Plans for 2017 Station Upgrades – Radio, Shared Amplifier, and Remote Op Enhancements

October 9, 2017 by fkemmerer

Current Flex-6700 Remote Operating Gateway and Icom IC-7600 Transceiver

We have several station upgrades planned for this fall. Our planned upgrades include the following:

Enhancing our FlexRadio 6700-based Remote Operating Setup to include additional remote control client options, better networking via the Internet, and better integration with our microHAM system – you can read about this completed project here.
Upgrading the second radio in Anita’s (AB1QB) operating position from the current Icom IC-7600 to a new Icom IC-7610 SDR-Based Transceiver
Adding a new shared Elecraft KPA1500 Solid State Amplifier to our station. The KPA1500 will be shared between the Icom IC-7610 and our FlexRadio 6700-based Remote Operating Gateway.

We always begin our station projects by updating our station design documents.

Updated Remote Operating Gateway Architecture

Our Remote Operating enhancements will include the following:

Updating our FlexRadio SmartSDR Software to V2, which provides operation of the radio over the Internet
Using the SmartSDR CAT Cable features to create a direct interface between the FlexRadio 6700 and the microHAM Station Master Deluxe associated with the SDR
The addition of a Maestro Control Console to our set of PC-based remote operating clients

The figure above shows an updated architecture for our Remote Operating Gateway, including these enhancements. The planned Elecraft KPA1500 solid-state amplifier will simplify the software associated with remotely controlling and monitoring the amplifier, tuner, and wattmeter components in our previous remote operating setup.

Icom IC-7610 SDR-Based Transceiver

We have been quite impressed with the performance of our Icom IC-7300’s radio receiver. As a result, we have decided to upgrade the second radio in Anita’s operating position to an Icom IC-7610. We expect the IC-7610’s receiver performance to be as good as or better than the IC-7300.

Icom IC-7610 External Display

The Icom IC-7610 also provides a nice external display capability, allowing us to take advantage of the radio’s pan adapter. We believe that the IC-7610 will integrate easily into our microHAM system. It should be a “drop-in” replacement for our current IC-7600. We hope to see the IC-7610 shipping before the end of this year.

Elecraft KPA1500 Legal Limit Solid State Amplifier

Our final upgrade will be to add an Elecraft KPA1500 Solid State Amplifier. This amplifier provides 1500 watts on all bands 160m – 6m. The new amplifier will bring up the Icom IC-7610 and our FlexRadio SDR-Based Remote Operating Gateway to full legal limit power. This will be especially helpful on the 6m band where both the IC-7610’s and the FlexRadio 6700’s excellent receiver performance will help us to take the best advantage of the extra power for Meteor Scatter and other weak signal work on 6m.

microHAM KPA1500 Shared Amplifier Design

Our microHAM Station Automation System can accommodate shared amplifiers. We will utilize this capability when integrating the Elecraft KPA1500 into our station. The shared amplifier setup will also allow us to eliminate one of our bandpass filters. The KPA1500 amplifier integrates autotuner and wattmeter functions into the amplifier and provides a direct Ethernet interface for remote control and management. These enhancements should eliminate the need for several remote control server software applications we are currently running on a PC in our shack. Also, we can manage all of these functions from a single client application on a remote client PC. These simplifications will make our remote operating gateway setup more reliable and easier to use.

FlexRadio Maestro Control Console

We plan to share more on these projects in future posts here on our Blog. The FlexRadio Maestro and all the other components we need for Remote Operating Gateway enhancements have arrived. We will complete this part of our project in the very near future and post more here.

Also, the local control interface to the new Elecraft KPA1500 amplifier appears nearly identical to that used by our current Elecraft KPA500 Amplifier. This means that we can begin our shared amplifier upgrades using the KPA500. We do not have a firm date for the IC-7610 to ship, and that portion of our upgrade plans is likely to be our last step in the project.

Special thanks to Dave, K1DLM, who has helped us with ideas for several aspects of this project.

Fred, AB1OC

Fall Antenna Projects – A New Low-Band Receive Antenna System

November 27, 2016 by fkemmerer

NCC-1 Receive Antenna System Control Unit and Filters

Anita and I like to take advantage of the mild fall weather to do antenna projects at our QTH. We have completed two such projects this fall – the installation of a Two-Element Phased Receive System and a rebuild of the control cable interconnect system at the base of our tower.

NCC-1 Receive Antenna System Components

Our first project was the installation of a DXEngineering NCC-1 Receive Antenna System. This system uses two receive-only active vertical antennas to create a steerable receive antenna system. The combination can work on any band from 160m up to 10m. We set ours up for operation on the 80m and 160m bands.

NCC-1 Receive System Antenna Pattern

The NCC-1 System can be used to peak or null a specific incoming signal. It can also be applied to a noise source to null it out. The direction that it peaks or nulls in is determined by changing the phase relationship between the two Active Antenna Elements via the NCC-1 Controller.

NCC-1 Filter Installation

The first step in the project was to open the NCC-1 Control Unit to install a set of 80m and 160m bandpass filter boards. These filters prevent strong out-of-band signals (such as local AM radio stations) from overloading the NCC-1. The internal switches were also set to configure the NCC-1 to provide power from an external source to the receive antenna elements through the connecting coax cables.

Installed Active Receive Antenna Element

The next step in the project was to select a suitable location for installing the Receive Antenna Elements. We choose a spot on a ridge that allowed the two Antenna Elements to be separated by 135 ft (for operation on 160m/80m) and which provided a favorable orientation toward both Europe and Japan. The antenna elements use active circuitry to provide uniform phase performance between each element’s 8 1/2-foot whip antenna and the rest of the system. The antenna elements should be separated by a 1/2 wavelength or more on the lowest band of operation from any towers or transmit antennas to enable the best possible noise rejection performance.

Received Antenna Element Closeup

The two Antenna Elements were assembled and installed on 5 ft rods which were driven into the ground. To ensure a good ground for the elements and to improve their sensitivity, we opted to install 4 radials on each antenna (the black wires coming from the bottom of the unit in the picture above). The Antenna Elements are powered through 75-ohm flooded coax cables which connect them to the NCC-1 Control Unit in our shack. The coax cable connections in our setup are quite long – the longer coax of the pair being approximately 500 ft. The use of flooded coax cable allows the cables to be run underground or buried. Should the outer jacket become nicked, the flooding glue inside the cable will seal the damage and keep water out of the cable.

Receive RF Choke

It is also important to isolate the connecting coax cables from picking up strong signals from nearby AM Radio stations, etc. To help with this, we installed Receive RF Chokes in each of the two coax cables which connect the Antenna Elements to the NCC-1. These chokes need to be installed on ground rods near the Antenna Elements for the best performance.

Underground Cable Conduit In Our Yard

We ran the coax cables underground inside cable conduits for a good portion of the run between the antenna elements and our shack. The conduits were installed in our yard when we built our tower a few years back so getting the coax cables to our shack was relatively easy.

Receive Antenna Coax Ground System

The last step in the outdoor part of this project was to install a pair of 75-ohm coax surge protectors near the entry to our shack. An additional ground rod was driven for this purpose and was bonded to the rest of our station’s ground system. We routed both of the 75-ohm coax cables from the two Antenna Elements through surge protectors and into our shack. Alpha-Delta makes the copper ground rod bracket shown in the picture for mounting the surge protectors on the ground rod.

Antenna Equipment Shelf In Our Shack (The NCC-1 Control Unit Is At The Bottom)

The installation work in our shack began with the construction of a larger shelf to hold all of our antenna control equipment and to make space for the NCC-1. The two incoming coax cables from the Antenna Elements were connected to the NCC-1.

microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controller

Antenna switching and control in our station is handled by a microHAM System. Each radio has a dedicated microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controller which can be used to select separate transmit and receive antenna for the associated radio. The microHAM system allows our new Receive Antenna System to be shared between the 5 radios in our station.

Antenna Switching Matrix

The first step in integrating the Receive Antenna System was to connect the output of the NCC-1 to the Antenna Switching Matrix outside our shack. We added a low-noise pre-amp (shown in the upper left of the picture above) to increase the sensitivity of the Antenna System. The blue device in the picture is a 75-ohm to 50-ohm matching transformer which matches the NCC-1’s 75-ohm output to our 50-ohm radios. The other two pre-amps and transformers in the picture are part of our previously installed 8-Circle Receive Antenna System.

Multi-Radio Sequencer

The Antenna Elements must be protected from overload and damage from strong nearly RF fields from our transmit antennas. In a single radio station, this can be handled via a simple sequencer unit associated with one’s radio. In a multi-op station such as ours, it is possible for a different radio than the one which is using the Receive Antenna System to be transmitting on a band that would damage the Receive Antenna System. To solve this problem, we built a multi-radio sequencer using one of the microHAM control boxes in our station. The 062 Relay Unit shown above has one relay associated with each of the five radios in our station. The power to the Receive Antenna System is routed through all 5 of these relays. When any radio transmits on a band that could damage the Antenna Elements, the associated relay is automatically opened 25 mS before the radio is allowed to key up which ensures that the system’s Antenna Elements are safely powered down and grounded.

Updated microHam Antenna System Diagram

With all of the coax and control connections complete, I was able to update the microHam system design information for our station and add the new receive antenna system to our setup. You can find more about the programming of our microHam system here.

NCC-1 Controls

So how well does the system work? To test it, we adjusted the NCC-1 to peak and then null a weak CW signal on 80m. This is done by first adjusting the Balance and Attenuator controls on the NCC-1 so that the incoming signal is heard at the same level by both Antenna Elements. Next, the B Phase switch is set to Rev to cause the system to operate in a signal-nulling configuration, and the Phase control is adjusted to maximize the nulling effect on the target signal. One can go back and forth a few times between the Balance and Phase controls to get the best possible null. Finally, the incoming signal is peaked by setting the B Phase switch to Norm.

Peaked And Null’ed CW Signal

The picture above shows the display of the target CW signal on the radio using the NCC-1 Antenna System. If you look closely at the lower display in the figure (nulled signal) you can still see the faint CW trace on the pan adapter. The difference between the peak and the null is about 3 S-units or 18 dB.

NCC-1 Used For Noise Cancellation

The NCC-1 can also be used to reduce (null out) background noise. The picture above shows the result of doing this for an incoming SSB signal on 75m. The system display at the top shows an S5 SSB signal in the presence of S4 – S5 noise (the lower display in the picture). Note how clean the noise floor for the received SSB signal becomes when the unit is set to null the noise source which comes from a different direction than the received SSB signal.

We are very pleased with the performance of our new Receive Antenna System. It should make a great tool for DX’ing on the low bands. It is a good complement to our 8-circle steerable receive system which we use for contesting on 160m and 80m.

Tower Control Cable Interconnects (Bottom Two Gray Boxes)

Our other antenna project was a maintenance one. We have quite a number of control leads going to our tower. When we built our station, we placed surge protectors at the base of our tower and routed all of our control leads through exposed connections on these units. Over time, we found that surge protection was not necessary and we also became concerned about the effects that sunlight and weather were having on the exposed connections. To clean all of this up, we installed two DXEngineering Interconnect Enclosures on our tower and moved all the control cable connections inside them.

Inside View Of Interconnect Enclosures

We began with a pair of enclosures from DXEngineering and we mounted screw terminal barrier strips on the aluminum mounting plates in each enclosure. The aluminum plates are grounded via copper strap material to our tower.

Closer Look At One Of The Interconnect Enclosures

The picture above shows one of the interconnection boxes. This one is used to connect our two SteppIR DB36 Yagi Antennas and some of the supporting equipment. The barrier strips form a convenient set of test points for troubleshooting any problems with our equipment on the tower. There are almost 100 control leads passing through the two enclosures and this arrangement keeps everything organized and protected from the weather.

With all of our antenna projects complete, we are looking forward to a fun winter of contesting and low-band DX’ing.

73,

Fred, AB1OC

Summertime Station and Antenna Projects At AB1OC/AB1QB

August 14, 2016 by fkemmerer

Summer is the time of year that many of us work on our antennas and improve our stations. Anita AB1QB and I did both at our QTH this summer.

Removing Lower SteppIR Yagi From Tower

Our SteppIR DB36 Yagis were due for some maintenance, so we took them off our tower. A special thanks to all the Nashua Area Radio Club members who helped us remove, recondition and reinstall our antennas! Matt Strelow, KC1XX of XX Towers, and Andrew Toth provided equipment and know-how to safely remove our two large SteppIR DB36 Yagis with help from the rest of us.

Lowering Antenna With Electric Winch

The SteppIR DB36 Yagis weigh almost 200 lbs each, and Matt used his electric winch to lower them.

Antenna Coming Down The Tram Line

The picture above shows the lower antenna coming off the tower. We used a Tram Line system to lower both antennas to the ground so that we could rebuild them.

SteppIR DB36 Antenna On The Ground

The SteppIR DB36 Yagis are quite large. They have 36 ft booms, and the driven elements are almost 50 ft from tip to tip! They completely fill up our backyard when they are both off the tower.

Element Pole Sun Damage

The rebuild process began with a careful inspection of both antennas. They were both in good overall condition, with some sun damage to the paint on the fiberglass element poles.

Disassembled SteppIR DB36

We removed all the element tubes and sweeps from both antennas for rebuilding. The picture above shows the disassembled upper antenna.

Reconditioned Stepper Motors Installed

All four Stepper motors on both antennas were replaced. These motors move metal tapes inside hollow element tubes to adjust the length of each antenna’s 4 movable elements. These adjustments are done automatically by controllers in our shack which receive frequency information from the radios connected to each antenna.

Reconditioned Element Sweep Poles

All element housing poles were cleaned, prepped, and painted with a UV-resistant clear coat to protect them from further sun damage. The poles were cleaned up like new.

New Element Sweeps Ready For Installation

All the new element sweep tubes (shown above) were assembled next. Each antenna has six sweeps.

Element Pole Preparation

The end of each element pole must be prepped with a tape system that ensures that the poles are seated properly, sealed to, and firmly attached to the sweeps. This process and the associated assembly and tightening of the element couplers was the most time-consuming step in the rebuild process, as it had to be repeated 24 times.

Rebuilt Element Assembly

Here’s a picture of one of the rebuilt element tube assemblies. The ropes support the element tubes and keep them aligned when the antenna is up. These elements are attached to the antenna motors with couplers and clamps.

SteppIR DB36 Yagi – Rebuild Complete

The picture above shows the lower antenna with all the element tubes reattached. There is quite a bit of additional prep work associated with adjusting all the supports and taping all the exposed areas of the antennas, which are susceptible to sun damage. Also, all the electrical wiring on the antenna must be checked to ensure good electrical connections and good overall condition of the wiring.

Ground Test Setup

The final step in rebuilding the antennas is to test their operation on the ground. This ground test is done to ensure that all the motors are working correctly and that the element tapes move smoothly inside the rebuilt element tubes.

Ground Test Results

Another important part of the antenna Ground Test is to confirm that the antennas have a consistent resonant frequency and SWR on all bands. The resonant frequencies and SWR levels are far from those measured when the antennas are on the tower at operating height. The idea is to confirm that a resonance exists and that its frequency and SWR readings are repeatable as the antenna is adjusted to different bands.

With both antennas rebuilt, it was time for Matt and Andrew to return and, with help from folks from our club, reinstall the rebuilt antennas on our tower. The video above shows this process. It is quite something to see! The installation took about 3 1/2 hours.

Updated SteppIR Controllers

The last step in the SteppIR DB36 rebuild process was to install the latest firmware in the associated SDA100 Antenna Controllers. There are some integration issues between the updated SteppIR Firmware and our microHAM system, but we are getting those worked out with help from the folks at both SteppIR and microHAM.

Icom IC-7851 With Display Monitor

I recently had a major birthday milestone, and Anita surprised me with a new radio – an Icom IC-7851. This radio is an upgrade/replacement for our Icom IC-7800. While the two radios are quite similar in their operation and interfaces, I did not want to install the IC-7851 until the SteppIR antennas were reinstalled and all of their upgrades were working properly with our current radios. With the antennas done, it was finally time to install the new radio!

Icom C-7851 Transceiver

The Icom IC-7851 has several important performance upgrades. The most impactful one is a new low-phase noise oscillator which significantly improves RMDR performance compared to the IC-7800. The IC-7851 is in the top tier of Transceivers in Sherwood Engineering’s tests. The receivers in the IC-7851 are very quiet, have excellent Dynamic Range, and perform great when close-in interference is present.

Icom IC-7851 Display Monitor

The Icom IC-7851 has a higher resolution and faster display. It also supports higher-resolution external monitors, so we installed an upgraded display monitor along with the new radio. The IC-7851 has a number of new networking features and supports stand-alone remote operation over a LAN and the Internet. We are planning to use these capabilities to add a second remote operating gateway to our station. More on this in a future article.

The rebuilt antennas and the new IC-7851 Transceiver have our station performing better than ever. The antennas are working as well or better than when they were new, and the IC-7851 has significantly better receive performance compared to its predecessor and is a pleasure to use.

We will be hosting the ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY contest for our club members who have received their first license in the last 3 years next weekend, and we’re going to use the new radio and rebuilt antennas for the contest.

This project was completed in a little over two weeks and was a lot of work. I could not have done the project without the help of the many folks in the Nashua Area Radio Club. Again, a big Thank You to all the folks in our club who helped me with this project! I hope that many of you will be able to find some time to operate from our upgraded station.

Fred, AB1OC

Software Defined Radio/Remote Operating Gateway Part 3 – On The Air Remote!

November 29, 2015 by fkemmerer

Remote Operating Setup In Our Home Office

In the previous articles in this series, we explained how we integrated a FlexRadio-6700 Software Defined Radio (SDR) into our station and how we used it as a platform to build the Remote Operating Gateway for our station. The project has turned out to be somewhat involved so we will be providing a series of articles to explain what we did:

With all of the hardware and software installed and the integration steps complete, we will show some examples of using our remote operating setup on the air in this article. The first set of operating examples was made using the Remote Operating Client PC in our Home Office. This system is shown in the picture above.

Working The VK9WA DXpedition – Left Monitor

We were able to make several contacts with the VK9WA DXpedition to Willis Island using our remote operating setup. The picture above provides a closer look at how we set up our Remote Client PC to work VK9WA (you can click on the pictures here to see a larger view). We just completed a CW contact with the VK9WA DXpedition on 40m and you can see that we have the QSO logged in DXLab’s DXKeeper. We used CW Skimmer to help determine where the operator was listening (more on this in a bit). We also used our Elecraft KPA500 Amplifier to make it a little easier to break through the pileup.

Working The VK9WA DXpedition – Right Monitor

The picture above shows a better view of the second monitor on our Remote Client PC. SmartSDR is running to control our FlexRadio-6700 SDR and it is set up for split operation in CW mode on the 40m band. We also have DXLab’s DXView running and we used it to point our antennas to the short path heading for the VK9WA DXpedition. Finally, we used DXLab’s WinWarbler to remotely key the Winkeyer connected to our SDR in the shack to make the actual contact.

VK9WA DXpedition 30m Pileup Viewed From CW Skimmer

The video above shows the VK9WA DXpedition operating split in CW mode on the 30m band. Note how CW Skimmer allows us to see exactly where the operator is listening (the VK9WA operator’s signal is the green bar at the bottom and the stations being worked can be seen sending a “599” near the top). You can see many of the folks trying to work the VK9WA DXpedition move near the last station that is worked in the pileup video.

VK9WA DXpedition 30m Pileup Viewed From SmartSDR

The next video shows the VK9WA pileup in the SmartSDR application which controls the radio. This video provides a closer look at how SmartSDR is set up for split operation. Can you find the station that the VK9WA operator worked? It is not quite in Slice Receiver B’s passband.

Laptop Remote Operating Client

We also configured our Laptop PC to be a Remote Operating Client for our station. Our Bose SoundLink Bluetooth Headset is used as both a wireless microphone and headphones with this system. Our Laptop Client PC can be used from any location on our property via the WiFi Wireless extension of our Home Network.

Window Arrangement For remote Operating From Laptop

Since our Laptop PC has limited screen space, we created a configuration of overlapping windows to provide access to SmartSDR, key elements of the DXLab Suite, and the applications which control/monitor our KPA500 Amplifier and Antennas. Each window is arranged so that a portion of it is always visible so that we can click on any required window to bring it forward when we need to use it.

Operating From Our Remote Laptop Client – A 20m SSB QSO

The video above shows a QSO that we made with AD0PY, David, and his friend Daniel in Missouri, USA. We used the FlexRadio-6700 SDR/SmartSDR combination in VOX mode to make transmit keying simpler. At the beginning of the QSO, we turned our antennas to point to AD0PY. Also, note the operation of the KPA500 Amplifier when we transmit in the video. The QSO is logged in DXLab’s DXKeeper at the end of the contact in the usual way. It’s fun to make casual contacts this way!

As you can see from this post, there is very little difference when we operate our station remotely or from our shack. This was an important goal that shaped the design of our Remote Operating Gateway and Client PC setup. Future posts will provide some details on how we set up the CW Skimmer and Digital Mode (RTTY, PSK, and JT65/JT9) software to work on our Remote PC Clients.

– Fred, AB1OC

Software Defined Radio/Remote Operating Gateway Part 2 – Client/Server Setup And Software

November 29, 2015 by fkemmerer

Remote Operating Gateway Client/Server Architecture

The next step in our Software Defined Radio/Remote Operating Project was to build a Remote Operating Gateway System in our shack and set up Client PCs to operate our station remotely. In a previous article, we explained how we integrated a FlexRadio 6700 Software Defined Radio (SDR) into our station to create a platform to build our remote operating project around. This project has turned out to be somewhat involved, so we will be providing a series of articles to explain what we did:

Part 1 – System Design and Hardware Installation
Part 2 – Client/Server Setup and Software (Shack Equipment, Computers, and Software Enabling Remote Operation – this post)
Part 3 – On The Air Remote!
Part 4 – Remote Operating Enhancements
Satellite Station 4.0 Part 7 – Flex SDR Satellite Transceiver to Enable Remote Satellite Operation
PTT Switch for Remote Operation

In this article, we will explain the additional hardware and software we used to enable remote operating and some other equipment we added to our Client PCs that we use to run our station remotely. The reader may want to refer to the picture above as you browse this article to better understand how the parts in our remote operating setup fit together. You can click on any of the pictures on our blog to see a larger, easier-to-read version.

SmartSDR Software Operating With A FlexRadio 6700 SDR

FlexRadio’s SmartSDR Software handles operating the SDR remotely. At the present state of maturity, SmartSDR can operate over a wired or wireless Ethernet LAN connection. SmartSDR and the FlexRadio-6xxx hardware must function properly on the same sub-network. FlexRadio has indicated they plan to enable SmartSDR operation over wide-area broadband internet connections. The design we chose for our Remote Operating Gateway and Client PCs will allow the operation of our entire station over the internet when SmartSDR can fully support this. SmartSDR handles remoting of audio (microphone and speakers/headphones), CW keying over our Home Network (more on this later), and control of the radio. With these essential functions taken care of, we also need to remotely control the following functions of our station to fully support remote operation:

Control of the power to all of the remote equipment (FlexRadio-6700 SDR, microHAM Station Master Deluxe, W2 Wattmeter, and other Accessories)
Selection and control of our antennas and rotators via a microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controller
Monitoring and control of our Elecraft KPA500 Amplifier, KAT500 Auto-tuner, and W2 Power/SWR Meter

Remote control of equipment power is particularly important to provide a means to reset/restart equipment remotely and shut down the Transmitter remotely.

Remote GW Control Stack - Antenna, Power and Monitoring

Remote Gateway Control Stack – Antenna, Power, and Monitoring

Remote control of power for the components in our Remote Operating Setup is handled by a RIGRunner 4005i power control device. This unit provides remote power control over a network for up to 5 separate groups of devices. It also provides voltage/current monitoring and solid-state over-current protection.

RIGRunner Remote Power Control Setup

The figure above shows how we set up our RIGRunner 4005i. The device is controlled over our Home Network via a standard Web Browser. As you can see from the picture above, this device lets us remotely control power to all of the devices in our Remote Operating Setup.

Remote Control Relay Unit

The FlexRadio-6700 SDR requires some additional power control handling. Simply removing and applying power to the FlexRadio-6700 SDR will reset the radio and leave it in a power-off state. The FlexRadio-6700 SDR does have a remote power control input which can be controlled via a relay closure. We used a microbit Webswitch 1216H device to provide a remotely controlled relay closure to control the power off/on for the FlexRadio-6700 SDR.

Flex-6700 On/Off Control Via microbit Webswitch

The microbit Webswitch 1216H relay unit is also controlled over our Home Network via a standard Web Browser.

SmartSDR Setup - Tx Keying, Tx Interlock and Remote Power Control

SmartSDR Setup – Remote On/Off Control

The FlexRadio-6700 SDR is configured for remote on/off operation via the Radio Setup dialog in SmartSDR, as shown above. A cable is run between the remote power on/off port on the FlexRadio-6700 SDR and the microbit Webswitch 1216H relay unit to complete this part of our Remote Control System.

Beams On Our Tower

It is also important to have full remote control of our Antennas and Rotators to effectively use our station outside our shack. Control of our Rotators is accomplished by software that remotes serial COM ports over our Home Network.

Network Serial Port Kit

We used Fabulatech’s Network Serial Port Kit package to remote the serial COM ports used to control the microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controller, the associated antenna Rotators, and the WinKeyer associated with our FlexRadio-6700 SDR. This software runs on both the local Server computer in our shack which hosts the Remote Operating Setup, and any Client PCs which are used to operate our station remotely.

microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Control via Teamviewer and Development App

microHAM Station Master Deluxe Development Application Via TeamViewer

There is not currently a production software tool to enable remote control of the microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controllers we use in our shack. I plan to develop my own application to do this in the future. The folks at microHAM have been so kind as to provide me with the interface specifications needed to control the Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controller remotely along with a Developer Only test application (shown above) which can be used to understand the microHAM Device Protocol. In the interim, I have been using the microHAM Developer Only application along with the TeamViewer Remote Control Software to remotely control antenna selection and monitor the position of the currently selected rotators.

Shack Remote Operating Gateway Server PC Applications

The remaining software required for remote control of our station is provided by the Elecraft applications, which control the KPA500 Amplifier, KAT500 Auto-Tuner, and W2 Wattmeter, which are used in our Remote Operating Gateway setup. All of these applications, along with the microHAM Developer Only Application for Station Master Deluxe control and the DDUtil Program, which inter-works the FlexRadio-6700 SDR CAT interface with the Station Master Deluxe (see the previous article in this series) are shown above running on our Shack Server PC. This PC is on at all times and is protected by an Uninterruptible Power System (UPS) to ensure that it runs trouble-free.

Remote Operating PC Client Software Applications

In addition to FlexRadio SmartSDR, each server-side PC application has a corresponding Client Side application used on the Remote Operating Client PC. The three Elecraft Client applications for Amplifier, Auto-Tuner, and Wattmeter control and monitoring are shown above. The client-side Network Serial Port Kit application replicates the WinKeyer, microHAM Station Master Deluxe, and Rotator Control COM ports are also shown.

Heil Microphone And USBQ Adapter

The PC in our home office will be our station’s primary remote operating location. Audio quality is important to us, and we wanted to ensure that our audio quality was just as good operating remotely as it is when we operate from our Shack. To accomplish this, we installed a Heil PR781 Microphone, PL2T Boom, and USBQ Adapter/Pre-Amp on our home office PC. The Heil USBQ is a USB sound card and microphone pre-amplifier which connects directly to the PR781 microphone to create a high-quality phone audio source that can be used with the FlexRadio-6700 SDR when operating remotely.

Bose SoundLink Bluetooth Headset

The speakers on my home office PC are quite good, but sometimes a set of headphones is needed to hear weak signals. We choose a quality Bluetooth Headset from Bose for this purpose. The Bose SoundLink Headset is lightweight, wireless, has excellent fidelity, and includes a very good microphone which can be used as an alternative to the Heil PR781. This headset is also very useful when operating from our Laptop Client PC from noisy locations outside our home (more on this in a future article).

SmartSDR DAX Control Panel

The last pieces of the remote operating system are provided by two applications that are part of the SmartSDR software package. The SmartSDR’s DAX Control panel provides remote audio connections for Digital Mode Software and the CW Skimmer decoder. Audio is provided by software “audio cables” for each FlexRadio SDR’s Slice Receiver and the active Tx Slice. SmartSDR DAX Audio IQ interfaces are also provided for each of the SDR’s Panadapters which permits software like CW Skimmer to monitor and decode a wide range of frequencies simultaneously.

SmartSDR CAT

The SmartSDR CAT application provides CAT interfaces on both our Client and Server PCs for applications that need to control or monitor what the FlexRadio-6700 SDR is doing. Many loggers and other applications are beginning to implement direct IP interfaces to the CAT channel of the FlexRadio 6xxx Series SDRs. This approach simplifies interworking between the software and the radio and appears to be more reliable than virtual COM-based CAT interfaces.

Client PC Running SmartSDR And The DXLab Suite (Home Office)

With all of the above elements in place, any client PC that can access our Home Network can be used to operate our station. The picture above shows SmartSDR and the DXLab Suite running on our Home Office PC. The remote emulations of the Rotator, CAT, and Winkeyer interfaces are such that DXLab’s applications can fully operate our station as if they were running in our shack.

Client PC Running SmartSDR And The DXLab Suite – Right Monitor

The picture above shows a closer view of my Home Office PC’s Right monitor (click on the picture to enlarge it). SmartSDR is running the upper left corner, and I am listening to folks operate in the 2015 CQ WW DX CW Contest. The SDR is set on the 20m band, and I have the CW Keyer built into SmartSDR running. The DAX Control Panel is running on the lower right corner of the screen, and it’s set up for use with the CW Skimmer decoder. DXLab’s WinWarbler is running (top-center), enabling me to use the WinKeyer in the shack to send CW via the remote COM port associated with the WinKeyer. Below WinWarbler is the microHAM Developer Only application (accessed remotely via a TeamViewer connection to the Shack Server PC) which shows that I have both of our SteppIR DB36 Yagis selected as a stack and pointed towards Europe. DXLab’s DXView Rotator Control application is running in the center bottom of the screen so that we can turn our Yagis towards other parts of the world (rotators are controlled via another remote COM port). Finally, the client KPA500 Amplifier control application is running in the lower left corner to control the amplifier and to monitor the power out and SWR seen by the amplifier being used to operate remotely.

Client PC Running SmartSDR And The DXLab Suite – Left Monitor

The picture above shows a closer view of the left monitor. DXLab’s logger, DXKeeper, is running at the top/center of the screen. Below is DXLab’s SpotCollector application which monitors spots of the many CW stations worldwide operating in the contest. DXLab’s Commander applications are running in the lower-right corner of the screen and are monitoring the FlexRadio-6700 SDR’s slice Tx/Rx frequency and providing a control interface of the SDR to the rest of the DXLab Suite (via SmartSDR CAT). The Elecraft W2 Wattmeter client control application is just above commander. The W2 Wattmeter client application provides higher resolution power out and SWR monitoring for the remote setup. Bottom-center is DXLab’s Launcher application, and just to the left of that is the KAT500 Auto-Tuner Client Control application. Finally, CW Skimmer is running on the left side of the screen.

CW Skimmer Operating Remotely

As you can see, CW Skimmer decodes a wide range of frequencies in the 20m CW sub-band. It receives its audio in IQ format via the SmartSDR DAX application. It is great fun to operate CW this way, and I am finding myself making a lot more CW contacts now that I have the remote operating setup in my office.

The next post will provide some samples of remote operation in the form of videos. I will also share some information on setting up a Remote Operating Client on a laptop where screen space is more limited. We plan to take a trip outside our house to operate our station over the Internet and share information on how that is done. We will also provide future articles on how to set up CW Skimmer and Digital Modes (RTTY, PSK, and JT65/JT9) on the HF Bands and use them remotely.

For now, we are really enjoying the freedom to operate our station remotely!

Fred, AB1OC

Software Defined Radio/Remote Operating Gateway Part 1 – System Design And Hardware Installation

November 23, 2015 by fkemmerer

Flex-6700 Software Defined Radio And Remote Operating Gateway

We’ve been planning to add a remote operating capability to our station for some time now. We also did some previous work with a FlexRadio Software Defined Radio (SDR) in our station, and we felt that an SDR would be a good platform to build a remote operating project around. We decided to combine our remote operating goals with a next-generation SDR upgrade (a FlexRadio-6700) for our station. This project has turned out to be somewhat involved, so we will be providing a series of articles to explain what we did:

Part 1 – System Design and Hardware Installation (this post)
Part 2 – Client/Server Setup and Software (Shack Equipment, Computers, and Software Enabling Remote Operation)
Part 3 – On The Air Remote!
Part 4 – Remote Operating Enhancements
Satellite Station 4.0 Part 7 – Flex SDR Satellite Transceiver to Enable Remote Satellite Operation
PTT Switch for Remote Operation
Operating FT8 Remote on the 6m band

We will tackle our goals of building a Remote Operating Gateway (GW) in two stages. Stage 1 will focus on operating our station from other rooms in our house (our Home Offices are prime locations for this). Stage 2 will involve operating our station “On The Go” from anywhere in the world that has sufficient Internet Access is available. We also want to enable full control of our station when operating remotely, including:

Use of our Amplifier
Antenna Selection
Rotator Control
Equipment Power Monitoring and Management

We also use a microHAM station control system and contesting equipment as part of our remote operating gateway, and we want to fully integrate our new Flex-6700 SDR with this gear. Our Flex-6700 uses a dedicated Microphone to avoid audio integration issues that we encountered between the Flex-6700 and the microHAM MK2R+ that we use in our station.

Flex-6700 SDR/Remote Operating Gateway Architecture

The first step in this project was to develop a system design (pictured above). We opted for an architecture that uses the Flex SDR as a third radio in Anita’s Operating Position. Her position is now an SO2R setup with a Yaesu FTdx5000 as the primary radio and a choice of an Icom IC-7600 or the Flex-6700 SDR as the second active radio.

Elecraft KPA500 Amplifier and KAT500 Auto Tuner

Elecraft W2 Watt Meter

FilterMax IV Automated Band Pass Filter

The Flex-6700 SDR has an associated Elecraft KPA-500W Amplifier/KAT500 Auto Tuner combination, an Elecraft W2 Wattmeter, an automated bandpass filtering via an Array Solutions FilterMax IV, and a dedicated microHAM Station Master Deluxe (SMD) Antenna Controller. The Elecraft components are good choices for our remote operating project because they all have applications that enable them to be controlled and monitored over a network (more on this later in this series of articles).

Out Station’s Antenna System

The additional microHAM SMD allows the Flex-6700 SDR to access and control our antenna system and associated rotators.

K1EL WinKeyer

Our setup also includes a K1EL WinKeyer to enable computer-controlled CW keying of the Flex-6700 SDR. This device is relatively inexpensive in kit form and was fun to put together. We have a Bencher Iambic Paddle connected to the WinKeyer for in-shack CW operation.

SDR microHAM Integration

The diagram above shows the details of the device interconnections which make up the SDR Radio System. The microHAM SMD Antenna Controller requires a serial CAT interface to its host Flex-6700 SDR to determine what band and frequency the SDR is on. The Flex-6700 SDR does not provide such an interface directly but creates CAT control virtual ports on a host Personal Computer (PC).

DDUtil Setup – SDR Virtual CAT Access

DDUtil Setup – Bridging Physical Serial Port To SMD

To solve this problem, we used an application called DDUtil to bridge the derived CAT port associated with the SDR to a physical serial port on the PC. The PC’s physical port is then connected to the microHAM SMD associated with the Flex-6700 SDR. The pictures above show how DDUtil is set up to do this.

Station COM Port Configuration

The microHAM gear, WinKeyer, Rotators, Radio CAT Interfaces, Amplifier/Auto Tuner Interfaces, etc., all use serial or COM ports on a host PC for control. It’s also true that many loggers have trouble accessing serial ports above COM16. This requires a carefully developed COM port allocation plan for a complex station like ours. The figure above shows this part of our design.

A-B Switching Design For Radio Port 4

microHAM Bus Expansion and Antenna Switching Gear

The last part of the hardware puzzle required to integrate the SDR into our station was the installation of a second microHAM uLink Bus Hub, microHAM Relay 10 Control Box, and an A/B antenna switch controlled by the microHAM SMDs. This allows the 4th radio port on our antenna switching matrix to be shared between the Icom IC-7600 and the Flex-6700 SDR.

microHAM Configuration For SDR Station Master Deluxe

The last step in integrating the Flex-6700 SDR was configuring the microHAM system for the new equipment. This involves adding SMD #5 to the microHAM system and configuring it (and the rest of the system) to know about the Flex-6700 SDR, associated amplifier, and its interconnections to the rest of the system.

SmartSDR Software

The Flex-6700 SDR Hardware is controlled and operated over a network via FlexRadio’s SmartSDR Application. We have 1 Gbps wired and an 802.11 b/g/n Wireless Ethernet system in our home, and the SmartSDR/Flex-6700 SDR combination works well over either network. The software-based approach with most SDRs allows new features to be added to the radio via software upgrades.

SmartSDR Setup – Tx Keying And Interlock

It is very important to prevent the Flex-6700 SDR and the associated Amplifier from keying up when the antennas in our station are switched or tuned. The screenshot above shows the configuration of SmartSDR to enable the keying and interlock interfaces between the Flex-6700 SDR and its associated microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controller to implement these functions. This setup enables the Tx Keying and Tx Inhibit interfaces between the Flex-6700 SDR and the microHAM Station Master Deluxe to work properly to key all of the equipment in the setup (SDR, Amplifier, active Rx antennas, etc.) and to lock out keying when antennas are being switched or when one of our SteppIR antennas are tuning.

Flex-6700 SDR With CW Skimmer

We will cover additional software and integration steps to realize our Remote Operating goals. Check out the above video to see how the system performs. This video was recorded using our Flex-6700 SDR and CW Skimmer during the 2015 ARRL CW Sweepstakes Contest. We are really enjoying operating in CW mode with the new SDR setup!

Fred, AB1OC

Mobile HF And Station Building Presentations At The 2015 Boxboro Hamfest

August 21, 2015 by fkemmerer

2015 Boxboro Hamfest – Saturday Forum Schedule

It is once again time for the New England Regional Hamfest. This weekend, the convention will be held in Boxboro, Massachusetts, and will feature a great presentation and forum schedule, a large vendor exhibit area, and a HAM Flea Market. We will be doing presentations at Boxboro on two of the most popular topics we write about here on our Blog – Mobile HF Station Building and Amateur Radio Station Design and Construction.

2015 Boxboro Hamfest – Sunday Forum Schedule

Mobile HF Station Building and Operation Presentation

Our articles on Mobile HF Station Building have become quite popular, and we will be doing a presentation on this topic on Saturday at 11 am local time.

Mobile HF Car Installation

We continue to add new material to our presentations and the Mobile HF talk will include new material on a Dave, N1RF’s recent installation of a top-notch mobile HF station in a car.

Amateur Radio Station Design and Construction Presentation

We will also be doing a talk on Amateur Radio Station Design and Construction at 4 pm on Saturday.

Remote Operation Preview

We constantly update the material in this presentation. This version will include a preview of a new project to enhance our station – a Remote Operating Gateway based on a FlexRadio 6000 Series SDR.

We hope to see many of our friends and readers in the region at Boxboro this year. If you have a minute, stop by the forums and say hello.

– Fred, AB1OC

2014 Amateur Radio Highlights

January 29, 2015 by fkemmerer

Amateur Radio Highlights – our 2014 Readers Around The World

It is again time for our annual 2014 Year Amateur Radio highlights post. First, I’d like to thank our readers for their continued interest in our Blog. Our blog was viewed about 100,00 times in 2014 from 165 countries worldwide. You, our readers, have made 2014 our busiest year yet, and this provides Anita (AB1QB) and me with great encouragement to continue to provide content for our readers.

2014 was a very busy year in Amateur Radio for us. Our activities included a continued focus on station building, contesting, WRTC 2014, special events, providing presentations to help others in the hobby learn about new things, attending several HAM Events, progress on operating awards, and most importantly – time spent on the air operating.

microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controller

This year, we upgraded our fixed station to include a microHAM Station Automation system. This major project added some nice SO2R capabilities to our Multi-one station and automated the sharing of our antennas between our two SO2R operating positions. More of this project can be found here:

Eggbeater Antennas And Preamps SystemsOn Tower

Eggbeater LEO Satellite Antennas And Preamps Systems On Tower

We also added LEO Satellite capabilities to our station with the addition of some new antennas and electronics on our tower. This allowed us to make our first contacts through LEO birds with linear transponders. Our articles on this project include:

Our Mobile HF Station – Screwdriver Antenna

Our final major station-building project was constructing a state-of-the-art mobile HF station in our Ford F-150 pickup truck. We did this project in phases, starting with a simple setup using a 100W radio and HAM Stick antennas through the installation of a Screwdriver Antenna System for the 160m – 10m HF bands and concluding with the installation of an amplifier to enable high-power mobile HF operation. You can view the articles on this project here:

AB1OC Operating In the 2014 CQ WPX SSB

Anita (AB1QB) and I continued to be active in several contests this year. We both continued to develop our skills as contesters and our scores and place in the rankings reflected this. You can read more about our contesting activities and what we learned in the following articles:

WRTC 2014 Hollis Site Competitors, Support Team And Referee

We were also fortunate to host one of the WRTC 2014 competition sites. Along with our friend Scott Anderson, NE1RD, Anita and I acted as site managers for the only WRTC 2014 Competition Site in New Hampshire. You can read more about our WRTC 2014 experiences here.

13 Colonies Special Event QSL Card For K2K New Hampshire

Special event operations were a particularly fun part of our on-air activities in 2014. We operated as K2K, New Hampshire, in the 13 Colonies Special Event, W1AW/1, as part of the ARRL Centennial QSO Party, and as N1FD Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Nashua Area Radio Club. It’s great fun to operate in these events and the experience running the pileups that result continued to help Anita and me to develop our operating and contesting skills.

Introduction To The DXLab Suite

We prioritize devoting a significant amount of our Amateur Radio time to helping others in the hobby learn new things. In addition to writing this Blog, Anita and I try to create and deliver several presentations each year on a variety of topics of interest to the Amateur Radio Community. This year’s presentation included an update of our presentation on Amateur Radio Station Design and Construction and an Introductory Presentation on the DXLab Software Suite. We are always interested in working with Amateur Radio Clubs to deliver the presentation in person, where practical, or over the web.

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

We had the fortune to meet some of the legends in Amateur Radio this past year. Anita and I had the opportunity to get meet Bob Heil, K9EID and to appear on his Ham Nation podcast. Bob is an amazing gentlemen and we feel truly fortunate to have the opportunity to get to know him. We also had the opportunity to meet Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ, the President and Founder of QRZ.com. Fred visited our station and did an article about our station on QRZ.com. Anita and I both learned a great deal about HAM Radio and how it came to be what it is today as a result of the time these fine folks spent with us.

Joe Taylor’s WSJT Presentation At the ARRL Centennial Convention

Amateur Radio Conventions and HAM Fests were a major part of our Amateur Radio fun again this year. We were fortunate to attend and speak at the ARRL Centennial Convention in Hartford, CT USA this year – truly a once in a lifetime Amateur Radio experience. We also attended the Dayton Hamvention in 2014 where we had a chance to see all of the latest and greatest in Amateur Radio Equipment.

Our 2014 QSOs By Callsign

We were quite active on the air making almost 26,000 contacts between the two of us. As you can see from the graphic above, about 45% of our contacts were as part of Special Event Operations. We also made a little over 500 contacts from our mobile station, working over 100 DXCC entities in 2014 from the mobile.

Our 2014 QSOs By Band

We were active on all of the HF bands this year. We made our first contacts on the 60m band, and I was able to focus on the 6m band and earn a VUCC Operating Award (100 grid squares worked and confirmed) on that band. Anita and I made our first DX contacts in Europe on 6m in 2014. Anita took quite an interest in the 160m band, and she is working on a Worked All States Operating Award on this band. Our operating time using weak signal and satellite modes on the 2m and 70cm bands was limited to a few contacts this year. I did make my first contacts through LEO Satellites in 2014.

Our 2014 QSOs By Mode

We mostly operated in the SSB phone mode in 2014. Anita and I both continue to work on our CW skills, and we managed a little over 800 QSOs using CW in 2014. Anita was very active in the RTTY mode as part of her RTTY contesting efforts.

13 Colonies K2K New Hampshire QSL!

All of this operating resulted in quite a bit of QSL activity. We sent a total of almost 4,200 QSL cards in 2014!

We again made a video showing all of our contacts around the world in 2014. As you can see from the video, we were fortunate to work quite a bit of DX in 2014.

Fred’s 6M VUCC Operating Award

All of this operating helped Anita and me to make some progress on operating awards this year. In addition to earning a 6M VUCC, I completed a Worked All States Award on all 9 HF bands 160m-10m. I was also able to complete several nice regional operating awards (Worked All Europe TOP Plaque, Worked All VK Call Areas, and Worked All Africa) as well as upgrading my DXCC Challenge Award to the 1,500 Band Country level. Anita completed her JARL JCC Award (she worked 100+ Cities in Japan) as well as her Worked All States Triple Play Award (all states on SSB, CW, and Digital via LoTW).

Anita and I had a lot of fun with Amateur Radio in 2014. We look forward to another great year of HAM Radio fun in 2015. We hope to share some of what we learn and our experiences with our readers here on our Blog.

– Fred, AB1OC

LEO Satellite System Part 3 – Final Installation And First Contacts

September 19, 2014 by fkemmerer

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.

Experiences From The ARRL Centennial Convention In Hartford, CT

July 31, 2014 by fkemmerer

ARRL Centennial

The ARRL has been celebrating its 100th year this year with a variety of events. One of the biggest was the ARRL Centennial Convention in Hartford, CT this month. Anita and I were fortunate to be able to attend this excellent event and I wanted to share some of our experiences from Hartford with our readers. We began our Centennial Convention experience by attending the Contest University session that was held on the first day. No matter how many times we attend this excellent training day, we always learn some new things and techniques that we can practice in our contesting efforts.

Vendor Show

One of the key things to do at the Convention was the excellent Vendor display arena. In addition to an all-out booth run by ARRL, many of the major radio and equipment vendors were present. Beyond the Dayton Hamvention, this was one of the best vendor displays of this type that we’ve had the pleasure to attend.

Forums And Presentations

The best part, by far, for us were the excellent Forums and Presentations that were part of the convention. The ARRL managed to line up some of the most noted experts in the Amateur Radio Community to speak on a broad variety of topics.

Joe Taylor’s WSJT Presentation

One of the best was Joe Taylor’s (K1JT) excellent presentation on the weak signal digital protocols that he has developed and the software that he has created to enable the Amateur Radio community to make contacts using the Moon, Meteor Scatter, and other means in very marginal probation conditions. You can find out more about Joe’s work in this areas on his Home Page.

Gordon West 2M Tropo Presentation

Gordon West, WB6NOA gave an excellent presentation on Tropo Ducting Propagation on 2M. Gordon is very knowledgeable on this topic and he is also a very entertaining speaker!

Fred Lloyd’s QRZ Presentation

Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ founder of QRZ.com gave an interesting presentation on the history of QRZ.com and what he is doing with some new online logbook and QSO confirmation capabilities on his site.

Scott Andersen’s DXpedition In A Backpack Presentation

B. Scott Andersen, NE1RD gave a cool presentation on Lightweight DXpeditioning. Scott has perfected a practical approach to lightweight DXpeditioning and has also contributed much to the use of the Buddipole Antenna System via his work with that system as part of his operations (check out Scott’s excellent book – Buddipole In The Field).

Our Presentation On Station Building

I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to speak about Station Design and Construction as part of the program. You can check out our material on this topic via the overview post here or download a copy of the presentation that we gave in CT.

Gifts From Other Amateur Radio Organizations Around The World

There we several fun dinners and keynotes through the event. One thing that was very special was the presentation of awards to the ARRL from other Amateur Radio organizations around the world. The picture above shows some of the awards received by the ARRL.

The QSL Wall

There was also a QSL Card Wall at the event. Can you find the callsign of someone that you’ve worked in the picture above? There are a few rare ones in here.

All in all, the ARRL Centennial Convention was one of the highlights of our Amateur Radio experience to date. Anita and I feel very fortunate to have been part of it.

Fred (AB1OC)

Our HAM Station

Notes on the construction and operation of a multi-op Amateur Radio Station

Tag Archives: Shack Design and Construction

Plans for 2017 Station Upgrades – Radio, Shared Amplifier, and Remote Op Enhancements

Fall Antenna Projects – A New Low-Band Receive Antenna System

Summertime Station and Antenna Projects At AB1OC/AB1QB

Software Defined Radio/Remote Operating Gateway Part 3 – On The Air Remote!

Software Defined Radio/Remote Operating Gateway Part 2 – Client/Server Setup And Software

Software Defined Radio/Remote Operating Gateway Part 1 – System Design And Hardware Installation

Mobile HF And Station Building Presentations At The 2015 Boxboro Hamfest

2014 Amateur Radio Highlights

LEO Satellite System Part 3 – Final Installation And First Contacts

Experiences From The ARRL Centennial Convention In Hartford, CT

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