Some recent component finds I have on order for myself, which you may find useful for your own Amateur projects all prices seem very reasonable:


10 pieces of copper clad board useful for building your QRP projects on, size 10cm x 15cm:


http://www.banggood.com/10Pcs-1_5MM-CCL-1015-FR4-Glass-Fiber-Board-PCB-Circuit-Board-p-962233.html


2200 uF 16V electrolytic capacitor x 50 pieces:
Ideal for some decent smoothing on your project supply rails: 

http://www.banggood.com/16V-2200UF-Power-Supply-Board-High-Frequency-Electrolytic-Capacitor-p-962535.html

Steve, G1KQH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from England. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Seven Episode Twenty-Six of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Ed Durrant DD5LP, Martin Rothwell M0SGL and Matthew Nassau 2E0MTT to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature Martin Butler M1MRB / W9ICQ reviews Test Equipment from China.

 

• SSTV transmissions from the International Space Station
• Icom Launch IC-2730 Dual Band Radio with Optional Bluetooth Headset
• New Element 3 (General Class) Question Pool released
• SOTABEAMS BOXA-Test
• Turkish Special Event
• Dino Island No Longer Valid for IOTA
• Ireland’s RTÉ's longwave Service Extended until 2017

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Seven Episode Twenty-Six of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Ed Durrant DD5LP, Martin Rothwell M0SGL and Matthew Nassau 2E0MTT to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature Martin Butler M1MRB / W9ICQ reviews Test Equipment from China.

 

• SSTV transmissions from the International Space Station
• Icom Launch IC-2730 Dual Band Radio with Optional Bluetooth Headset
• New Element 3 (General Class) Question Pool released
• SOTABEAMS BOXA-Test
• Turkish Special Event
• Dino Island No Longer Valid for IOTA
• Ireland’s RTÉ's longwave Service Extended until 2017

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

A recent posting by Jan, VK4EBP, to the Australian Optical DX Group in Yahoo Groups, has given me renewed hope when it comes to trying some non-line-of-sight (NLOS) lightwave tests. My initial interest in this was spurred by the excellent experimental work undertaken by Roger, G3XBM, all chronicled in great detail in his daily blog postings. A complete chronology of his efforts, filtered for NLOS experiments,  may be found by clicking here... but be warned...his information will have you wanting to break out the soldering iron and trying some of these things for yourself or, better yet, with another nearby amateur.

Jan's posting was chalk-full of useful "hands-on" information and was just what I needed to hear and led to some extensive and interesting conversation, well worth passing on to others. I could summarize Jan's work in point form but I think it is more interesting to let Jan describe it himself.


"Finally some success with over-the-horizon light. Briefly - several transmitters of several watts each were fired
simultaneously with the beams aimed at the tops of nearby trees, each
transmitter sending unique combination of tones (direct AM).


Osram SFH213-FA

Reception was performed 1km away with the SFH213 photodiode/amp and a
plastic lens approx. 7x12cm. Receiver was aimed towards the TX site and
pointed just over the horizon.

Aural reception of 850nm infrared signals was very good. There was no
trace of TX signals in visible or near-visible spectrum. Signal quality on
850nm was further improved with an infrared-filtered photodiode (SFH213FA, 950nm peak) which provided some attenuation of suburban lights QRM.


My earlier series of experiments over the years was aimed at achieving NLOS short-range communications in a light-polluted metropolitan
environment. I had limited successes with high-elevation cloudbounce over
several km distance using both red and infrared. Very poor results with
high-elevation scatter in clear air, with blue light appearing the best,
and green and yellow the worst for the purpose. More recent tests
suggested that low elevations with infrared light offer a reliable link,
and today's results seem to confirm that.
More to follow! 10km test tomorrow night. 73 de Jan vk4ebp"

Jan has been testing several different TX emitters / wavelengths, simultaneously, each with a different CW identifier. His path started with a 1km hop through his local residential neighbourhood, with significant obstructions shown below. Later the path was stretched to 10km. His observations involving IR were particularly helpful:
 

1km NLOS Path

"I was firing all transmitters at once, each with either pre-recorded tones or a picaxe generator. The transmitter  in the black box contains: 1x LZ
deep red 10W with condenser lens, 3x1W Golden Dragon 850nm IR LED with
+-4deg spot lenses, and 3x 4W LZ1 blue with +-5 deg spot lenses. Manually
switchable by my very patient family members on request via walkie talkie
from the receiving site. The two multi-LED arrays are approx 10W each in
total, one containing a multitude of +-3 deg SFH4550, and the other
+-10deg some other LEDs - do not remember after many years since building it. The small heatsink block contains 4x LZ1 far red, run at about 8W
total."





"At the NLOS location 1km away I was able to copy all the 850nm TXs and
none of the visible/borderline ones.Last night I tried 10km distance.

The topography is theoretically line-of-sight, but isolated from the receiving site by a thick bushland in nearby park. I was firing the transmitters about 3 degrees above what
would be line of sight, thus having about half the beam into the air and
another half scattered in the tree tops near the TX site.


I was able to weakly copy only one of the transmitters - the array of 200 or so of the +-3deg IR LEDs. At the moment I am not certain whether it was from atmospheric or tree scatter.

From earlier tests I observed that IR penetrates very well into the bushland, long after the visible beams were lost both visually and electronically. Similarly, it seems to propagate well into suburban
streets. Presumably the longer wavelength is "seeing" rough surfaces like tree trunks and brick walls as actually shiny and reflecting...."

".... a bit more about my transmitters.    (cont'd....)
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Sunspot number for Dec 27th 2014 has fallen to 92 and 10m propagation is forecast to be “fair”.  Although we’ll still get good days, we must now expect sunspot numbers to gradually decline as the years go by towards the next sunspot minimum. Usually the decline downwards tends to be faster than the climb after the minimum, although many are predicting that the next maximum (cycle 25) will be miserably low.

See http://www.solen.info/solar/  .

See also http://sc25.com/ .

See also http://www.swsc-journal.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=doi&doi=10.1051/swsc/2012008&Itemid=129 .

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

I keep getting asked about the Baofeng radios. Especially the new hams seem to be attracted to the low price. Even though I own several of them and make good use of them, I have been a little reluctant to recommend them. I put together my thoughts on these radios and a few tips to get started. Read the full story here on HamRadioSchool.com.

73, Bob K0NR

The post Hey, Should I Buy the Baofeng Radio? 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].

A few weeks ago, I decided to try JT65. I had been working a small amount of phone this year, along with a little PSK31. I liked PSK31 because I could watch a football game and work the quiet digital mode at the same time. I was curious about JT65 a few weeks ago, so I downloaded some software and decided to give it a try.

I’ll leave out all the history of the mode as it’s easy to find on the net. Basically it’s a digital mode, that’s great for low power operation. Originally developed for EME (Earth-Moon-Earth, Moon bounce) application, it’s very common to use 5-10 watts making contacts all over the world, depending on the condition of the bands. Information is sent over and over again to provide redundancy

JT65 is not a mode that anyone os going to rag chew on. The messages that are exchanged are very scripted and only 13 characters in length. I wondered for a while what practical use a series of 13 character messages would be, outside of making contacts simply for earning awards. I suppose you could use it when a short message has to absolutely get through. The software will repeat the message over and over again until you tell it to stop.

While there are a few software packages available for JT65, I chose to use WSJT-X. Another popular program that’s available is JT65-HF. WSJT-X will do both JT65 and JT9 but JT65-HF will only do JT65. I am finding that making JT9 contacts, works just like JT65, though the underlying protocols being sent over the air are different. JT9 uses much less bandwidth, and signals can be much closer together than JT65.

Messages are transmitted on alternating minutes. One station might call CQ. That message is sent for 46.8 seconds. There is a 13.2 second decoding period. The reply transmission is sent starting at the beginning of the next minute for the same 46.8 seconds. Again there is a 13.2 second decoding period and it all starts over again. One station ends up transmitting on the odd minutes, while the other station transmits on the even minutes.  A normal JT65 QSO will last 7 minutes. The CQ station sends four messages while the station answering the CQ will send 3. Some stations that call CQ cut out of the messages making for a total of three sent for each station.

The following is an actual QSO that I had with a station in Italy, using 10 watts and a homemade buddipole.

The Italian station called CQ and I answered at 1453 UTC time. The entire QSO was over after both of us sent 73 messages!  This is what almost all QSO’s are like.

Since I started JT65 in the middle of December, I have made 108 JT65 QSO’s and 19 JT9 QSO’s. I am slowly working on my basic WAS, trying to get most of the rest with JT65 or JT9. As of Dec 26, I only need 3 more states and I am determined to do it with JT65!

The following are some learning experiences and things I would pass on to anyone interested in trying JT65 for the first time.

While there might be other software packages, JT65-HF an WSJT-X seem to the be the two most popular, based on my reading on the Net and forum posts on eham.net and qrz.com.  I would suggest downloading both and giving them a trial run before deciding. Regardless of which one you choose, I would highly suggest adding JTAlert. It’s a program that works with WSJT-X or JT65-HF alerting you to things like DXCC entities you need, states needed or WAS, stations you have worked before and many other things. I think it makes the mode more fun.

While PSK31 is a SSB mode, JT65 is not. It is an AFSK mode so you have to make sure you set your radio appropriately. Some articles don’t seem to mention this so some beginners miss this point. It does use USB like PSK31, but the modulation is different and the radio needs to be set properly.

I also ran into a configuration issue when setting up my Signalink USB for JT65. While working stations, I occasionally ran into an issue where the radio would key up and transmit, but nothing was sent out. No power on the power meter, nothing.  I had set up the software to control my radio via CAT control.  I found, after a lot of research, that my software was sending a PTT to the radio as was the Signaling USB. I suspect that when the software PTT got there first, that’s when the issue would happen. I set the software to VOX, letting the Signalink send the PTT and everything has been fine ever since. http://www.hamspot.org was a helpful resource to see if I was getting a signal out.

In the end, I am finding JT65 very enjoyable. It’s quiet so it does not bother my wonderful XYL. I can also do other things and not give the radio 100% attention. With JTAlert, it will tell me when someone is calling CQ or a needed state or country poops up. If you have not tried JT65 out, give it a shot and you might find fun.

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