2016 ARRL Field Day!

July 8, 2016 by AB1OC

2016 Field Day Site Layout

I had the privilege of acting as the Field Day Incident Commander for the Nashua Area Radio Club this year. Field Day is the most important operating event for the Nashua Area Radio Club each year. We operated under our club callsign, N1FD and we were 7A here in New Hampshire, USA. We included some new antennas including a Three Element 40m V-Beam, a Satellite Station, and a 70cm Digital ATV Station in our operation this year. You can see some of the details which went into the planning of our 2016 Operation on our Club’s Tech Night Page.

The video above shows highlights from our 2016 Operation. As you can see, we had a lot of fun this year. Our club has 120+ members and we had a large turnout for Field Day. You can see more about our 2016 Field Day operation on our Field Day Page including photos, a score summary, and a recap presentation shared at a recent club meeting. I hope that you enjoy sharing our memories.

73,

– Fred, AB1OC

A New Project – Digital Fast Scan Amateur Television

February 19, 2016 by AB1OC

Digital Amateur Television (ATV) CQ Call

Skip, K1NKR a local friend and VHF/UHF expert and I began talking about the idea of building a Fast Scan Amateur Television (ATV) System some time ago. Our early research and the antenna equipment which we had in place at our stations led us to plan our ATV project around the 70 cm band. The 70 cm band plan in the United States has allocations for Fast Scan ATV transmissions with a bandwidth of up to 6 MHz. Our research led us to Jim Andrews, KH6HTV’s excellent website where we discovered that it was possible to build a Digital ATV station using reasonably priced commercially available DVB-T format Modulators and Demodulators. Jim’s site has a wealth of great Applications Notes on Digital ATV and it’s a great place to start learning about this technology. A combination of a DVB-T Modulator and Demodulator from Hi-Des was chosen as the heart of our Digital ATV System. We also worked with Jim to secure the needed Wideband Linear Power Amplifiers for the 70 cm band. We began receiving the equipment to build our Digital ATV Stations late last year. We’ve done quite a bit of testing on the air and some custom development work which has resulted in a pair of excellent-performing Digital ATV stations. The picture above shows a Digital ATV “CQ” that I sent to initiate one of our early QSOs.

Digital ATV Transceiver

Here’s a picture of Skip receiving my “CQ” at his end. The picture quality produced by the equipment that we’re using and the DVB-T format is phenomenal. The Hi-Des Modulator which we are using has a large number of parameters that can be set to determine the format and bandwidth of the signals we generate. After some experimentation, we have settled on using QPSK modulation and a 6 MHz signal bandwidth. This combination delivers excellent picture quality with more than adequate motion performance. We see very few if any picture artifacts using our current format. We’ve also done some experimentation with QPSK and a 4 MHz signal bandwidth. I plan to share more on signal formats in a future article on our blog.

Digital ATV System User Interface

We are both using HD Digital Camcorders as our primary video signal sources and 1080p monitors to display our received signals. I opted to include an HDMI Video Switch from Gefen in my setup which also allows me to send video and graphics from a variety of different sources including my PC over the air. The monitor in the picture above on the right is a touchscreen display that I use to control my ATV Transceiver system.

AB1OC Digital ATV Transceiver

Early on, I decided to build a Transceiver-like setup. I wanted to create a unit that was simple to use just like the HF Transceivers that are available today. Some of the key capabilities that I wanted to create include:

Real-time selection and switching between multiple HD video sources
Transmission of PC sourced Video and Graphics over the air
Preview and cueing of the next video transmission while receiving
Simultaneous display of both receive and pending transmit video
Built-in Transmit/Receive (T/R) switching with termination and protection of the Tx power stage
Sequencing of T/R stages including my tower-mounted pre-amplifier system
Power and SWR monitoring with an automatic trip on high SWR
An internal low-noise RF preamplifier to provide additional receive signal gain if needed
Touchscreen graphical interface for configuration and operating the station
Recording of both sides of on-air video QSOs to an attached PC

To achieve these goals, I decided to build a Raspberry Pi 2-based Linux controller for my ATV Transceiver and to package all of the ATV components and video switching/conversion gear needed in a small rack mount enclosure. Many of the components in the system communicate with each other over an Ethernet LAN and the transceiver is networked to computers and other devices via an external Ethernet connection. More on the details of the Transceiver design to come in a future article.

Skip and I recently produced a short video to demonstrate how Fast Scan Digital ATV works and to show the quality that these systems are capable of producing. Our project is still a work in progress and I expect that we will continue to learn as we perform more tests and continue the development of our systems. I plan to post additional articles here to share the details of our designs and learnings from our on-air testing as we proceed.

– Fred, AB1OC

Mobile Ham Radio – VHF-UHF Upgrade

October 13, 2014 by AB1OC

Mobile Ham Radio - Icom ID-5100 Transceiver

Mobile Ham Radio – Icom ID-5100A Transceiver

We installed a 2m / 70cm mobile ham radio setup in our Ford F-150 Truck about 3 years ago. The original installation used an Icom IC-2820H. We used this setup for access to our local repeaters on 2m and 70cm including the many DSTAR repeaters in our area. Our antenna mounts were showing some wear and I’ve been wanting to upgrade to the new Icom ID-5100A for some time now so I decided to replace the entire setup. The Icom ID-5100A was very easy to install – a virtual drop-in replacement for the Icom IC-2820H. The pedestal mount and bracket that I made for the IC-2820H worked fine for the control head of the ID-5100A.

Icom ID-5100 Main Unit Mount

The ID-5100A’s main unit was mounted on the driver’s side kick panel in the same place as the IC-2820H.

The display on the ID-5100A is much easier to read that the IC-2820H and the features that this radio has to locate nearby repeaters based upon the GPS position of the vehicle are also very nice. All in all, the Icom ID-5100A is a much more user-friendly radio to setup and use.

2m / 70cm Mobile Antenna and Mount

The original antenna and mounts on our truck were getting a little tired so I decided to replace them as well. We choose a Diamond K400C NMO mount and a Diamond SG-7900A 2m / 70 cm whip this time around. The Diamond NMO mount is very sturdy and should stand up well to the winters here in New England (as well as the car wash). The new Diamond whip has a bit more gain that the previous setup and is about the limit in terms of height for our location in New England, USA. It is has 5.0 dBi gain on 2m and 7.6 dBi gain on 70cm.

Antenna SWR on 2m

The new mount and antenna was easy to install in our F-150. A final checkout of the antenna’s SWR showed that the new installation was ready to go.

The new radio/antenna combination is working great and the improved usability and display on the ID-5100A is encouraging us to use our local DSTAR repeaters more frequently. The combination was a very worthwhile upgrade.

– Fred (AB1OC)

LEO Satellite System Part 3 – Final Installation And First Contacts

September 19, 2014 by AB1OC

Eggbeater Antennas And Preamps SystemsOn Tower

Eggbeater Satellite Antennas And Preamp System On Tower

With some help from Matt Strelow, KC1XX of XX Towers, we’ve gotten our LEO Satellite Antennas and Preamp System installed on our tower. We installed the antennas on a sidearm at about 80 ft and installed the preamp system (the upper left gray box) next to the antennas on the tower. The design and construction of our LEO Satellite System was covered in the Part 1 and Part 2 articles here on our blog.

Hardlines At The Tower Base

I choose a 7/8″ Heliax Hardline Coax (Andrews AVA5-50) for the feedlines between the antennas on the tower and the shack. I choose this type of cable to hold our losses end-to-end to about 1.0 dB for the 432 MHz side of the system. Our Icom IC-9100 Transceiver, which we will use for satellite work, provides 75W of output on the 70cm band, resulting in a maximum of about 45W at the antenna – plenty of output power for LEO satellite uplink work. The end-to-end loss on the 144 MHz side is about 0.6 dB resulting in an 85W out the maximum from 100W in. The antennas were connected to the preamps and through to the hardline coax cables using short LMR-400UF coax jumpers, and crimp-on N-type connectors were used throughout the system. The conduits buried under our lawn had plenty of capacity for the two additional hardline cables (the lower pair of large coax cables in the picture above). I also routed the control cables for the preamps through one of our smaller conduits.

Hardline Terminations At Our Shack

The hard lines (cables with orange and purple tape) were terminated with N-connectors, and the shack entry end through grounded PolyPhaser Lightning Protectors.

VHF – UHF Antenna Switching Console

The two sides of the LEO Satellite Antenna and Preamp system were terminated on our VHF – UHF switching console in our shack. The console uses Hofi-Technik Rotary UHF Antenna Switches to allow selection of the LEO Satellite Antennas as well as our M2 Antenna Systems 144 MHz and 432 MHz Yagis and a Diamond X-300NA 2m/70cm ground plane vertical, which we use for repeater work.

Preamp Control Cable Terminatons On Tower

Preamp Control Cable Terminations On Tower

We also terminated the control cable from our Preamp System on Control Line Static Suppressors at the base of our tower.

Preamp Sequencers

The Preamp Control Cable was routed to a pair of M2 Antenna Systems S3 Sequencers (top units in the picture above) to enable proper Tx/Rx sequencing to protect the tower-mounted Preamps from damage during transmit. These units allow the 144 MHz and 432 MHz Preamps to be turned on/off separately, as well as enabling the noise test function on the 144 MHz preamp. With all of the installation work done, I confirmed that the SWR reading on both antennas was in the specification at the input to the IC-9100 Transceiver and that both Preamps work (via an observed increase in noise level) when turned on.

Nova For Windows (FO-29 Satellite Pass)

The final step was to install the Nova For Windows program and download the latest Keplerian Elements for the HAM satellites that are currently operational. Nova For Windows allows me to determine when a given satellite is making a pass that covers both my QTH and the area where I want to try to make contacts. The program can also predict future passes, making planning satellite operating times easier. The picture above shows the footprint of the FO-29 and the ISS during a pass over my location.

Fuji Oscar FO-29 Satellite

On the day and time, I tried to make my first contacts, only satellites with Linear Transponders were making useful passes overhead. I try my first contact through FO-29 (Fuji Oscar 29), a V/U Mode (145 MHz uplink/435 MHz downlink) satellite.

First Satelllite Contact - EA1QS In Spain

First Satellite Contact QSL – Pablo, EA1QS In Spain

With my IC-9100 setup in Satellite/SSB Phone mode to transmit and receive on the proper frequencies and side bands and with the Tx and Rx sides set to track each other (this is one of the useful satellite Features provided by the IC-9100), I began by locating a clear frequency on FO-29’s transponder and transmitting on the uplink while adjusting my Rx offset until I could hear my own transmissions coming back from the bird. Once I found my receive frequency, I began looking for a station to work. As good luck would have it, I found Pablo, EA1QS in Spain, and made my first contact! It took some care to stay on frequency during the brief contact as the Doppler shift associated with the path through FO-29 was changing fairly rapidly.

I also made two contacts with W1AW/9, the ARRL Centennial QSO Party Operation in Illinois, USA. I made these two contacts through two different satellites. The first contact was made through VUSat VO-52, a U/V Mode (435 MHz Uplink/145 MHz Downlink) satellite, and the second one was made using FO-29 again. I was quite fortunate to make the contact through VO-52 as its batteries failed, and the bird went out of service just 12 days after my contact was made.

M2 Antenna Systems 70cm and 2m Yagis On Top Of Our Tower

My early experiences with our new LEO Satellite System have been good. The M2 Antenna Systems Eggbeater Antennas and tower-mounted Preamp System work quite well when the Satellites being worked are 30 degrees or more above the horizon. I can use our weak signal 2m and 70cm yagis (top two antennas shown above) and the associated tower-mounted Preamp Systems (two grey boxes just below the top of the tower) for Satellite passes below 30 degrees. This mode of operation will require computer tracking, which I can do via Nova For Windows or the Ham Radio Deluxe Satellite Software, both of which I already have. I plan to try this combination and provide additional setup and operational results for this configuration sometime in the future.

Its been a very busy summer, and I have not as much time to operate using LEO Satellites as I would like. With WRTC 2014, the ARRL Centennial Convention over, and the 13 Colonies Special Event and W1AW/1 New Hampshire portable operations completed, I hope to have more time to devote to Satellite Operation. It’s a lot of fun to make contacts through satellites, and this mode of operation will give us the chance to learn some new skills.

6m VUCC And 9-Band Worked All States

August 30, 2014 by AB1OC

6m VUCC Operating Award

The 2014 Es Season was my first chance to focus on operating on 6m. To help provide motivation, I set a goal to work and confirm enough Grid Squares on 6m to earn a VUCC Operating Award. After some time to confirm and for the ARRL to process everything, my VUCC came in the mail this past week.

6m VUCC Grids Worked And Confirmed

The 6m Es Season this summer was a good one for me. I worked and confirmed over 150 Grid Squares on the Magic Band including my first contacts with the west coast of the USA and with Europe. The picture above shows my progress on 6m Grid Squares to Date (the green ones are confirmed, map via WG7J’S GridMapper website). I have also completed checking for an additional 50+ Grid Squares and should be receiving my 150 Grid endorsement for the VUCC soon. I guess I’d have to say that I’ve gotten “the bug” for the Magic Band this season.

5-Band WAS Operating Award

The WAS award is often on of the first operating awards that HAMs in the United States pursue. It is a great award to develop some sound operating skills, prove in your HF station and make some new friends. The ARRL Centennial QSO Party with W1AW portable stations operating from each of the 50 US states provides a great opportunity to pursue WAS awards.

I’ve also been working on the contacts needed for a 5-Band Worked All States Award for some time now and I decided to focus on completing the contacts needed for this operating award last week. This probably seems like an award that should not be too difficult for a station in the United States and that is mostly true. There are two things that make this award a challenge – 1) working states that are “close-in” on the high bands like 10m and 15m, and 2) making contacts with less populated states like North and South Dakota, Montana, etc. especially on 80m.

Band Conditions (Or When Not To Operate)

The close in states like Vermont on 10m were some of the last ones that I needed along with a contact with North Dakota on 80m. As usual, I picked one of the worst days this year conditions-wise to complete the last few contacts. Rob, AB1NJ in Vermont helped me out with his state on 10m using JT65 and I worked W1AW/0 in North Dakota on 80m SSB to complete the last one needed for the 5B WAS.

I really enjoy operating on the WARC Bands and I often make 50 or so contacts in an evening on these bands. I have also been operating a lot on the Top Band (160m). At this point, I only need 3 more contacts (Montana on 80m, Nebraska on 30m and New York on 12m) to complete a 9-Band WAS (5B WAS plus WAS on 160m, 30m, 17m and 12m). I am planning to wait until I complete these and for all of the needed contacts to confirm to send in the paperwork for the 9B WAS.

I hope to perhaps someday make it to a 10-Band WAS, working all 50 states on 6m. At present, I’ve worked and confirmed 41 states on 6m but I know that Alaska and Hawaii will be very difficult during this solar cycle unless there is some extraordinary propagation event on 6m.

I find the pursuing operating awards provides good motivation to get on the air and work less common modes (like JT65) as well as to learn about and practice unusual operating techniques like HF Backscatter which I have used to work close in states on the high bands. Another benefit to this effort is that it has encouraged me to upgrade to Joe Taylor’s (K1JT) latest WSJT-X Software for working JT65 on the HF bands. Look for an article on WSJT-X here in the near future.

– Fred (AB1OC)

LEO Satellite System Part 2 – Antenna Assembly And Ground Test

June 24, 2014 by AB1OC

Assembled Eggbeater Satellite Antenna System

We continued our project to add LEO Satellite capability to our station this past weekend (you can read about the design of our LEO Satellite System here). With 370′ of 7/8″ Hardline Coax (LDF5-50A) ordered and with Matt Strelow, KC1XX of XXTowers scheduled to help with the antenna installation on the tower later this week, the only prep work left was to assemble our M2 Eggbeater Antenna System and preamps and test the setup. The first rule of tower work is to assemble and test as much on the ground as possible. To this end, we decided to mock-up the entire antenna system a few feet up from the base of our tower. The first step in the process was to assemble the M2 Eggbeater Antenna System. This step was not difficult.

Ground Pre-assembly And Test

We next assembled a Rohn sidearm mount and attached it to our tower about 5 feet from the ground. We then mounted the antennas and cross boom on the sidearm mount and did some SWR sweeps on just the antennas with a RigExpert Antenna Analyzer to ensure that the they were performing to specifications. Both antennas checked out just fine. They both had SWR readings of 1.2 or less across a very wide bandwidth.

Satellite Preamp System Mock-Up

The final step in the pre-assembly process was to mount the preamp system that we had assembled previously to the tower. We also built all of the coax cables needed to connect the system from the planned 7/8″ Hardline Coax Feedlines (LDF5-50A) through the preamps and to the antennas. We used LMR-400UF Coax for these jumpers along with crimp-on N-connectors (we crimp and solder the pins on these connectors to the inner conductor of the coax to improve reliability). We installed heat shrimp tubing to seal the connectors in the crimp ferrule area and then covered all of the exposed connectors with electrical tape and CoaxWrap sealing tape. We also installed a 200′ length of DX Engineering Heavy Duty Control Cable (DXE-CW8-HD) to the preamp system. With these steps done, we again verified that the SWR performance of both antennas checked out within specifications.

I plan to pre-install a run of control cable from the control line surge protectors at the base of our tower to the shack and hook the control cable up to our M2 Antenna Systems S3 Sequencers sometime later this week. With these steps done, we will be ready to put our LEO Satellite System on our tower and perform the final integration and testing steps with the rest of our station.

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)

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)

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.

AB1OC’s First VHF Contest – 2013 ARRL June VHF

June 10, 2013 by AB1OC

AB1OC Operating In The 2013 ARRL VHF Contest

When we built our new station last year, I decided to include antennas and equipment for 6m, 2m, and 70cm weak signal work. I have not had much chance to operate on these bands yet beyond some 2m EME work and a few contacts on 6m and 70cm. When the 2013 ARRL VHF Contest rolled around this past weekend, I was anxious to participate and get some experience with weak signal work on these bands. I spent some time on 6m the week before the contest to get a feel for this band and to check out my equipment. There was a good 6m opening to my east during this time, and I was able to work CU1EZ on the Azores; EA8DBM, EA8/G8BCG, and EA8CK on the Canary Islands; and J69MV in Saint Lucia. The longest of these contacts was over 3,100 mi. I’ve read a bit about propagation on 6m – 70m, including how short some openings can be. I certainly experienced this during the 6m DX opening before the contests – it did not last for more than an hour.

Logging And SO2R Control

My goal in the ARRL VHF Contest was to work out a good operating configuration and to get some experience with the VHF/UHF bands, and I did not plan to compete for a top score this time. To keep the software side simple, I decided to use my DX’ing logger, DXLab, which is already configured to work with our Icom IC-7800 (6m radio) and Icom IC-9100 (2m and 70cm) radio. I also used our MicroHAM MK2R+ as an SO2R controller to share headphones and a microphone between the two radios. This worked out OK, as the QSO rates during this contest were not extremely high even when I was running.

Rotator Control

I used two programs for controlling the rotator associated with the 6m SteppIR (6 elements) and the 2m (18 elements) and 70cm (21 elements) M2 Antenna Systems beams. The main program that I used here was Ham Radio Deluxe rotator. I chose it because it had the best grid square overlay map. This was useful for getting the antennas pointed at specific grid squares to work stations on 2m and 70cm after an initial contact on 6m. I also had DXLab’s DXView available to look up the specific coordinates for stations, but I did not use it very much during the contest.

I operated most of the day on Saturday and for a few hours on Sunday as preparations for the upcoming ARRL Field Day exercise required me to be away from my shack during parts of the contest period. I had good results running on 6m and used this band and mode of operation to make most of my QSOs. I also was able to run for some short periods on 2m as well. I have amplifiers that make about 1 Kw available on both bands, which greatly helped my ability to run effectively on 6 m and 2m. Most of my contacts on 70cm were a result of stations that I contacted on 6m or 2m, suggesting a contact on that band as well. I have about 100w available on 70cm, which proved adequate for contacts on 70cm as I got my antennas pointed accurately before moving up there to make contact with a station that was just worked on 6m or 2m.

I really enjoyed this contest a lot. The pace was a little more relaxed than most of the other HF contests I’ve participated in, and using two radios in SO2R mode was a new operating experience for me which was technically challenging at first. The following is a summary of my contacts during the contest.

Band	QSOs	Grids Worked
6 m	120	15
2 m	46	14
70 cm	19	6
Totals	185	35

There was a brief opening on 6m to Florida, USA, on Sunday morning, and I could work several stations there from my shack in NH, USA – a distance of about 1,200 mi. I also made contacts to the midwest and to several of the US eastern-central coastal states during the contest. All in all, the ARRL VHF Contest was a lot of fun, and participating in it helped me to gain confidence in my setup on the VHF bands. The only change in my VHF/UHF setup that I plan to make for the next VHF Contest is to use the N1MM Logger to take advantage of its ability to more effectively automate control of my SO2R setup.

Between the contest and my previous EME work, I have worked a total of 42 grid squares on 2m, and I am hoping to be able to complete an ARRL VUCC Award on that band some time in the near future.

– Fred (AB1OC)

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Category Archives: VHF-UHF

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AB1OC’s First VHF Contest – 2013 ARRL June VHF

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