WD0AJG - Hamming for over 40 years: Fwd: Amateur Radio Newsletter

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Tuesday, September 5, 2017

VE7CNF / 630m Mobile … almost.

If you think 160m mobile is a challenge...

Hot on the heels of his recent 630m maritime adventure , Toby (VE7CNF), continued to demonstrate the flexibility of his small 20W 630m portable system with an afternoon of fixed 'mobile' activity from his vehicle.

Local 630m op's in-boxes received a surprise alert on Tuesday:

"Are any of you available on Tuedsay for a 630m land mobile test with VE7CNF/7?"

Toby set things up at Sea Island's Iona Regional Park, situated on the ocean's edge just north of Vancouver International Airport. This gave him a good shot to several of the local 630m ops around the local region.

When Canadian amateurs first approached RAC and Industry Canada for a slice of spectrum near 500KHz, the main goal was to secure a frequency range that would support excellent groundwave propagation for a possible future emergency data network. Whether this will ever happen or not remains to be seen, but Toby's afternoon outing, along with the recent 630 marine mobile activity certainly helps to demonstrate the potential for the band to provide reliable signals with relatively small antennas and low erp.

Toby's basic transverter is rather unique in that the transmitter's FET power mixer also passes signals backwards to function in the receive mode:

"I've developed a 630m band linear transverter that produces 30W of transmitter power. It has no power amplifier and draws only 175 mA from a 12V power supply. It works for both transmit and receive with no T/R antenna relays or switching circuits.

I've used a bidirectional high-power mixer circuit to directly take 100W of power from a 160m band transceiver and produce useful output power on 630m. For receive, 630m signals can pass backwards through the circuit and are up-converted to 160m.

My transverter is actually the small box on the dash above the steering wheel. The gear in the back near the variometer is used only during setup to resonate the antenna. It's a signal generator and oscilloscope. The AC transformers are just an isolation transformer that I need to make the test equipment work with my 12V-to-AC inverter."

Toby VE7CNF/7 at Iona
Toby's own report on the outing:

"VE7CNF/7 Operation was from the Iona Beach area near Vancouver, grid CN89jf. The location is right beside salt water. There are no nearby power lines so rx noise was S0. Operation was in daylight, around 4 pm local time. Signals were excellent and all CW was easy copy.

On 475.0 kHz CW I managed to work Roger VE7VV (CN88il, him 529, me 579) and Jack VA7JX (CN79kv, him 569, me 579). I heard Steve VE7SL (CN88iu) at 599 briefly, then he had a problem and we didn't complete a QSO. He gave me 599 later by email.

The antenna is about 24 ft high and the fishing-rod-and-wire top load is pulled forward about 8 ft. The matching circuit is a loading coil, variometer, and autotransformer. My Tx power was 20W TPO and estimated EIRP 75 mW. The rig was my home brew transverter with an IC-7410."

"After CW I ran WSPR for a while, 23:42 to 00:08 UTC (4:42 to 5:08 pm local). WSPRnet lists my spots as my home QTH CN89ng, but I did have CN89jf entered in WSJT-X. I got spots from WI2XJQ -17, VE7BDQ +14, VE7AB +6, VE7VV +1, W7IUV -26, WH2XGP -30 dB. I also decoded WSPR from VE7VV +7 and VA7JX +9 dB."

"This was great fun. I'll have to try more locations, and see if I can improve the equipment for easier setup. I had great copy on Roger 529 and Jack 569. Working Jack was a surprise, and his signal was excellent. Being beside salt water is magic. Rx noise was so low at that location, near Iona Beach CN89jf."

Our 'new' band continues to demonstrate its ability to offer exciting opportunities to experimenters, home-brewers and DXers alike and for those with the creative imagination to push new boundaries, who knows where one of the first frequency ranges to be used by amateurs back in the 20's might eventually take us.

I can visualize, at some point in the future, the usefulness of a province-wide 630m emergency comms network utilizing a basic 'grab and go' system based on much of Toby's demonstrated work.

If you are a Canadian amateur why not join the fun on 630m now? U.S. amateurs will be arriving shortly and when they do, things should be getting even more exciting on the new band!

Smoky Mountain Summits On The Air

Joyce/K0JJW and I were getting prepared for a trip to Gatlinburg, TN in August with some of her family. Gatlinburg is the gateway town to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the surrounding area. I had hiked and camped in the Smokies years ago and this was a great opportunity to visit that area again. Of course, we needed Continue reading Smoky Mountain Summits On The Air→

The post Smoky Mountain Summits On The Air appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

A visit to the Telford Hamfest & GQRP club
My amateur radio activity has been very much on the back burner during the last few months due to other commitments.

However, rather than cut the lawns, wash the car on a Sunday morning and look forward to a roast beef lunch, sandwiches were a better offering this last weekend. I had arranged to go to the Telford radio rally and maybe pickup a few items. Don't bring back any junk, said my wife! Ugh!

So it was time to get up early dig out the badge.

The Telford radio rally had always been hosted in the centre of Telford town centre for many years, but about 10 years ago it was moved to the Enguity Centre at Coalbrookedale museum, in the centre of Shropshire where the industrial revolution started.

We arrived quite early and people were certainly up with the larks to get a place in the queue, and maybe grab a bargain?

This year the rally had teamed up with the GQRP club which had moved it's famous annual QRP convention from Rishworth. Most of the team were there, including George (G3RJV) and Graham (G3MFJ). Bringing along their wealth of experience with the rest of the crew from the hub of club, giving members free advice, sales, and trying to recruit a few new ones to the fold:

Sadly my snap of the club stand came out blurred and I don't have another, much to my disappointment! If anyone has a photo, please send me a copy and I will edit it in..

However I did purchase the mug to prove my support for the G-QRP club.

If you didn't visit the convention you can always join the G-QRP club, at £6 for a year's UK membership and not much more for international, it is really an amazing bargain! Including 4 Sprats (the quarterly magazine of the club) posted to your home! Sprat is packed with designs, QRP circuits, membership news etc. Edited by George Dobbs since the formation of the club in 1974. How can many say they have done a job like that for over 40 years, again amazing!

Join the GQRP club here.

The RSGB had also popped along to offer their sales team with some exciting reading and some new publications.

Even though I didn't buy much this year it proved to be a good social event, meeting up with a quite few other Amateurs I know from around the country, picking up a few ideas, hints and tips, and learning news which I wouldn't of heard of online.

It was time to have a look outside at a few traders that had setup shop, and grab a cuppa before returning back home late afternoon.

Maybe see you there next year or you never know where I am going to pop up next!