Well its not as bad as indicated from my last post…

But its still got a way to go…

This morning on my 11 am (Eastern) hour on the TPN I managed to get 7 stations in my log which is the best its been in a while. After the net ended I had some household chores to do before I could get to the next part of this post.

Today I wanted to take my Yaesu FT891 rig along with my two antennas out into my backyard and make sure everything is still working as well as I remember. Next week my shifts on the TPN will be ending for a while as I am taking the summer off in an attempt to concentrate on my POTA part of the hobby.

So here’s the setup

Rig: Yaesu FT891 powered by my ECO-Worthy 20ah LI-PO4 battery

Antenna 1: 40m EFHW which is 63 feet long and fed by a 64:1 unun. This antenna usually is used in a sloper or inverted Vee configuration. Its very nice on 10-40m and I have 2 small counterpoises which I clip on as needed. I feed the unun from a 25 foot run of RG58 with a RF choke at one end.

Antenna 2: 17.5 foot long end fed fed by a 9:1 unun. I normally would use this in a vertical or sloper configuration. Its excellent on 10m to 20m but will also work on 40m without the need of a tuner. Depending on the situation I have a couple of small counterpoises I can clip onto the unn if needed. I feed the unun from a 25 foot run of RG58 with a RF choke at one end. The advantage to this antenna is that if I use it as a vertical there is next to no footprint which could make a couple of the parks in the downtown area much easier to activate.

If the trees do not cooperate I also carry a MFJ 33 foot telescopic masting which will support the wire if needed.

How did I do today?

Operating from my deck I strung out the 63 foot EFHW kind of as an inverted xyz configuration. Hanging 63 feet of wire anywhere I could hand it without anyone seeing it or running into it. Despite the setup Contacts were made on 40m and 20m despite the band conditions. with a reasonable SWR (no tuner in line) where I normally use it

Next I used the 17.5 with the 9:1 unun as a low sloper and made 1 contact on 20. The SWR was “tolerable” on 40m but on 10m to 20m it was under 2:1 which is great for a Portable setup. Nothing to complain about on my part.

I also use this style of antenna at home in a vertical configuration and it works great for my need either “home or away”

So here’s the plan…

If you notice the above map there are 10 POTA sites (yellow dots) that I can easily access from my home in Kingston. All of them easily reachable via public transit or a bit of a walk. The one on the bottom right (the island) is not reachable via foot. There is a dock but I can’t find out if Kingston has a Water Taxi so if I can activate 10 out of 11 I will be pleased.

I guess I could also say that this would be a test of the station I will be using for Field Day this year. Not sure where I’m going to be yet but…. I know I’ll be participating from somewhere near Kingston.

.

Till next time

73bob

Well its not as bad as indicated from my last post…

But its still got a way to go…

This morning on my 11 am (Eastern) hour on the TPN I managed to get 7 stations in my log which is the best its been in a while. After the net ended I had some household chores to do before I could get to the next part of this post.

Today I wanted to take my Yaesu FT891 rig along with my two antennas out into my backyard and make sure everything is still working as well as I remember. Next week my shifts on the TPN will be ending for a while as I am taking the summer off in an attempt to concentrate on my POTA part of the hobby.

So here’s the setup

Rig: Yaesu FT891 powered by my ECO-Worthy 20ah LI-PO4 battery

Antenna 1: 40m EFHW which is 63 feet long and fed by a 64:1 unun. This antenna usually is used in a sloper or inverted Vee configuration. Its very nice on 10-40m and I have 2 small counterpoises which I clip on as needed. I feed the unun from a 25 foot run of RG58 with a RF choke at one end.

Antenna 2: 17.5 foot long end fed fed by a 9:1 unun. I normally would use this in a vertical or sloper configuration. Its excellent on 10m to 20m but will also work on 40m without the need of a tuner. Depending on the situation I have a couple of small counterpoises I can clip onto the unn if needed. I feed the unun from a 25 foot run of RG58 with a RF choke at one end. The advantage to this antenna is that if I use it as a vertical there is next to no footprint which could make a couple of the parks in the downtown area much easier to activate.

If the trees do not cooperate I also carry a MFJ 33 foot telescopic masting which will support the wire if needed.

How did I do today?

Operating from my deck I strung out the 63 foot EFHW kind of as an inverted xyz configuration. Hanging 63 feet of wire anywhere I could hand it without anyone seeing it or running into it. Despite the setup Contacts were made on 40m and 20m despite the band conditions. with a reasonable SWR (no tuner in line) where I normally use it

Next I used the 17.5 with the 9:1 unun as a low sloper and made 1 contact on 20. The SWR was “tolerable” on 40m but on 10m to 20m it was under 2:1 which is great for a Portable setup. Nothing to complain about on my part.

I also use this style of antenna at home in a vertical configuration and it works great for my need either “home or away”

So here’s the plan…

If you notice the above map there are 10 POTA sites (yellow dots) that I can easily access from my home in Kingston. All of them easily reachable via public transit or a bit of a walk. The one on the bottom right (the island) is not reachable via foot. There is a dock but I can’t find out if Kingston has a Water Taxi so if I can activate 10 out of 11 I will be pleased.

I guess I could also say that this would be a test of the station I will be using for Field Day this year. Not sure where I’m going to be yet but…. I know I’ll be participating from somewhere near Kingston.

.

Till next time

73bob

 

In my previous post I touched on my Lifelong Morse Code Journey. This time I'll touch on some of the keys that have helped me on my journey to the WORLD!

As I mentioned in my earlier posts the key below was my first REAL telegraph key I used in my journey. . This key is over 60 years old and has been mounted on presswood, plywood, tables, plastic and currently this piece of granite.  I cannot recall the number of QSOs I've hammered with this key but it has seen me through Novice, General, Advanced and Extra code exams.  As I look back on my journey, not only is this my first piece of ham radio equipment but this instrument is my most PRIZED piece of ham radio equipment. 

When I decided to reacquaint myself with Morse Code, this was the key I used to re-start my journey. In 1983 when I decided to get relicensed as a Novice I purchased a Morse Code Practice Oscillator Kit from Heathkit.  I brought this out of mothballs to continue my Morse Code journey after a 30 year absence. 





     

VizKey from Jim W6JIM collection of Keys

This morning (after coffee) I went out into the back yard with a 33 foot pole with a hook on the end of it and about 60 feet of wire.

Above pic… Wishful thinking on my part

After about 1 hour of hooking thin green wire over the green cedar tree branches its back in the air and working so far. Its the same length as it was before but I was able to get the wire hooked over the branches a bit higher than before.

It seems to work… Using my SGC 237 auto tuner I was able to get a suitable match on all bands between 10 and 80m. 160 was a poor match before and it still is now. First contact was into the Mid Cars Net on 7.258. I received a 5/7 signal report from the NCS who was in OHIO.

As with any stealthy/portable/wire antenna that you re install there is a very good chance that I’ll never get it in the exact same location that I had it in before.

This means that it might work better (hoping) than before or it might work worse (with my luck) but no matter what it will be working at least.

I used to say that I would rather be on the air with a poor antenna than not having an antenna… I made that statement about 30 years ago and I still feel that way today.

73bob

The following info came in via the RAC Bulletin Service but for me at least it was a bit difficult to cut and paste the info as my newly improved mail software insists on giving me adverts in the middle of the long messages. I guess you do get what you pay for….

Here is the link to the site with the information:

HamSCI Presents the Solar Eclipse QSO Party: April 8, 2024 – Radio Amateurs of Canada (rac.ca)

I will be listening around and participating…. especially if the sky is cloudy during the event. But seeing that Kingston is right in the path…. maybe not

Above graphic courtesy of : https://eclipse2024.org (its worth visiting their site)

73bob

Words to live by…..

“If it ain’t broke….. Don’t mess with it…“

One of the things on my “to do” list was swap out the 17.5 foot vertical wire on my Modified “Coastal 20” antenna with a 29 foot vertical wire.

I did the swap and then came back to the shack to do the SWR testing and also see where I was being heard and what I was hearing….

First issue found is that I no longer able to tune up on 40m using the built in tuner in my Yaesu FT991a….

On 10-12-15-17-20m it seemed to tune up quicker (2nd issue) but I did notice that I also had to tune up more often as I was searching and pouncing. On the plus side the signal reports I was given (after asking for an honest report as I was testing the antenna) seemed what I was expecting between S7 and S9. I was hearing most stations with no problems…

After careful consideration I decided to swap the 29 foot wire out and bring the 17.5 foot wire back. The reasoning for this was as I do a lot of S & P at home, I prefer not to have to re tune constantly…

And for the record the shorter wire is working exactly as well as it was working before I tried to improve things… There could be a lesson to be learned here…

To those who are participating in the CQ WW WPX Contest good luck and have fun.

UPDATED- Mar 30 0118 utc

I guess the antenna works on 15m

73bob

Recently, a Kenwood TS-850S - a radio from the mid-early 1990s - crossed my workbench.  While I'm not in the "repair business", I do fix my own radios, those of close friends, and occasionally those of acquaintances:  I've known this person for many years and we have several mutual friends.

If you are familiar with the Kenwood TS-850S to any degree, you'll also know that they suffer from an ailment that has struck down many pieces of electronic gear from that same era:  Capacitor Plague.

Figure 1: The ailing TS-850S.  The display is normal - except for the frequency display showing only dots.  This error is accompanied by "UL" in Morse. Click on the image for a larger version.

This isn't the same "Capacitor Plague" of which you might be aware where - particularly in the early 2000s - many computer motherboards failed due to incorrectly formulated electrolytic capacitors, but rather early-era (late 80s to mid 90s) surface-mount electrolytic capacitors that began to leak soon after they were installed.

The underlying cause?

While "failure by leaking" is a common occurrence in electronics, this failure is somewhat different in many aspects.  At about this time, electronic manufacturers were switching over to surface-mount devices - but one of the later components to be surface-mounted were the electrolytic capacitors themselves:  Up to this point it was quite common to see a circuit board where most of the components were surface-mount except for larger devices such as diodes, transistors, large coils and transformers - and electrolytic capacitors - all of which would be mounted through-hole, requiring an extra manufacturing step.

Early surface-mount electrolytic capacitors, as it turned out, had serious flaws.  In looking at the history, it's difficult to tell what aspect of their use caused the problem - the design and materials of the capacitor itself or the method by which they were installed - but it seems that whatever the cause, subjecting the capacitors themselves to enough heat to solder their terminals to the circuit board - via hot air or infrared radiation - was enough to compromise their structural integrity.

Whatever the cause - and at this point it does not matter who is to blame - the result is that over time, these capacitors have leaked electrolyte onto their host circuit boards.  Since this boron-based liquid is somewhat conductive and mildly corrosive in its own right, it is not surprising that as surface tension wicks this material across the board, it causes devastation wherever it goes, particularly when voltages are involved.

The CAR board - the cause of "display dots"

In the TS-850S, the module most susceptible to leaking capacitors is the CAR board - a circuit that produces multiple, variable frequency signals that feeds the PLL synthesizer and several IF (Intermediate Frequency) mixers.  Needless to say, when this board fails, so does the radio.

They most obvious symptom of this failure is when damage to the board is so extensive that it can no longer produce the needed signals - and if one particularly synthesizer (out of four on the board) fails, you will see that the frequency display disappears - to be replaced with just dots - and the letters "UL" are sent in Morse Code to indicate the "Unlock" condition by the PLL.

Figure 2: The damaged CAR board.  All but one of the surface-mount electrolytic capacitors has leaked corrosive fluid and damaged the board.  (It looked worse before being cleaned!) Click on the image for a larger version.

Prior to this, the radio may have started going deaf and/or transmitter output was dropping as the other three synthesizers - while still working - are losing output, but this may be indicative of another problem as well - more on this later.

Figure 2 shows what the damaged board looks like.  Actually, it looked a bit worse than that when I first removed it from the radio - several pins of the large integrated circuits being stained black.  As you can see, there are black smudges around all (but one) of the electrolytic capacitors where the corrosive liquid leaked out, getting under the green solder mask and even making its way between power supply traces where the copper was literally being eaten away.

The first order of business was to remove this board and throw it in the ultrasonic cleaner.  Using a solution of hot water and dish soap, the board was first cleaned for six minutes - flipping the board over during the process - and then very carefully, paper towels and then compressed air was used to remove the water.

Figure 3: The CAR board taking a hot bath in soapy water in an ultrasonic cleaner.  This removes not only debris, but spilled electrolyte - even that which has flowed under components. Click on the image for a larger version.

At this point I needed to remove all of the electrolytic capacitors:  Based on online research, it was common for all of them to leak, but I was lucky that the one unit that had not failed (a 47uF, 16 volt unit) "seemed" OK while all of the others (10uF, 16 volt) had disgorged their contents.

If you look at advice online, you'll see that some people recommend simply twisting the capacitor off the board as the most expedient removal procedure, but I've found that doing so with electrolyte-damaged traces often results in ripping those same traces right off the board - possibly due to thinning of the copper itself and/or some sort of weakening of the adhesive:  While I was expecting chemically-weakened traces, already, there was no reason to add injury to insult.

My preferred method of removing already-leaking capacitors is to use a pair of desoldering tweezers, which are more or less a soldering iron with two prongs that will heat both pins of the part simultaneously, theoretically allowing its quick removal.  While many capacitors are easily removed with this tool, some are more stubborn:  During manufacture, drops of glue were used under the part to hold it in place prior to soldering and this sometimes does its job too well, making it difficult to remove it.  Other times, the capacitor will explode (usually just a "pop") as it is being heated, oozing out more corrosive electrolyte.

With the capacitors removed, I tossed it in the ultrasonic cleaner for other cycle in the same warm water/soap solution to remove any additional electrolyte that had come off - along with debris from the removal process.  It is imperative when repairing boards with leaking capacitors that all traces of electrolyte be completely removed or damage will continue even after the repair.

At this point one generally needs to don magnification and carefully inspect the board.  Using a dental pick and small-blade screwdriver, I scraped away loose board masking (the green overcoating on the traces) as well as bits of copper that had detached from the board:  Having taken photos of the board prior to capacitor removal - and with the use of the Service Manual for this radio, found online - I was confident that I could determine where, exactly, each capacitor was connected.

When I was done - and the extent of the damage was better-revealed - the board looked to be a bit of a mess, but that was the fault of the leaking capacitors.  Several traces and pads in the vicinity of the defunct capacitors had been eaten away or fallen off - but since these capacitors are pretty much placed across power supply rails, it was pretty easy to figure out where they were supposed to connect.

Figure 4: The CAR board, reinstalled for testing. Click on the image for a larger version.

As the mounting pads for most of these capacitors were damaged or missing, I saw no point in replacing them with more surface-mount capacitors - but rather I could install through-hole capacitors on the surface, laying them down as needed for clearance - and since these new capacitors included long leads, those same leads could be used to "rebuild" the traces that had been damaged.

The photo shows the final result.  Different-sized capacitors were used as necessary to accommodate the available space, but the result is electrically identical to the original.  It's worth noting that these electrolytic capacitors are in parallel with surface-mount ceramic capacitors (which seem to have survived the ordeal) so the extra lead length on these electrolytics is of no consequence - the ceramic capacitors doing their job at RF as before.  After (later) successful testing of the board, dabs of adhesive were used to hold the larger, through-hole capacitors to the board to reduce stress on the solder connections under mechanical vibration.

Following the installation of the new capacitors, the board was again given two baths in the ultrasonic cleaner - one using the soap and water solution, and the other just using plain tap water and again, the board was patted dry and then carefully blown dry with compressed air to remove all traces of water from the board and from under components and then allowed to air dry for several hours.

Testing the board

After using an ohmmeter to make sure that the capacitors all made their proper connections, I installed the board in the TS-850S and... it didn't work as I was again greeted with a "dot" display and a Morse "UL".

I suspected that one of the "vias" - a point where a circuit traces passes from one side to another through a plated hole - had been "eaten" by the errant electrolyte.  Wielding an oscilloscope, I quickly noted that only one of the synthesizers was working - the one closest to connector CN1 - and this told me that at least one control signal was missing from the rest of the chips.  Probing with the scope I soon found that a serial data signal ("PDA") used to program the synthesizers "stopped" beyond the first chip and a bit of testing with an ohmmeter showed that from one end of the board to the other, the signal had been interrupted - no doubt in a via that had been eaten away by electrolytic action.

Figure 5: Having done some snooping with an oscilloscope, I noted that the "PDA" signal did not make it past the first of the (large) synthesizer chips.  The white piece of #30 Kynar wire-wrap wire was used to jump over the bad board "via" Click on the image for a larger  version.

The easiest fix for this was to use a piece of small wire - I used #30 Kynar-insulated wire-wrap wire (see Figure 5) - to jumper from where this control signal was known to be good to a point where it was not good (a length of about an inch/two cm) and was immediately rewarded with all four synthesizer outputs being on the correct frequencies, tuning as expected with the front-panel controls.

Low output

While all four signals were present and on their proper frequencies - indicating that the synthesizers were working correctly - I soon noticed, using a scope, that the second synthesizer output on about 8.3 MHz was outputting a signal that was about 10% of its expected value in amplitude.  A quick test of the transmitter indicated that the maximum RF output was only about 15 watts - far below that of the 100 watts expected.

Again using the 'scope, I probed the circuit - and comparing the results with the nearly identical third synthesizer (which was working correctly) and soon discovered that the amplitude dropped significantly through a pair of 8.3 MHz ceramic filters.

The way that synthesizers 2 and 3 work is that the large ICs synthesize outputs in the 1.2-1.7 MHz area and mix this with a 10 MHz source derived from the radio's reference to yield signals around 8.375 and 8.83 MHz, respectively - but this mix results in a very ugly signal, spectrally - full of harmonics and undesired products.  With the use of these ceramic bandpass filters - which are similar to the 10.7 MHz filters those found in analog AM and FM radios - and these signals are "cleaned up" to yield the desired output over a range of the several kiloHertz that they vary depending on the bandpass filter and the settings of the front panel "slope tune" control.

Figure 6: The trace going between C75 and CF1 was cut and a bifilar- wound transformer was installed to step up the impedance from Q7 to that of the filter:  R24 was also changed to 22 ohms - providing the needed "IF-7-LO3" output level at J4. Click on the image for a larger version.

The problem here seemed to be that the two ceramic 8.3 MHz filters  (CF1, CF2) were far more lossy than they should have been.  Suspecting a bad filter, I removed them both from the circuit board and tested them using a temporary fixture on a NanoVNA:  While their "shape" seemed OK, their losses were each around 10dB more than is typical of these devices indicating that they are slowly degrading.  A quick check online revealed that these particular frequency filters were not available anywhere (they were probably custom devices, anyway) so I had to figure out what to do.

Since the "shape" of the individual filter's passbands were still OK - a few hundred kHz wide - all I needed was to get more signal:  While I could have kludged another amplifier into the circuit to make up for the loss, I decided, instead, to reconfigure the filter matching.  Driving the pair of ceramic filters is an emitter-follower buffer amplifier (Q7) - the output of which is rather low impedance - well under 100 ohms - but these types of filters typically "want" around 300-400 ohms and in this circuit, this was done using series resistors - specifically R24.  This method of "matching" the impedance is effective, but very lossy, so changing this to a more efficient matching scheme would allow me to recover some of the signal.

Replacing the 330 ohm series resistor (R24) with a 22 ohm unit and installing a bifilar-wound transformer (5 turns on a BN43-2402 binocular core) wired as a 1:4 step-up transformer (the board trace between C75 and CF1 was cut and the transformer connected across it) brought the output well into the proper amplitude range and with this success, I used a few drops of "super glue" to hold it to the bottom of the board.  It is important to note that I "boosted" the amplitude of the signal prior to the filtering because to do so after the filtering - with its very low signal level - may have also amplified spurious signals as well - a problem avoided in this method.

Rather than using a transformer I could have also used a simple L/C impedance transformation network (a series 2.2uH inductor with a 130pF capacitor to ground on the "filter side" would have probably done the trick) but the 1:4 transformer was very quick and easy to do.

With the output level of synthesizer #2 (as seen on pin CN4) now up to spec (actually 25% higher than indicated on the diagram in the service manual) the radio was now easily capable of full transmit output power, and the receiver's sensitivity was also improved - not surprising considering that the low output would have starved mixers in the radios IF.

A weird problem

After all of this, the only thing that is not working properly is "half" of the "Slope Tune" control:  In USB the "Low Cut" works - as does the "High Cut" on LSB, but the "High Cut" does not work as expected on USB and the "Low Cut" does not work as expected on LSB.  What happens with the settings that do NOT work properly, I hear the effect of the filter being adjusted (e.g. the bandwidth narrows) but the radio's tuning does not track the adjustment as it should.  What's common to both of these "failures" is that they both relate to high frequency side of the filter IF filters in the radio - the effect being "inverted" on LSB.

I know that the problem is NOT the CAR board or the PLL/synthesizer itself as these are being properly set to frequency.  What seems to NOT be happening is that for the non-working adjustments, the radio's CPU is not adjusting the tuning of the radio to track the shift of the IF frequency to keep the received signal in the same place - which seems like more of a software problem than a hardware problem:  Using the main tuning knob or the RIT one can manually offset this problem and permit tuning of both the upper and lower slopes of of the filters, but that is obviously not how it's expected to work!

In searching the Internet, I see scattered mentions of this sort of behavior on the TS-850 and TS-950, but no suggestions as to what causes it or what to do about it:  I have done a CPU reset of the radio and disconnected the battery back-up to wipe the RAM contents, but to no avail.  Until/unless this can be figured out, I advised the owner to set the affected control to its "Normal" position.  If you have experienced this problem - and especially if you know of a solution - please let me know.

Figure 7: The frequency display shows that the synthesizer is now working properly - as did the fact that it outputs full power and gets good on-the-air signal reports. Click on the image for a larger version.

Final comments

Following the repair, I went through the alignment steps in the service manual and found that the radio was slightly out alignment - particularly with respect to settings in the transmit output signal path - possibly during previous servicing to accommodate the low output due to the dropping level from the CAR board.  Additionally, the ALC didn't seem to work properly - being out of adjustment - resulting in distortion on voice peaks with excessive output power.

With the alignment sorted, I made a few QSOs on the air, getting good reports - and using a WebSDR to record my transmissions, it sounded fine as well.

Aside from the odd behavior of the "Slope Tune" control, the radio seems to work perfectly.  I'm presently convinced that this must be a software - not a hardware - problem as all of the related circuits function as they should, but don't seem to be being "told" what to do.

* * * * *

This page stolen from ka7oei.blogspot.com

[END]

Yesterday, November 15th, I decided to do a mid-morning activation of VE-5141, Lemoine Point Conservation Area, a local to me, POTA spot.   

The weather, for this area, at this time of year, was spectacular.  Sunny, +7C (44.6F), and a deep blue sky.  Not a drop of rain or snow in sight.  It was just an absolutely beautiful day.

The day before during an activation of VE-5142, Parrott's Bay, I had great success on 10m, so today I decided to do the whole activation, if I could, on 10m.  Many of my activations have been done only on 40m, but I had never tried to do this on another band.

Luckily for me 10m was just alive with good signals.  First in the log was F4FTJ, and in rapid succession PU1JSV, 2E0VRX, OE4JHW, F4ILH, IK1GPG, EA1BUL, and F4HZR followed.  This was the first time I made POTA contacts with Brazil and Austria, that just made my day.  The Brazilian station was S9 +20 to me, just an outstanding signal.

The radio was my KX3 set at 10w.  The antenna of the day was a 10m Hamstick on the roof of my truck using a 5" mag-mount.  

The day's propagation was: SFI=124, SN=40, A Index=6 and the K Index=3.  There was no, to very little QSB, and the LIDS and deliberate QRM'ers stayed away for a change.

Hopefully if this run of good weather and decent propagation holds for a few more days, I can get out and do a lot more portable operating, because you know before long the snow will start to fly around here.

Here's the days contact map:

Keep Well, and Stay Safe Out There!

squares the other is for 50. I also got a second Worked Prefix Award. This one is specifically for working 100 different prefixes on 20 meters. Finally, the last award is the Worked Cuban Stations Award for working 5 Cuban amateur radio stations. It’s been fun trying to see what awards I can earn with the FT8DMC! It’s definitely an awesome, free club you should join if you like working FT8!
only took two days to build (with the exception of the projectiles, I haven’t decided what to fill them with). I was going to dedicate a blog post to the build but there is already so much out there about building one I decided not to. I’m already thinking up ideas for a version 2! I’m going to use the launcher to move my G5RV further up the hill behind my house and get it into a flattop configuration instead of the inverted v.

Boy oh boy February has been busy. The first round of exams have started and a few class projects are starting to pick up. With all that my free time to play on the radio has substantially decreased.

I've had to put aside a few of my projects as my main PC's motherboard decided to fail. I've had plans to build a new more powerful, more capable PC for a while, I just didn't expect to start on it this soon. I'm going to be slowly buying the parts I need. I'll hopefully finish the build around March.

On the radio side of things my setup is a bit different. I'm using my Icom IC-7300 with an LDG AT-200ProII auto tuner. I'm also not using my Buddistick vertical any more, I've switched over to a hamstick dipole setup for 40m and 20m. It seems to work ok, but with all the interference around the apartment complex it still isn't going to work as well as I would like.

WVUARC is still going. We had our first meeting of the semester on January 30th. Attendance was pretty low, but it seems like other clubs on campus have been having that issue as well. We had a great presentation by ARRL WV Section Manager Dan Ringer, K8WV. He even donated a bunch of books to the new W8CUL Reference Library!

W8CUL was supposed to operate in the ARRL School Club Roundup, but of course something had to break. The fuse in our rotor controller blew, and it just had to be one that we didn't have a spare for. So, we only made two contacts. We'll eventually operate in a contest and do well!

Teaching @ WVUARC Tech In A Day (N8MDC Photo)

On February 15th WVUARC hosted our first Tech In A Day class. We had 19 people attend the full class. Of the 19, 11 passed their tech test. Overall we had 24 people take tests, of those 12 passed tech and one person upgraded to Extra! We ended up administering 49 tests. I actually had to close registration for the event, that's never happened before! I ended up running out of tech tests, thanks to a couple no shows I had just enough for the people who were there! We're already working on planning for the second one on April 18th.

In other news I got approved for three awards from the FT8 Digital mode club. I qualified for the
Worked Grid Award-100 for making contacts in 100 different grid squares. The next award was the
Worked Region 2 Award-Bronze for making contacts with 10 hams in region 2. The last award is the Worked Prefix Award for making contacts with 100 hams all of whom have different callsign prefixes.

I also got an award from QRZ.com. I got their Grid Squared Award for having confirmed contacts in 100 different grid squares. It goes nicely with the World Radio Friendship Awards (20m Mixed/20m Digital) I already had. I need to order my certificates.

I've decided to organize my QSL cards into a binder with photo pages of sorts. I also want to put all of my  awards in there, at least until I have a permanent shack and can hang them on the wall.

On the Website I've updated the equipment lists and added an awards section to the logbook page. I might redo a little bit of the formatting. I think I still need to scan at least one QSL card and add it to the album on the site.

I think that is enough of an update for now!

See ya down the log!

A lot has happened since my last post!

First, a few members of the WVU Amateur radio club, myself included, made our way onto the roof of the Engineering Sciences Building to work on and inspect antennas. Overall the work went well. We made sure our 10/15/20 Yagi was secured to it's mast and attempted to re-orient it so that it would be pointed the correct way based off of the rotor controllers reading. Well that was the intent anyway. Due to the lack of a decent compass (stupid iPhone compass) it's still not oriented the correct way. We also found out that there is a problem with our Yaesu G5500 Az/El rotor. It doesn't move when you push a button on the controller. Hopefully is just a problem with the cables. They were installed pretty quickly a few years ago for an ARISS contact at WVU, using ethernet cable instead of rotor cable so that seems like it could be the issue.

W8CUL also upgraded some equipment over the past few months. We switched out our old CDE rotor controller for a new Green Heron Engineering RT-21. It's such a nice controller with a USB interface. We also added a new rig to our Shack. An IC-9100 now sits on our bench acting as a 2nd HF rig and will hopefully be used with VHF and UHF satellites when we get the rotor system fixed. We are also upgrading our DC power distribution system on our main bench. We are switching from a horrendous Blue Sea distribution panel to a RigRunner. I'm also changing out all of the wires that were used to go from distribution panel to radio from 2 single wires to one piece of zip cord with Anderson PowerPoles (my favorite power connector). I'm also going to switch out our antenna patch panel. It's currently using a piece of steel plate that is showing some signs of oxidation. I'm going to switch it out with a piece of aluminium (that'll also be easier to drill through!).

WVUARC members worked with W8MWA Members to provide communications for a couple of parades. First the Morgantown Veterans day parade. The second parade was the annual Morgantown Christmas Parade. The Christmas parade is always fun to work!


Over my christmas break I played around on FT8 with the IC-706. I decided to try FT4 and WOW! It's extremely fast! I switched between FT8 and FT4 during break on 40m & 80m. I wanted to use 20m but something seems to be going on with either my antenna or my tuner. I'm no longer able to tune the G5RV on 20m. I'll have to look into it next time im home. Hopefully my ne ARRL Antenna Book will have some advice!

To close my first post of the year here are some of my ham radio goals for 2020:

• Perfect my HF portable setup
• Increase my understanding of antennas
• Work HF mobile
• Compete in a contest using my call (and hopefully do well)

It's been a month since my last post and quite a lot has gone on since then.


W8CUL participated in the ARRL School Club roundup in October. We didn't have as good of showing as I hoped for, but with only two people operating we still did pretty decent with about 3 hours of operating time and 50ish QSOs we did better than 11 during the spring SCR!


WVUARC also hosted our second Tech-In-A-Day class of the semester. We had about 8 people take the course. Of those 8 we had 6 successfully pass the Technician test. Two members of the club also upgraded from General to Extra!


I completed some ARES training this weekend as well. I took my final exam for the ARRL's ECC-001 Intro to Emergency Communication course. This course was the only thing I needed to finish all of the requirements for ARES Level 2!

ECC-001 Certificate

I made the drive up to Washington, PA on Sunday for the WACOM hamfest. Overall it was a decent hamfest, though attendance seemed lower and prices seemed higher compared to last year. I ended up grabbing a pair of QuickStick hamsticks from Quicksilver Radio. I grabbed one for 20m and one for 40m. I also bought a 5in magnet mount for the hamsticks (to use while stationary). Unfortunately there is a short in the power cord for my IC-706 so I did't get to try out my antennas yet.

I also found a Heil HTH-K headset for my HT. My last purchase was a pair of old boxes that were used for TV and radio repair. I thought they were a pretty cool find!

Well, that's all until next time!

See you down then log!

40m Hamstick on top of my car

Old Tube Cases

So it's been awhile. Again.

I don't have many updates this go around.

I received my digital interface from XGGComms. I was able to get it connected to the IC-706 and it seems to be functioning. I've tried making a few FT8 contacts with it but I haven't been successful. I was able to see my transmissions on a few PSKReporter stations so I'm sure it's working but one of the downsides of using the buddistick in my current setting is I don't get out very well. I can hear quite a few stations but they can't hear me.

Marathon station with MPD.

This past Sunday I worked with W8MWA and W8CUL to provide communications for the Morgantown Marathon. I was posted with a newer ham at a busy intersection where all 3 races cross a road. Overall it seemed like everything worked well, but there's always room to improve! We also had issues with one of the dreaded Baofeng sirens (some of you will know what I'm talking about) blaring over the W8CUL repeater.

Unfortunately due to commitments for a class on Saturday and the Marathon on Sunday W8CUL didn't participate in the Collegiate QSO Party. Maybe next year. However, we will be in the ARRL School Club Roundup (hopefully) next month!


This Saturday is WVUARC's first Tech-In-a-Day session of the semester. I'll be there all day teaching a few sections, VEing, and watching managing testing as the VE Team Lead. Hopefully, all goes well! We already have about 10 people registered!

Another officer in WVUARC and I had a meeting with one of the safety coordinators from the university to begin planning antenna repairs and maintenance on the roof of the Engineering Sciences Building. We'll be repairing our 10/15/20m Yagi, our VHF/UHF Satellite antennas, rehanging our G5RV, and adding antennas for our UHF repeater and our APRS Digipeater.

We also had another general club meeting. We changed the format a little for this one with a presentation before the meeting. I gave a short hands on presentation covering how to operate a Baofeng UV5R, the most popular radio in our club. Following our meeting the weekly W8CUL 2m net went well with 13 check ins, counting me as NCS. We are hoping to break 20 this semester!

I'm still working on the W8CUL digipeater. Hopefully it will be finished soon. The W8CUL DMR repeater is still not online. We are waiting for our duplexer to arrive from Bridgecom Systems. It should be on air soon!

HF wise I haven't been operating from my apartment much. I have spent some time operating from

W8CUL K3s with my ACLog.

the W8CUL Shack though. I was able to work part of Canada, Italy, Malta, France and an SES from Austria on 20m FT8 this week! I was also able to grab Slavko in Slovenia, a station in Italy and a station in St Pierre & Miquelon on 20m SSB. 20m was really hot the past few days!

Well I think I've rambled on enough till next time!

See you down the log!!

Well, it looks like I'm posting on Friday now. Isn't it funny how your schedule schedule is set the all of a sudden BAM another change!

A few things have changed with the apartment HF setup since I last posted. I now have an HF antenna! I picked up a Buddistick Deluxe pack. It's a nice compact portable multiband vertical

Buddistick setup in front of my door

antenna. It can easily operate on 40m-10m at 250 watts! I haven't had much of a chance to try it out yet. I managed to set it up the night I got it and could receive the OMISS 40m net pretty well. Tried a transmission on low power (I haven't fully tuned the antenna yet) and wasn't heard. I'll work on getting it tuned over the weekend.

I also ordered a USB digital interface for the 706. I went with the XGGCOMMS Digimode-3-Icom. It shipped this week so I'm looking forward to working some digital modes (mainly FT8) from my apartment.

I have also be using the W8CUL Station to try and participate in the Hiram Percy Maxim Contest. Using a tri-band yagi and an Elecraft K3s makes it a little easier. Though I have been fighting band conditions I have only made 2 QSOs so far. I'm planning to operate a little over the weekend to finish out the contest.

This week I also completed the Heartsaver First Aid CPR and AED course. I've been wanting to do this for a while. I felt that it was a necessary training to take, given that I work a few public service events each year (Marathons, bike races, parades).

Ready for the W8CUL Net!

The WVU Amateur radio club held our first meeting of the semester this week! We had an awesome turnout! Quite a few people have already paid dues as well! Hopefully they all are active members! We also held the first W8CUL 2m net of the semester. I created a new net control script for this semester to better accommodate traffic handling, since we call it a "Traffic & Information Net". I acted as the net control station and took 10 check ins, including myself. Overall not too bad for the first net of the school year!

Well I think that's all I've got for now!