Still do the lessons just to get faster but it is not most important anymore. I do a lot of plain text training which I do on a slightly higher speed of 28/14 wpm. So far this goes well. 

TX training is done with the Begali basic paddle, try to do it most of the days. My CQ of course and QRL?. Some abbreviations like GA, GM, GE, HW, BK, KN, AR etc. Having fun sending BENS BEST BENT WIRE.  

Try to listen to some CW QSOs but still they are way too fast. Found the slower ones but even that I cannot decode. Yes I recognize some letters and write it down only to find out that I cannot make anything out of it. The only thing I can decode successfully are some beacons after listening four or five times writing down and filling in the letters/numbers I missed in the next pass.

I think it is just a matter of continuing and hopefully I will get it in my mind somewhere along the long path to learn CW.

 Regular readers of this blog know that I build an experimental multiband square halo in 2022. 

After two years in my tower it started to detoriate. Of course this was kind of a prototype and very experimental and I know everything comes to an end. But it was a very solid performer and lots of DX could be worked. 

High performance speaker cable it reads. The thing is....the black insulation is perfect but the red one doesn't seem to withstand the elements...

Isolation just detoriated. 

Wire breaks on almost every corner.

Wires began to hang because the construction is not that solid.

I think I will make a rebuild, Have to search for alternative wire. I might use 300 Ohm twinlead or something else. Have to reinforce the construction as well... Weight is an issue of course. It would be so much easier using a thin single wire like most cobwebb designs use. I might consider that as well since I don't think there is much less performance not using full size loops instead of just dipoles, I could be wrong of course...

 

A while ago I continued the 3BMOX overhaul. As you can see on the photo I mounted everything according the user manual. Some bolts/nuts were missing and had to make new ones. So far it was not too difficult. Resonance on the 20m a bit on the high side, resonable on 15m but very bad on 10m. I really doubted I did mount something wrong. But measured everything and it everything was mounted exactly the way it should.

Here some measurements:

I asked and read about the issue. It is probably a matter of mounting the antenna too close to the ground. So I raised the antenna 1 mtr. Resonance was still on 28.2 MHz but SWR went down to 2,5:1. It could be right? Unfortunatly SWR on 15m went up from perfect to 1,3:1 after I raised the antenna. I wish I could put it up higher but the antenna is too heavy (22 kg) and big to do it on my own.

 

Received a new licence from the Dutch authorities today. It was my own request. The old one was not readable anymore. You need to have this with you when operating especially outside the Netherlands. The card only is enough in the Netherlands itself. I know that there are people that scratch the "not" from "CW not included" away. Because they know CW, but why not do the exam? We cannot do any CW exams here in the Netherlands but you can do it in Belgium.

 What can I tell about this season. It started reasonable well. Then things happened, or did not happen. Only 4 new DXCC on 6m and 3 new ones on 4m this season is a lot worse compared to previous years. I also didn't spend a lot of time on the radio compared to previous years.

The season started on the 14th of May for me with a QSO to Chile on 6m. CE4WJK was worked in very strong propagation to South America. QSO confirmed on LoTW.

2 June: I worked Italy IZ0TTG on 4m as expected. Not shure if Italy had legal access to 4m at that time. I worked IZ0TTG on SSB. QSO confirmed on eQSL.

4 June: Montenegro 4O6AH worked on 4m. Haven't got the confirmation. According to QRZ.com this station only does paper QSL. 

Also on 4 June I made a QSO on 6m with Asiatic Russia RD9D. Legal or not? We might never know because who knows what is going on in Russia really? QSO is not confirmed (yet) could have been a pirate station as well...

6 June: Malawi 7Q6M worked on 6m. It was a difficult one and it might be pure luck. QSO confirmed on LoTW.

9 June: propagation went to the west. St. Vincent J88IH was worked on 6m. QSO confirmed on LoTW.

23 June: Ukraine UZ5DU worked on 4m, it is with these DXCC always the question if this is legal or not since, like Russia, who know what actually is going on? Also this QSO is not confirmed. Could be a pirate station as well...

So far this was the end of the ES season for me on 6m and 4m. Due to private circumstances I was not able to be on the radio monitoring much. So, there might be DX I missed. But what I heard from others is that propagation was very bad in the last 2 months. Something that has been occured before at the sunspot maximum. However, winter could have F2 surprises for us...

  Years ago Ron Eberson had a small antenna manufacturing company ZX-yagi producing very good quality antennas. Especialy in the 11m community it was a well known brand. At least around the ninetees of last century. It appears the company is still there since WIMO Germany has the antennas still for sale. According to this website http://www.zx-yagi.com/. I wonder if Rob is still constructing them when one is ordered? 

Anyway, a well known 11m yagi was the ZX-5ITB, a kind of short 5 element  yagi. I found one on the internet for sale about 22 years ago.  At that time I had big plans for towers and big antennas. I could get it for a nice price and aquired the antenna which was way too big for my tower at that moment. The guy that sold it to me told me it was a 5ITB converted to 10m. Well, I never had this antenna into the tower, it was stored in my garage while other antennas got into the tower. I now thought it was finally time to see if the antenna was still complete and take a measure with an analyzer to see what part of the 10m band it was tuned for.

At first I found a construction manual for the 5ITB but unfortunately it was incomplete. I decided to just put everything together since everything was color coded and pre-drilled. It went well and SWR measurement followed.

I now know everything is in working order. Had to store it in the garage again of course so had to dismantle everything. The antenna is for sale. Not shipping it. €150. If interested write me an e-mail. You can find the e-mail address via QRZ.com.

If anyone knows the correct measures for the ZX-5ITB ? Please let me know...

 Here I am again with the results ;-)

Unfortunately some days are missing, it was just a matter of no access to the internet. But practised with morsemania app on my phone those days. 

Managed to finish lesson 40 with a speed of 28/11 wpm. Now doing 28/12 wpm. Also doing word practise with 5 letters now. Getting better but very slowly.

If possible I try to decode some morse on the radio. A beacon I heard was very low signal on 10m. Had to listen a couple of times before I could get the complete text.

YM7TEN/B KN91RB KN91RB PWR1W YM7TEN/B as heard with signal RST 313 on 28.225 at 29 August. Stations that call or make QSOs have been heard but it is all gibberish to me, sending way to fast and to me it is like they don't have any pause between the letters. I really wonder how someone is able to decode???

  It has been in the ninetees of last century I started to experiment and build antennas. Sometimes together with friends. I had a friend which I spoke quite often on 11m back in those days. He was also living near the coast but about 60km west of me. We discussed experimenting and our dreams about great antennas. He was busy building a 6 element logperiodic from which he found some drawings. I helped him when visiting him but I can't remember if he ever had the antenna in use. When I moved out of my parents house in '95 I lost contact and I believe he didn't do anything with the radio hobby anymore. The logper antenna however was still in my mind. And finally in 2002 I decided to give it a try and build this antenna with information I got from some Swedish 11m DXers.

I lived in a very small house and some of the work has to be done just in my living room. Living alone at that time I didn't care. Outside was also small, all work had to be done on a few square meters. 

According to the building guide the antenna was fed by a balun. Detailed drawings and descriptions were found. 

This antenna was mounted first on a short pole to test and tune it. 

I didn't really care what people in the neighbourhood would think of it :-). I can tell that in this (low) position I made a QSO with a station from Indonesia, my report was 59+. I was happy with the result. But of course it should be in the tower. For that I got some help from a friend and his wife. Otherwise I couldn't get the tower up, it was too heavy.

At that time I was not allowed on 10m yet. So DX was made on 11m. I can tell that much DX was made with this antenna. Especially to stations in the pacific. Fun story is that after I mounted this antenna one of the first stations I spoke was the station from Sweden from which I had the design. Later on I bought the house across the street. I mounted this antenna on the versatower in 2006. Our licence system  changed and we were allowed on HF, I then discovered it was a solid performer on 10m as well. The balun however did not survive the weather, although enclosed in a box. I replaced it by the Diamond BU-50 which I currently use in my multiband squalo.

  Just ended our vacation (holiday) in Denmark. We have been on North Sealand, about 60km north of Copenhagen. Of course we visited Copenhagen, the little mermaid and Amalienborg. Well, we are not used to city live and it was all too crowded for us, but at least we can tell we have been there. We rented some bikes so we went outside the tourist zone as well. Found this very nice wall painting near a school. Of course we visited a lot of other places as well. Denmark is a beautiful country. 

  Upon request from my XYL I didn't bring a radiostation with me. But you know me, I have to bring some kind of radio. This time the Tecsun PL-365 shortwave receiver. I't tiny and even fits in your pocket.

  I only tried it inside the summerhouse we rented. Some stations have been heard on 20m and 40m. I only listened to CW which is in line with my current CW learning curve. Most stations are sending way too fast and all I can pick up are random letters. I only logged one Italian station on 14010KHz CW at 12:49UTC he was callling CQ CQ DE IZ4EKI IZ4EKI K. I had to listen very carefully since I could hardly detect any spacing between te letters. Although I think he was sending about 12wpm. After the 4th time CQ I think I had his call. At least one little success.

  I got a cable with me to connect the Tecsun with the computer to decode FT8. But hey, what's the fun of that? So, only CW this time...

  The only HAMradio antenna I saw this vacation was in Frederiksvaerk, just a few kilometers from our summerhouse. Very nice setup on a large tower. Unable to find the call of this HAM, he's not on QRZ.com as far as I could find.

 I obtained this cubical quad antenna late nineties of last century. It belonged to Erik PA7V long before he became a licensed radio amateur. Erik is still living near to me and active but we don't hear each other much.

I wrote about this antenna before in one of my first posts on this blog in 2008. The Avanti PDL2 is a well known 11m antenna. After installation I worked some incredible DX with it. Recently I rediscovered some old photos which were long forgotten but for some unknown reason stored on my dads computer. Why and how this happened cannot be asked because he died little over a week ago. Anyway, I want to share them with you on this blog. Photos are taken in 2001, 23 years ago.

PDL2 before assembly

Assembling the PDL2, notice my shack in the back

Assembling the PDL2

 

 

Heard a lot of complaints about the new superfox mode. Lots of trouble when there is QRM on the fox frequency. So far I did not hear K8R anywhere although I was very curious about this new superfox transmission. I got a tip from PB7Z today that K8R had a big signal on 15m. So I thought I give it a try. I quickly installed the newest WSJT-X beta version (rc6) and gave a couple of calls. You see, third time it was no problem at all. K8R indeed had a big signal here on the experimental squalo.

 This 3 band "7 element" yagi has an important advantage. It has no coils or lineair loading. It is full size with a moxon as the 20m part.

This antenna would do quite good in my tower. However, I find it too big and too heavy (20kg). But I would like to see how things are constructed and do an overhaul because some parts seem to be damaged and/or worn. I started with cleaning everything today since the color of most of the parts were brown and green and that was no paint!

I quickly took this photo after the cleaning. It started to rain so no further progress was made. I found a heavily worn tube which I will replace. Like the previous EA VHF 3 band antenna I rebuilt there are parts made from POM which are getting brittle. Moxon isolators seems to be glasfiber which was not protected by tape, coating or paint, they seem to be usable but I wil certainly wrap them with tape. Hopefully the weather will improve a little this summer...

  Reading this very useful and detailed post from fellow blogger KA7OEI. 

https://ka7oei.blogspot.com/2024/06/reducing-qrm-interference-from-renogy.html

I extended my solar energy production with 5 extra solarpanels a while ago. It really was a bargain getting these as I bought the 260Wp panels at a cost of €50 (€10 per panel) from a colleague. The inverter was searched for on the dutch internet marketplace and I bought one for another €50. Most of the costs were the mounting rails, wiring and the #31 ferrite to make shure no RFI would reach my antennas. The last items were an additional €300. 

The open line of the inverted-V doublet is just about 1,5 meter above the solarpanels. I even got a quarter wave CB antenna near the panels to listen to some chats on CB when in the garage. I really did take all precautions to make shure I would not have any RF coming from the inverter or the panels. On the pic at the right you see that I used big #31 FT240 ferrite rings in both AC and DC lines. The earth wire is fitted with a big #31 snap-on ferrite. DC wires are mostly fitted in earthed Alu tubes were possible. Everything is earthed to a central earth point, the tubes, the mounting frames and the inverter.

At the left a pic from the Alu tubing used. Yes, it is made of old antenna left overs. I always use what I have at hand. I seldom throw away scrap Alu tubing. Over the years I collected some ;-).

Not much to tell about progress. Yes, I did make a first CW QSO with the begali paddle. Under pressure that was because of a failing computer. TF/AE5X was the lucky one, he even captured it on video. I imagine something else from my first QSO, but hey, it is what it is.

The EA642ZB7, at the background my tower...

  I finished the EA642ZB7 for now. Not completely satisfied about the construction. But it is certainly a lot better compared to the build originally. This is a very small 3 band antenna. Ideal for someone that hasn't much room around the house. I think the 50MHz and 70MHz part will be working great. 145MHz will be less efficient compared to a monoband beam. But hey, when you haven't got the space it is good enough. You will not notice that 1 or 2dB less.

When I look at the picture at the right I realize now that it looks like I have a gigantic beam halfway my tower when you look at it from a distance. Imagine....

Originally I think the 50mm mast clamp is mounted right at the boom. I didn't like the idea of just one mast clamp, the manufacturer did of course because it is cost effective. I did make my own with 2x 50mm mast clamps. By the way, I've only used scrap aluminium from old antenna projects in this "upgrade". I'm not intending to keep this antenna for my own but sell it to someone that is really interested in it.

I mentioned the balun earlier. Personally I would use better coax on it. But since the PL chassis seems to be glued into the alu tube I can't replace it. The coax used is RG58 and there are 11 windings on the tube which has a diameter of about 20mm. And yes, it is mounted with ty-raps, that's the way also described in the manual.

SWR/resonance is good on all bands. Initially SWR on 70MHz was best at almost 72MHz. Bending the 70MHz open sleeve "dipole" ends towards the 50MHz dipole corrected this a lot. SWR on 145 is at best 1,5:1. Could get better when the antenna is mounted free and at height.

Some pics:

2m resonance point?

Remote Ham Radio in the USA has opened their FT8/FT4 skimmer for all 31 locations to the public for free.

This is interesting especially if you want to work the USA/Canada on any band including 6m. Their locations are excellent and on the best sites in the US. RHR uses big antennas, if there is propagation they will hear/see you. Besides that they have locations in Haiti, Croatia and Puerto Rico. 

https://skimmer.remotehamradio.com/

 As always....work first worry later...

   I really don't know if all modifications are price worthy. I intend to sell this antenna when finished. But I guess I don't make much profit out of it. So far I have fun upgrading and it is the experience, that counts.

The picture on the left shows some mods on the boom. Radials are all cleaned. Ready to mount everything.

Some details of the mods to make everything stronger. All 7 elements mounted to see if everything fits. Not the final assembly, it need some more mods.
Originally no closing caps on the ends. I fit them in. You can really see that everything in this design is made as cheap as possible. Don't blame the manufacturer. Building a good antenna is expensive. And you want to sell them and make a profit. So there always will be trade offs.