AmateurRadio.com

The first official episode of AmateurLogic’s Ham College will be shot this Friday evening, January 30th at 7:00 CST, 0100 UTC.
You can watch us produce it live and participate in the chatroom at www.live.amateurlogic.tv.
This is a new show for those wanting to join the hobby and new Hams as well.

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 george@amateurlogic.tv.

This little top band AM transmitter and a companion receiver were first published in the GQRP club SPRAT magazine. This TX version was built by M0DAD. Where the noise floor allows, 160m AM is quite popular for local nets.  There is something nice about “rolling your own” builds and getting satisfying results without spending a fortune. For daytime local use 160m AM is a great mode and rigs are simple. I am still surprised that more is not made of AM on 10m at night for local nets here in the UK.

See http://www.delboyonline.co.uk/m0dad/construcion/poppet_top_band_am_transmitter.htm.

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

YJ-200KHz - Victoria Int'l

Listeners towards the central and southern portions of North America reported phenomenally good conditions this weekend, most unusual for a CLE event! Out west and here in BC, conditions were not noticeably enhanced and could best be described as kind of 'mushy' ... most signals were a struggle. The further south you went, the better the propagation became.

CFL Crud

Unfortunately, I am still struggling with noise pollution (cheap or failing CFLs) in a house about ten properties away, creating a constant 60 Hz hum and drifting birdies throughout the band ... as it was during the last CLE. Hopefully the owners of the home will return before the next CLE arrives!

25 04:00  198      DIW       Dixon, NC, USA
24 06:00  200     YJ          Victoria - Sidney Island, BC, CAN
24 04:00  200     YDL       Dease Lake, BC, CAN
25 07:00  200     UAB       Anahim Lake, BC, CAN
24 04:00  201     ZWN      Winnipeg, MB, CAN
24 12:00  201      IP           Lufthansa, AZ, USA
24 07:00  201      GV         Greenville, TX, USA
26 05:40  201      YVZ      Deer Lake, ON, CA
24 06:00  203     ZKI        Kitimat, BC, CAN
24 06:00  203     YBL       Campbell River, BC, CAN
24 06:00  203     TCY       Tracy Municipal Apt, CA, USA
24 04:00  204     ZQR       Regina, SK, CAN
24 11:00   205      XZ          Wawa, ON, CAN
24 04:00  205     COR      Corcoran, CA, USA
24 04:00  206     SOW      Show Low Regional Apt, AZ, USA
24 04:00  206     EF          Castlegar, BC, CAN
24 04:00  207     YNE        Norway House, MB, CAN
24 04:00  207     PY          Fort Chipewyan, AB, CAN
24 07:00  209     ITR         Burlington, CO, USA
24 04:00  209     IB            Atikokan, ON, CAN
25 14:00   209     HGT       Tusi AHP, CA, USA
24 04:00  209     CYT        Yakataga Apt, ALS
24 04:00  211     HDG       Gooding, ID, USA
24 04:00  212     YGX        Gillam, MB, CAN
25 04:00  212     MPZ        Mount Pleasant, IA, USA
24 04:00  212     CGL        Juneau, ALS
24 07:00  212     CFV        Coffeyville, KS, USA
24 04:00  214     LU           Abbotsford, BC, CAN
24 04:00  215     ZAB         Edmonton (Intl Apt), AB, CAN
24 11:00   215     TQH        Tahlequah, OK, USA
24 04:00  216     GRF        Fort Lewis, WA, USA
24 04:00  216     CLB        Wilmington, NC, USA
24 04:00  217     EC           Enoch, UT, USA
24 11:00   218      RL           Red Lake, ON, CAN
24 04:00  218     PR           Prince Rupert, BC, CAN
24 04:00  219     ZRS         Regina, SK, CAN
24 07:00  220     HLE         Hailey, ID, USA
24 04:00  221     QU          Grande Prairie, AB, CAN
24 04:00  222     WY          Wrigley, NT, CAN
24 04:00  223     YKA        Kamloops, BC, CAN
24 04:00  223     AFE         Kake Apt, ALS
25 11:00   224      MO          Moosonee, ON, CAN
24 04:00  224     DN          Dauphin, MB, CAN
25 04:00  225     X5           Vegreville, AB, CAN
24 04:00  225     LWG       Lewisburg - Corvallis, OR, USA
25 04:00  227     YAC        Cat Lake, ON, CAN
25 12:00   227     MHM       Minchumina, ALS
24 04:00  227     CG           Castlegar, BC, CAN
24 04:00  229     AKW       Klawock, ALS
24 06:00  230     YD           Smithers, BC, CAN
24 07:00  230     VG          Vermilion, AB, CAN
24 11:00   230     NRN       Norton, KS, USA
24 07:00  230     BI            Bismarck, ND, USA
24 07:00  233     QN          Nakina, ON, CAN
24 07:00  233     OKS       Oshkosh, NE, USA
25 14:00   233     LG          Seal Beach, CA, USA
24 04:00  233     BWP       Breckenridge, ND, USA
24 04:00  233     BR          Brandon, MB, CAN
25 12:00   233     AZN        Amazon, MO, USA
24 04:00  233     ALJ         Hinchinbrook Island, ALS
25 04:00  235     CN         Cochrane, ON, CAN
25 04:00  236     ZRJ        Round Lake, ON, CAN
24 04:00  236     YZA       Ashcroft, BC, CAN
24 04:00  236     FOR       Forsyth, MT, USA
24 04:00  238     MPA      Nampa, ID, USA
24 04:00  239     OJ          High Level, AB, CAN
25 04:00  381.5   SJX       St James, MI, USA

Listening for NDBs is a practical way to check out your LF receive capability, should you be interested in developing a good 630m station or in following the nuances of night-to-night MF propagation.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at ve7sl@shaw.ca.

Radio activity around here was asymptotically approaching zero until this past weekend when I managed to put about two hours into the ARRL January VHF contest.  In brief, here’s what’s happening around K8GU:

• 47Q x 17G on 6 (8/2), 2 (29/11), and 432 (10/4) in ARRL January VHF.  The 6-meter QSOs were all made with an HF antenna.  I ran 100 watts on 432 so I’m ineligible for the 3-band category.  Heard, but didn’t work, N1GC (EM59), K1TEO (FN31, whom I almost always work), and VE3??? (FN03, I had the whole call at the time but forgot, working K1RZ).
• I did not work EP6T on any bands and really don’t care.  I didn’t hear much of the jamming when I did listen (on 40 and 80).  To paraphrase KE9V quoting JA1NUT, “I’m kind of over DXing.” Who has time for this, anyway?
• Speaking of the seedy underbelly of DXing…do you know what a “QSL grubber” is?  I’ve experienced a couple of different variations on this in the past year and it’s disturbing.  One guy was asking about specific QSOs and provided detailed description of (my) signal characteristics.  Nevermind the fact that I never operated on the band he mentioned during that operation.  He sent similar e-mail to several friends.  As if DX operators don’t talk to each other?  The DXCC desk has been notified.  I wonder if anybody actually falls for it or gives in, though?
• I made token efforts in NAQP CW and Phone to chalk up a participation multiplier for PVRC in the three-way PVRC-SMC-NCCC competition.
• No homebrewing or repair work has been undertaken since the summer.
• The baby can crawl and wants to walk so badly she can’t stand it.  The end is near.
• I took Evan to the Odenton Hamfest on Sunday morning.  The highlight for him was stopping for donuts…and stopping at a playground on the way home.  Bought some Snap-N-Seal F-type compression connectors for a work project, part of my quest to find the perfect F-connector for the perfect RG-6 type cable (quad-shielded, flooded).  More on this in a future post.
• It seems there are plenty of Elecraft K2’s on the market these days.  As the price slips below 1000 USD for a loaded K2/100, this radio is becoming a good buy.  As a secondary note, they all seem to be “professionally constructed by a well-known builder.”  This leads me to wonder what fraction of K2s were built by someone other than the owner (I estimated this fraction once to be about 1/3 of them).  I also wonder if people who built their own K2s hold onto them longer?

And so it goes, time to punch my card…

 

Ethan Miller, K8GU, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Maryland, USA. Contact him at ethan@k8gu.com.

Yesterday, it was a cold but dry day and I thought it would be fun to go out in the garden and see what I could hear and work on SO-50. I quickly put a bit of charge into the UV-5R portable and assembled the Elk yagi.

The first pass I tried was off to the east and although I could hear plenty, I didn’t manage a QSO. The next pass after that was pretty much overhead and I was a lot more successful, working 2E1EBX also using handheld gear, over on the Norfolk coast and then Yuri, UT1FG/MM in IO90 on his way up to Hull.

Really enjoyable and not too cold.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at tim@g4vxe.com.

Yesterday, it was a cold but dry day and I thought it would be fun to go out in the garden and see what I could hear and work on SO-50. I quickly put a bit of charge into the UV-5R portable and assembled the Elk yagi.

The first pass I tried was off to the east and although I could hear plenty, I didn’t manage a QSO. The next pass after that was pretty much overhead and I was a lot more successful, working 2E1EBX also using handheld gear, over on the Norfolk coast and then Yuri, UT1FG/MM in IO90 on his way up to Hull.

Really enjoyable and not too cold.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at tim@g4vxe.com.

One continuing discussion in the VHF community is how to promote more activity, especially during the major VHF contests. One central theme that always emerges is how to modify the VHF contest rules to make them better, to make them fairer and to encourage new contesters. (Let me say up front that there is room for improvement in the contest rules but I don’t think rule changes alone will change contest participation significantly.)

In 2013, the ARRL contests added the Three-Band Single Operator and Single Operator FM Only entry categories. In January 2015, the ARRL added three more categories: Single Operator Unlimited High Power, Single Operator Unlimited Low Power, and Single Operator Unlimited Portable. These “unlimited” categories allow “passive use of spotting assistance” which roughly means these operators can monitor the various DX spotting networks but not spot themselves. The CQ Worldwide VHF Contest already allows passive assistance for all participants and self-spotting for digital EME and meteor scatter contacts. See the CQ WW VHF rules.

In January, the ARRL announced additional changes:

The Board … adopted amendments to the General Rules for ARRL Contests Above 50 MHz to encourage greater participation and band utilization. The changes become effective with the 2015 June ARRL VHF Contest. The revisions stemmed from recommendations offered by the Board’s Programs and Services Committee’s ad-hoc VHF and Above Revitalization subcommittee, composed of active VHF/UHF contesters, and they received strong support from the VHF/UHF community.

The subcommittee was charged with developing recommendations to increase the level and breadth of ARRL VHF and above contest participation and encourage operation on lesser-used bands. As a start to the process, the Board approved three changes that will permit assistance for all operator categories, with no effect on entry category; permit self-spotting for all operator categories, and allow single operators to transmit on more than one band at a time.

The changes will permit assistance in arranging contacts, but not in conducting contacts. They will, for example, allow a station to announce its location in a chat room, on a repeater, or even via e-mail.

The self-spotting/assistance issue is a hotly debated issue among VHFers, with two main schools of thought:

1) Contacts should be made completely independent of non-amateur assistance. Sometimes passive spotting assistance is allowed, but some folks want to eliminate that practice as well.

2) Contacts can be made with non-amateur assistance (spotting networks, chat rooms, etc.) as long as a complete radio contact occurs over the ham bands. This follows the common practice of internet spotting for EME and meteor scatter. Also, some rover stations have requested the ability to spot themselves when they enter a new grid.

There are a number of shades of gray positions between these two points of view (see the CQ WW VHF rules, for example), but I won’t try to explain them here. In general, I support the move to loosening up the restrictions on assistance (#2). Without good 6m propagation, VHF contests tend to be “QSO poor” and expanded use of spotting will allow for additional contacts. The potential risk is that we’ll get sloppy with what constitutes a legitimate contact. Once I know the exact frequency and call sign of the other station, it will be easier to “hear” the other station even when the path is not there. Of course, we already have this situation when we complete a QSO on one band and QSY to another band to work the same station. We know the frequency and call sign (and the grid)…did we really hear the other guy or just think we did? In the end, it all comes down to the integrity of the radio hams involved in the contact.

Those are my thoughts. What do you think?

73, Bob K0NR

The post Dorking With VHF Contest Rules 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 bob@k0nr.com.