AmateurRadio.com

Stories you’ll find in our January, 2016 issue:

Building Solar-Powered Amateur Radio Beacons for 630 and 10-Meters
By Geir Laastad LA6LU

In the August 2015 issue of TSM, Geir wrote about “Advanced Radio Noise Filtering Using DSP Technologies.” This time Geir puts his electronics know-how to work while he shows us how he built two amateur radio beacons for opposite ends of the amateur HF spectrum: the 630 and 10-meter bands. The site for his beacons is his remote cabin in the woods—far away from everything, which is why his beacons are also powered off the grid. Using QRP Labs Ultimate3 QRSS/WSPR kits, these beacons have to be very rugged to take the abuse Norway’s winters can dish out.

TSM Reviews: AOR DV-1 Wideband Receiver
By Chris Parris

AOR is a brand well known to monitoring enthusiasts. They have a long history of making high-end receivers featuring advanced technology capable of wideband reception from longwave to the high side of UHF. “Federal Wavelengths” columnist, Chris Parris, puts this pedigreed receiver through its paces and finds some welcome pluses and a few disappointing minuses. He especially liked this radio’s ability to seek out weaker digital signals that other radios missed and he found ways to overcome the radio’s anemic audio.

Retro Radio: Finding, Storing and Savoring Vintage Amateur Radio Gear
By Richard Fisher KI6SN

Knowledgeable radio amateurs describe “vintage” transmitters, receivers and transceivers as being somewhat relative—only you know it when you see it. That’s because each of us have our own radio experiences, some dating to decades ago and others more recent. Nostalgia is a many splendored thing. Last month he looked at broadcast-band and shortwave receivers of a rich, bygone era. In this second part, his focus is on collecting, restoring and enjoying commercially manufactured vintage amateur radio equipment. As Richard shows us, restoring these ham band workhorses requires more than just a fondness for days gone buy.

VHF and Above: Sporadic-E Propagation
By Joe Lynch N6CL

From late November to early January, and again in the middle of May through the end of July, sporadic-E propagation appears more often on VHF and above frequencies in the Northern Hemisphere. This type of propagation occurs when there is a sporadic ionization of the E-layer that appears in the late morning and late afternoon local time during those months. But, working meteor-scatter Sporadic-E is not for slow hands, Joe shows you how to work fast to successfully log QSOs using this ephemeral mode. And, for once, it’s not about expensive esoteric antennas!

ATSC Off-Air Local Television: The Programming
By Mike Kohl                                                     

The Golden Age of Television is really here. Never before has there been such an abundance of choices in TV entertainment for the home. Last month, Mike hinted at multiple delivery methods being used to deliver signals. This month he looks at the content provided by local television broadcasters to their local Over-the-Air (OTA) viewers in representative regions of North America. Mike continues to show us all how to “cut the cord,” this month looking at OTA programming rewards. You might be surprised at just how many OTA channels you can find where you live.

Scanning America
By Dan Veenaman
Pensacola’s APCO P-25 Phase 2 and Whistler’s New Scanners

Federal Wavelengths
By Chris Parris
DMR, APCO-25, MotoTRBO, and the IRS

Utility Planet
By Hugh Stegman NV6H
Mexican Military Returns to HF ALE

Digital HF: Intercept and Analyze
By Mike Chace-Ortiz AB1TZ/G6DHU
The US Navy HF Broadcast System Revisited

HF Utility Logs
By Mike Chace-Ortiz and Hugh Stegman

Digitally Speaking
By Cory Sickles WA3UVV
Digital Voice on the HF Bands

Amateur Radio Insights
By Kirk Kleinschmidt NT0Z
DVB Dongles: Beef Up your $20 SDR

Radio 101
By Ken Reitz KS4ZR
WorldSpace, WRN, WXFAX and More

Radio Propagation
By Tomas Hood NW7UST
Catching Those Winter Mediumwave DX Signals

The World of Shortwave Listening
By Jeff White
A South Pacific Radio Odyssey

The Shortwave Listener
By Fred Waterer
RNZI, BBC, RFI, WHRI and VOA

Maritime Monitoring
By Ron Walsh VE3GO
CMB: Continuous Marine Broadcasts

The Longwave Zone
By Kevin O’Hern Carey WB2QMY
SDR: I’m a Believer!

Adventures in Radio Restoration
By Rich Post KB8TAD
In Command Again Part 2: Experiments in Powering the Command Transmitters

Antenna Connections
By Dan Farber AC0LW
Stealthy Green Jolly Loop Revisited: On the Low Down

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 is $24. Individual monthly issues are available for $3 each.

Ken Reitz, KS4ZR, is publisher and managing editor of The Spectrum Monitor. Contact him at [email protected].

On the last day of the year, it seemed like a good idea to get in one more SOTA activation. It turns out that I had not been up Mt Herman (W0C/FR-063) all year, even though it’s close by. See this page for the trail description. Joyce KØJJW and I decided to hike up in the morning, reaching the summit around 11 AM local time.  This was my third SOTA activation of Mt Herman, but I’ve operated from there many more times in various VHF contests (back before SOTA was a thing in Colorado).

The road to the trailhead was in good condition but snowpacked and icy. This road is not plowed during the winter but it is often passable with a decent 4WD vehicle. Today, you could make it to the trailhead with 2WD and some careful driving. The trail conditions were typical for winter time: almost completely covered in snow with a few bare spots showing here and there. The trail was packed powder and not particularly icy. Still, we appreciated having traction devices on our boots. This trail can be downright treacherous when it ices up, so traction devices (Yaktrax, Microspikes, etc.) are highly recommended. Trekking poles can be helpful, too.

Once at the summit, I used my Yaesu FT-60 handheld radio and a half-wave vertical antenna to work people on 146.52 MHz. Having notified a number of people that I would be on the air, I actually had a bit of a pile up on 2m fm. In short order, I worked KE5QNG, WA6MM, KH7AL, WG0AT, W7AWH, K9MAP, K0JQZ, K9DBX, W0STU, KD0MFO, WB0ROK, KD0VHD and KL7IZW. Best DX was about 50 miles with W7AWH in Pueblo West. Thanks to everyone that got on the air to work me.

The weather was cold, about 15 deg F, so we didn’t stay too long on the summit and headed back down the trail. OK, maybe “winter assault” is a bit of an exaggeration. Let’s call it a fun hike in cold weather.

73, Bob K0NR

Other postings on SOTA activation of Mt Herman:
Soggy Mount Herman SOTA Activation (W0C/FR-063)
Mt Herman: SOTA plus VHF Contest

The post Winter Assault on Mt Herman (W0C/FR-063) 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].

courtesy: http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

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

After some research on the Internet, I decided to build another antenna. I figure one can’t have too many antennas and this one would be a quick build. I chose the earchi 40-6m End Fed matchbox. The plans for it are available on the Emergency Amateur Radio Club of Hawaii’s web site. It’s an easy build and from what I have read on the ‘Net about it, it said to work well.

A trip to Radio Shack and Lowe’s provided all the components except for the torrid cores which I had to order online. The first picture is the wound core.

The second picture is the completed matchbox.

The connections are very straight forward is you follow the instructions to the letter.  I cut a 30 ft piece of wire and crimped/soldered a ring terminal to the end of it. According to my research, various people use various lengths of wire with this. I chose 30 ft as that’s is what the club supplies if you purchase a completely built antenna from them.

I though this antenna would be an quick and easy one to deploy in the field if needed.

I have used this antenna a few times. The first time was in June during Field Day. I had my homemade Buddistick in use, and decided to take a break and put this antenna up. I threw some paracord over a branch and hauled up the wire. It worked great, about the same as the Buddistick in terms of signals heard. I have also used it at home a couple times with similar results. It is going to be a nice antenna to have in the kit for certain situations. 

Wayne Patton, K5UNX, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Arkansas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Several things:

First - The NJQRP Skeeter Hunt for 2016 is moving from the second Sunday in August to the third. So please mark Sunday, August 21st on your calendar for this year's Skeeter Hunt.  There are two reasons for this. The most important is that yours truly has an outstanding monthly commitment each 2nd Sunday of the month.  That's the Sunday I go help out at the soup kitchen in the next town over.  I kind of blew that off the past couple of Augusts, and that's not right. There are some things more important than Amateur Radio, and this is one of those.

But hey, the organizer shouldn't go AWOL, right?  (That's how I feel, anyway). So I have moved it back a weekend to the third Sunday in August, where it shall occur forever more.  Another added benefit is that this makes the spacing between Flight of the Bumblebees, the Skeeter Hunt and QRP Afield and the Peanut Power Sprint a bit more even.

Second - I have gotten blessing from Sean Kutzko KX9X to incorporate NPOTA into the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt this year.  Is that COOL or what?  I'm not exactly sure how it's going to all work out. Maybe bonus points for activating an NPOTA unit for the Hunt - or possibly some special "memento" for activating an NPOTA unit during the Hunt.  I'll have to ruminate on that one for a bit - but there's time.



Third - On a personal level, Sean announced some new NPOTA units the other day. This was a biggie for me, because in the Northeast, the Washington - Rochambeau Historical Trail was added. This is the route taken by General Rochambeau's French forces and General Washington's Continental forces as they both marched on towards the siege at Yorktown, which all but brought the American victory in the Revolutionary War.


The Washington - Rochambeau Historical Trail is within a stone's throw from my house - literally. To make this situation even better, there is the Frazee house located on the trail in Scotch Plains, NJ - the next town over. Rather than try and explain the significance of the Frazee house in my own words - allow me to post something from the official Website.


"As the legend holds, after the Battle of Short Hills, General Cornwallis and his troops passed by the house while marching toward the Watchung mountains, located a few miles to the north. Known to the locals as a prolific baker, Aunt Betty was baking bread at the time. Hungry and tired, the troops smelled the bread and Cornwallis approached her stating, "I want the first loaf of bread that next comes from that oven." Betty is said to have replied, “Sir, I give you this bread through fear, not in love.” Evidently impressed by her courage, Cornwallis is said to have stated, “Not a man in my command shall touch a single loaf.” While history offers evidence that Betty lived in the house and did, indeed, bake bread, the story of the actual conversation is not authenticated by primary source documents.  The words allegedly spoken by the principals are found in the earliest authoritative source on the subject, F.W. Ricord's History of Union County, page 513, which is one of the sources cited in the National Register of Historic Places filing that led to the Frazee House being placed on the Register."


I'll have to look onto getting permission to operate from the property that the house is on. If that's not obtainable, there are plenty of other locations that can be operated from on the Trail, right in my local area. In fact, right in front of the Ashbrook Golf Course, is a monument to The Battle of Short Hills.

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].

It’s tempting to say that amateur radio is about to close the book on its best year ever.

The number of licensees is up, attendance at Dayton Hamvention was up, participation in contests and other on-the-air operating events is up, the number of ARRL members is up too. The League has spent much of the year promoting the Amateur Radio Parity Act in Washington and is seeing real progress on that front.

When it comes to publicity, ham radio is HOT. Not a day goes by without a news item about our activities appearing in major publications — we’ve finally figure out how to proselytize our service!

Yes, it’s been a very good year for ham radio and it’s certainly nice to savor this moment…

There. Enough.

Now let’s look at the work that lies ahead in the New Year…

Amateur radio has weathered all kinds of storms, and there seems no immediate threat to our service. Of course, that might have been said by almost any US ham radio enthusiast on December 6, 1941 too. Still, our position seems as secure as it can as we face another year. But just like owning a home, our hobby requires constant maintenance and attention if we want it to be a secure dwelling that lasts a long time.

There’s always room for improvement, but I’ve compiled here a list of just three things that I believe to be the most vexing to the amateur radio service. These three things present a clear and present danger to our continued growth and enjoyment of the radio hobby.

Intentional Interference to DXpeditions

Whether you enjoy it or not, DXing is the crown jewel of amateur radio. There’s nothing else that we do that captures the imagination of fellow hobbyists and the unwashed masses, the way a DXpedition can. The human spirit craves adventure, like climbing into a boat to cross dangerous stretches of ocean only to arrive at some of the most remote and inhospitable places on the planet, for the sole purpose of handing out contacts to home-bound hams half a world away.

It is exhilaration squared!

But sadly, there are a few around the globe who derive pleasure from interfering with the activities from these exotic locales. And it’s enough of a problem to erode the patience of even stalwart DXers to continue the practice. After all, major DXpeditions require untold hours of planning and preparation. Large sums of money must be raised and passage on planes and boats booked. Permission must be obtained from whatever country pretends to be in charge of some rock in the ocean. And having cleared those hurtles and being completely at the mercy of HF propagation, to beat all those odds only to be foiled by some idiot intent on jamming the operation — who wouldn’t throw in the towel?

With no hope of convincing all of the mentally disturbed people around the planet who own transmitters to cut it out, the big operations are turning to technology for a solution. Maybe it will work or maybe it will become such a hassle that we all just give up in despair?

This is a big problem not only because we could lose an integral activity inside the hobby, but if a handful of radio terrorists can so easily ruin a DXpedition, then it’s fair to question the value of our service during an actual emergency.

And yes, these same mentally ill terrorists jam those communications too.

We’re Losing Ground in the Brain Game

Life on this planet is driven by technology yet shockingly few of its inhabitants have a clue about how anything works. I’m purposely trying to avoid the phrase, “the dumbing down of amateur radio”, because it might offend, but I believe it captures the essence of a festering problem. Our hobby is based on radio which in turn, is based on electronics. The days of new radio discoveries made by teenage radio hams burning the midnight oil in their basement laboratories is long past. But there needs to be at least a modicum of knowledge to keep this thing moving forward.

I don’t believe this trend was caused by changes in amateur radio licensing methodology. Eliminating the code requirement didn’t suddenly make people ignorant. Rather, it mirrors the trend of the general populace who now carry more technology in their shirt pocket than we took to the Moon in 1969 and yet have no clue how any of it works — or harbor any interest in finding out.

Fortunately, radio has advanced to the point where high-quality equipment can be purchased ready to use. We no longer have to build our stations from parts salvaged from a junked television chassis. Not all of us will have the knowledge or wizardry to design advanced electronic circuits or develop cutting edge software. But all of us have the ability to understand antennas, radio propagation, to learn how to properly check into a net, pass traffic, or prepare for emergency communications.

If the sum of your radio knowledge is how to work the push-to-talk button and chew the fat with your buddies, you might have an amateur radio license, but you’re not a radio ham.

Local clubs could take the lead here. We need a “no ham left behind” training policy. It is virtually impossible to run out of ideas for club meetings. Sessions on how to build a dipole, soldering, how and when to best use radio filters, repairing a rotor, working a satellite with a handheld, how to call CQ, how to work DX — including a lesson on split operation. The list is endless once you fully buy into the notion that every radio ham needs to know a hundred things and needs to be curious enough to learn a thousand more.

It’s no coincidence that Apple has become the most valuable corporation on the planet by selling high-tech gadgets that “just work”. That attitude may work (for a season) in the outside world, but the contagion of not knowing and not caring to learn technical things is a certain slow death for amateur radio.

Declining Activity and Interest

I’ve saved our biggest problem for last. While amateur radio licensing may be on the upswing in the United States, interest in our hobby continues to wane. We’ve gotten really good at getting “them” in the door, but we’re downright lousy when it comes to inspiring “them” to take advantage of all this hobby offers.

All of us use the excuse of not having ‘enough time’ to do all the things we would like to do. But that’s something of a cop out. The number of hours in a day, week, month or year haven’t changed from one generation to the next. What we choose to do during those hours is subject to change. It’s an attention deficit problem. During those times I’ve become very passionate about a particular activity, I’ve managed to pursue it almost without limit. Admit it, you have too.

Over 700,000 licensees in the FCC database yet only about one-third of those are actually “active”.

350,000 Technician licensees are floating out there yet one of the biggest complaints in all of hamdom is that thousands of repeaters sit silent and unused. When the random stranger does break squelch, no one answers his call.

Full participation isn’t realistic. There are doubtless thousands who continue to hold a license yet now reside in a nursing home or senior living facility without access to radio. Some are young and busy with career or starting a family. Others have taken time off to pursue a degree or specialized training. Since licenses are issued for ten years with a grace period before cancellation, it wouldn’t be surprising to discover that thousands of licensees are dead — their call signs not yet purged from the database.

Approach the data any way you like, it’s a major problem.

We’re going to have to discover new methods for getting hams motivated and activated. Sorry, the old ways are no longer valid. Just coming up with a new contest, for instance, won’t cut it because our lifestyle arrangements are considerably different in this new century. We’re more mobile, constantly on the move. Few of us under 60 years of age want to be quarantined in a radio “shack” for an entire weekend.

(I predict two-hour sprints will completely replace contest weekends in the coming decade).

The ARRL may have a hit on its hands with the upcoming National Parks on the Air event where they’ve combined the opportunity to operate from the trail with online ‘leaderboards’ to encourage further participation. I don’t know if this was intentional or merely leftover serendipity from their hugely successful Centennial QSO Party but it’s brilliant and we need more like it.

The decline in solar activity certainly won’t help motivate HF operators so we’re going to have to think outside the box. More VHF/UHF activities, six meters, and I’m hopefully optimistic that we will soon see a lot more ham radio activity in space — given the many new planned transponders and even a geo-synchronous payload.

Rekindling the flame for many who have lost interest and become radio inactive won’t be easy but it should become our top priority. In fact, I would suggest that clubs who are too busy cranking out new licensees to focus on this problem — are actually hurting the amateur radio service.

We don’t need more licensees. We need more active hams. Chew on that and see what you can come up with because, we need a solution and we need it fairly soon.

Jeff Davis, KE9V, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Indiana, USA.

2015 is ending and soon it's going to be 2016 before you know it! In the past I have made New Years resolutions some very ambitious and short lived and other I still hold to today. As I age I realize more and more the most important thing is your health. One of the areas of your health that affects a whole lot of areas is your weight. I would be happy to loose about 20 lbs or so and that for sure would help me out in the long run. With regards to ham radio in the past I have made New Years goals of improving my CW speed, getting on the air more, trying new modes and so on. For some reason I fall into the same old same old, not finding the time to see these goals to reality. It seems these days it's all about finding the time or should I say setting the time aside to achieve the goals you set for yourself. Time has always been my problem as it seems you are pulled in many directions. Maybe it's about multi tasking.......at this moment I am typing this post and I have the rig on listing to CW and checking the P3 band scope for any activity. The post may take a bit longer (there is that time thing again) but I am able to get some radio time in and accomplish a blog post as well. This brings me back around to the start of my post....am I going to make any resolutions for  2016?? Of coarse I am.........for the hobby I would like to try to keep this multi tasking thing going it seems to be working for me so what the heck. Maybe I can get more posts out and improve my on air time. Personally I would like to eat better, drops some pounds and fit in some more activity. Happy New Year to all my readers and all the best in the coming new year.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].