Andrew Grid Dish 2.4 GHz

Last year, I became inquisitive and managed to take apart one of my Andrew Grid Dishes. They’re rather well made so it takes some patience and some sharp Stanley blades – along with an excellent first aid box! I nearly cut my finger off. Not the first time. My original intention was to replace the feeder directly with heliax to trim down the losses but looking at how they assemble these in the factory, I needn’t have worried.

You will see from the pictures (see link below) that these dishes are well made. I wonder what the goo that completely blocks up the tube that supports the dipole centre? It’s clearly some sort of water seal and I must say it’s completely over the top. It took a heck of a struggle to get the coax out.

These dishes are shipped in two halves along with the coaxial dipole mounting centre that bolts to the grid from behind. It’s possible to get the polarisation incorrect from the beginning. Notice in the picture that this one is vertically polarised. To change polarisation, you DO NOT change the plane of the dipole feepoint, instead you must rotate the dish through 90 degrees. Note that all fasteners are imperial dimensions, not metric. Don’t start losing nuts and bolts if you live in a metric country.

With a 23dbi gain and an 8 degree lobe of RF pointing in the appropriate direction, this is a serious bit of kit but please use low-loss coax; LMR-400, Westflex or if you must, RG213. Don’t use RG58, this is actually very HIGH-loss coax and shouldn’t be sold as low-loss at all. The losses at 2.4GHz are tremendous and you could easily see most of your signal wasted in the coax. The dish is terminated in an N-Type connector on a flying lead with RG-213 type coax. Point-to-point, you probably can’t do better unless you start to spend astonishing amounts of cash.

James and I will try and give a pair of these a test in the summer from Monument hill to the Scout hut – about 10 miles. Apparently a breeze. The world record is for an un-amplified signal is something like 150 miles!

Callum.

Shakespeare Marine 5300 HF SSB Antenna update

I was very excited about taking delivery of my 2-piece 5300 Shakespeare Marine SSB HF Antenna for my narrowboat this week.

IMG_8483Close inspection showed that the antenna is a 2-piece 28’6″ (8.5 meter or thereabouts) white fibreglass hollow pole with a 2 foot aluminium heavy-duty sleeve at the base for mounting purposes. This main lower section (of around 17 feet or so) has three elements running the full length embedded inside the fibreglass at time of manufacture from the side feed to the top, in 120 degree arc segments. A heavy-duty male screw fitting at the top, electrically connects to the top section’s female thread.

Since the wind had died down this morning, it was an ideal opportunity to take down the 40 foot vertical and replace it with the 5300 as a test. I inserted one of my light duty aluminium poles up inside the aluminium housing approximately 12 inches in depth to where the fibreglass stopped inside the sleeve (from the other end) and I raised it to the vertical by walking up the antenna from the pointy end until it was raised vertical. I then lowered it using the same technique.

 

Lowering it at around 45 degrees, the fibreglass groaned, cracked at the sleeve point and fell to the ground.

Clearly, there’s a flaw just above the aluminium sleeve. A one-in-a-million manufacturing defect.

I’ve written to shakespeare and await their reply.

[Later] On Monday morning, I was emailed by their UK sales department explaining that another 5300 would be shipped immediately. This is the first time one of these has ever broken in the history of the 5300 antenna production and clearly this is a freak. Good news Shakespeare, thanks.

Callum.

Radio Prosecution Statistics in the UK

In response to a Freedom of Information request I submitted a few months ago, I have been advised today by Ofcom that the new Prosecution Statistics have finally been published for the year 2006/2007 for stations and operators that have been flouting the law (cheers to Martin – you know who you are – thanks).

Frankly, I am extremely concerned that with a decline in operating standards, intentional QRM and foul-mouthed high-powered CB operators, nothing seems to have been done proactively to drive these awful practices away.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radiocomms/ifi/enforcement/pstats/stats0607 

In the US, there’s a culture of self-control, stringent practices and band-police that appear to work fairly well. In this country, you can cause intentional QRM on the ham bands or burn 1kW of FM or SSB at 11 meters into the SSB F layers with a foul mouth – and nobody cares. I was once an 11m operator driving 100w of FT101ZD. I worked hard to become a first class operator and was proud of my standards. I wasn’t a jumped up super-bratt (I was, but not with a radio!).

With the sunspot cycle on the up, the world will once again be able to listen to the UK acting like complete idiots. Don’t come knocking on my door when you want a level of control some time in the future.

73

Callum.

12m SpiderBeam Vertical Pole Antenna

I’ve really been impressed this weekend over the quality of 160m SSB operators who I found were courtious, patient and keen to accept my call. I’ve done single-band entries before on 40m where the tight frequency allocation and numbers of operators mean that there’s a pretty agressive tension in the air – not so 160m. There seemed to be space enough for the big runners to hold a frequency and enough of them to allow the casual Search and Pounce operator to have a couple of hours fun from time to time.

12m SpiderBeam Pole

Regular readers of this site know that although I’m a keen contest operator, I love building and testing antennas. This weekend allowed me to build something a little different to squeeze in a 160m vertical into my back garden where I only have 10m x 15m to play with (in old money, that’s only 30 x 50 feet).

Pictures tell a thousand words so I won’t go into the heavy details other than I used up the full 12m SpiderBeam pole and put up 8 radials ranging in size from 6 meters through to 12 meters (telephone wire, spare from an old reel). The Feedpoint was 2 meters off the deck and the radials were parallel to the ground. I fed it at the feedpoint with an SG-230 powered by a car battery housed in the shed. 30 meters of low-loss, double-shielded Westflex coax fed the tuner.

My only trouble was that after a few hours, the pole started to telescope into itself with the strong wind which required me to take it all down and hose-clamp (jubilee clip) each section after using liberal amounts of plastic tape so that I wouldn’t damage the fibreglass. SpiderBeam do a clamp-set with small rubber shields and if you are thinking of getting one of these, do buy the little clamp set, it’ll make your life easier. Even then, one of the sections moved a few inches in the night. It’s settled now – but you can see the vertical telephone wire that I used as the antenna has become slightly loose.

Results were quite encouraging and with only three or four ventures onto 160, fitting in dinner, bedtimes and some family TV, I scored 51 QSOs with the USA being the biggest potential DX. I didn’t work them though. My footprint covered the near Atlantic islands (Madeira etc), North Africa through East Mediteranean and up around European Russia and Finland. I genuinley didn’t believe that such a small antenna would work that well particularly at only 100w. I think getting all the RF into the antenna instead of wasting power heating coax may be the key here – and it’s the SG-230 that takes the blame for this 🙂

Final relaxed score was 51 QSOs, 24 Countries for 6,144 points.

REF Contest: Not content with one contest this weekend, I also entered the REF contest. Conditions were terrible though. I’ve had much bigger runs into France on 40m but not this weekend. It kept me out of trouble but certainly nothing to write home about. 20m was off the score card because I could rarely find any propagation into France on 20m – the same on the higher bands too.

It did give me a chance to use the vertical though for general purpose DX and occassional tests with James (M3YOM) who had also put up a similar antenna this weekend – also using an SG-230! For me, some mixed results although the vertical normally won the competition barring 80m where the higher levels of radiation inter-UK suited the full-wave NVIS loop better.

I’m left with one question: Why did the vertical work on 160m locally – but not on 80m locally where the loop was required? There’s some propagation going on here that I don’t understand. More experiments are required.

Overall though, a great experiement though.

Cheers and beers.

Callum.

 

Thinking Day On The Air (TDOTA) – GB1DSG

TDOTAOn Sunday, 17 Feb 2008, the M0XXT boys hosted Thinking Day On The Air (TDOTA) for the local Girl Guide district. We were QRO as usual on 40m and 80m for UK and EU.

The night before we went live for the girls, we ran a pile-up grabbing DX, capturing Australia, Venezuela, Canada and even Ethiopia, all on 40m as well as an ear-splitting pile within EU. Asking EU for silence brought the DX in. We’re learing how to do this. A fascinating insight into the minds of pile-up runners :). Of interest, VK came through at 21:30 UTC which caught us off guard – being a little late.

Thanks to Rod at Ofcom, even after applying extremely late for GB1DSG, he approved our application with hours to go before the event. Thanks Rod!

Pictures and Log to follow.

73

Callum.

80m Vertical – High voltage elevated radials

RF Weld - Click to zoom

RF Weld – Click to zoom

The M0XXT Double Xray Firm had one of our outings again last weekend with myself, Tim (M0URX) and James (YOMsoft author). We built our biggest vertical yet, a loaded quarter-wave for 80 meters. Click the picture to compare Tim and I against its size. Awesome! 21 foot (6 meter) scaffold pole with 40 feet (12 meters) of SpiderBeam pole above. We’re getting an 18 meter version of this which should be great fun.

For speed of assembly on the day, we used 4 very thin strands of insulated copper wire out of a three-pair (6 way) telephone reel for the elevated radials. They’re very thin but would do the job of allowing us to raise this baby up in the air 6 meters.

The radials ended up at ground level, wrapped around galvanised tent pegs. Without realising it, we were trusting the insulation coating of the wire itself to keep the radials from being grounded. Actually, we never really thought about the consequences! Anyway, a 100w squirt proved most efficient and we achieved a 2:1 SWR curve from 3.625 to 3.750. We needed to shorten it a few more inches, however before we took it down again, I thought it prudent to fire 400w up it to make sure nothing broke down. Thump; I stuck a good carrier from the ACOM 2000 down the pipe and “pop”. The SWR pinged up to over 3:1. What had happened?

The insulation on every single tent peg had broken down in an instant and melted through to convert our careful elevated radial system into a grounded system in a flash.

NATO stock number 5985997014493 – Reel and Ant Wire Assy

Nato Antenna Part 5985997014493I recently purchased an interesting reel of antenna cable made up of various different lengths of antenna wire and connectors in a contemporary design made of modern materials. The handle and bearing appears to be aluminium but the reel is of a high-impact plastic. This would have been fabulous if made in aluminium. There’s quite a few different lengths of this stuff and since I’ve yet to pull it all out in the garden, I can’t fathom it all out while its trailing around a room.

I need to work out exactly what it is. If you happen to know, can you email me please? I’d like to know the history and technicals.

Google is showing no documents for part number 5985997014493 so if you came here from that search, chances are this page was unique.

Callum.

“Floating Shack” progress

Narrowboat drawingProgress on the narrowboat continues (USA visitors, you’ll have to google narrowboat) with the steel being cut this week. Shell should be finished by end of Feb for fit-out during March, April and May 2008. Some of my boating chums enjoy hearing about the design so I’ve uploaded the latest drawing.

Click the picture.

Find me in the narrowboat forum on Yahoo here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Narrowboats/

Under-voltage fixed

Voltage GraphicI’ve been running on less than 200V AC most evenings for the last 18 months. Weird stuff was happening to my linear amplifier and I was getting higher output during the day to the evening. To cut a long story short, Central Networks have just completed a complete re-engineering job at the end of our cul-de-sac with a new transformer and new feeder. Amazing what you can get done if you are polite (not a strong point of mine).

Have you checked your AC at peak times? You may be surprised.

DX Weekend January 2008

Tim M0URX and I spent a cold evening in the Scout Hut experimenting with an elevated radial system on a full size quarter-wave for 40m, running a few hundred stations through the night.

Terminal Server Hacked

HackedIt’s not very often that people admit to being hacked. However, I had the shock of my life today. One of my servers had been brute-forced at the RPC level recently. The hacker came into the network at the machine level, not the domain. Even so – this was our main terminal server and it took a while to understand what was happening:

I had spotted a rogue Administrator session running a few times during the month and just terminated it – thinking nothing of it. I just thought my colleague had hit a few too many buttons and left it running by accident.

Today by chance, I found the account “active” – so I jumped in and remote controlled the session. There was a scanner running on it brute forcing loads of machines at the IP level and at the same time running a Phishing email server, sending out squillions of emails hunting down usernames and passwords for bank (click screenshot to see more).

I watched for a few seconds and then fired up Notebook and typed, “Who the fXck are you?”. Looking back, it’s a shame really I scared him. We than had a bit of a fight over the mouse! I won because I just kept clicking the desktop. Occasionally, the hacker would get the log off screen up, but I would desktop-click the session again before he could click “log off”. Finally, I managed to “disconnect” both of us and then proceeded to race up the server chain to change the domain password. Poor guy must have had a bloody heart attack. Imagine, peacfully minding your own hacking business when someone comes in and remote controls your hacked desktop!

Anyway, a few moment later, I spotted him “active” again using the session. I dived in silently, watching him check the status of his stuff and then he disconnected again. My problem was that I could not take over his session when he was disconnected because he’d changed the damned machine admin account password. I couldn’t work this out immediately though because I was trying to manage his session with the (now changed) domain password and it wouldn’t work. I just couldn’t work it out why it wouldn’t work. When I tried to remote control the session, the domain password kept failing. Grrr.

All at once, it came to me. The local machine password wasn’t at all complex. I realised that I’d been compromised at the local machine level with a dictionary attack probably over many months. It wasn’t the domain that was compromised at all. I jumped into My Computer straight into “Manage” and did an emergency password reset using the domain account to over-ridce the local account. You get warned that you’ll lose some certificates and stuff because it’s not the de rigeur method, but I wanted him out for good. Once changed, he was locked out. I put the kettle on and browsed the mess.

He’d installed a number of components including an unzipper (RAR), AMS 4.3 (Advanced Mass Sender) with 15 days to go on the free trial(!), Hscan (a scanner) and XAMPP, a small platform apache site (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html) which was installed only as a service – that took me a while to find. It appears that the program had been fully installed and then uninstalled, leaving only the background service running. What makes matter more difficult is that many of the tools were renamed to standard Windows tools; for instance the scanner (see below) was called “taskmgr.exe”. The bottom line is that this was about to become a fully blown phishing platform whilst it looked for its next IP address – and it was about to be hidden away from me. Scary thought.

Observing the mess, I particularly liked the scanner (HScan) since I had only heard of this stuff, never played with it. You select a range of protocols and an IP address range and just set the thing off scanning for days and days. It gradually builds a report in HTML of all the IP addresses it found open with the protocols you selected. You then paste these IPs into a file and set off the dictionary hack using the known probable administrator account login. This is why its important to put a 10 minute lock-out on the account after only a few password attempts.

The “About” stuff shows:

HScan Gui Version 1.20 – HUC Network Security Scanner
Copyright (C) 2000-2003 HUC All Rights Reserved.
By uhhuhy (Mar 05,2003)

Mailto: *** withheld ***
Personal-Homepage: *** withheld ***

HScan is a powerful network security scanner.
Scan modules:
PORT/FTP/SSH/TELNET/SMTP/FINGER/IIS/CGI/POP
/RPC/IPC/IMAP/MSSQL/MYSQL/CISCO/PLUGIN.
Multi-threading makes HScan very fast.IP scope and host list
are both supported.

Do normal people call the police? Maybe, but I was worried about having the whole server fleet trucked to Police HQ as evidence and being left with nothing to run the business on. Interesting debate.

It’s unlikely you will come face to face with your opponent like I did, fighting over a desktop! It was scary and I nearly pulled the cat 5 cable out the wall because your brain freezes up in these situations. However, I stayed calm and I did the right thing in the end. It was a bit like being in a film at one point. Mayur was standing behind me, “General!”, he shouted (yes, he calls me General!), “you’re hands are shaking”. Damned right they were.

Morale of the story? Even though you may have strong domain passwords, check the local machine account names and passwords for complexity rules in Group Policy. Also change the administrator account name (apparently you will be forced to do this with Server 2008 – thanks Stuart for the tip – and the three pints :).

Happy New Year everyone.

Callum.

Quad Train Horns

Train HornsWe’re having a narrowboat built currently by Louis and Joshua narrowboats in Doncaster (USA visitors, please google “narrowboat”) and obviously I’m preparing for some /portable radio work with a small shack being built for me to house a laptop, FT1000MP and a small ACOM (this being a radio ham site, I thought I ought to put that bit in).

However it occured to me that being a QRO sort of bloke, an air horn system would be rather fun and I’ve discovered an excellent solution in the form of some Train Horns made in the USA. The importer kindly let me have the video (fitted to an off-road Hummer). But informs me that he has in mind a more powerful version for me(!).

I’ve uploaded it for you here: hammer4.mpg – can you hear the echo off the hills?

What a laugh 🙂

Callum.

BHBN Hospital Radio on 48.425

I’m busy on my servers tonight however, I’ve got the TS2000 scanning the low end of 50Mhz and I’ve stumbled across Birmingham Hospital Broadcasting Network transmitting on 48.425 FM (wide). Signal strength is 60db over S9.

Where is the transmitter, anyone?

November Stats

Well, after only 6 months on line, m0mcx.co.uk appears to be a busy little site. If you like the site, please place a link on your site and let me know!

 

 

What other websites do I own? See http://www.barclayanderson.com/

 

Licence -vs- License

I have finally discovered a way of remembering the difference between license and licence. “Licence” is a noun and “license” is a verb. Since I refer to the noun more than the verb, I shall remember that there are no Ss in LICENCE.

As Geoff (G4AFJ) pointed out; “You are licensed to transmit. You have a licence to transmit. Your licence is issued by Ofcom who are the UK licensing authority.”

Thanks Geoff!

(Spring 2009)

More than 10% of my site’s traffic is from people doing searches on Google for “License -Vs- Licence”. That’s over 400 people per month!

(Autumn 2009)

Now I have 16% traffic to my site, 48 people per day just because of this quirky article.
Crazy but true.

Callum.

Rhandirmwyn and Llyn Brianne

Llyn Brianne is a dam – or is it a lake? I do know that it’s named after a stream called Nant y Bryniau which means a stream in the hills.  It would seem that at some time a map maker had mispelt the word Bryniau and it is said that had the name not been mispelt, Llyn Bryniau may have had a more apt name; “lake of the hills”. Whatever it’s called now, I can tell you that in the early 1960s when it was built, a large amount of landscape went to a watery grave.

Originally, this lake fascinated me because of the solitude and amazing landscape all around it. I knew nothing about the local inhabitants and nearby village – part of which was underwater. One day whilst looking through photographs of Llyn Brianne on Google, I came across the now famous photograph of Fanog Farm which was completely exposed during a very dry summer of 1976. I understand that before the reservoir was built, this farm was actually abandoned. I originally imagined the shock and horror of those people who once lived in it but thankfully, the people who lived there had moved out years before. The For Sale sign was of course put there as a joke – a very short lease!

The nearby village is called Rhandirmwyn – and contrary to foklore it wasn’t submerged when the dam was built. Local folk though were of course extremely scared of the dam. Imagine what would happen if it had broken in the night? Nightmare stuff. Indeed, a couple of years ago, Ian and I camped on a river beach, only a couple of miles downstream from the dam wall (and extremely pleasant it was too). I didn’t realise it at the time but I would have actually been quite scared had I realised where we actually were!

When I visit Llyn Brianne today, I am stunned by the quietness. I often talk about how so very quiet it is and I ask friends to come and visit the place with me as if it has magical properties – even though it takes 4 hours to get to from where I live!

I shall try and visit again next year (2008) and perhaps take an HF radio along so that we can light it up on 80m.

Post Script: I have recently discovered that three Francis-pattern turbines were installed as a “retro-fit” operation to turn this into a hydro-electric plant operating all the year round. Peak efficiency is between November and March producing 4.3Mw – enough electricity to power a small town. Fantastic!

Background story and photographs from http://www.rhandirmwyn.net/, (seeking permission via email 24th Nov 2007)

M0XXT/P HF Doublet Test

James and I tested out a doublet today in preparation of our trip to Hampton in Arden Cubs, Friday 30th November.

We used the generator to power the FT1000MP MkV (200w) effortlessly pumping the hydraulic mast up to 10m with the SG230 bungee-strapped to the top, running one of our 80m dipoles across the top to form a doublet.

Total set up time was about 25 minutes. This included un-hiching the generator and levelling the mast.

We called CQ on 3.750.00 from the boot (see picture) and G3ZSE (John) came straight back with a 59 report. Then the rain started! We had parked the car so that the wind was off us but even so, it didn’t take very long for everything to get wet!

We only spent 30 minutes on the radio and had a pleasant 6-station pile-up but after clearing with G4FWG , we tore down the gear as fast as possible. I could hardly feel my fingers and my gut feeling was that shortly it would be hammering down. Within 25 minutes though, we were back at home for a cup of tea, all packed up.

In the log today:

  • G3ZSE (John in Kettering)
  • G4MSF/M (Keith, 10W in Gateshead)
  • M1HDD (Dave in Chesterfield)
  • GW4ZPL (John in North Wales)
  • 2E0RWX (Ron in Humberbridge)
  • G4FWG (Malcolm in East Sussex)

Bottom line: For 80m NVIS style of operation, it works a treat.

Thinking Day On The Air 2008

We’ll be on air again at the Scout Hut on Sunday 22nd February. This is a similar event to JOTA but with some of the more “boy” activities changed to slightly more “girly” ones. For instance, the girls will have the opportunity to make morse-code bracelets with their name in different coloured beads to signify the dots and dashes. Great, eh?

I’m just confused about the callsign we should chose since we’ll have two completely different Guiding Groups converging into one, perhaps GB1GG (the GG standing for Gilr Guiding?). I’ll call Ofcom.

What was Jota? That was here: https://www.m0mcx.co.uk/?p=80

Callum.

Mobile Lighting Generator Mast

My_VT-1_at_half_height.jpgA 10k generator and a lighting tower; the ultimate toy for a radio amateur. You get a generator, a hydraulic 10m tower and big, big lights – all in one package. It’s heavy but with a braked trailer and the right vehicle, it’s breeze.

Picture shows tower at about half-height and Barry has kindly offered to make a rotator housing for the very top of the unit which we’ll sort out this winter.

It’s easy to climb on top to make adjustments (mandatory at a field day with rotator housing fitting etc) and only 20 seconds to “wind” the tower up. Fair dinkum, it’s not a 100 foot tower but horses for courses, a great little easy-to-use package.

We should be operational for next Spring (2008) where we can enjoy some lazy days out in the Cotswold Hills on VHF – as well as HF Field Day (which was the initial reason for getting it!).

Pretty, eh?

Callum.

GB1DSG plays JOTA 2007 with Tim (M3SDE) and Callum (M0MCX)

Tim and I hosted a first for Dorridge Scout Group club station this year when M0XXT became GB1DSG for JOTA 2007 on Sunday 21st October.

With dipoles for 40m and 80m erected at 18 meters(!), and the ACOM 2000 running, we were loud across EU on 80m delivering greetings messages for 30 Beavers, Cubs and Scouts. The event started with the ARRL film, “Hello” moving to Morse Code sending and receiving, QSL card design, greeting message construction – and finally the actual greeting message delivery on the microphone.

Thanks to all stations that ran with our little pile up – a particular thank you goes to GB50YOU operated by M0MLG (Michaela) who was patient, witty and laughed at my jokes! Riding shotgun with her was both her Mother and Father but for the life of me, I can’t remember your callsigns, sorry. A great QSO though, thanks.

Later that evening, between 21:00 and 21:30GMT, M0XXT came out the secret box to play some DX on 40m reaching all parts of the globe in just a few minutes. Here’s a cut of the log from 21:00GMT:

  • KP2AD (US Virgin Islands)
  • FM5FJ  (Martinique)
  • YV5ZD (Venezuela)
  • WP3ME (Puerto Rico)
  • KV4CF (USA)
  • FP5CJ (St Pierre & Miquelon Is)
  • JA8EIA (Japan)
  • VK6LK (Australia)

Go figure!

My personal thanks go to Tim, M3SDE, who once again was star of the show, holding the fort when we needed solid radio operating during the day and later in the evening, running one of the most pleasant pile ups you would ever likely hear. Keep up the great operating Tim, the world could do with more of you.

73

Callum.

M0MCX and CQWW SSB – 2007

This year, I played single op, low power all bands with a couple of full wave NVIS loops for 80m and 40m and a fishing rod stuck on a 6 meter aluminium pole fed via the SG-230 ATU mightily hoisted to feedpoint for all other bands.Worked almost exclusively S&P and achieved 500 QSOs over weekend for just under 140k points which for me was my best score yet (30 x 50 feet garden).It was a trifle difficult to raise it up without crashing through Wendy’s new greenhouse however there’s at least some benefits to being a bit meaty!

How I would have loved to have run high power with my new ACOM but I don’t have the antennas at this QTH to warrant it – and in any case, I’d have blown the SG-230 up! 🙁 This weird vertical worked remarkably well, even on 160m however 15m was the best fun and most relaxed and having James in the shack (Foundation Candidate) for 15 hours on Saturday made the contest a very friendly affair – however all the chatting and demonstration meant that I was down on straight Qs but a good day’s radio for both of us all the same.

Voice started to go early on and I’d left it late to install and go through learning curve with my new MK2R+ (I must get around to installing this!) so I nearly had no DVK on hand. Luckily for me, Lee had lent me his DVS-2 for SSB Field Day in September so it rescued my failing voice early on. Very funny when someone needs clarification of the call but only needs last letter and I croak out something resembling XRay – but in a voice only my Mother would recognise (yes, there were stations NOT running super check partial!?!).Bed at midnight after scoring with the standard top-10 NA stations on 40m.Sunday I tried a little harder. Stations heard on all bands all the time but most productive was 15. Found 20m very difficult not having a yagi or higher gain antenna – it was just a mess of noisy frantic stations. Fastest scoring was above 14.300. Best fun was 15m.

I still can’t get over 13 countries on 160m with a 7 meter whip!

NB: Remember to send your log off!

Callum.

Graeme Bromley – Solihull

Freecycle? It’s a fantastic idea and it works. You give stuff away instead of landfilling it. I’ve managed to give away stereo systems, speakers, computers, lights, ironing boards, you name it. I have also picked up loads of stuff for the scout radio group, like TVs, computers, monitors and cables. Find a Freecycle in your area here: http://www.freecycle.org/.

Basically, the deal is that you offer something and some accepts it. You end up in a private dialogue vie email to work out the finer points of the item and to work out if the item is suitable for you. And just like in life, some experiences can be better than others. On the one hand you have very polite and magnanimous individuals – and on the other, the occasional rude one. The “rude” Freecycler has been discussed a number of times all over the internet. I call it the “curse of the freecycler”. An innocent email from one party is misinterpreted by another. Before you know it, they’re at each others throat. I replied to one lady once that the item I was offering had already gone – I had already posted the fact on the Yahoo group. Because it was a top-of-the-range Pioneer car CD player, I had a lot of interest. I gave it to the first respondent – then had lots of emails over the following few hours. I replied to them all; “Gone – see post in group.” I had this in my clipboard and replied to everyone the same. One lady just went mad at me saying what a horrible experience this Freecycling was. I told her to have a holiday. She was terribly upset. I just couldn’t fathom it and I felt terrible afterwards.

My real gripe though is those people that give away genuine rubbish. I answered a post from a gent that was Freecycling a ladies bicycle. It was described as needing some TLC. On collection, I didn’t have the heart to tell him, but this 50 year old cycle was completely rotten through. Not even the frame was salvageable. Instead I thanked him very much and took it to the tip for him (into the steel recycling bin!).

Over the past six months, I’ve been after six 17 inch monitors for the Radio Scout contest team. I have 5 but I need one more. This has been a hard project because most monitors on Freecycle are awful; either the focus has gone, the colours are all out or they’re not the size advertised, we need good quality 17 inchers and we drive them at 1280 x 1024 (or is it 1024 x 768? I can’t remember right now) so that N1MM and the other stuff we need works for the real estate on the CRT. Some brands are better than others and from experience. I learned to ask before jumping in with both feet and picking up something we didn’t want. My advice: For the recipient, check with the freecycler that what they’re offering is what you want. For the Offerer; Don’t Freecycle when you should actually be “Recycling”.

Anyway, back to our Curse problem. Graeme recently wanted some computer parts to give computers to local schools. Tescos do this with brand new ones, however someone’s clearly given him loads of monitors and now he’s trying to get rid of them. In the process, he’s now got PMT 🙂 It goes like this (in reverse order).

 

—–Original Message—–
From: Graeme Bromley [mailto:gb012h5803@blueyonder.co.uk] Sent: 30 November 2007 16:31
To: Callum M0MCX
Subject: Re: monitors

Actually, pompus gits like you need to take a holiday, as far away as
you possibly go would be best.

Regards.
Graeme Bromley.
 
—–Original Message—–
From: Callum M0MCX [mailto:callum@uk.com] Sent: 30 November 2007 16:19
To: ‘Graeme Bromley’
Subject: RE: monitors

Graeme,

I have collected about 10 monitors in the last year from well meaning individuals. Unfortunately, the majority needed breaking / recycling, because either the focus was completely b*ggered or they were 14 inch, scratched glass affairs that not even charities wanted.
 
Lord, I just read your message again. You need a holiday mate!

Callum McCormick
M0MCX
https://www.m0mcx.co.uk/
 
—–Original Message—–
From: Graeme Bromley [mailto:gb012h5803@blueyonder.co.uk] Sent: 30 November 2007 14:56
To: Callum M0MCX
Subject: monitors

Hi Calllam,

At the risk of sounding rude, if you are so fussy, go and buy some, then
you can choose to be fussy cant you?.

Freecycle is about giving items away that are still useable which these
monitors are.

The items i have listed are free to collector, i really cant be bothered
with sorting all of the information out for you!.
 
—–Original Message—–
From: Callum M0MCX
Sent: 30 November 2007 14:41
To: ‘brommas@blueyonder.co.uk’
Subject: Re: Offer: 17 ” crt monitor(s) – Shirley

Hello Graham,

I acquire monitors for our radio group but I’m dead fussy(!)

If you have any of these left, may I ask you to tell me model number / brand etc – I don’t want to waste anyone’s time?

Thanks a lot.

Callum McCormick
M0MCX
https://www.m0mcx.co.uk/
 

Graeme loves this blog! He wrote to me today encouraging me to send him the link and then he said that really, he actually was a nice guy after all – he said so! Hey! Let me clip you his sincere words since he’s really coming out now:

(We’ll go in the “wrong” order to make a change:)

—–Original Message—–
From: Graeme Bromley [mailto:gb012h5803@blueyonder.co.uk] Sent: 01 December 2007 11:06
To: Callum M0MCX
Subject: monitors

 

Anyway, i hope that you may possibly re-evaluate your initial thoughts about me, as i am actually a fairly “nice guy” oh and at the same time, i am disabled and i put myself out as much as my condition will allow to actually help other people.

Duh. Thanks Graeme!

—–Original Message—–
From: Callum M0MCX [mailto:callum@uk.com] Sent: 01 December 2007 17:58
To: ‘Graeme Bromley’
Subject: RE: monitors

>>> i am actually a fairly “nice guy”

Oh great, Graeme is a nice guy. He said so!

And what about the rest of us?  

 

He falls for the “Curse” of the Freecycler, here it comes:

—–Original Message—–
From: Graeme Bromley [mailto:gb012h5803@blueyonder.co.uk] Sent: 01 December 2007 19:20
To: Callum M0MCX
Subject: Re: monitors please read me thanks.

Just carry on being a twat then buddy, knock yourself out!

Enjoy

Regards.

Graeme Bromley.

Graeme, you win a holiday. Call me.

Callum.

 

Audio Amplification

I’m a QRO sort of person. Life’s short. I need power. I’m currently running a pair of Crown K1’s into an audio controller, the Behringer CX3400 and on to a) a pair of db Technologies 12″ subs and b) EX100 tops. Being in an 18′ x 11′ room, I’m claiming the loudest domestic computer audio in the world at around 2k watts.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to remind me (and you) of a fabulous article all about connecting balanced and unbalanced components in an audio chain:

http://www.crownaudio.com/pdf/133472.pdf

Wicked, thanks Crown.

Callum.

2007 SSB Field Day M0XXT

I turned Dorridge Scout Group into a fully fledged club sation with the call M0XXT and put a number of young people through the Foundation Course. Aiden features in this photo archive, callsign M6TTT.

SSB Field Day 2007 with M0XXT/P and our new amp

ACOM 2000

This was our first time out with our shiny new callsign with Chris (G1VDP), Tim (M3SDE), Lee (G0MTN) as well as myself as the main ops able assisted by Marti (M1DCV) and our 12 year old scout helper, Aidan – who ran the spotter station for the first time in his life – thanks Aidan. Colin (M3OFW) popped in a couple of times and took great interest in the setup – welcome to Colin.

For antennas, we went to town on qtr waves as well as dipoles for 80m and 40m but we let ourselves down by the tribander which we couldn’t get to work properly – showing fluctuating SWR, particularly on 20m where we could really only effectively run lower power. We found out afterwards that only one strand of copper was being used as the main feeder at the connection point to the driven element. Clearly a serious blow and we should have made many more Qs on 20m.

As a first time QRO /p station, we targeted ourselves at half a million points but fell short, mostly because of a lack of a big session on 20m but also due to lack of mults on 15 and 10 in my opinion. However, we aired the new tent and generator as well as my new ACOM and it all worked perfectly barring band filtering between stations which is being corrected by some band filtering currently on the drawing board of my friend Barry (M0DGQ). The main run station was my trust MP with Inrad roofing filter but due to a blow-up of my Mk5, we reverted to a backup plan of a TS2000 which actually performed pretty well as a spotter connected to a vertically polarised 40m loop which worked “all band” on receive. All coax was 50m lengths of Westflex.

Highlights was being called by ZL and VK on Sunday morning on 40m between 7:30am and 8:00am local time as well as hearing Tim asking for GW0AAA’s serial number again and again on 10m. I was out dropping the 80m and 40m verticals in the morning but was happy to hear a multi coming through. I found out later that some QRN gave him too much grief and we never made it, sorry chaps!

In terms of shifts, Tim and I worked the night – although I got the better shift; midnight to 3:00am. Tim went graveyard through to 6:30am (he’s a star!) and only woke me so that I could work the ZLs and VKs coming in. Is that because I’m older? 🙂

I realise that the interesting thing about these team events is how you put on a better show the next year etc. Of course, doing this with the open section means that you gradually get bogged down each year with bigger and better ideas until finally one becomes completely sensible and joins the likes of the Bristol chaps and string up a long wire or doublet with 100 watts. I believe that we have a couple more years left of being completely daft I think so perhaps there a chance of getting a higher score one year.

This is a new callsign / club with a new direction and a number of people need to be thanked for riding this wave with me, particularly all those mentioned above: Tim, Chris, Lee and Barry – and of course young Aidan and all those other young scouts that we hope to introduce to contesting over the years.

Anyway, just over 1,000 QSOs for 381,477 points.

Great Circle Map based in London

Darn it.

Can someone tell me where I can get a perfect Great Circle Map with London or Birmingham at its centre please?

Callum.

FT1000MP Mark V Service Manual

I had a bit of a struggle finding the service manual for the FT1000MP Mark V (200W) version so I’ve found a copy and have it stored locally.

If you are in need of this, please let me know and I’ll “wetransfer” it to you rather than wasting my web bandwidth.

Tnx.

 

My pole connector

Aluminium Pole Clamp

You’ll see in a number of pictures, the use of a large slab of aluminium that I had to make up to allow the bottom section of my 12 meter mast to clamp to a pole. A pair of standard of 2 inch double clamps wouldn’t fit Moonraker’s fibreglass mast. The bottom diameter is 58mm (about 2 1/4 inches). I found this slab on eBay and won it for a tenner. It’s heavy though – don’t think it’s a light just because it’s aluminium. Of course, in steel it would be loads heavier.

It is such a handy piece of hardware that I sometimes wonder what I’d do without it, particularly as I was bright enough at the time to drill a few extra holes in case I needed them (which I do for the 40m dipole!)

I’ve also discovered that the top 8 meters of my fishing pole fits perfectly on the 12 meter mast with a piece of plumbers tube as an “insert”. The 12 meter mast fits on the 6 meter aluminium pole too. That’s a 5/8th for 40 meters or a full sized quarter-wave for 80m!

WAN Wireless project comes closer

Grid AntennaLooking back in the archives , you’ll see that I wanted to transmit the internet all over the place using a parabolic grid dish on a rotator mounted on the roof. The project is now closer, last night I successfully added a router to my local LAN and connected a PC on a different subnet – this means that anyone connecting will not see my home network. Important for me!

Using a Buffalo WBR-G54 Router, I’ll be connecting 10 meters of Heliax (Thanks to Barry, M0DGQ)Coax directly from my shack up to a new rotator on the roof. This will give me a loss of only about 2dB – fingers crossed. My first target is the Scout Hut. I need internet down there!

 

SG-230 ATU Review

SG-230It’s only good for 150 watts or so but I’ve just loaded up top band on a half-sized G5RV at the feedpoint with this little beast. Tunes from 160m through to 10m. I run 12 volts to the loft with a spare run of RG58 (I knew that coax would come in handy!).

You can load up almost anything with this. I’ve always wondered how well the kids trampoline will transmit!

The manual talks about 150 watts being the maximum but elsewhere it discusses 200 watts. I hope that this will be the perfect little friend to my 200 watt FT1000MP Mk5 and I’ll leave my older FT1000MP to partner with the Ameritron.

Heil Goldline with Studio Insert

Heil Goldline Microphone - Studio ElementCompeting in the Baltic 80m contest last night, an operator broke off from his pile up and asked what radio I was using. He really liked the audio. I was using my standard FT1000MP Mk5 – but with the Studio Element on my Heil Goldline. This has to be one of the smoothest elements in the world and it really suits the FT1000 series. I have tried the ‘thin’ elements but they don’t suit me. I have a deep (and loud!) voice and with the studio element,  it all comes together in one broadcast type sound.

It’s fun sounding very different – when everyone else has thin DX and Contest type microphones, mine is strong and fat. A bit like my stomach!

On the subject of these Heil Stick Microphones, I bought the matching Heil Boom stand for the Goldline. The problem is that the microphone isn’t heavy enough for the boom stand so I have to be very careful that it doesn’t ‘launch’ the microphone up to the ceiling on its springs – and it really does actually fly upwards and the mic comes out of the holder and all hell breaks loose!

I wrote to Bob Heil and asked him if the thing was adjustable. He said not but he does know people to put brass weights and stuff on the clip to compensate. It turns out that there’s some really heavy microphones in the Heil stable, not just these baby Goldlines so I guess the heavy ones must suit this boom better. Anyhow it seems a bit of a rip off that I paid getting on for £100 UKP for a boom that doesn’t work right. Oh I forget, the boom squeaks and moans when I turn it. Apparently it’s supposed to be silent. Bob, get yourself a better subcontractor, these don’t work right OM 🙂

Bigger picture here: https://www.m0mcx.co.uk/gallery/picture.php?/389/category/5

Helically wound 40m vertical

Helically Wound 40m verticalChris (G0EYO) kindly modelled my 40 meter vertical with loading coil (https://www.m0mcx.co.uk/?p=44) and mentioned that he felt the take off angle may be higher than I would like it.. He suggested experimenting with a helically wound vertical. Chris recalls a team event last year where they needed to get on 40m fast so a fishing pole and about 10 meters of wire were produced along with 2 elevated radials. The problem was that the fishing pole was only about 7 meters long. The team simply wound the 10 meters of wire on to the fishing pole and hit the TUNE button on the rig to swallow up any mismatch.

I tried the same experiment with my 8 meter fishing pole and 10.6 meters of wire. Why 10.6 meters? Simply because I cut the wire a bit long intentionally. Using 4 elevated radials, I found the resonant 1:1 frequency with a near 50 ohm match was 7.7 Mhz. Way above my requirement however the SWR bandwidth curve was very strange with a flat 2:1 SWR all the way from 7.2 Mhz right up to 7.6 Mhz. Indeed, the TUNE button easily swallowed the incorrect size of this antenna for the whole of the 40m band. I needed to make this longer though so I could run high power in a comfortable manner.

Stripping off the 10.6 length, I found a 100 meter roll of 6 core telephone wire and chopped 15 meters off it. I wound this on to the fishing pole which gave me 6.8 Mhz. A couple of attempts later and about 50cms of wire short, the vertical tuned in to 7.05 Mhz with a very large bandwidth, certainly better than the loading coil version.

Later in the evening I heard VE1KF managing a European pile up from his QTH in Nova Scotia. My vertical broke the pile in one shout. He emailed me later, “Your signal was a nice strong 59“. Thanks for the report Brent.

I give a thumbs up to this antenna; I believe I am getting a lower angle of radiation. It’s the best 40 meter vertical I’ve made yet but remember – these only work from about 1,000 miles upwards. If you want lots of QSOs, you’ll need a dipole or a loop to compliment this.

More pics: https://www.m0mcx.co.uk/gallery/index.php?/category/40

Postscript: I recommend using a 1:1 choke balun on this design to stop the feedline radiating and to ensure that all the RF goes where it should. See here http://www.hamuniverse.com/balun.html for some regular designs.

73, Callum.

20 meter quarter-wave vertical antenna experiment

Not content with attempting to understand and build 40 and 80 meter verticals, I’ve decided to build a 20 meter version tonight. This has 4 x sloping radials at 45 degrees with a feedpojnt up at about 7 meters in the air. On receive, it’s actually pretty good; only for extremely weak or barely readable signals is it beaten by the 40m loop or my attic mounted half-sized G5RV.

For the record, it performed straight out the box with dimensions of a whisker under 5 meters for both radiator and radials.

Picture below shows typical far-field plot for a quarter-wave vertical.

vertical-gain-at-30-degrees

80m vertical -vs- 80m horizontal loop

Vertical vs Horizontal:

Overview: The first thing that I noticed was that during daylight hours, the vertical was utterly hopeless. Inter-G signals were virtually unreadable, to the point I thought it wasn’t working. Indeed, being daylight, I couldn’t hear a thing, just noise. Switching my NVIS loop in to circuit brought the band to life with usual weird discussions of carrot growth and weather. As nightfall fell, the vertical started performing but nowhere near the performance of the loop. By 22:00 UTC, the Russian and nearby European stations started coming in stronger, but again sounded better on the loop and it didn’t seem to matter what antenna I used to transmit on either. One German noted on comparison tests absolutely no difference on TX.

skywave-prop

I called for RP3PRP on the loop (he was loud) and he had some problems receiving me so I switched to the vertical and we exchanged reports and my confidence rose. Again with 9A7KM, I started the exchange with the loop because that’s where he sounded so good but flipped to the vertical to complete. Confidence grew higher. Then UP0L in Khasakstan for a 3,500 mile hop again on the vertical. But this isn’t the whole story. Don’t think the vertical performed better on TX than the loop everytime – this isn’t the case. This particular vertical is one heck of a compromise; remember, only about one ninth wavelength and only three meters above the ground.

My loop on the other hand is a proven high performance antenna that’s got a history of DX to the Far East and North and South America. After a couple of hours and 48 QSOs across 20 countries, I realised that for 90% of the QSOs that you make on 80m, an inverted V, a regular dipole or perhaps a delta loop (like mine) at around 30 feet will be fabulous – and you’ll have the advantage of being able to have a QSO in your own country. Occasionally, having the flexibility of switching the vertical in gives you an added interest but it’s hardly worth the effort. A 4-square would be a different story though, and for the uninitiated: a 4-square is 4 x ¼ wave antennas phased in a square, quarter wavelength apart that ‘pushes’ a lobe of RF (db gain) in a specific direction at the push of a button. However it’s hardly an event antennal, more suited to permanent installs.

For me though, I don’t think this test was completely conclusive. I’d like to build a full-size quarter wave with full-sized raised radial set to complete the test with a feedpoint at 5 or 6 meters above ground: in other words, doubling the size of this little twig and maybe I can aim at building it for this year’s NFD. I have a feeling that it was the loaded radials that was restricting my efficiency, not the loading coil in the driven element. My experience of a 40 meter quarter wave gives me some confidence in this arena but I’m also wary of the different characteristics of 80 meters which maybe much more suited to higher dipoles.

There was though one small advantage that I haven’t documented, and that’s the use of a vertical as a dedicated QRM receive antenna. I scored many points by finding distance stations between strong UK stations. I can reduce UK stations by around 40 db by switching in the vertical, whilst at the same time keeping the target station clear in my headphones.

In conclusion, verticals for 20 meters and above may well be good performers and I’ll certainly have a bash at a 20 meter version of this shortly but for 40 meters and below, be clear about what they’ll do for you. I do not recommend them as your primary antenna unless of course you are very restricted on space – and even then, there are shortened alternatives that can be squeezed into small plots.

Narrowboats?

Does anyone have any experience of operating HF from a narrowboat? We’re about to order one and I need to start considering what gear I’ll have. I’ll probably put one of my spare FT1000 MPs on it with a SteppIR vertical right down to 80m. Guess the ground plane might (or might not?) work.

If anyone has experience of using HF on a 70 foot steel boat, please make contact with me. Thanks.

Aquila Clapshaw and Salmon Narrowboat

Dedicated 80m Vertical

80 meter loaded vertical

I didn’t document fully last weekend that my 40m vertical experiment gave me a rather good match on 3.8Mhz. This gave me the idea of building a better 80m vertical this weekend by loading up both the vertical – and the radials. As I type this as I discover that first time up, I’ve achieved a resonance (of sorts) at 3.456 Mhz however, I’m not getting 50 ohms. The SWR is at best just under 2:1. I have reduced the legs of the radials a bit because of the loading coils (which all have 68 turns on my favourite 40mm plumbers pipe). I shall now adjust only the vertical coil. I know I should in theory adjust all the coils to keep them in unison however, the actual length of the radials is not precisely known; only that they are ‘about’ 9 meters plus a loading coil – and in any case I can just shorten the radials for fine tuning.

Here’s the resonant coil adjustment chart for the vertical coil:

  • 68 turns: 3.456 Mhz
  • 67 turns: 3.470 Mhz
  • 63 turns: 3.535 Mhz
  • 59 turns: 3.600 Mhz
  • 55 turns: 3.690 Mhz (1:1 SWR dead)
  • 54 turns: 3.691 Mhz (I tightened up the radials which had an adverse effect so that the resonant frequency hardly moved)
  • 52 turns: 3.740 Mhz (SWR rising a whisker now)

I finished on 53 turns in the end. I’ve started keeping a couple of turns or more spare, never cutting off all the ‘dead ones’ as I take them off so I can wind them back on if I overshoot. My ‘best’ spot frequency is now 3.715 at 1:1 SWR with a 2:1 SWR curve starting at 3.6 and going all the way beyond 3.8. In fact, 3.8 has an SWR less than 1.5:1.