Most Active Es Day For Me This Year.

Today was quite a day for sporadic E propagation (Es).

2m:

While I have received Es on 2m a few days ago, I worked my first 2m Es today. One Russian and one Italian. Both were worked with FT8 because I only had low power available at those moments. I discovered the opening to Italy a bit late when I checked the PSKreporter while in a local QSO, then I got busy. I probably missed the main opening, but at least I got one.

Here is the map of received stations via 2m Es today. Quite a bit of propagation.

Initially I tried to work SSB or CW, but at that moment the PA went on strike. After the openings I checked, and with a power disconnect-reconnect it works again. I suspected the RF input level to the PA was too high in SSB, so played with the levels for DIGI modulation and Mic Gain, as well as limiting the RF output level of the radio, and now all works nicely again.

4m:

The other day I worked a single station on Es, today there was a bit more (yes, just two). The antenna used is still the HF dipole. not ideal, but it does provide QSOs.

6m:

This band has been humming with signals every day the past week. Today I got just under 20 QSOs on 6m, all with trying 2 and 4m in the mean time.

Oh, the weather was perfect for working on the radio, raining much of the day.

Week End Activity, P.3: Loop on Ground Receive Antenna Experiment.

 The loop antenna adventure continues.

This time I revised the Loop on Ground (LoG) setup.

Some time ago I tried out a LoG made with field telephone cable. This cable is mostly made of steel wires, but with a few strands of tinned copper wire, in a 4x5m configuration. Probably not the best material for antennas, and the results were disappointing, and the experiment was halted. Now it continues.

After cutting the grass (first time this year, so it took some effort) I found some thin wire to lay down. It may be replaced with weatherproof wire later, but I got to test the system, this time the wire is a bit longer, the configuration is about 5x8m, so the highest band expected to work properly is 30m. I use pegs to hold down the wire, the type used to hold wires for robotic lawn mowers.

The box with the transformer had to be repaired, too, one of the transformer wires had disconnected since I last made the experiment.

I am testing with the IC-7600. Here are the first test results:

Initially the noise level all over the bands was poor, but winding part of the cable a round a ferrite rod near the radio improved that. A better common mode choke is desirable. Now I need even more ferrite (toroids and other stuff) for reducing RFI all over the house.

MW/LW sounds quite noisy and with low S/N reception. Not as good as the small NCPL (w/amplifier at the radio), and certainly not as good as the Mini-Whip.

160m sounds OK-ish with no preamp, not spectacular

80m sounds good, signals weaker than on the low hanging dipole, but noise lower, too. Almost equal, but I suspect that the 

60m sounds good, not spectacular, looks like it is a bit noisier than the dipole (using Shannon Volmet and FT8 as test signals), but then again, the dipole is not resonant on 60m.

40m weaker than the dipole, but sounds quite good. Comparable S/N.

30m looks quite sensitive, no resonant antenna to compare with yet, but it sounds like a decent receive antenna

20m: Looks like S/N is worse than the R6000. No surprise, as the Loop on Ground is too large for 20m

I suspect that the best band for this antenna will be 80m. 40/60/160 are probably OK with a better set of common mode chokes at antenna and radio.

On all the bands the noise floor of the receiver increased when the antenna was connected, so the IC-7600 receiver is sufficiently sensitive on all the bands I intend to use it for. It should also prove a decent receive antenna for use from 1.6 - 12MHz. I think I shall keep it and probably replace the wire, then get it closer to the ground, maybe a few cm under ground level. With some weatherproofing this should prove an interesting low band receive antenna in the winter season.

Week End Activity, P.2: QO-100.

This Saturday we had the CW challenge on QO-100.

This was running from Sat. 1800Z to Sun. 0600Z.

I started close to the 1800 mark, working the stations as I found them "on the dial". A bit tricky, because I use completely separate transmitter and receiver systems, so the transmitter has to be tuned when I find a signal on the receiver. This is a bit slow, but it works.

After running up the dial for the stations I found a frequency and started my own CQ. 

My signal on the satellite is not the strongest, but I can run SSB comfortably, so CW is not a problem, my signal can be seen on the waterfall of SDR receivers.

I had good fun and worked 35 unique stations in on/off activity of a total of 5 hours.

Week End Activities, P.1: Sporadic E.

 This week end has provided some sporadic E propagation on 10m and the lower VHF bands

My 4m vertical is still not functional, so I tested my low hanging 5-band HF dipole, and with the tuner in the IC-7300 it could be used on both 4 and 6m. At least, I could try to work on 4m, so I set the receiver to monitor 70.200, and sure enough, on Thursday (13th) a signal popped up. S57L called CQ in CW. I got the key connected in time, and made the QSO. Yes, I know! I need a better system to use my memory keyer for more than one radio.

I have now made my first 4m Es QSO of this season.

After this I went on 6m, still keeping an eye, well ear, on 4m.

8 QSOs in SSB and CW were made.

The rest of the week end I had the radio monitoring 6m FT8, and there have been signals every day, but not enough time to work QSOs.

Amplified RX Loop Test and a Little Outdoor Antenna Work.

 This week end I have been active with antenna work.

Small Receiving Loop.

The first was a test using a low cost Chinese amplifier for the NCPL (loop).

The amplifier is actually "overkill", stated gain/bandwidth is 32dB/1-2000MHz. Not surprising, the gain is too high, both attenuators are in action on the FRG-100 receiver, and the base noise level (not interference), especially on 5-10MHz, is still very high.

Considering that the antenna is till tested indoors in the noise field I would expect things to improve when the antenna (properly weather proofed) is placed outdoors, but there is still one problem. The high gain causes intermodulation, maybe also cross modulation. I have not tested this, but in addition it is possible that the amplifier is oscillating in the UHF range. 

Which signals cause the intermod etc? I suspect it can be the MW broadcast band, but given the bandwith/gain of the amplifier it could be FM broadcast stations, too.

As I suspected this type of amplifier is simply unsuitable for such low frequencies, but I had to test it.

A simple 2 transistor with negative feedback is in my thoughts, along with a pre-selector. N1KPR has published a simple design that could be made on simple perf-board. 

Outdoor antennas.

The weather was pleasantly warm today, so a little outdoor antenna work was done. Since I do it all alone things may take a bit longer.

First outdoor thing was removing the lowered 6m half wave vertical antenna. There was a bit of rust, so the WD-40 was in action. This antenna was mounted on a satellite dish mount on the lawn, so this is now freed for other antennas. In addition, the cable was freed as well, and put to good use.

The 5 band dipole (10-15-20-40-80) had been connected together with the 4m vertical (now partly lowered) with a HF/VHF diplexer, which this was removed. The dipole is now connected to the old 6m antenna cable. Testing from indoors, the dipole/cable system seems capable of operating on 6m and 4m, so for the moment the dipole is used for 4m, because the 6m reception is quite noisy. The performance is expected to be quite poor on 4 and 6m, but until a better solution is available this will have to do.

The (partly taken down) 4m antenna is now connected to the old cable, running indoors, so a very limited 4m reception is possible, until another 4m(6/10/30m) antenna can be tested. At the moment only a transceiver capable of running a repeater is connected.

For now the 4m will be run on the IC-7300 with the dipole, and 6m on the IC-7600 with the V-2000 vertical.

It looks like the weather will be quite good tomorrow, too, so I may find time for more antenna work.

4m Antenna System Temporarily Out of Order

 Because I have the intention to replace my 4m vertical with a multiband vertical the antenna has been partly taken down.The mast is standing/lying in about a 45 deg. angle, so while it is connected, it is useless right now. When the weather permits I will seek to change that situation.

Initially I should test a set-up of a 30m vertical (GP) which will resonate on 30, 50 and 70MHz. This could, initially (tor testing) be set next to the tree where the old 4m antenna is now quite useless.

As soon as the weather permits this is the next stage of outdoor antenna experiments.

My Home Made NCPL (YouLoop Clone).

 I made a prototype version of the NCPL (Noise Cancelling Passive Loop) receiving antenna.

This version is the same size as the YouLoop, but made with RG-58 cable, cross soldered (shield to inner and inner to shield at the top, then pushed through a hula hoop plastic tubing.

The ends of the tubing are inserted into a distribution box for electric wiring at the bottom. The shields are soldered together there, and the inner conductors are fed to a transformer made with 2x4 windings on a type 73 binocular ferrite core, one end connected to the shields and to the ground part of a SMA connector, the other end to the center of the coax connector. A better mechanical construction is needed, but a preliminary outdoor test can be made when the weather permits.

Testing:

Under test the home made loop behaved, essentially, as the commercial loop with respect to frequency response and signal strength. Not unexpected, and encouraging for the next experiment with NCPLs, another loop almost 2.5x the size of the original.

Due to the small size of the loop, signal strength on the lower bands is quite low. Experiments with amplification are in order.I suspect that the S/N can be improved significantly on MW/LW for this antenna, because many receivers/transceivers have low sensitivity below 1.6MHz, and the atmospheric noise is quite high on the low frequencies. I found a simple 2 transistor design presented by N1KPR, with 15-20 dB gain and a reasonable dynamic range, and I think this should be the first test with low frequency amplification, and probably be mounted outdoors near the position of the antenna. After this I can think of making an indoor distribution system with some band splitting, more amplification (pet band) and possibly a pre-selector system for the receivers. 

For the larger NCPL the intention is to use the thin Teflon coax cable (RG-316(?)) for inserting in the tubing, because the fitting holding the tubing parts together will probably not have enough space to fit the cross connected pieces of RG-58 inside. The thin RG-174 could probably be used, but the Teflon cable is more heat resistant when soldering, and more mechanically stable. Experiments with a different transformation ratio and some amplification should be made to see if the VLF band (down to about 10kHz) can be covered with sufficient sensitivity.

Because the system will be more usable in the winter half of the year, there is no great haste needed, but the bigger loop should definitely be made and tested. After that, I should focus on 2, 4, 6 and 10m. The Sporadic E season is right around the corner.