Yesterday, after getting my fill of NPOTA stations, I was in the shack getting ready to pull the switch for the evening. It was just then that I heard a weak CQ on 3.652 MHz, from WT2W who lives in the Syracuse, NY region. It turned out that Jim was using a homebrewed transmitter modeled after a 1929 Hartley Oscillator.


Jim was putting out all of about 2 Watts to his antenna, but it was enough to garner him a 569 report from me.  His signal was a little chirpy and a tiny bit raspy, but it was still pleasant to listen to and fully copyable.  Shortly after our QSO, Jim e-mailed me the above photo.  I know how satisfying it is to build a kit and have it work.  I can only imagine how much more satisfying it must be to build something from scratch and have it work.  I'm not the greatest scratch builder, but the few times I have and have had the finished product work were enough to make the ol' shirt buttons pop.

Another friend who is into building from scratch is my good buddy, Bob W3BBO from Erie, PA.  As mentioned before, Bob is my Ham Radio mentor, and I've learned so much from him that I don't even know where to begin.  Here are some photos of a series of regen receivers that he's been homebrewing.







Now does he do nice work, or what?  Very nice work, indeed! I know that Bob has been conversing with Dave AA7EE, who's listed on the blog roll to the right. As far as I'm concerned, Dave's one of the Master Builders. His creations come out looking so good as to be museum pieces, in my humble opinion.

I wish I had an nth of the talent that these guys have.  My creations always seem to come out looking more like something Dr. Frankenstein would have created.  Functional, maybe, but definitely not pleasant to look at.

This afternoon, I worked three more NPOTA stations:

AC9FL - SSB - TR55 - Ice Age National Scientific Reserve
N4MJ - CW - BF04 - Fort Donelson National Battlefield
KS4YT - SSB - NP30 - Hot Springs National Park

Sadly, my SSB pileup breaking skills are nowhere near my CW pileup breaking skills.  It's going to be interesting to see if they improve as the year progresses.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!


Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

My wet noodle on 40m WSPR on Dec 30 2200 UTC

30m results at 2100 UTC Dec 30th

Over the holidays I was able to get some time to activate WSPR (at 5 watts) using WSJT-X version 1.6 the latest version which now includes WSPR. I wanted to investigate band activity with relation to UTC time from my QTH using my MFJ 1788 loop from the balcony. I started WSPRing on Dec 30th on bands I thought to be the "good" bands such as 15, 17 and 20m. From the UTC times of 1600 to 2200 I netted zero results on these bands!!  It could had been due to poor propagation on these bands as I had very poor results. 30m was my best band of all the test bands for that day. I did confirm that my MFJ loop is just a wet noodle on 40m as I was only spotted by two very local stations on a band that seemed very busy.

17m from  1500-1550 UTC Dec 31

I was on again on Dec 31 testing to see how the propagation gods were treating me that day. It turned out that my faith in 17m and 20m was uplifted a bit with some decent results. and once again 30m seemed to be consistent. It would seem from my limited testing that 30m is the band for me to go to on evenings when I get in from work. Also 20m but it may be more hit and miss. During the day on weekends 17 and 20m seem to be a charm. But then again there is always propagation that plays into the numbers and then just good old luck. I try not to just play these numbers games all the time. In the past (as I am sure most reading this post also have had it happen) there has been times when a band should be shut down and I make an amazing contact against all the odds.

20m from 1600-1700 UTC Dec 31

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

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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].

Is always a kind of lazy day at the W2LJ household. Marianne and I are not big party-ers and in fact, last evening, we had to wake up to watch the ball drop in Times Square on TV.  We were both fast asleep quickly after.  Our two kids were up later than we were, talking with their friends online.

I got on for a bit last night for SKN.  I don't know if it was just bad band conditions with the remnants of that CME lingering; or perhaps it was my atrocious bug fist. I made no contacts last night.

During the day today, I did a bit better. I worked five different NPOTA activations (6 QSOs):

N8XX - TR04 - North County National Scenic Trail
W1BXY - NS76 - Weir Farm National Historic Sight
NC8IN - NS55 - Ninety Six National Historic Sight
NR3P - SS01 - Assateague Island National Seashore
KK4ZUU - BP02 - Mnasassas National Battlefield Park
K7UPJ - NS55- Ninety Six National Historic Sight

I just realized now that I worked NS55 twice. Basically, I was dial twiddling, working the ones I could hear decently.  There were a few others, but QSB was so bad on 20 Meters at times that I bypassed a few, thinking conditions would get better.  They didn't, and going back to try and work those again, I found them to be gone. Sometimes the Propagation Princess is a cruel mistress!

Only N8XX and NR3P were CW, though. I had to break out the microphone and resort to SSB for the others.   As Yoda would say, "A disturbing trend in The Force, I sense".

As mentioned in an earlier post, the 2016 NJQRP Skeeter Hunt will be featuring NPOTA - but let that be just a foot note.  I would hope that a lot of you who read this blog regularly will step up the plate and activate NPOTA entities using CW (and QRP).

Remember, it doesn't have to be an elaborate set up, with multi ops and crazy antenna installations that last all day.  This NPOTA program was tailor made for portable QRP ops!  Go to one of the entities, throw a wire into a tree, or perhaps break out the Buddistick, Buddipole, Alex Loop - what have you. Get on the air for a few hours and hand out some contacts!

Also, remember that this is a year long celebration.  There were a bumper crop of NPOTA activations on the air today. It seems that everyone wanted to be active on "Day One", but there are 365 days left (this is a Leap Year, don't forget).  So get out there and have some fun.  That's what this is all about - going outdoors, setting up and having some fun.

This is OUR specialty, guys!  Let's show them how it's done!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!


Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

I joked recently about turning to the Dark Side, well my conversion really was complete after the Boxing Day sales.

I need to set up the ability to remotely operate the station via the internet as well as experiment with internet linking systems but the wi-fi link to the shack isn't fast or reliable enough. Now if I do a scan looking for wi-fi networks I can see well over a dozen, some of them quite strong and more are popping up all the time and I suspect this congestion is part of my problem.

The Samsung Smart TV in the house was also wi-fi linked but we were having increasing issues with the BBC iPlayer and Netflix with buffering or poor quality images because of poor signal and data rates.

Ideally I would be like to fit proper ethernet cables but it is totally impractical without major upheaval or unsightly trunking a definite no-no. In the end the only workable and affordable solution seemed to be to get some of those evil Powerline Transmission (PLT) devices.

I have suffered strong sporadic QRM myself which I have assumed were neighbours PLT networking devices as I'd read the horror stories, seen the videos and anecdotal reports of mains borne noise caused by them. So I hadn't even considered it until I saw a post and video by Dan Trudgian (M0TGN) about his experiences of using some Netgear devices and the apparant lack of interference to his radio activities. Some members of South Kesteven ARS had also started using them, so I took the plunge and ordered some Netgear ones reduced on Amazon in the Boxing Day sales.


Setting them up was easy, but the acid test was how much noise did they generate? I set up one device in the shack at the far end of the mains cable run to maximise radiation. Streaming internet radio and a HD movie on Netflix I then used the FUNCube Dongle PRO+ SDR connected to the OCFD to see what noise they were generating.

Here are my observations going through the various HF bands. Where noise is present I first stopped the streaming and then powered off the devices to eliminate them as the cause, where they were the cause it seemed eliminating the network traffic was sufficient to greatly reduce the effect.

80 Meters

While the antenna isn't optimised for 80m, signals can be seen as well as noise. Before you get excited this noise has been present for quite a while and isn't being caused by the new Netgear devices. This noise is what I suspected was generated by PLT devices used by my neighbours.

60 Meters

Shocking noise but again this isn't caused by my new devices, the noise has the same characteristics as that seen on 80m.

40 Meters

The band was busy, there is some noise again but not from the new devices, this was looking encouraging. I have also showed the adjacent broadcast band.

30 Meters

Again, largely noise free

20 Meters

Still largely noise free, the QRM that is present still wasn't due to the new devices

17 Meters

This was the first indication of QRM from the new devices, however it appears effectively filtered to leave the amateur allocation clear. The faint noise in the middle picture is not from the new devices.

15 Meters

Again this band was clear of noise

12 Meters

Showing the two ends of the band again the clear signal/noise from the devices again seems effectively filtered

10 Meter

I didn't observe any additional noise on this band, but unfortunately deleted the screen grabs ;-)

So where was the QRM?

While the amateur bands appear to be filtered, the transmission can of course can clearly be seen on some non-amateur bands and apart from 16 meters seems to avoid the broadcast bands.

Conclusion 

These Netgear XAVB5221 devices seem effective, indeed doing a speedtest in the shack was more than acceptable (the dire upload speed is a 'feature' of my cable ISP)


This fairly rudimentary testing has largely given me confidence that they won't be any issues. The band conditions weren't brilliant when I did test, but even with the absence of signals on the band any noise would be evident as seen. Yes they clearly do generate QRM but thankfully not it seems in the amateur bands. I haven't heard any extra noise on any of the radios over the last few days so all is looking promising. I will keep you posted if there is any change.
Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I joked recently about turning to the Dark Side, well my conversion really was complete after the Boxing Day sales.

I need to set up the ability to remotely operate the station via the internet as well as experiment with internet linking systems but the wi-fi link to the shack isn't fast or reliable enough. Now if I do a scan looking for wi-fi networks I can see well over a dozen, some of them quite strong and more are popping up all the time and I suspect this congestion is part of my problem.

The Samsung Smart TV in the house was also wi-fi linked but we were having increasing issues with the BBC iPlayer and Netflix with buffering or poor quality images because of poor signal and data rates.

Ideally I would be like to fit proper ethernet cables but it is totally impractical without major upheaval or unsightly trunking a definite no-no. In the end the only workable and affordable solution seemed to be to get some of those evil Powerline Transmission (PLT) devices.

I have suffered strong sporadic QRM myself which I have assumed were neighbours PLT networking devices as I'd read the horror stories, seen the videos and anecdotal reports of mains borne noise caused by them. So I hadn't even considered it until I saw a post and video by Dan Trudgian (M0TGN) about his experiences of using some Netgear devices and the apparant lack of interference to his radio activities. Some members of South Kesteven ARS had also started using them, so I took the plunge and ordered some Netgear ones reduced on Amazon in the Boxing Day sales.


Setting them up was easy, but the acid test was how much noise did they generate? I set up one device in the shack at the far end of the mains cable run to maximise radiation. Streaming internet radio and a HD movie on Netflix I then used the FUNCube Dongle PRO+ SDR connected to the OCFD to see what noise they were generating.

Here are my observations going through the various HF bands. Where noise is present I first stopped the streaming and then powered off the devices to eliminate them as the cause, where they were the cause it seemed eliminating the network traffic was sufficient to greatly reduce the effect.

80 Meters

While the antenna isn't optimised for 80m, signals can be seen as well as noise. Before you get excited this noise has been present for quite a while and isn't being caused by the new Netgear devices. This noise is what I suspected was generated by PLT devices used by my neighbours.

60 Meters

Shocking noise but again this isn't caused by my new devices, the noise has the same characteristics as that seen on 80m.

40 Meters

The band was busy, there is some noise again but not from the new devices, this was looking encouraging. I have also showed the adjacent broadcast band.

30 Meters

Again, largely noise free

20 Meters

Still largely noise free, the QRM that is present still wasn't due to the new devices

17 Meters

This was the first indication of QRM from the new devices, however it appears effectively filtered to leave the amateur allocation clear. The faint noise in the middle picture is not from the new devices.

15 Meters

Again this band was clear of noise

12 Meters

Showing the two ends of the band again the clear signal/noise from the devices again seems effectively filtered

10 Meter

I didn't observe any additional noise on this band, but unfortunately deleted the screen grabs ;-)

So where was the QRM?

While the amateur bands appear to be filtered, the transmission can of course can clearly be seen on some non-amateur bands and apart from 16 meters seems to avoid the broadcast bands.

Conclusion 

These Netgear XAVB5221 devices seem effective, indeed doing a speedtest in the shack was more than acceptable (the dire upload speed is a 'feature' of my cable ISP)


This fairly rudimentary testing has largely given me confidence that they won't be any issues. The band conditions weren't brilliant when I did test, but even with the absence of signals on the band any noise would be evident as seen. Yes they clearly do generate QRM but thankfully not it seems in the amateur bands. I haven't heard any extra noise on any of the radios over the last few days so all is looking promising. I will keep you posted if there is any change.
Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].