In a recent Panoramic image from Tokyo, showing how they cut back on electricity usage, I spotted something..

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As I’m thinking about what to write about 2011, I’m realizing that 2010 was a pretty kick ass year in the hobby for me and I’m starting to realize I’ve done too much. Here’s a summary.

In February I was introduced to 160m and found a great group located in the PA/NJ/DE/MD area who are on 1900khz every night at 8pm. I would finally get to meet them face to face at the Timonium Hamfest in Maryland which would start an every other Saturday tradition of breakfast in Delaware with the guys.

The hexbeam I built back in the previous October (2009) survived the 2ft of snow we saw in March. I would find myself being invited to operate the ARRL DX contest at NE3F’s, which is always fun but also quite an endurance run. I also started operating HF mobile and ended up working VK7ZE on our way to our club station with 100w in a screwdriver antenna on 20m. He was working the states long-path, some 14k miles.

Early in April, I decided to try a 3 element Mosley TA-33 tribander and ended up selling my Hexbeam to Dave (K3GMT). Also in April, I went QRO with a Dentron Clipperton which would be a requirement for 160m in the summer. 1200watts with a set of 4 572B’s. The transformer makes a menacing growl when it’s cranked on 40m, truely a welcomed addition to the shack.

Early in May, Jon (N3INJ) called to tell me 6m was open, of which I didn’t have an antenna for. Within about 45 minutes, I had a 6m delta loop up in the air and started making first 6m contacts. Later that month Laurie and I made it to Dayton. This was our first and plan to make it a yearly event.

I started off the month of June by rotating the polarity of my 2m cubical quad to horizontal and start working 2m sideband. So far it’s been slow, but my furthest stations I’ve worked was Pittsburgh and Connecticut, but the ARRL VHF contest was a blast!

The 1900 guys and I would end up doing a Field Day Expedition to Assateague Island in Maryland. It took a fair bit of planning, governmental politics and a little bit of cash, but we pulled it off. We also pulled off toasting an Alpha amplifier and an Icom 7000. But we all made it out alive with a new experience under our belts and I experienced a pileup the night before on PSK from the beach.

Early in July, I installed the trapped 40/80/160 antenna and start getting S9+40-50 signal reports on 160m, something no G5RV would do. Later that month I would end up in,out and then back in the hospital for a perforated appendix, which made for good rest time for DX at home, but no HT’s in the hospital. I also missed out on IoTA weekend, bummer.

In August I started playing around with satellites and sold the Icom 746 and purchased a Yaesu 847. Just as quickly as I got into this mode, I was out of it, but I walked away with a QSO with Commander Doug Wheelock aboard the ISS while we were mobile.

September my HF configuration came full circle. I ended swapping out the Mosley for my previously rebuilt hexbeam. Luckily for me, K3GMT’s plans for it didn’t work out, and I have my creation back on the roof and working DX like a mad man. At the same time we relocated the 2 meter antennas to a newly installed guyed mast just behind the garage.

October 1st I would wake to find my shack in the basement flooded due to a large rainfall. A normally quiet sump pump would awaken in the night, but a tripped GFI breaker caused it to stop and leave me with a foot of water. No ham equipment was harmed, but the shack ended up being relocated to the dining room. Luckily for me I have a loving, understanding and licensed (general) YL. Speaking of which She and I worked the PA QSO party, but she has not yet given up my Icom 706. I don’t have the heart to take it back, and not that I need it, but it gives me an excuse to buy another rig.

The last quarter of 2010 has been fairly quiet. I’ve been voted into the board for my radio club, working towards DXCC, working more CW and playing around with APRS.

Laurie and I are both looking forward to a prosperous 2011, with me hopefully working HF mobile once again. Hi Hi.

Recently I was researching computer rotor interfaces and happened across the website of Idiom Press, who makes a product called Rotor Card. While browsing their site I found that they sell an audio filtering kit called the SCAF-1. The filter was designed for older radios without DSP (digital signal processing) or additional filtering to make those heavy QRM filled QSO’s more tolerable. My Icom-746 is one of the first generation radios with DSP and I also have 2 additional filters installed (350hz and 1900hz), but I wanted a little more flexibility in my filtering options.

On my particular rig when I enable noise reduction (NR) I tend to get a fair amount of ringing in the filter, an artifact of the older DSP technology. In addition to that Icom’s PBT (PassBand Tuning) only goes so far. My 1900hz filter in the rig could clean up the IF stage of the receiver, but I needed something more to make QRM filled receive audio more tolerable. I also started thinking about the possibilities with RTTY and PSK31.

After listening to Idiom Press’ audio samples on SSB phone and CW, I was sold. I decided to go with the kit form to save a few bucks and experience the challenge of building a kit. Since my last kit (D-Star hotspot) was a success, I was up for the challenge. $90 and 3 days later the kit arrived.

The included instructions were very clear and very consise and the kit assembled exactly like they had stated. One issue I encountered was wrong resistor (miscount). Where I required a 3rd 10k ohm, I had a 100 ohm. No biggie, nothing that I can’t get at my local Radio Shack. Thankfully mine still sells common electronic components. The other issue was trying to figure out the pin ID on the DPDT switch. Unfortunately I soldered mine backwards and the switch is keyed to install in only one direction. All this really means is the UP position is OFF and DOWN is ON. Again, no big deal.

I had most of the kit assembled in the course of 3 hours while I was carrying participating in my usual 8PM net on 1900khz. Today I was able to pickup the remaining resistors and also some audio cables to interface it into my rig setup. I decided to place it between the AF output of the radio (accessory audio output) and the rig audio input of my Rigblaster. This way I could utilize it for digital modes on the computer, which is a direct feed to my monitor speakers. The filter has 2 audio outputs, one for headphones and external speaker audio. The kit gives you the luxury of choosing which size jack 1/4 or 1/8 inch you wish for either function as well as if you want stereo or mono. Since it’s ham radio and the most audio bandwidth I’ll ever hear (from a properly tuned transmitter) is 6khz (on AM), I decided to go mono for both.

Upon powering up the filter for the first time, I was happy to hear the exact results I had heard on their website as well as nothing blowing up (reverse polarity electrolytic capacitors become missiles). The instructions call for you to adjust the internal potentiometer, but I had found the audio to be consistent with it set to the middle.

Check out the photos below and also take a look at the audio spectrum I had captured with the filter in line as well as out.

So far I’m happy with the results and look forward to using it during contests and busy digital waterfalls.

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I just got finished up participating in the June ARRL VHF contest, a first for me. With my Field Day expedition only 2 weeks away, this contest was a perfect chance to shake out the portability of my gear.

Initially I started off the contest in a field very close to my QTH with my Icom 706 and an Arrow dual-band satellite antenna. I needed to fabricate a mount where I could easily rotate the yagi as well as adjust azimuth and elevation. I ended up cutting a 1 inch piece of SCH40 PVC at 15 inches long and a piece of SCH40 1 1/4 inch PVC at 6 inches long. I used a hose clamp to secure it down to a photography light stand adapter, as I didn’t have access to a tripod. As you can see in the photos, it seemed to workout just fine for the contest.

Since I was operating the 2nd day of the contest from home, I needed to change the polarity of my Cubex 2m quad antenna to be horizontally polarized. Granted I’ve only made 20 contacts in my first VHF contest, but I ended up having a blast and learning alot.

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Last night while on the 1900 Net, I heard that it was possible to run the Icom 746 with separate transmit and receive antennas. According to Sky’s Daughter’s FAQ it was possible to do this running split, setting VFO-A on Antenna 1 and VFO-B on Antenna 2. Unfortunately I have been unable to make the Antenna selection follow the VFO but I’m going to keep trying to figure it out. Links available below:

Sky’s Daughters 746 FAQ PDF Link
My local link to the 746 FAQ PDF

For those of you with the cloning cable (OPC-478UC) for the Icom IC-2200H, below is the driver for it. I had a hell of a time with the driver that came with it.

Windows XP version

Windows Vista version

With all the research I’ve been doing lately trying to decide what radio I plan to purchase, I started reading about filters. Currently I’m running an Icom 746 and found that Laurie’s (KB3SIK) Heathkit SB-301 has the edge on recieve. Having a look closer at the 746 configuration I found that I don’t have any add-on filters installed. Bummer!

So in an effort to breath additional life into the 746, I’m planning on the purchase of 2 narrow bandwidth SSB filters for both the 9 MHz and 455 khz sections of the IF. I’m also looking at a 250 khz CW filter for the 9MHz end of the RF chain for PSK operations.

With my frustration of Icom’s lack of clear documentation in the radio manual, I found an interesting document on the 746 operation and tweaking and placed it up on the server. Section 4 contains the information about filtering. Also has some interesting notes about setting the PBT, again something the manual hardly explains.

In addition to my upgrades to the reciever, I plan on purchasing a Ten-Tec Model 715 RF Speech Processor. I’m trying everything I possibly can to optimize my signal without plopping down a minimum of $750 on a linear amplifier. I’ve gotten great results processing my audio through VE3NEA’s Voice Shaper software via my Rigblaster Pro, although I’d like to accomplish this outboard and not worry about computer audio being accidently transmitted… Gotta abide by Part 97 you know.

…and when I say bug, I don’t mean a software or design flaw.

On Thursday night my Icom IC-91AD arrived from Ham Radio Outlet in Delaware. After speaking with a few local hams, Dave, K3GMT and Ken, N3IYX I decided to go the D-Star route. Just in the last 3 weeks at least 3 club members started playing around on the local D-Star repeater, W3OI. I decided to go with the 91AD over the 92 for a few different reasons.

1) The price. $200 more for an HT is a bit much.

2) GPS speaker mic. I don’t really see myself needing a $300 microphone for an HT. I’m guessing there is a cheaper version without the GPS functionality.

3) Submersibility. Is that a word? I don’t think I’m worried about dropping it in a lake and if I am, the probability of using D-Star where such lake would exist will most likely be remote. 

The one thing I do like about the 92 is the power output flexibility. Although the 91 does make it simple. Low is .5 watts and high is 5 watts. This leaves another brain cycle to concentrate on D-Star signal routing.

After 2 days with the new mode, I’m finding it both fun and frustrating at the same time. Our local region currently has only 1 repeater, which is more than most places have. Philadelphia has 2 on the outside of town, which I was unable to get into either one today. Our repeater in Allentown is at the tail end of the “testing” phase, with the current antenna only being 30 feet off the ground running at minimal capabilities. Once the antenna and pre-amps get in place, coverage is going to be phenomenal and more worthwhile to the D-Star HT owners. The mobiles seem to be doing ok and those of us with HT’s at home tend to hook up to our rooftop antennas.

Today we made a road trip down to the Newcastle, DE to HRO to pick up a few odds and ends. BTW, don’t bother buying the Icom folding headset (can’t remember the model number). First off the headset band is too big all the way at it’s smallest adjustment, and the ear phone hangs off of the headset like an iPod ear bud. Highly uncomfortable and hardly worth the $60 asking price. After 5 minutes in the parking lot I promptly returned it for an Icom speaker mic, which doesn’t have quite the audio output I would’ve expected but was $20 cheaper. I also picked up a Diamond SRH77CA antenna for the 91AD, looking for a little edge over the stock antenna. It measures double the length of the stock rubberduck, but I haven’t really completed a comparison.

After arriving home this afternoon I happened to hear a JA station (Japan) call CQ through the gateway. His audio was flawless and full quieting, unlike me who was having a hard time making the repeater on a rubberduck antenna.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. I think it’s a much needed boost that the local bands need. And if you’re a D-Star user, try giving me a shout, I’m usually on W3OI-C.

73

-jeff  N3QO (still getting used to that one).

This morning I just happened across a craigslist ad for some ham gear for sale and ended up picking myself up a nice Icom IC-746 from KB2SDP. I figured since I’m just getting into HF I didn’t necessarily need to go with the pro version or a 756. Currently only receiving until I get my HF privileges later this month and also until I get a higher capacity power supply, I’m very happy with the selectivity of the radio. This afternoon I’ve been listening on 40 and 80 meter bands.

–jeff