AmateurRadio.com

See https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/radio-equipment-directive-proposal .

Quite soon this new directive will apply in Europe including the UK. Many low cost modules may cost a little more as receivers will need to be more carefully designed to meet RED requirements. It is likely that more stringent RX parameters will have to be met. I wonder if some of the very low module costs are as a result of the dumping of old stock? This could well impact super-regen receivers that are sensitive, but not very selective. Although fine in some markets this type of receiver is less than ideal in a very busy ISM band where they could easily be blocked.  Listening around 433.92MHz recently, very many ISM devices could be copied.  One of my old colleagues is involved in international committees working on RED.

The “internet of things” means very many devices will include radios in future, such as a basic internet terminal in washing machines or RFID tags.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

Regular readers will likely recall  my early January blog describing the sudden and very unwelcome appearance of a severe noise problem badly affecting my LF reception. I had spent an afternoon D/F'ing the noise source (which was being radiated via the local power lines), only to discover that the residence in question was not occupied ... and has been vacant for the past seven weeks as the noise continued.

The culprit

Yesterday I noticed that the home was once again occupied and this morning, with radio in hand, I paid visit. It seems that the part-time residents had been spending the past several weeks in Hawaii and had just returned to the house to check up on things. I explained to the owner what I believed to be the problem and, as suspected, it was a CFL light ... a particularly noisy one. Turning the light on and off quickly verified the culprit light and swapping the bulb out for a different one produced no observable noise, as was the case for one that had been left switched-on in the living room.

Whether the offending bulb was just a poorly designed one, a very early manufactured model or one that was about to fail, I do not know ... but I am amazed at the strength of the QRN (and QRM) that the bulb was able to produce at such a distance, about ten properties away!

CFL Crud on LF

The owner was very concerned that he had unknowingly caused a problem and was very apologetic, as I have found with similar situations in the past.

One of the worst was also a CFL bulb that had actually burned-out and was located in a nearby (three properties away) crawl space. When finally traced, the bulb was heavily charred and had partially melted at the base, yet was still producing an ear-shattering level of crud right into the HF spectrum.

In cases like these, it is often difficult to get an accurate D/F on the signal through normal means since the signal is being propagated via the overhead powerlines. Attempts to D/F the signal almost always point to the closest powerline and not to the signal source. Usually such a noise generator will be confined to your local power grid ... that is, the homes that are powered between the two large power distribution transformers in your local neighborhood. In my case, this limits the search to about 15 homes.

I have found that the best way to tackle this is to make a 'noise map' and to try and measure the noise intensity at a similar point for each property - ie. directly beneath the powerline as it enters the property. This will usually put you at the same vertical distance from the line and will give you a better noise sample that is directly (or not) associated with that property. After mapping this out, if the culprit property is not obvious, then you will at least have narrowed it down to a very few choices. Other types of noise, that can be detected into the VHF range, are probably best detected using normal D/F methods.

After bringing the offending bulb home, I Google-searched the product name and number and came up with a 'product recall' for this particular model.

"According to a Health Canada and Electrical Safety report, the lamp may overheat and melt the enclosure exposing live parts, posing a risk of fire and/or electric shock."

Apparently they were indeed manufactured incorrectly and it's just as well that it was found and removed before causing serious damage!

Once again  LF sounds as it should. Hopefully it can remain this way for a long time but with the proliferation on noise-making appliances and 'improvements', I have my doubts.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at ve7sl@shaw.ca.

A search on eBay has thrown up lots of useful RF transceiver modules, not as low cost as the AM ones found by G6ALB, but nonetheless very low cost and suitable for local communications, Some are 100mW and some 500mW or 1W.  The ones I saw were data units, but these should be suitable for speech  with simple mods. I am unclear how some of these are programmed to the correct frequency. There is usually a choice of either VHF or UHF and I think some are essentially FM.

Put  “UHF transceiver module eBay” into Google to see what comes up. Or try “VHF” instead of UHF. I was amazed how low cost these were.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

Not really believing it myself, I sit here in the shack at 4:42 AM (0942 UTC), coffee-less and typing into this computer.  My plan of getting up early and losing very precious moments of sleep did pan out.  I now have K1N in the log!

Knowing I was going to be up super early, I decided to leave the shack computer running, after last night's failed attempt on 40 Meters. We must have had a power failure during the night, because when I got down here, the computer was off.  So I re-booted and while waiting for the microprocessor to do it's thing, I turned on the KX3. Lo and behold, K1N had not budged from the frequency that they were on when I left them last night.


On a hunch, I decided to activate the KX3's dual watch, sub receiver. This time, after listening for a bit, I was able to determine the split was a manageable "up 5" (not like last night, where the split was something like "up 10-15 and everywhere in between") and I started sending my call. Within 12 minutes at 0912 UTC, I was in the log. As an aside, let me state outright - my fist at 4:00 AM without coffee was NOT a thing of beauty. Not at all - it was almost like I couldn't get my hand to work right. I was actually staring at it for a few moments wondering "What's going on here? You know how to do this!"

After a few seconds of happy dancing, the shock wore off. "What do I do now? Go back to bed?" I really hadn't expected to be successful so soon. Better judgement was telling me to go back and get a few more Z's before beginning the work day, but Ham judgement took over. "No, since I'm up this early, let's try 80 Meters." You'd do the same thing, right?

K1N's signal was a tad weaker on 80 Meters as compared to 40 meters, but I decided to give it a go, anyway. After listening with the KX3's sub receiver, I was able to determine that again, the split was manageable, and not all over creation. Even better, the K1N op's movements were steady and predictable. At 0938 UTC, I was in the log on 80 Meters!  Holy cow!  Two bands, within a half an hour of each other!  The rest of my day is either going to go extremely well, or it's all downhill from here. The KX3, KXPA100 and my W3EDP did their job for me - thanks Elecraft, and mucho thanks to the K1N ops for digging me out of the pileup.


And yes, as per this blog post title, the mission is only half accomplished. With the remaining time that they are there on Navassa, W2LJ will make another attempt, on another band, to get into their log once again - this time with QRP power. Since K1N probably won't be activated for another 25 years or so, the first goal was just to get them in the log with my new DX Rule - WFWQL (Work First Worry About QRP Later). With that monkey off my back, I can relax somewhat and now try to beat the pileups with 5 Watts.

Hopefully, that will be another interesting story that I will be able to write about.

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 w2lj@arrl.net.

Freeze Your B____ Off 2015 is this coming Saturday - the opening event of the 2015 Outdoor QRP Operating season!  If the weathermen are correct, and these days, who knows? Anyway, if the weathermen are correct, Saturday will be the last day before a significant three day snow event here in Central New Jersey. As of right this second, the forecasted high temperature for Saturday is expected to be 39F (4C), with overcast skies. That would be a 4X multiplier at the very least.

So I have several options. I can operate from outdoors - probably the picnic table in the back yard, but that's still covered with ice from last Monday's ice storm - it's never gotten above freezing since that nasty little clipper came through here. I can also operate from inside the Jeep. The advantage there is that all I have to do is plop the Buddistick on the roof - after I chip away the ice that's still on the top of it! But, with the heat off, the temperature inside the Jeep will be the same as the outdoors. Operating in this manner wouldn't qualify for the Mobile category, but it would be much dryer than the picnic table. I have time to decide - there's no hurry, and it will depend how adventurous I feel and how clogged up my head is on Saturday. Don't want this slight head cold that I am dealing with to develop into bronchitis or something worse.

FYBO rules haven't changed much, with the exception that this year, teams are being allowed. Here's the URL for the page with the latest rules posting: http://www.azscqrpions.com/fybo2009rules.html

I guess I should make sure all my batteries are charged up for this weekend!

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 w2lj@arrl.net.

Yet again, I am indebted to Steve G1KQH for the following:

Low cost AM modules yesterday, now the Dorji today.. Its just never ending what next comes along, I can’t keep up any longer going to have a funny turn! 

https://hamgear.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/make-your-own-transceiver-with-a-dorji-dra818u-or-dra818v/#comment-10498

73 Steve
http://www.g1kqh.talktalk.net/

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

I got this red LED flashlight as a Christmas present. But unfortunately the intensity was way too high for what I intended to use it for. A soft red light preserves your night vision, and is ideal for use with a telescope in the dark as was my intention. But if the intensity was as high as before the modification, night vision would suffer.

I then found this YouTube video describing how the controller circuit board could be replaced by one with more functions. As recommended I therefore ordered an AMC7135*8 2800mA 4-Group 5-Mode Circuit Board with 8 AMC7135 current regulators in parallel. The image shows the the original circuit board as connected before the modification in the front in the image and the new one behind it.

The new board gave me the choice of one of 4-groups:

1. 3-mode: Lo (5%) – Hi (100%) – Strobe
2. 3-mode: Lo (5%) – Mid (30%) – Hi (100%)
3. 2-mode: Lo (10%) – Hi (100%)
4. 5-mode: Lo (5%) – Mid (30%) – Hi (100%) – Strobe – SOS

Sverre Holm, LA3ZA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Norway. Contact him at svholm54@gmail.com.