2014 Es Season On The Magic Band – A Journey Towards A 6m VUCC

June 19, 2014 by AB1OC

6m Band Opening Viewed On DXMAPS

I decided to become active on the 6m band this year. This 6m Sporadic E (Es) season was in full swing about a month ago when I got active on 6m. The picture above is from the DXMAPS website and shows one of the daily openings we’ve experienced on 6m in the US during the last month. The DXMAPS website is a good tool for monitoring VHF/UHF band openings (10m and higher). The site collects and plots real-time cluster spots and propagation mode information on a world map. This includes spots from CW Skimmers, which monitor beacons on the VHF and UHF bands. This allows one to determine when a VHF/UHF band is open and the directions for possible QSOs from one’s location. As you can see from the picture above, there was a solid 6m opening on this particular day from my QTH in New England to the Midwest, the Southeast, and the Caribbean! You can also see the beginnings of an opening into Europe.

Cluster Spots During A 6m Band Opening (DXLabs SpotCollector)

Cluster Spots During A 6m Band Opening (DXLab SpotCollector)

The graphic above shows spotting cluster data (we use the DXLab Suite at our station). You can see the details of the stations being spotted during the opening.

The 6m band is often called the “magic band” because it exhibits many different propagation modes, including Sporadic E (Es), Tropo, Aurora, Iconoscatter, Meteor Scatter, and even Earth-Moon-Earth (EME or “Moon Bounce”). You can find a good introduction to the magic band, its propagation possibilities, and some ideas on how to get started on 6m on these sites:

I would also recommend Six Meters: A Guide to the Magic Band by Ken Neubeck, WB2AMU. While the equipment information in this book is somewhat dated and it can be a little had to find, it contains excellent information on propagation modes and operating on 6m.

Many of the 6m propagation modes can be very short-lived so one must be prepared to make short contacts at the start of a QSO. The typical 6m exchange would include callsigns, signal reports and grid square (more on grid square below). The 6m band is typically very quiet and will easily support QSOs that do not move one’s S Meter even with the rig’s preamps on!

SteppIR DB36 Antennas At Our QTH

We planned for 6m operation when we built our station a couple of years ago. Our primary antennas for 6m are our SteppIR DB36 yagis at 105′ and 65′. These antennas are used separately on the 6m band (we can run them as a 4 over 4 array on 10m – 40m).

SteppIR DB36 With The 6m Kit Installed Below Our 2m and 432 MHz Yagis

Out SteppIR DB36 Yagi’s feature, a 36-foot boom and have a 6m Passive element Kit installed which provide two additional elements on the 6m band. The resulting gain and front/back performance are in the range of typical 5 element 6m monoband antennas. Having two independently directional antennas for 6m has turned out to be quite useful in contests and when monitoring for 6m openings. These antennas have 6 elements on 6m and are pretty directional. Typical operating setups at our QTH would have one antenna pointed to the West or toward Europe while the other is pointed south to monitor for openings to the Southeast and the Caribbean. In these configurations, we can instantly switch between two directions using our microHAM Antenna Control System.

AB1OC Operating Position On 6m

Both of our two operating positions are 6m capable. They both feature Transceivers with good receivers (a Yaesu FTdx5000 and an Icom IC-7800), and both have PW-1 Amplifiers, which provide 1KW output on the 6m band.

QSOs By Band As Of Early 2014

Before the 2014 Spring Es Season, we had only done limited operating on the 6m band. I did participate in the 2013 ARRL June VHF Contest and operated on a combination of the 6m, 2m, and 70cm bands during that contest. I also did some 6m operating as part of the 13 Colonies Special Event 2013. In total, I had made about 200 QSOs on 6m and had worked 10 grid squares by the beginning of 2014. Most of these 6m contacts were with stations in the US, with a few to the Caribbean. My longest DX up to that point was a few contacts 6m stations in the Canary Islands on the northwest coast of Africa.

JT65 QSO using WSJT-X and JTAlert On 6m

At the start of the 2014 Spring Es Season, I decided to get serious about earning an ARRL VUCC Award on 6m. This award requires one to work and confirm 100 grid squares on the 6m band (also available for 2m and higher bands). I began by studying 6m propagation modes and monitoring the calling frequencies on the 6m band. We work a combination of modes on 6m, including SSB Phone, CW, and digital (using JT65). The CW and JT65 modes are very useful on the 6m band when the propagation conditions are marginal. We recently upgraded to Joe Taylor’s WSJT-X software which supports both the JT65 and JT9 weak signal modes. This WSJT-X software and JTAlert software from HAMApps integrated the JT65 and JT9 modes very well with the DXLab suite we use for logging and other DX’ing work at our station.

Some exciting times were on the air during the early part of the Es Season this year. Two that stand out were my first double hop Es contacts with hams in California and several openings to the Midwest and the Southeast, where the band went from dead to active in 5-10 minutes! This is typical for the 6m band, but it’s quite an experience to go from calling CQ with no answers to being in the middle of an almost instant small pileup!

AB1OC Claimed Score In 2014 ARRL VHF Contest

AB1OC Claimed Score In the 2014 ARRL VHF Contest

I also decided to again operate in the 2014 ARRL June VHF Contest this year. I only decided to operate in the Single Operator, High-power Category on 6m. I was able to make a little over 300 6m contacts in this contest and managed a score that was significantly better than my 3-band effort in this contest last year. My QSOs were primarily using SSB phone mode, but I also managed a number of contacts in CW mode and a few digital QSOs using JT65.

AB1OC Worked Grids In 2014 ARRL VHF Contest

AB1OC Worked Grids In the 2014 ARRL VHF Contest (N1MM Logger)

As you can see from the screenshot from the N1MM logger that I used for the contest, I was able to work quite a few grid squares. We had a very nice opening to the Southeast and Florida during the contest period, resulting in lots of new 6m contacts and even some small pileups at times!

AB1OC Worked Grids In The Americas

By the end of the contest, my total grids worked was up to 98, and this put me very close to my goal of earning a VUCC on 6m. At this point, I was hooked on 6m!

AB1OC Worked Grids In Europe And Africa

A couple of days after the contest ended, I took a look at the DXMAPS website and saw that a good 6m opening was occurring into Europe. I got on the air and was able to make my first ever contacts into Europe on 6m. The opening was a “spotlight” one (covering a limited area) that involved double hop Es propagation in Spain, Portugal, France, and Morocco. Over the period of about an hour and a half, I made some 30 contacts into these countries. A very exciting time on the air that I will not soon forget!

AB1OC Worked Grids Around The World

With the opening to Europe and some continued operation on 6m, I am currently at 122 Grid Squares worked (with 91 confirmed so far. My 6m QSO count stands at 755, with 112 new grid squares and approximately 550 QSOs made in the last 30 days.

The website used to plot the grid squares worked and confirmed in the previous pictures is WG7J’s GridMapper site. It’s a nice tool to visualize whether the grid square one has worked or still needs to work.

At this point, I am totally hooked on the 6m band! While a Yagi antenna with 5 or more elements helps a lot on 6m, I have found that it does not take a big station to have fun on the band when it’s open. I have worked many stations in the US that were using wire antennas and verticals with 100w or less. See the following YouTube video for an example of a simple 6m setup. Another good 6m intro video can be found here. If you have not given 6m a try, I encourage our readers to take a look at the band. It is really quite a lot of fun.

– Fred (AB1OC)

More Progress On Operating Awards

June 8, 2014 by AB1OC

Worked All VK Call Areas

I have continued to make progress on my operating award goals and have recently received a few interesting new awards. The first one is the Worked All VK CALL Areas. This award is issue by the Wireless Institute of Australia and requires confirming a number of contacts in all 10 VK call areas on the HF Bands (160m – 10m). For me, the VK0 contact in the VK0 area was the most difficult. I was able to work Craig, VK0JJJ a few months back and confirm the contact to complete this award. Contacts in the VK6 area in Western Australia can also be a challenge from my area there are a limited number of HAMs in this rural area of Australia and it’s almost half way around the world from our location. Fortunately, there are a few big stations in the VK6 call area. The Worked All VK Call Areas award is one of the most attractive looking operating awards that I’ve earned and it’s always enjoyable to work HAMs in Australia.

All Africa Operating Award

I’ve also recently completed an All Africa Operating Award. This award is issued by the South African Radio League and required working and confirming at least one station in each of the six call areas in South Africa plus at least one station in 25 African Countries outside of South Africa (islands off the coast of Africa do not count for this award). Working some of the more rare entities in Africa can be a challenge as many countries have a limited number of HAMs and most do not have many “big gun” stations making them more difficult to work. It is often possible to work some of the more rare stations in Africa during contests and this is the way that I completed many of the contacts required for this award. I have a goal to contact all entities on the African Continent at some point in the future.

ARRL Worked All States Triple Play Award

The last award that I’ve recently completed is the Worked All States Triple Play. This award is issued by the ARRL here in the United States and requires one to work and confirm via Logbook of the World (LoTW) all 50 US States in each of three operating modes – Phone, CW and Digital. With all of our contest activity, I have had all the needed confirmations via a combination of cards and LoTW for some time but securing confirmations for a few states on LoTW in CW mode was a bit of a challenge. This award is also very attractive and can be had both as a certificate and in the form of a plaque. This award is well within reach of many US stations and provides great encouragement to expand your skills and station to new operating modes. AB1QB is working toward this award by working all of the W1AW portable stations this year on Phone and CW (she already has all states confirmed on Digital) as all of the W1AW portable stations will confirm on LoTW.

AB1OC Operating Awards In Our Shack

I’ve been fortunate to have the chance to complete quite a few operating awards to date and these make for a nice display in our shack. Right now, I am focusing on a few new awards as well as some additional endorsements to awards that I already have. These include:

An ARRL VUCC Award on 6m (requires working and confirming 100 grid squares on the 6m band)
A 160m endorsement for my 8BDXCC Award
A 1,500 band point endorsement for my DXCC Challenge Award
The 60m and 6m endorsements for my CQ WPX Award Of Excellence

Operating awards provide good incentives to get on the air and work new stations, new bands and new modes. I hope that you’ll consider working towards a few operating awards – it can be great fun!

– Fred (AB1OC)

2014 Dayton Hamvention Show

June 7, 2014 by AB1OC

2014 Dayton Contest University Attendees

Anita (AB1QB) and I attended the Dayton Hamvention again this year. Anita began her Dayton experience by attending Contest University again this year. As you can see from the “I Made It” sign-in board outside the Contest University meeting rooms at Dayton, the Contest University instructors and attendees include quite a few of the top contesters in the United States and several others from around the world. Some of the most interesting sessions included one on Multi-Operator Contesting, given by W3LPL, who has one of the large multi-op contesting stations, but there were tips that anyone who wants to work a contest multi-op can use. The session “The Best Hints to Becoming a Better Contester, presented by N0AX had many great contesting tips to help improve your score.

N1MM+ Preview

The new N1MM+ Contest Logger generated a lot of buzz during Dayton 2014. We saw previews of the new N1MM+ Logger during dinner and forum events at the show. The new N1MM+ software features many improvements based upon input from the contesting community. For some more information on N1MM+, see this link.

Begali Keys

It was Anita’s birthday during Dayton 2014 and she has recently become interested in learning CW. To help her along, I decided to get her a set of Begali Stradivarius paddles and their CW Machine to help her practice CW. The CW Machine is an interesting training aid – it can generate CW from text, create practice drills for sets of letters and it can decode CW sent from a key or paddles. When used for decoding, in detects when the operator’s timing is off and will not decode the characters sent. This helps a new operator to not only learn to send the code but to develop the rhythm needed to send good quality CW with the proper timing. The CW Machine can also be used as a CW Keyer.

ARRL Display At Dayton 2014

The ARRL had their usual large display at Dayton again this year which featured all of the ARRL Centennial Activities that the ARRL is doing. It’s always fun to look at the many ARRL publications and we could not resist picking up some new books and a few videos. One video that we particularly enjoyed was the ARRL Film Collection DVD. This is a collection of several short films that the ARRL and other have made over the years to promote HAM radio.

AMSAT Display At Dayton 2014

We are in the process of upgrading our station for LEO Satellite operation and we spent some time at AMSAT’s display to learn some more about satellite operations and get some information on the software and hardware required. The AMSAT folks are always very helpful to new satellite operators and they have excellent publications available to help folks who are getting started.

Anita (AB1QB) and I with Bob Heil (K9EID)

Anita and I had the opportunity to spend some time with our friend, Bob Heil (K9EID) at Dayton this year. Thanks to Bob, we had the opportunity to be on Ham Nation this year to talk about station building. Bob has shared many great experiences with HAM Radio and all of the work he’s done to move the recording industry forward. It’s a lot of fun to spend time with him and to learn from his experiences. We use his microphones and accessories throughout our station.

New Add-ons For The Elecraft KX3

There are always new product announcements at Dayton. We spent some time at the Elecraft Booth looking at the new PX3 Pan Adapter for the KX3. This will certainly make a nice accessory for KX3 users.

FreeDV HF Digital Voice Software Display

We spent some time at the FreeDV HF Digital Voice display. The authors of this program continue to enhance it. Recent additions include some new bandwidth options and support for more platforms. Digital Voice on the HF bands via FreeDV continues to gain momentum as more HAMs learn about FreeDV.

There is so much to see at the Dayton Hamvention that it’s impossible to describe everything here. We hope to attend the Dayton Hamvention again in 2015.

– Fred (AB1OC)

Contest Results for Anita (AB1QB) and Fred (AB1OC)

June 6, 2014 by AB1OC

Anita’s Best Contest Result To Date – 2013 BARTG RTTY Contest

Anita (AB1QB) and I really enjoy working contests to build our skills as operators. Anita has steadily improved her RTTY contesting skills over the last 18 months as is getting to a point where she is quite competitive. He best finish to date was a 5th place finish in the world in the 2013 BARTG RTTY Contest in the Single Operator All Band Category. BARTG RTTY is a pretty major worldwide RTTY contest and her 5th place finish is a great accomplishment given her limited experience (Anita is licensed for just about 3 years). You can read more about Anita’s experiences in this contest here.

AB1QB 2013 ARRL RTTY Roundup Certificate

Anita’s (AB1QB) First Place NH Finish – 2013 ARRL RTTY Roundup

Anita’s first serious contest attempt was the ARRL RTTY Roundup in January 2013. She placed 1st in the New Hampshire section in the single operator high power category.

Anita’s (AB1QB)’s First Place NH Finish - 2013 (RTTY) North American QSO Party

Anita’s (AB1QB) First Place NH Finish – 2013 (RTTY) North American QSO Party

Anita also finished first in our state during the 2013 NCJ North American RTTY QSO Party. Anita is a regular participant in RTTY contests and she at the point where she is entering some RTTY contests for the second or third time. Her goal is to improve here score in each successive attempt a RTTY contest that she has competed in the past. She is also getting better at contest strategy particularly in the area of band/time planning.

Fred’s (AB1QB) First Place Finish in NH – 2013 ARRL June VHF Contest

Fred’s (AB1QB) First Place Finish In The NH Section – 2013 ARRL June VHF Contest

I received a very nice surprise in the mail recently – a certificate for my very first VHF contest effort (the ARRL 2013 June VHF Contest) last year. Since this was my first VHF contest, I operated only in SSB phone mode with the goal of learning what VHF contesting was about and testing the VHF side of our station for the very first time in a contest. I operated in the Single operator High Power Category on a combination of the 6m, 2m and 70cm bands. It was a very nice surprise to receive a 1st place certificate for NH for this contest!

I am planning to enter this contest again this year (2014) in the 6m single-band, high-power category. I am working on completing my first ARRL VUCC Award on 6m and I am hoping that the contest will help me toward this goal.

Contesting is a great way to improve your skills, work DX, make progress towards operating awards, and just plain have fun. I’d encourage our readers to give contesting a try. You do not need a “big” station or a lot of power to have fun in contests. There are many articles on contesting and contest station design here on our blog. A read through of some of these should help you to get started in contesting if you’re interested.

– Fred (AB1OC)

Another Milestone For Our Blog – 100,000 Views!

May 21, 2014 by AB1OC

Our Readers Around The World

Thanks to support from all of our readers, our blog passed the 100,000 views mark this past week. The material here has seen good interest from HAMs around the world. The map above shows the countries that have viewed the articles and content here.

Top 25 Countries

The table above shows the top 25 Countries that have viewed the information here the most. North America and Europe are the sources of the most interest in our Blog but we are also seeing good interest from several countries in Asia and South America as well. This list probably pretty closely reflects the concentration of Amateur Radio Operators in countries around the world.

We’d like to take thank all of you who read our Blog for you interest. We will continue to publish new content here as our experiences with HAM radio continue and we learn new things about our wonderful hobby.

– Fred (AB1OC)

LEO Satellite System Part 1 – System Design And Electronics

May 16, 2014 by AB1OC

FUNcube-1 Cube LEO Satellite

We have realized all of the original design goals for our station except one – operation with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) HAM Satellites. Our next series of posts will be about realizing this operating goal. The team at AMSAT has been working diligently to get a new generation of small satellites called Cube Sats into space to provide additional “birds” for HAM satellite operators to use, so now seems to be a good time to add satellite capability to our station.

Icom IC-9100 Transceiver (courtesy Icom America)

Most recent LEO satellites use a combination of 2m and 70cm signals for their uplink and downlink frequencies, so we’ve decided to build an antenna system for satellite operation on these bands. Satellites that use these frequencies would be either U/V Mode (70 cm uplink, 2m downlink) or V/U Mode (2m Uplink, 20 cm Downlink) birds. We installed an Icom IC-9100 Transceiver some time ago for both VHF/UHF weak signal work as well as for future satellite operations. The IC-9100 provides 100w of Transmit power on 2m and 75W on 70cm. This is more than adequate for LEO Satellite operation. The IC-9100 also has some nice VFO tracking features to make operation with satellites that use linear transponders easier (more on this in a future post).

M2 Antenna Systems’ Eggbeater Satellite Antenna System (courtesy DX Engineering)

I have been working with the folks at M2 Antenna Systems to come up with a simple antenna system to allow us to work with LEO satellites. LEO Satellites do not require much radiated power to work but require a reasonably sensitive receive system. The design I have settled on will use M2’s Eggbeater Satellite Antenna System. This setup combines a set of omnidirectional 2m and 70cm antennas on a cross-boom to support U/V and V/U mode satellites.

M2 EB-144 Antenna Pattern (courtesy M2 Antenna Systems)

The “eggbeater” antenna uses a reflector (radial elements below the “eggbeater” elements shown above) to direct the antenna’s pattern upward. The resulting pattern is circularly polarized and omnidirectional. This is ideal for LEO satellite operation and does not require a complex rotator system to “point” the antenna.

M2 Antenna System 2M Low-Noise Preamplifier

While it does not take a great deal of radiated power to work LEO Sats, a fairly sensitive receive system is required due to the low transmit power used for the downlink on these birds. We are planning to mount the antennas for our satellite system at around the 90 ft level on our tower. This distance, plus the run from the tower to our shack, will result in a total feedline length of about 190 ft. To ensure that the feedline losses do not compromise the performance of our satellite system, we have decided to install tower-mounted Low Noise Preamplifiers (LNAs) on our tower near the antennas. We are using a 2m LNA Preamplifier from M2 Systems and 70cm LNA Preamplifier for Advance Receiver Research.

Preamp System Component

Mounting electronics on the tower is always a reliability concern. There are two issues to be addressed here. The first is proper sequencing control to ensure that the RF power going to the antennas during transmit does not destroy the preamplifiers and the second is to provide adequate protection from the weather. We chose to use M2 Antenna Systems S3 Sequencers to safely switch the LNAs to bypass during transmit (more on this below). We also decided to mount the LNAs and associated control interconnect points inside a NEMA enclosure. The picture above shows all the parts and components that make up the LNA preamp system. The components include (from top left to lower right) the LNA preamps, a NEMA enclosure purchased at our local electrical store along with stainless steel clamps to attach it to our tower, N-type feed-through connectors to pass the feedline connections in and out of the enclosure, a terminal strip for control cable and power connections, hardware to mount the preamps in the enclosure, LMR-240 coax for RF connections inside the enclosure, the M2 Antenna Systems S2 Sequencers, and N-connectors for the LMR-240 coax jumpers.

Completed Tower Preamp System

The picture above shows the completed preamp system ready to go onto the tower. The unit is designed to allow easy access to the electronics for testing and service on the tower should this be needed.

Preamp Sequencers

The picture above shows the M2 Antenna Systems S3 Sequencers that we are using to control the preamps (the S2 sequencers at the bottom control the tower-mounted electronics for our 2m and 70cm weak signal yagi antennas installed previously). We connected the S3 sequencers to our Icon IC-9100 Transceiver and (temporarily) to our new Satellite preamp system so that we could test the package before installing the electronics on the tower. We checked the SWR of the system in transmit mode using a dummy load as well the operation of the preamps in receive mode.

Andrews LDF5-50A Hardline Coax Cable

The final design decision for the hardware side of our LEO Satellite system is the choice of coax for our feedlines. The total length of our feedlines, including the connections between the tower-mounted preamplifiers and the antennas and the connection from our shack entry point to the radio, is about 190 ft. I set a design goal of 1.5 dB of total loss for this path. To meet this goal at 450 MHz (70 cm), I have decided to use a 7/8″ Hardline Coax (LDF5-50A) plus LMR-400UF Coax for the jumpers to connect the antennas at the tower end and the IC-9100 Transceiver at the shack end. We will also be using N-type connectors throughout the feedline system.

ARRL Satellite Handbook

We have been reading a lot to learn how to design and build our Satellite System. One excellent source of information on this topic is the ARRL Satellite Handbook. I can recommend this book as a great source of information for anyone considering the construction of a satellite system and those interested in learning more about satellite operations.

Our next steps will be to order the hardline and connectors and assemble our antennas. Once the materials arrive, we will install the antenna system on our tower. This will be the topic of the next post in this series.

A SDR Pan Adapter/Spectrum Scope For The Yaesu FTdx5000 Transceiver

May 5, 2014 by AB1OC

SDR Pan Adapter for FTdx5000

We both like the performance on Anita’s (AB1QB) Yaesu FTdx5000 Transceiver. It has an excellent receiver and is integrated nicely with our recently completed microHAM system. One area where the FTdx5000 Transceiver leaves a bit to be desired is its Pan Adapter or Spectrum Scope capabilities. We have both the DMU-2000 and the SM-5000 Station Monitor options for this transceiver, but they do not provide the high-resolution Pan Adapter features we are looking for. When we purchased this radio, we also purchased an RFSpace SDR-IQ Software Defined Receiver device to use with it. I recently set the SDR-IQ up to operate with Anita’s FTdx5000 to get the best of both worlds – the high-performance receiver capabilities of the FTdx5000 and the high-resolution Pan Adapter and Tuning features of a Software Define Radio (SDR).

We are using Simon Brown’s (HB9DRV) SDR-Radio Console Application to control the setup. The picture above shows this software, the RFSpace SDR-IQ, and the FTdx5000, in operation together in the phone section of the 20m band. As you can see, the software provides an SDR-like waterfall interface to the radio. The SDR-Radio Console software has the option to control the FTdx5000 via its CAT Interface, and we have enabled this in our configuration. All one needs to do is click on one of the signals on the waterfall or drag-tune the setup with a mouse, and the FTdx5000 is automatically tuned to operate on the correct frequency to receive the desired signal. The current version of the software only controls one of the FTdx5000’s two VFOs, but Simon has indicated that he plans to add support for controlling a connected transceiver’s second VFO in the future. This combination results in a considerable improvement in the FTdx5000’s operating interface. In addition to the waterfall display, the SDR-Radio Console software also provides audio scope and other spectrum scope functions as part of its displays.

SDR-IQ Receiver

The RFSpace SDR-IQ Software Defined Receiver is a small unit that connects to our FTdx5000 via the IF output connection on the transceiver. This device uses the FTdx5000’s wide-band IF signals to create a digitized IQ interface. Our readers should note that only a few radios have an IF output built-in – fortunately for us, the FTdx5000 does have such an output. See RFSpace’s website for some options for radios that do not have a built-in IF output. The SDR-IQ can “see” up to 190 kHz of bandwidth on the transceiver’s IF, which is more than enough to cover an entire sub-band spectrum on most HF bands. The SDR-IQ unit connects to the PC, which runs the SDR-Radio Console software via a USB interface (a USB 3.0 connection is recommended). With some simple configuration and adjustments to the RF levels in SDR Console, the unit was ready to go (we used the software supplied with the SDR-IQ to bring its firmware up to the latest version before setting up SDR-Radio Console). There is a groups.io support group for the SDR-Radio Console software, and the folks there were very helpful in answering our questions as we worked through installing the setup and getting it configured.

I believe that an SDR interface added to an existing “knobs and buttons” transceiver can provide a transceiver system that is much easier to operate. Thanks to folks like Simon Brown, HB9DRV, and his work on SDR-Radio Console software, we have yet another way to explore the world of Software Defined Radio.

– Fred (AB1OC)

Operating as W1AW/1 – ARRL Centenial QSO Party

April 27, 2014 by AB1OC

ARRL Centennial Celebration Logo

Anita (AB1QB) and I particularly enjoy operating as part of Special Events. We have been part of the 13 Colonies Special Event for several years now as one of the New Hampshire stations and we were anxious to help with the ARRL Centennial QSO Party as one of the W1AW/1 Stations for New Hampshire. We’ve been operating in both RTTY and SSB Phone modes for a few days now and have made over 1,200 contacts as part of the event so far. As I sit here writing this, Anita is operating as W1AW/1 on 17m SSB Phone.

More information on the ARRL Centennial QSO Party can be found here. The ARRL is planning to QSL all of the W1AW contacts as well as to provide a special version of the Worked All States (WAS) Award related to this event. There is also a leaderboard for points accumulated for ARRL Centennial QSO Party related contacts.

I hope that our readers will take some time to work the stations that are part of the ARRL Centennial QSO party. Its great fun for all involved.

– Fred (AB1OC)

Station Building Presentation At YCCC

April 7, 2014 by AB1OC

Yankee Clipper Contest Club Logo

Anita (AB1QB) and I are members of the Yankee Clipper Contest Club (YCCC) and we had the opportunity to give a presentation Station Design and Building at the YCCC Meeting this past weekend. The meeting also included two other excellent presentations:

“How to be a better single operator” by Randy Thompson, K5ZD
“Field Day from a Sailboat” by Chet Slabinski, N8RA

Our presentation was well received and the YCCC is a great group of contesters who are quite technically advanced in our hobby. We’ve updated our Station Building Series to include some of the latest information on these topics as well as the latest version of our presentation which may be found here.

– Fred (AB1OC)

Station Automation Part 3 – Antenna Cutover And Final Integration

April 3, 2014 by AB1OC

AB1QB Operating Position

The final article in our microHAM installation series will be about our station’s cut-over, configuration, and integration testing. The first step was to bring the second radio in Anita’s (AB1QB) position into the microHAM system. We also added a PR 781 microphone and boom from Heil Sound to her setup at the same time.

AB1QB Position Design

Anita’s second radio is an Icom IC-7610, and its integration into the system went very smoothly. We also integrated the control of our Power Amplifiers (a combination of Icom PW-1s and an Elecraft KPA500) into the microHAM system. As you can see from the diagram above, the amplifiers are dedicated to specific radios and can be controlled directly by each radio’s Station Master Deluxe (SMD). We used microHAM-supplied amplifier control cables for the PW-1, and I built a custom control cable for the Elecraft KPA500 (this was not difficult – both microHAM and Elecraft provide good documentation for the interfaces involved).

Bandpass Filter Control

I also built custom cables to allow our SMDs to control and automate the switching of our Bandpass Filter Units from Array Solutions.

Bandpass Filter Configuration

With the cabling done, I configured the SMDs to correctly set the control leads to switch the Amplifier and Bandpass filter bands based on the Transmit (Tx) frequency of the associated transceiver. The picture above shows the configuration for the bandpass filters. The configuration for the amplifiers is similar.

Control Box Configuration

The next step in the process was to add some microHAM Control Boxes to the uLink bus and configure their addresses. The picture above shows the control interfaces in our system, including the four SMDs. The addressing convention we use in our station has 40-series control boxes that control our 4×10 antenna switching matrix, 50-series control boxes that control our Tx antennas, and 60-series control boxes that control our Receive (Rx) antennas and associated equipment. The picture above also illustrates some of the Units we’ve defined on our Control Boxes to create interfaces to amplifiers, filters, antenna switching, and other controls.

Palstar Dummy Load

The first step in the cutover of our antennas was to connect the antennas and devices, which did not require complex control. This included our OCF Dipole and our Palstar High-Power Dummy Load. As each antenna was connected, the associated path was configured in the system and tested to ensure everything worked as expected.

Dummy Load Modification

I modified the Dummy Load to allow its lamp to be switched on when one of the radios in the shack selects it. This involved adding a couple of binding posts to the device and running the lamp bulb circuit through the binding posts. The posts are connected to a RELAY6 control box, and the microHAM system is configured to close the associated relay whenever a radio selects the Dummy Load. This makes it easy to see that the Dummy Load is selected and extends the life of the bulb.

Transmit Antenna Controls

The next step in the cutover process was to move all of our transmit antennas and rotators to the system one at a time and test them. This required constructing and testing some RS-232 serial cables to connect our three SteppIR Antennas and our Green Heron RT-21D Rotator Controllers to their associated DATA Control Boxes (top row in the picture above).

SteppIR DB36 Control

The picture above shows the configuration for one of our SteppIR Antennas – The Upper DB36 Yagi. This particular configuration step involved assigning the antenna to a DATA Control Box as well as telling the system the type of control protocol to use to control the antenna. The microHAM system “knows” about a wide array of serial and other controllable devices and implements the necessary protocols.

Receive Array Control And Sequencer

The integration of our 8-Circle Low-Band Receive Array involved some special steps at both the Hardware and Configuration levels. The connections on the RELAY10 control box above are used to “steer” the Rx array and enable or disable the shared Low-Noise pre-Amplifiers (LNAs). To protect this antenna from damage from nearby transmit antennas, power to the array must be removed a few milliseconds before transmission begins. This is normally done by a sequencer in a single radio station. Our station can have up to four radios transmitting on any of several different antennas on the low bands. To solve this problem, I used a RELAY6 control box to create a multi-radio sequencer. Each antenna that can transmit on the 160m – 60m bands has one of the relays on the RELAY6 shown above associated with it.

80m Delta Loop Sequencer

These relays are controlled via an optional SEQ control unit configured for each of the associated antennas. These relays are wired in series with the power lead for the 8-Circle Receive Array. Whenever any radio transmits on any band from 160m – 60m on one of the low-band Tx antennas, the associated relay is first opened (with appropriate delay) before Tx is enabled. This approach implements a multi-radio low-band sequencer across the four radios in our station. The control logic also powers down the array when it is not in use by any radio.

Virtual Rotator For 8-Circle Receive Array

The other “special” step involved in the integration of our 8-Circle Receive Array was the implementation of a “virtual rotator” for it. This involves creating a table in the system configuration which maps all possible headings to one of the eight available direction settings for this antenna. Once this is configured, the antenna behaves as if it had a conventional rotator associated with it. When it’s selected, loggers like the DXLab Suite and N1MM can automatically steer the antenna to the best possible direction selection to work a given station. The front panel rotator controls on the SMDs can also be used to turn the antenna just as if it had a “real” rotator.

Available Antenna Paths

With all of the antennas and other RF devices properly configured and interconnected in the configuration, the microHAM router software generates a list of available antenna paths, as shown above. The software automatically determines the path and associated control resource to connect a given antenna to a radio. Note that some of our antennas have multiple paths by which they can be reached. The software detects this and allows the alternative paths to be selected or, if configured as is the case with our 8-Circle Receive Array, be used by multiple radios at the same time. This table represents all of the possible antenna selections in our system.

Antenna Selection Configuration

The final step in the configuration process is to determine which antennas may be used by which radios on each of the available bands. The microHAM router software initially populates this table with all possible choices based on the “available antennas.” I edited the automatically generated configuration to remove a few choices which were not needed and to reorder the lists for each band so that the displays on the SMD would be the most logical for us to use. With these steps done, our configuration was complete.

Yagi Stack Control

The system is quite easy to use and provides easy-to-read and useful displays. The picture above shows the selection of our Stack of two SteppIR DB36 yagis on one of the radios. That radio (an Icom IC-7800) is currently on the 20m band tuned to 14.267 MHz for both transmit and receive. The two white squares show that both yagis are currently included in the stack. Options exist to use either antenna independently and to use them either in or out of phase in the stack. Both SteppIR DB36 antennas are pointed to 45 degrees (we can turn them independently), as can be determined from the numbers next to the white blocks and the direction of the arrow next to them. The row of buttons numbers 1 – 7 shows the available antenna selections for this radio on the 20m band.

80m Split Tx/Rx Antenna Selection

The picture above shows the SMD display for the same radio tuned to 3.658 MHz on the 80m band. Note that the antenna selections have changed to those available in our station for the 80m band. In this example, I am using different antennas for Tx (our 80m Delta Loop) and Rx (our 8-Circle Receive Array). The virtual rotator for the 8-Circle array is active, and you can see that this antenna is pointed toward 245 degrees (the virtual rotator input was 255 degrees, and the SMD picked the closed direction selection on the Rx antenna). Our 80m Delta Loop is vertically polarized and omnidirectional, which is indicated by the symbol next to it on the display.

Station Master Deluxe Keypad

In addition to the buttons and rotary controller on each of our SMDs, antennas can also be selected and steered via a keypad that is associated with each SMD. The keypads enable many functions, including direct entry of rotator headings, antenna selection, and setup for split Tx/Rx antenna operation.

MK2R+ Virtual COM Port Configuration

The microHAM platform (MK2R+ and SMDs) creates an interface to all our logging and control software on our PCs via a series of Virtual COM Ports. The ports for radio CAT interfaces, PTT and FSK (RTTY) keying, and control of the CW and Voice Keyers in the MK2R+ are created by the microHAM Router, as shown above. Each of the two radios at a given operating position has a unique set of ports for CAT and keying.

Station Master Deluxe Virtual COM Ports

In addition, the SMD associated with each radio creates additional virtual COM ports to allow software programs to control the rotator associated with the currently selected antenna(s) on that SMD. The control also includes any “virtual rotators” associated with antenna(s) that may be selected on a given SMD.

DXLab Radio Control

We use the DXLab Suite and the N1MM+ Logger at our station, which works well with the microHAM system. DXLab, including its Commander component (lower-right), is shown above, which provides the radio interface to the suite. If you look closely, you can see the Commander radio buttons, which select either of the two radios at this position. DXLab (and N1MM) know the microHAM control protocol and will automatically switch the associated MK2R+ to use the appropriate radio. This includes setting which radio is active to Tx, what audio is heard in the headphones/speakers, and what audio goes to the sound card for the associated MK2R+ and its radios. The appropriate routing of the shared microphone and CW paddles is also automatically configured.

DXLab and HRD Rotator Control

The picture above shows our rotator control software. We are using two programs here. In the upper left is DXLab’s DXView program, which will steer our antennas in the direction associated with the callsign currently entered into the logger. The other rotator controller is HRD Rotator (lower right) which displays a map of the world and a path. We can click on any location on HRD’s Rotator’s map, and the software will turn the currently selected antennas in that direction. The use of independent rotator control programs is made possible by the microHAM Router, which implements two separate Virtual COM Ports for the rotator(s) associated with each SMD’s selected antenna(s) for its associated radio.

As you can probably tell from the articles in this series, the microHAM system is very powerful and can handle most any station’s setup, including those which are much more complicated than ours. While the construction and configuration work described here may seem a little complex, it’s not that difficult to create a good plan for your system at the outset (see the first post in this series). The documentation for the microHAM system is very good, and Jozef (OM7ZZ) and Joe (W4TV) at microHAM were very good about answering my questions and steering me in the right direction as I built and configured my system. There is also a good Yahoo! group for the microHAM system. You may want to look at the other articles in this series for more information as well:

I had the opportunity to use our new microHAM System as part of the 2014 CQ WPX SSB Contest this weekend, which helped me improve my score. For more on this, check out the article on the contest on this Blog.

We are considering the addition of legal limit solid-state amplifiers and high-power bandpass filters to our station, which will be integrated into the microHAM system when installed. I am also experimenting with the addition of a software-defined radio to the setup. I plan to provide additional articles here as those projects proceed.

– Fred, AB1OC

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