.

More details of Toby's 630m transverter as well as a practical 630m antenna tune-up procedure can be found on his website here.

All-in-all, I think the 630m operation was a great success and very likely the first-ever 630m marine mobile operation on that band, as I don't recall this happening anywhere else over the years. It was also a great way to pay homage to the band's original maritime heritage where its quality groundwave and skywave capabilities were used to advantage for so many decades safeguarding mariners worldwide.



Maritime mobile operation on the amateur bands has some great history behind it, including the yacht YASME. In the mid-50's, Danny Weil was the first ever amateur to undertake DX'pedition style operations via sailboat, as he visited numerous rare islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific.

Danny on the YASME - courtesy: www.gm3itn.co.uk

Original YASME QSL -  courtesy: http://hamgallery.com/

His exploits were regularly published in CQ magazine at the time and always made for exciting reading as Danny would eventually wreck three YASMES over the years! His adventures laid the groundwork for future island-hopping DX operations such as those undertaken by Gus Browning (W4BPD), Don Miller (W9WNV) and all that followed ... I'm sure they would all have enjoyed working the HAKUNA MATATA as well!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

HAKUNA MATATA

It may not have been the YASME but the recent voyage of the HAKUNA MATATA had all of the radio fun that one might ask for during the mid-summer doldrums! (more later for those too young to recall the YASME)



Crewed by Mark (VA7MM) and YL May (VE7MAY), Toby (VE7CNF) and XYL Nancy, the 31' Benateu recently completed a 14-day circumnavigation of Georgia Strait's Gulf Islands. This is a yearly adventure that has been successfully completed for the past few summers and looks as though it may now be an annual tradition.

Normally, the crew kept up regular radio contact on HF as well as on VHF when possible but this year saw a major departure.

In previous summers, near the end of the voyage, the crew has always visited us here on Mayne Island for an afternoon of vittles and libation before heading for home. There is always a good amount of time spent recalling the past-year's radio activities, winter projects and reminiscence of the 'good old days'. Last year, just as the party was ending, I jokingly suggested that 'next year', it would be cool to work them from the boat on 630m.

Although there was no immediate commitment, I knew that the seed had been planted, and with three of the four crew being engineers, I suspected it might be hard for them to resist, and ... just before departure, the local bunch of 630m ops were put on alert to be watching for CF7MM/mm on 475 kHz CW as they would be attempting to work us from three different overnight anchorages during their summer voyage!

Evidently Toby had been working quietly during the winter to make this become a reality. Here are some pictures of the system along with Toby's (the system's builder) comments.

Variometer and matching transformer

I have attached photos of the CF7MM/MM 630m setup on Hakuna Matata. The lower black toolbox holds a variometer with selectable taps and a matching toroidal autotransformer with selectable taps. At the base of the antenna is another series loading coil.

Wire vertical and loading coil

The antenna wire is 14 ga 38 ft long with plastic Unadilla "END-sulators" at each end. Ground was the boats's cast steel keel and a couple of 30 ft wires near the gunnels. The rig is an IC-746 with my power-mixer transverter. Transmit power was about 20W TPO.

Toby (VE7CNF) working the pileups!

Tuning and matching was done with a resistive voltage divider setup, signal generator, and portable oscilloscope. Once the matching was figured out, I could re-tune the variometer to give a dip on the transverter's RF voltmeter and check that we had the same RF voltage as with a dummy load connected.

Tuneup

The antenna equivalent circuit is approximately 100 pF in series with 27 ohms. Coil losses were 23 ohms for about 50 ohms total load resistance, so the matching autotransformer was not used. The base loading coil is approximately 170 uH and the variometer is 950 uH, for 1120 uH total inductance.

The route, heading north from Vancouver

We tried disconnecting the gunnel ground wires and leaving only the keel, and found that the antenna capacitance and resistance did not change. When we disconnected the keel and left only the gunnel wires, the antenna capacitance dropped to about 87pF and antenna resistance dropped by a few ohms. It appears that the keel provided most of our ground coupling to sea water and it would have been a sufficient ground on its own.

More details of Toby's 630m transverter as well as a practical 630m antenna tune-up procedure can be found on his website here.

All-in-all, I think the 630m operation was a great success and very likely the first-ever 630m marine mobile operation on that band, as I don't recall this happening anywhere else over the years. It was also a great way to pay homage to the band's original maritime heritage where its quality groundwave and skywave capabilities were used to advantage for so many decades safeguarding mariners worldwide.



Maritime mobile operation on the amateur bands has some great history behind it, including the yacht YASME. In the mid-50's, Danny Weil was the first ever amateur to undertake DX'pedition style operations via sailboat, as he visited numerous rare islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific.

Danny on the YASME - courtesy: www.gm3itn.co.uk

Original YASME QSL -  courtesy: http://hamgallery.com/

His exploits were regularly published in CQ magazine at the time and always made for exciting reading as Danny would eventually wreck three YASMES over the years! His adventures laid the groundwork for future island-hopping DX operations such as those undertaken by Gus Browning (W4BPD), Don Miller (W9WNV) and all that followed ... I'm sure they would all have enjoyed working the HAKUNA MATATA as well!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

It’s just about time to celebrate another birthday at ALTV. We’ve teamed up with Icom and MFJ for another great giveaway. Get the complete details at: www.amateurlogic.tv/contest
George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].

courtesy: VK3BVW

Every once in awhile I get the yen to tune through the international SW broadcast bands as my interest in good old, basic SWL'ing, is rekindled.

These bands are certainly quieter compared to when I first discovered the magic of radio and started DXing at age eleven using a lovely old all band cathedral-style GE set up in my attic-high radio shack ... no longer just a boring attic bedroom, but one with walls plastered with QSLs from all over the world.




It was an amazing experience and one that obviously has left a lasting impression. There were hundreds and hundreds of stations on SW, throughout all of the HF bands but the highest I could tune was 19mc. on the old General Electric beauty ... who knows what was missed up higher as this was the peak of Cycle 19 and HF was on fire!

As the huge decline in international SW broadcasting over the past few years continues, I'm always pleasantly surprised to see that there are still a lot of nice DX targets to hunt for.

I was particularly excited to read Rob's (VK3BVW) just released blogspot, describing his fall listening project from down-under. Being the DX season down in Australia, Rob decided to do daily bandscans of the low HF international SW bands (4.8 - 10MHz) to see what popped-up from day to day, which was actually afternoon to afternoon, since his listening was done between noon and 4PM local time. The project may be viewed here along with a nice introductory video ... in all, a huge effort by Rob with a lot of helpful details to go along with the logs.

While there be sure to visit the rest of Rob's SW blog ... there's a lot of good stuff here to get your SWL juices flowing!

His survey results are very encouraging for those of us that may have thought that there is just not much to be heard when it comes to international SW broadcasting. As Rob points out, even though these logs reflect what was heard in Australia, most, if not all should be hearable in North America as well, even more so as we approach the DX season in North America.

So pull up your chair sometime after dark, grab a cup of your favorite beverage, and take a relaxing tune through the SW bands with Rob's list in hand ... see what you can find, and perhaps rekindle that early fascination in SW radio outside of the ham bands that may have hooked you many years ago. You may also find this broadcast frequency database helpful should you run across something unknown.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

courtesy: VK3BVW

Every once in awhile I get the yen to tune through the international SW broadcast bands as my interest in good old, basic SWL'ing, is rekindled.

These bands are certainly quieter compared to when I first discovered the magic of radio and started DXing at age eleven using a lovely old all band cathedral-style GE set up in my attic-high radio shack ... no longer just a boring attic bedroom, but one with walls plastered with QSLs from all over the world.




It was an amazing experience and one that obviously has left a lasting impression. There were hundreds and hundreds of stations on SW, throughout all of the HF bands but the highest I could tune was 19mc. on the old General Electric beauty ... who knows what was missed up higher as this was the peak of Cycle 19 and HF was on fire!

As the huge decline in international SW broadcasting over the past few years continues, I'm always pleasantly surprised to see that there are still a lot of nice DX targets to hunt for.

I was particularly excited to read Rob's (VK3BVW) just released blogspot, describing his fall listening project from down-under. Being the DX season down in Australia, Rob decided to do daily bandscans of the low HF international SW bands (4.8 - 10MHz) to see what popped-up from day to day, which was actually afternoon to afternoon, since his listening was done between noon and 4PM local time. The project may be viewed here along with a nice introductory video ... in all, a huge effort by Rob with a lot of helpful details to go along with the logs.

While there be sure to visit the rest of Rob's SW blog ... there's a lot of good stuff here to get your SWL juices flowing!

His survey results are very encouraging for those of us that may have thought that there is just not much to be heard when it comes to international SW broadcasting. As Rob points out, even though these logs reflect what was heard in Australia, most, if not all should be hearable in North America as well, even more so as we approach the DX season in North America.

So pull up your chair sometime after dark, grab a cup of your favorite beverage, and take a relaxing tune through the SW bands with Rob's list in hand ... see what you can find, and perhaps rekindle that early fascination in SW radio outside of the ham bands that may have hooked you many years ago. You may also find this broadcast frequency database helpful should you run across something unknown.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

In March 2013 The Voice of America (VOA) started an experiment called the VOA Radiogram which transmitted digital text and images using the powerful 50 year old analog shortwave broadcast transmitter at the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station near Greenville, North Carolina.

The idea was anyone could receive the radiogram on any shortwave radio, even an inexpensive portable one with no SSB capability. By feeding the audio from the radio to a computer, either by a audio lead or even using the a microphone the listener could decode the text and images using simple software.

I had seen mention and reports on social media of people receiving them but somehow never got around to trying it myself.

VOA ended the experiment back in June this year a week before the retirement of the program producer Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott.  An offer to continue the broadcasts on a contract basis was declined^, so a follow-on show called Shortwave Radiogram began transmission from the WRMI Radio Miami International transmitting site in Okeechobee, Florida and Space Line in Bulgaria.

The Shortwave Radiogram transmission schedule is (at the time of writing and all times UTC)
Saturday 1600-1630 9400 kHz
Sunday 0600-0630 7730 kHz
Sunday 2030-2100 11580 kHz
Sunday 2330-2400 11580 kHz
All via WRMI except for 9400 kHz, which is via Space Line in Bulgaria.

I spotted a tweet a few weeks back (can't remember who from) mentioning the @SWRadiogram so my interest was piqued, I wasn't around for this weekends Saturday transmission in Europe but had a go on Sunday for the one from America. I wasn't expecting great things due to the levels of noise and poor conditions of late.

I have the decoding program FLdigi already installed on my computer for other datamodes and for information on how to decode the radiograms (sent using MFSK32) visit this page

On the 0600UTC transmission I managed just one poor image


 but during the Sunday 2030UTC transmission I got four decent images, the fifth was lost to QRM





I also made two short videos (on hand held mobile phone so a bit shaky) which show the incoming text and images.

Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].