Antenna update again

Antennas

I’m a member of the Bergen Amateur Radio Association (BARA) and they have a weekly “kit night” where a good 15-25 people show up to hang out and often work on radio related projects. So I brought my G5RV that 2 weeks ago started acting up (see the last 2 blog posts) to firther check out and get some suggestions on.

We tested things out and it looked like there might be an issue in the area where the coax connects to the ladder line. The way the G5RV was built, there’s a sharp bend in the coax as it goes loops back through the ladder line. Folks that was probably too sharp a bend of for some reason there was too much tension on it as it blew in the wind. As we were testing continuity, between the shield and one of the ends of the antenna, they manipulated that area where the connection is and we lost the connection momentarily. So we pulled it apart trimmed a bit off of the ladderline and the coax and put it back together by soldering the connections between the coax and ladderline, using heat shrink tubing on each leg of the new connection, wrapping it further in tape, shrink tubing the pair of wires, and then with some popsicle like sticks in that area, taping it further.

The folks also suggested using some nylon rope around that by looping through some of the ladder line and going below the connection on the coax to further eleviate stress on that part. It all tested out and I brought it home. Not sure when the weather will permit me to put it back up, but I’ll get it up as soon as I can. I still have the antenna analyzer to test things out when it goes up and see how it looks.

So thanks to Kerry who sold me the antenna for all his support and to my fellow BARA members for jumping in with suggestions and support with getting it [hopefully] repaired!

K2DSL

Antenna update and 10m contest

Antennas, Contests

I’m still having an issue with my G5RV as mentioned in my last post. I lowered the antenna today, pulled the coax back out and did a continuity test from pin to end and shield to end and it seemed all good. So I raised it back up and what do you know – I could tune on 80, 40, 20 and 10 again. Odd. I make a few 10m contacts and then see an interesting 20m station show up in the cluster so I tune to it and uh-oh, not again. Seems like I can’t tune 20m again. Ugh. Nothing changed in that short time other then a very slight breeze out today.

So I call a local club member that has an antenna analyzer and he calls me back later in the day and I run over and grab it. I connect the coax and 20m looks good with a low SWR and 50 ohm impedance. Well I disconnect the coax and connect it to the radio and it won’t tune. Hmmm – now it seems it’s the radio. I disconnect the coax, connect it to the analyzer and 20m is showing  a 3+ SWR and impedance of 15-20 ohms. What the heck? I wiggle the cable/coax but all looks tight and solid. I take some more readings and note them down and send off an email to the very helpful individual I got it from 6 months ago.

After dinner, I decide to take it down and throw up my basic 20m dipole I have and it is working fine. We’ll see how this all ends in the upcoming weeks.

For a very short time after dealing with the antenna this morning and it apparently working until I realized it wasn’t, I made a few contacts during the ARRL 10m contest. Only 21 contacts but before this contest, I only had 3 10m contacts logged. It’s interesting to see who I was able to hear/contact. The screen shot snippet below of the 21 contacts makes the “openings” pretty obvious.

I’m where the cross hairs are in NJ. That line of contacts across FL looks fake, but those pins are shown based on the grid location of the operator from QRZ. Here’s a close up of just FL.

Hopefully we can get my G5RV antenna straightened out soon.

73,
K2DSL

Antenna issue and SARTG Results

Antennas, Contests

First the not so good news. This past weekend was a RTTY contest and things were fine. The beginning of the week I fired up the radio and I can’t seem to get the SWR within range when tuning. Hadn’t been a problem before on 10, 20, 40 or 80 meters. I contacted the fellow I got it from and he suggested some tests and resetting my radio. Reset the radio and there’s no difference there. Ran a couple tests and sent him the results. I think I need to pull it down this weekend and see what is going on with it.

Back in August I went to my in-laws and operated as K2DSL/4 from North Carolina for the SARTG RTTY contest. The final results are posted and I placed 55th in the Single Op Single Band 20m category. Looking back at that contest, I could only operate 2/3rds of it because I was travelling back home for one of the time slots. I also wasn’t comfortable using MMTTY yet which would help me now compared to using DM780 during a contest.  Comparing my submitted score to the final results, I submitted 106 QSOs and they show 103. I submitted 39 mults and the final results show 38.  So comparing the final score that I submitted, I went from 45,825 down to 43,320.  Still, it was my real first contest on my own and it was a lot of fun.

73,
K2DSL

TARA RTTY Melee Contest

Contacts, Contests

Friday night into Saturday was the 24 hour TARA RTTY Melee where you can operate only 16 hours. Not sure how many hours I ended up operating but it was a couple before heading to bed and then a good portion of the day on Saturday with about 6 or so short errands around town.

I ended up with 199 contacts across 75m, 40m and 20m. Most were US with about a dozen Canadian stations and about a dozen DX stations.  199 QSOs with 66 multipliers for a score of 13,134.

Next big RTTY contest is just after the beginning of the year. I think I’ll be home from a skiing trip by then. Should be a lot of fun.

See you on the air,
K2DSL

My longest phone contact so far

Contacts

Last night before heading up to bed, I glanced at the DX cluster info and noticed a South Africa station was spotted from a couple US stations so I flipped the radio on and tuned to 40m. The operator was ZS4U (Barney) and he was booming in. He was in the Extra portion of the band and it was my first time manually setting a split on my TS-2000 and putting my call sign out as an Extra class operator.

Setting split worked like a charm and was easy on the TS-2000. I’ll have to check but I guess I just need to switch back and forth to hear both sides of the QSO, making the xmit frequency the receive frequency when the other op is speaking. The TS-2000 makes that easy with the push of a single button.

When ZS4U was done with the QSO he was in when I tuned to the frequency, I put out my call sign but he picked up another op. When he did, the other op said hello and that Barney was booming in and he’ll stand by in case there were weaker stations that might want to try. So I put out my call sign again and Barney came right back to me. Gave me a report of 57 (he was 59) and he seemed to have no issue copying me.

Based on the distance between my grid and his, we’re about 8,017 miles apart. It’s easily my longest phone contact which previously was 6,350 miles into Kazakhstan on 20m. My previous longest on 40m was Honduras at 5,500 miles. I’ve had another contact with South Africa but it was on 20m RTTY, both with the same operator (ZS2EZ) during 2 RTTY contests.

So thank you Barney and thanks to the operator that stepped aside to let some others get a shot at ZS4U. A great way to the end day!

73,
K2DSL

APRS

Equipment, Misc

Here’s a screen shot from APRS.fi of my APRS track from Wilmington, NC to my home QTH in Northern NJ. I use a Garmin GPS76CS connected to my Kenwood TH-D7A(G) handheld and plugged into a Mirage dual-band amplifier. I’ve used this setup a few times on this same trip when going to visit my in-laws. I have the radio station id as K2DSL-7. Here’s the map…

APRS track from Wilimington, NC to Northern NJ
APRS track from Wilimington, NC to Northern NJ

You’ll see a very large gap at the bottom portion between where the track ends and Wilmington which is shown at the bottom of the map above. It’s a APRS dead spot. I almost never get anything between that last end point and Wilmington.  Otherwise, the track is pretty accurate for the route which is primarily Rt 17 in Northern NJ to the Garden State Parkway, New Jersey Turnpike and then I-95 south to I-40 in North Carolina which is the ride (a few different names as it gets into Wilmington) my in-laws live off of.

I usually leave Band A on APRS with a 2 minute interval. Band B I leave on 146.52 which is the national 2-meter simplex frequency. I usually don’t hear more then 2 or 3 people on that frequency during the 650 mile trip. The map above is the route home and the map from NJ to NC from 5 days earlier is very similar. APRS.fi shows 32 stations reporting hearing me direct ranging from a few miles away from my broadcast location at the time I was heard to over 115 miles away. Most are in the 30-50 mile range from my location.

APRS.fi reports 100 packets received for today’s trip home and 127 for the trip down last Tues night/Weds morning. Without analyzing why, I’d guess the number difference it was the length of the trip down on Tues vs home on Mon.  Tues/Wednesday’s ride was very long with a lot of traffic. It took about 12.5 hours to get there (arriving just before 2am). Today it was smooth sailing and we did the trip in 9.5 hours. If I look, I see about the same gaps on the map between the 2 trips.  We need some more igates (computers connected to tranceivers that get APRS packets via RF and push them onto the Internet) along I-95 and I-40 in North Carolina.

On a completely different subject, the FCC ULS is now showing my license class as Extra. QRZ should follow in a day or two the upgrade.

73,
K2DSL

K2DSL is now an Extra class operator

Misc

I studied diligently for a month using the Gordon West Extra Class book and audio CDs and then flash cards at http://www.kb0mga.net/exams/index.php and tonight I passed the Extra exam with flying colors. It felt good to go into the exam confident and still be confident when handing the exam to the VE’s for grading.

The VE’s are from the Bergen Amateur Radio Association (BARA) club which I’m a member of. It was nice when they took the exam, put the answer sheet overlay on my test and I heard them say “This will be an easy one to grade”. They all congratulated me and I thanked them each for all the info and encouragement and their enthusiasm that is making the hobby exciting and fun. The Bergen Amateur Radio Association (BARA) in Northern NJ is a tremendous group of folks that make a terrific hobby even that much better.

So I can now breathe a little sigh of relief and relax by cruising the extra class portion of the bands. I left shortly after they handed me my CSCE because my daughter was getting her first Varsity letter as a freshman and I wanted to get there in time for that. When I left, there were 3 other folks testing and I think 2 of them passed their tech and the 3rd was finishing up his general exam and I hope he passed as well.

Now, to learn CW ;-)

73,
K2DSL/AE

ARRL Sweepstakes Phone Contest

Contacts, Contests

This past weekend was the ARRL Sweepstakes Phone Contest. I couldn’t dedicate a large portion of the weekend to the contest with obligations on Saturday and the Giants football game from 10am-6pm on Sunday. So during the time I could get on the radio, I had a lot of fun.

Band   QSOs  Pts   Sec
3.5    103   206   29
7       62   124   19
14      40    80   19
Total: 205   410   67
Score : 27,470

I had 2 phone contacts with Alaska and I logged contacts with 47 of the 50 states, just missing Kentucky, South Carolina and Oklahoma.  As the stats above show, I logged a contact with 67 of the 80 sections. One frustrating missing section was Southern NJ. A whopping 50 miles or so south of me I couldn’t make a contact on 20, 40 or 80 meters.  if I was around when 20m was open to the West Coast I probably could have gotten some of the missing sections in the US and in Canada.

What was nice, even though I’ve only just started contesting, is there were a couple of operators that recognized my call and said hello when we were making the exchange.  Comments like “Nice to speak with you on phone, hope to see you in the next RTTY contest.”.

I’m going to take the Extra Class test on Friday. Would have been nice to have been an Extra during the contest so I could have slipped down into the Extra portion of the bands for additional sections (multipliers) and QSOs.  But a lot of fun for a phone contest. I found it a bit more enjoyable and relaxing then one where your contacts are all international.

73,
K2DSL

LOTW QSL & DXCC Update

Misc

Before the WAE RTTY contest this past weekend my LOTW stats showed 2,400 QSOs submitted and 869 confirmed QSLs. As of this morning it shows 2,821 QSOs and 1,071 QSLs. DXCC’s confirmed in LOTW was at 65 before this past weekend and now I’m at 68 confirmed entities with Crete, Serbia and Greenland being added.

73,
David

WAE RTTY Contest

Contacts, Contests

This past weekend was the WAE RTTY contest. Since Daylight Savings Time ended here, 0000z is 1 hour earlier. The contest started at 7pm ET Friday night and ended 7pm ET Sunday evening. I was able to spend a good amount of waking time working the contest. I didn’t stay up later then I would have to put in extra hours. I’ll need to check what N1MM reports but I think I put in maybe 4 hours Friday and then 12-14 each day on Saturday and Sunday.

This was the first time I used QTCs and it was interesting. QTCs are more about the score and not about the contacts so I didn’t push hard asking to send/receive them. I asked a few times and whenever someone asked me, as long as I was getting a good copy on them, I took them. Probably easier to send then receive, but I’m sure I’m a weaker signal to them then they are to me. But next time, I’ll push QTCs more.

My summary looks like 420 contacts in total with 173,888 points. Remember last nights quick analysis, it consisted of 50 DXCC entities, 3 of which are the US, Alaska and Hawaii. I like the ability to make US contacts and not just international ones. Makes for more action for us little guys. I think there were 2 new DXCCs out of those 50 which were Greenland and Gabon in Africa. In a quick review once I imported the log and ran it against QRZ, it looks like I made contacts in 41 of the 50 states.

A lot of the contacts were ones I made previously. If I knock those out and all the US/Canada QSOs, there’s less then 75 new contacts in my log. I’ll go through this week and see which I might send a paper QSL card to. LOTW and eQSL were already updated. LOTW now shows me with 2,821 records uploaded and it’s jumped to over 1,007 confirmed QSLs, which should rise further over the next week as folks submit their logs to LOTW. The RTTY contesters are the best at sending to LOTW. I looked and I’m not showing any new DXCCs confirmed in LOTW yet so it is still showing 65. Maybe some of the contacts in DXCCs that previously didn’t upload their logs will do so, so even though I only contacted 2 new DXCCs, there could be contacts with ops in DXCCs that I previously contacted but don’t have confirmed yet on LOTW.

So tonight when I get home from work I’ll mess around with the data and run some reports against the data to see how things are shaking out. RTTY is so much fun!!

73,
K2DSL