AmateurRadio.com

LU-214KHz - Abbotsford, BC

Once again it's time for the monthly Co-ordinted Listening Event (CLE) for NDB hunters....the 190th event. These always interesting and popular affairs take place over three nights, with this one starting on Friday, January 23rd, at local noon and running until Monday, January 26th, local noon.

These listening events serve several purposes. They:

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are actually in service and on-the-air so the online database can be kept up-to-date

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range

• will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations

• will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working

• give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed

This time, it's a normal event, focusing on a small (~ 15kHz) section of the NDB band. Here are the details from event organizer, Brian Keyte (G3SIA):


Our 190th Co-ordinated Listening Event is already less than a week away. 

Do join in if you can. First-time CLE logs will also be very welcome.

Days: Fri. 23 - Mon. 26 January, Midday-Midday, your local time

Frequencies: NDBs from 190 - 239.9 kHz

PLUS Normal NDBs on 'half-way' frequencies nnn.5 kHz
(from 190.5 - 999.5 kHz)

Both halves are for everyone to try.

Away from Europe the frequencies below 240 kHz are mostly busy with
NDBs. In Europe there are very few but some DX ones might be heard
from North America and maybe a few other places.

The normal NDBs (no DGPS please) which have carriers on the 'half-way'
frequencies (e.g. 284.5 DY, 333.5 VOG, 359.5 CDN, 370.5 LB, 403.5 LNL)
are scattered across Europe but there are very few of them elsewhere.
Some 'hot spots' are ENG, FRA, ITA and XOE.
These half-frequencies give comfortable QRM-free listening and probably
some good catches as a result.
America has only one or two (e.g. 381.5 SJX) but East and West coasters
might hear some DX ones.

We last used these 'rules' for CLE174 in September 2013.

Good listening - enjoy the CLE
Brian
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Brian Keyte G3SIA ndbcle'at'gmail.com
Location: Surrey, SE England (CLE co-ordinator)
----------------------------------------------------------

(If you wish you could use any one remote receiver for your loggings,
stating the location and owner - with their permission if required.
A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, local or remote,
to make further loggings for the same CLE).

Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted there a few days after the event. If you are a member of the ndblist Group, results will also be e-mailed and posted there.

The very active Yahoo ndblist Group is a great place to learn more about the 'Art of NDB DXing' or to meet other listeners in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome.

If you are contemplating getting started on 630m, listening for NDBs  is an excellent way to test out your receive capabilities as there are several NDBs located near this part of the spectrum.

You need not be an ndblist member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers. 

Reports may be sent to the ndblist or e-mailed to either myself or CLE co- ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), whose address appears above.

Please...do give the CLE a try....then let us know what NDB's can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database to help keep it up-to-date.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at ve7sl@shaw.ca.

Our second Technician License class started last evening. This time, instead of being open to just the "public", this one is primarily intended for the Clark, NJ CERT Team. Drew W2OU, Marv K2VHW and yours truly met with, introduced ourselves to, and began the process of instructing 15 potential new Hams.


It's always fun and exciting to be with a group of people who show genuine interest in Amateur Radio, as was the case last night. All of these folks showed enthusiasm and curiosity and an eagerness to learn.


We will become "buddies" over the course of the next seven Tuesday evenings, and hopefully after that, we will add more people to the ranks of Amateur Radio.

And if the teaching gig isn't enough, I was thinking of home brewing a magnetic loop this winter. My line of thinking is that I could build one for let's say 40-10 Meters. From what I understand they're not huge. Then, when it gets really frosty in the basement, I could just set the loop up on the main floor and operate temporarily from the dining room table or something like that.  Just a thought, though, as funds are kinda tight.  I have some spare coax (enough for a loop), and I think the only expense at this point would be the tuning capacitor. It doesn't need to be one of those expensive vacuum jobs, so maybe I can find something reasonable on eBay.

My inspiration for this has been Greg, N4KGL. I've been following his posts on Google+ and through his blog.  He seems to be having so much success with his loop that it seems like a worthwhile endeavor. That, and the fact that I feel like building something.

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.

Some nights 40 meters have been very good recently, with north American and European stations coming in. Other nights you might encounter a lot of this….

It’s annoying, but at least you know propagation favours southeast Asia. To get some perspective on these “pirates” I googled a bit and found a post from 2003 on eHam.net with some insight from John Davies, 9V1VV, whom I worked recently. Let me quote him….

We in Singapore face daily obstacles getting through SSB pirates on all HF bands. They operate up to 5KW in all sections of the bands including the designated CW portions. On the lower bands, the only way to hope to work DX from here through the QRM is in the middle of the night when the Indonesians are sleeping.

Not only the Amateur bands, but ALL frequencies from 1.6 to 30 MHz, are affected.

The reasons are complex, and no efforts by radio amateurs will change matters.

I was involved in a large Indonesian Government project in 1996 as installation and commissioning engineer for 15 Marine Coast Stations, in locations across the length and breadth of Indonesia from Sumatra to Irian Jaya and north to the Philippine border. It was a great adventure for me, and I have many tales to tell.

What is of interest here is that the radio operators in these remote islands would hold evening nets on SSB for the mothers and fathers, uncles and cousins, of young men working in other regions, usually in the cities where they had gone for work. Operators in the big cities such as Jakarta or Surabaya would arrange with these young men skeds for many islands all over the vast country, for a small fee of course. These larger city Marine Coast Stations often use up to 5KW PEP, free-running transmitters. The stations I was commissioning were only 600 watt, but they were also free-running 1.6-30MHz.

It is not only the marine radio operators that cause problems. The police, army and airforce bases work on the same lines. There are thousands of Japanese rigs out there free-running in the hands of as many operators all over the archipelgo, all using radio as a kind of community service, in a country where landlines and cellphones cost money and are far from reliable.

The operators are poorly trained or dismissive of the niceties of international regulations and procedures. For example, a common calling frequency is 10.000 MHz !! It’s an easy figure to remember. The low portions of the amateur bands are fair game. The operators often remark on the “birds” tweeting (CW ham operators) but ignore them or force them off the air. I have heard a QSO between villagers in the coastal town of Panjang in southern Sumatra talking with their relatives in Yogyakarta on 9.750 MHz, right in the middle of a commercial band!

I do not see the situation changing in the near future. The pirate Indonesians will continue undiminished in number. There is no local authority in existance to challenge them. And the Indonesians are a gregarious people and thrive on chat and scandal. Radio is the medium for this.

It makes working the ham bands in southeast asia a real adventure at times.

I have successfully chased away some rogue operators from the 20 meter CW section who interfered with me, so it can be done. But since 2003 little has changed and working the ham bands in Asia is still a real adventure at times.

Hans "Fong" van den Boogert, BX2ABT, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Taiwan. Contact him at hans.bx2abt@msa.hinet.net.

These are bands I rarely use, but some readers may be interested in the Hendricks Kits dual band transceiver. 5.5W sounds enough to work plenty.

These days, the main issue on these bands can be man-made noise from TVs, SMPUs and similar. At my old QTH I had an S7-8 noise floor on 160m and 80m. At the new QTH the noise floor on these bands is low currently, but this could change overnight. Some people use loops and nullers on RX to minimise problems. If you have a quiet noise environment then this transceiver may fit your needs. Don’t forget you will need a reasonably big antenna to get decent results. A half wave 160m dipole antenna is around 240 feet long.

In my youth we had rigs like the Codar AT5 12W AM/CW 160m/80m transmitter and companion T28 RX. I had the RX but not the TX although I did use an AT5 from the QTH of the late G4PJ. The T28 was mainly used as a tunable IF for my 2m converter. I heard my first 2m satellite signals via Oscar 6 and 7 using the T28 as a tunable IF. I remember being very thrilled hearing my first transatlantic stations on the top end of 2m.

See http://www.qrpkits.com/mbdc.html .

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

So you’ve played with DSTAR enough that you’ve decided you want to host your own repeater. Well congratulations! Welcome to one of the most challenging and satisfying activities in your ham radio “career”!

Here’s what you’ll need if you want to build a DSTAR repeater.

1. Antenna
2. Feedline
3. Lightening protection (suppressor, in addition to a proper ground system)
4. Duplexer (a flat-pack mobile unit will work if you’re in a low RF environment. If there are other transmitters around, you’ll want larger cavities – a band-pass/band-reject unit.)
5. A repeater site – as high as you can get, with easy access for maintenance
6. Internet access – including a public facing ip address so users can route directly to you from other repeaters
7. Power supply – 12V at whatever amps you’ll need
8. Miscellaneous cables…all good quality!

As a quick side note, all of the principles for analog repeaters applies to digital systems. Checkout www.repeater-builder.com for tons of good information.

Phew. Now that you’re done with the antenna system and internet access, you’ll need to make a decision. Are you going to go with the ICOM system, or a home-brew system?

For an ICOM system:
1. Radio module for the band you want to be on ($700 for UHF)
2. Controller module ($850)
3. Computer running Linux to run the gateway software (figure $300 for a solid system)

That’s $1850 in addition to items 1 through 8 above.

The other option is a home-brew system. I’ve built two of these already – one from Kenwood radios, and one from Motorola radios. Either of these requires access to programming gear/software, so you may have other costs you need to consider.

For a home-brew system built on Motorola radios:
1. 2 CDM 1550 UHF radios (one for TX, one for TX) – $300 from eBay
2. Raspberry Pi with SD Card to run the G4KLX gateway software ($50)
3. DVRPTR modem – http://dvrptr.net/ ($120)

For the CDM radios, you can’t run them at 100% power – these are mobile radios, and they are rated at 50% duty cycle or lower at full power. I’m using 30 watt radios at 10 watts. The transmitter doesn’t seem to mind this power setting, even when run for 2 hours continuously. Because of the acknowledgement packets that are sent after user transmissions, duty cycles easily get 100% during normal DSTAR use. Hold a net, or a long QSO, and you’ll find your transmitter melted if you try to run it at too high of a power setting.

You can add a power amplifier after the transmitter if you need more power. I’ve not found this to be necessary with the proper antenna and site. If I can hear the remote units, they can hear me. More power hasn’t been necessary.

I’ve also had success with a Kenwood TKR-820 repeater. But….programming these for me is harder. Alignment is a bunch of coils and takes some time. They have a built-in power supply. You really need to narrow-band the units, as that’s what the users’ radios are expecting. It will work wide-band, but it won’t work as well. The system needs to be narrow on both the repeater and user side.

Michael Brown, KG9DW, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Illinois, USA. Contact him at michael@thefarmonline.com.

FlexRadio Systems was born out of the dot-com bust in the early 2000’s. Founder Gerald Youngblood K5SDR didn’t really expect it to go anywhere. Boy was he surprised. He told the story at the 2014 ARRL/TAPR DCC Saturday Banquet:

Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, is the host of HamRadioNow.tv. If you enjoy this and other HamRadioNow programs, help keep them 'on the air' with a contribution. Contact him at kn4aq@arvn.tv.

There's been a lot of discussion lately on the Yahoo Groups ndblist regarding the "low-noise vertical" (LNV) and it's seemingly excellent performance. Originally described by Dallas Lankford as a good performer from LF to SW, ndblist member, Phil (KO6BB), recently refurbished his earlier built 'LNV', but this time with better feedline and appropriate ferrite cores for the antenna's matching transformers. Some of his description appears below.


To recap. I put the LNV up last spring to overcome the bad IMD products
from local BCB stations I was seeing in the LF region when using the
Roelof Active Whip located about 36 feet AGL. The low noise vertical is
... about 30 feet of antenna, set at roof-line level in this mobile home. As I wasn't sure how well the antenna would perform, I first made it a "Zero Dollar" project, using items I had on hand. Those items included two toroid cores salvaged from a defunct computer PS. I figured that since the supplies operate in the kHz range (as witness what a dirty supply will do to your LF reception), they would be suitable for at least a trial run of the antenna. The balanced feedline was some CAT6 cable I had on hand.

The antenna was a great success, because while it had much lower signal
output than the active whip, it also had ZERO IMD from the BCB stations,
and also less local 'junk' (read noise). The tunable pre-amp I use more
than made up for the lower output of the antenna, after all Signal/Noise
ratio is EVERYTHING in this hobby, NOT how high you can make the "S"
meter read.

The central valley summer heat (often in the 100's) took it's toll on
the CAT6 feedline outer jacket insulation, and while it still seemed to
work OK, I figured that it wouldn't be long before water started to get
into the line and probably degrade it in rainy/foggy weather.

Anyway, I went ahead and ordered the proper toroid coils I needed along
with 25 feet of nice 300 Ohm foam twinlead, and got a couple plastic
boxes to put it all in and made the toroid units. While I was at it ordered
two Amidon FT193-J toroid cores to complete the LNV the way I REALLY wanted to.

Today I installed it all, putting a heavy twist in the feedline to try
to reduce any stray noise pickup on the balanced feedline. I'd say
probably not likely but why take a chance.

OK, here are the results. I took signal level readings of eight 24/7
stations, both before and after changing out the wiring/baluns. The
bottom line is, the new antenna IS an improvement in the NDB range,
tapering off slightly at the high end of the broadcast band. Yeah, it's
'only' a couple "S" units at it's best, but when you're digging for that
weak NDB even 1 "S" unit is a LOT! I'm going to 'assume' 6dB per "S"
unit as I have calibrated the "S" meter of the R-71A receiver.

NOTE: This is 'fuzzy' math, don't take them as 'exact' on the dB readings.

FREQUENCY BEFORE AFTER DIFFERENCE
203 TCY S2 S4 2 S units (12dB)
205 COT S3 S5 2 S units (12dB?)
344 FCH S9+7 S9+15 (8dB)
374 LV S6 S7 1 S unit (6dB)
580 BCB Sta S9+35 S9+38 (3dB)
770 BCB Sta S9+32 S9+32 No Change
880 BCB Sta S9 S9 No Change
1450 BCB S9+10 S9+5 (-5dB)

SO, it looks like the antenna is definitely an improvement where I'm
REALLY interested in it (the NDB band). I could have probably tailored
the toroids for maximum performance, but just used the 81:9 turns ratio
on the outdoors (antenna) and 9:9 on the indoor unit as I'm FAR too lazy
to run up and down the ladder to remove the toroid box, change turns and
retry it again!!!

Some additional notes.

NOTE 1. I have three ground rods dedicated to just this antenna, two 8
footers and a 4 footer. While I was playing with the antenna taking
readings AFTER the work, I disconnected one of the 8 foot rods to see
what effect that had. Signal levels dropped approximately an "S" unit
across the board. So GOOD grounding on this antenna does make a difference!

NOTE 2. I'm NOT exactly sure why it happened, but after the antenna
work here, there was even LESS "local grunge" in the background than
before, even with the stronger signals, making for even better copy on
weak ones than I otherwise expected. . . It DOESN'T make sense to me,
but then, antennas ARE the magic art.


It appears that the grounding plays some importance in the performance of this "non-resonant" aperiodic antenna and the fact that it is non-resonant on the frequencies of interest likely also plays an important part in its good S/N performance.

Several years ago I noticed something similar. My own 10' tuned air-core loop made an excellent receive antenna on 160m, even though the loop was tuned to around 300KHz! Although signal strength was several S-units below my transmitting antenna, the loop was extremely quiet and weak signals were much easier to copy ... In fact I often heard signals on the mis-tuned loop that I could not hear on my resonant half-sloper radiator.

Another ndblist proponent of the low noise vertical is John, in Colorado, who employs three ... one of them a great-looking tilt-over version. The tilt-over is nicely demonstrated in his short you tube video below.


The antennas are also used in combination via his Quantum Phaser, when DXing the broadcast band. The excellent phasing results can also be seen in his short video, while using a wonderful, like new,  Hammarlund SP-600 JX.


Dallas Lankford's original article may be found here, while an earlier more encompassing discussion will be found here. A third Lankford article, discussing 'Signal To Man Made Noise Ratios' and comparisons of various receiving antennas, also makes for interesting reading.

Perhaps the 'LNV' might be the antenna you're looking for to boost your LF/MW reception.

Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at ve7sl@shaw.ca.