Another Morning Tropo on 1296MHz.

This morning around 0500 (0300UTC).

SR1KOL , again. It has been there until now, with some QSB.

LA1UHG, it was gpone when I checked later.

Morning tropo is definitely a thing.

Early Morning Beacons on 1296.

This morning around 5AM local time, I woke up and made a check of the beacons on 23cm. 

The Polsh one was there again (no surprise), and also the two Swedish ones near Gothenburg were just audible, along with OZ1UHF in Northern Jutland.

The best signal was LA1UHG in JO59.

Yes, morning tropo is a thing on 23cm, for sure.

This afternoon the Polish beacon has been up and down, at some time stronger than the local OZ7IGY, only 26km from here.

More Beacon reports on 1296MHz

 The other day I heard the German beacon DM0UB in JO62KK at 360km. This was at a nightly check at 4 AM. The signal was easily readable and quite visible on the spectrum display of the 9700. This is still with the vertical antenna, so the signal must have been very strong. Distance: 360km.

Last night between midnight and 1 AM, LA1UHG in JO59FB came through, also with a visible trace on the spectrum display, at a distance of 394km.

Yes, the Polish beacon SR1KOL has been coming through several times during these hot days, and I am not surprised any more. I wonder how often I can hear it with horizontal polarization. 

Impressive signals with the vertical, I am guessing they would have been near S9 with a small horizontal yagi.

1296MHz. Beacons, Beacons, Beacons.

 This morning at around 7 - 7:30 (5:00 - 5:30) I heard a plethora of beacons up to about 400km away:

Two beacons near Gothenburg, the one on 1296.800 I heard, cut could not catch. The other one, 

SK6UHI in JO57TX was up to 559

LA1UHG in JO59FB was fading in and out, up to 539

OZ1UHF in JO57FJ was quite weak, but audible.

SR1KOL in JO74TE was as strong as the local OZ7IGY.

All this with a monoband vertical. Yes, I do have a preamplifier at the antenna, that helps a lot.

I am impressed, and looking forward to getting a horizontal yagi up.

1296 Tropo.

 I am reorganising my station, so the activity level is not so high.

Yesterday, however, 1296MHz was open up to a few hundred km.

I didn't make QSOs, but with my omnidirectional vertical monoband antenna I could hear 9 beacons during the day and evening:

OZ7IGY (of course, it's local at 26km, and always audible) - Everyting else is over about 200km

SR1KOL at about 270km

OZ1UHF at 222km

DB0XY at 438km

SK6MHJ at 229km

SK6UHG at 261km

SK1UHG at 416km

LB2SHF at 369km

LA3SHF at 372km

I am pretty sure I would have heard more beacons with a horizontal antenna, but this tells me that propagation was very good.

Yes, a horizontal antenna system is in the planning, probably for spring next year.

Temporary 28MHz Beacon.

 Fun little story from today.

I was, as usual, listening to the International Beacon Project (IBP) beacons on 28.200MHz.

Suddenly a big signal was coming in. I reralized that it was a test beacon from an Italian station.

S9 signal drowning the usual 18 beacons on the frequency. 

I found the email address on QRZ.com, and wrote a mail to him explaining the situation, quietly.

After a short while the signal diasppeared, and I got a reply mail telling that he was not aware of the IBP project, and he would find a suitable frequency.

All in the good ham spirit, and I do understand that we don't know every aspect of the activities, and we are usually, like here, willing to correct a mistake.

No, I am not going to reveal the call, because all went absolutely well. Mistakes happen, we have all made them.

Idea Box. QO-100 Downlink Reception.

For quite a while the setup for my QO-100 activity has been rudimentary:

For uplink I have used an old IC-821 as transmitter, with a lot of attenuation, followed by a low cost Chinese up-converter (BU-500) indoors, about 15m RG6 coax, with a so-called 8W WiFi booster that can deliver 2 - 2.5W without modifications, feeding a 4x patch "WiFi antenna and a 1.1m dish reflector.

This provides a decent signal on the downlink side, and certainly never overloads the transponder (triggering LEILA).

For the downlink I am using a 60cm dish, a low cost synthesizer controlled LNB, modified to be controlled by an external 25MHz reference signal.

The 25MHz reference oscillator is indoors in the shack in order to minimize the temperature drift. As this is an uncompensated DIL oscillator there is, of course some drift, up to a few kHz to each side. Actually not too bad for such a simple setup.

The LNB converts the the 10489MHz signal down to 739MHz, so for now I have used an older AOR multimode scanner receiver, the AR8600. This works, and I have made some QSOs, and often participated in the Danish-speaking net on Sundays. It is a bit inconvenient with the drift, as I have to compensate by manually checking the AR8600 frequency for the beacon, and then remember to calculate the offset.

Further, the IF filters in the AR8600 are low cost ceramic filters, so for SSB and CW the selectivity is not what I am used to from my HF/VHF transceivers.

Here comes the idea: The AR8600 has an IF output on 10.7MHz, with a bandwidth of 4MHz. Why not use that to feed one of my HF radios? That way I can use the better filters of the HF radio. On top of that, a quick manual compensation of the LNB frequency drift can be made by switching to one of the beacon frequencies and retune the AR8600 so the beacon is in the pass band of the IF receiver. Then the recalculation of the offset becomes unnecessary.

This is the simplest way to improve the downlink receive system with the equipment I have at hand.

It does require using two radios, as the AR8600 is simply used as a second down converter.

If I want to eliminate the AR8600 from this there is another idea. This requires more construction, so I think I will use the AR8600 in the first instance.

I have some older TV tuner modules with synthesized local oscillators. With a bit of programming of the synthesizer chip using a microcontroller, the Arduino or the like, this can function as a down converter to an IF of 28-40MHz. One little disadvantage is that the TV tuner as-is inverts the IF band. 

This can be eliminated in two ways:

1) a second down converter inverting the band once more. This adds complexity to the system, but can be done without too much building.

2) retuning the RF filters of the tuner, so the LO moves below the signal input frequency. This is the simple way, but requires more test equipment. I do have enough test equipment to do this, so if I go the TV tuner way, this is the likely way to do it.

For now, the AR8600 with HF receiver will be the way, after all the Christmas activities. I am looking forward to improving my QO100 setup.

I am still looking into what next year's "challenge" will be. It should require some activities from my side, on the other hand it should also be fun.

I do think that a part of this will be running the most used parts of my station on solar (with battery backup, of course) hopefully on solar power, even through the winter. I may have to switch parts of it on mains power in the poorest sunlight conditions. The really power hungry parts, like big linear amplifiers will be running on mains power in any case, but they will not be running a lot in any case.

Using only the IC705 in December I have been able to get the battery up to 80%, but that has been with saving the time I was using it.

10m Is Alive and Well. Worldwide Openings.

 My monitoring of the International Beacon Project on 10m has really paid off today.

As there is no beacon on the Antarctica continent that cannot count.

Today all the normally populated continents have been heard on 28MHz - yes just one frequency and CW.

Oceania: VK6RBP

Asia:       4X6TU (been there every day for weeks), VR2B

Africa:     CS3B (most days for weeks), ZS6DN

South America: YV5B, LU4AA

North America: 4U1UN

The only beacon in Europe is OH2B, and that is inside the skip distance, so it has not been heard. However, many signals from the Mediterranian  Sea have been heard, and in my 5W/365day challenge I worked EA5NI today. After the QSO I heard a Japanese station calling him. Not too bad with a vertical.

The challenge stands at 271 QSOs this year, so with some breaks some days I should work a few QSOs per day, one or two will likely do it. As I am not limited to any single band that should not be too difficult to do.

If the solar activity continues like it is now, with a solar flux about 140 or higher, I would expect this fall/autumn, winter and spring to be excellent on 10m, and the summer season should provide some excellent sporadic E. I think we will have a few golden years for 10m propagation.

As to 6m, IF the solar activity continues to be above the original prediction I would not be surprised to see F2, TEP and other propagation at the peak of the solar cycle 25. Right now it does look good, but we never know. A wise man once said "Prediction id hard, especially about the future." ;)

Small Update on Reducing Energy Consumption of the Ham Station.

 With the price for electricity going up I have decided to reduce power used by my ham station from the mains network.

The first stage was a small system for using solar power for a part of the station.

Stage 2 I have shut down more of the radios.

My current setup looks like this:

1. My old 7/21/50MHz hand held used as a receiver for 50MHz FT8, running on solar/battery (24/7)

2. The IC705 running HF operation, 5W and mostly CW, solar/battery (day and evening)

3. The IC703 for 10m beacon monitoring on 28.200MHz, solar/battery (day and evening)

4. IC910 2m and 70cm, mainly used for local FM traffic, running on mains power (day and evening)

5. Kenwood TM-D700 running stand-by on local 70cm and 2m RX, mains power

6. Occasional use of the IC7300 for low HF band or 50/70MHz operation

7. Occasional use of the IC7600 for 50MHz band operation

The multiband dipole and the R6000 vertical for 10-12-15-17-20m have been connected to the IC705 with a coaxial switch. This removes the IC7600 from quick use for the high HF bands, and makes the IC705 usable on almost all bands, 6-10-12-15-17-20-40-80m. I still miss 4, 30 and 60m here. Maybe adding an extra dipole for those bands to the multiband dipole will do the job, if there is not too much interaction?

With another coax switch the 30m "long wire" antenna can be connected to both the IC7300 and the HB-1B. The HB-1B can do 30m, but not 60, the iC7300 can do 160 - 4m.

As the IC910 draws more than 2A, just receiving, I need something different for daily stand-by operation for 2m/70cm FM.

At the moment the energy consumption from mains power is considerably lower than last year at the same time, but as I want more versatility and less power consumption I will have to develop the station further. I still have some low power receivers (scanners, HTs etc.) and that will have to be used with the solar power system for monitoring/scanning. More on that later.

The solar power system also has to be improved. More panels, bigger battery (batteries).

I also have to test the RF noise from more advanced solar charge controllers (MPPT types), and possible ways to reduce or fully eliminate RF noise from those.

Back to Monitoring 10m a Bit More.

 In the energy crisis (which is likely to continue for a while, I have reduced the number of radios used for monitoring.

The daily operation runs a 2m/70cm transceiver (the IC-910 at the moment) scanning FM frequencies and making the occasional local QSO. The drawback is the rather high power consumption, about 2A at 12V, so about 25W, just for reception. At the moment the 910 is running on mains power, as the only radio running daily. I may change this into another (FM only) transceiver consuming less power, and still running 2m and 70cm. I do have another (FM) transceiver monitoring a local frequency on each of the  2m and 70cm bands. A mobile rig using about 500mA.

Most of the remaining daily activity runs on my small solar power system:

24/7 monitoring of the FT8 frequency on 50MHz, running an old ("handheld" brick) transceiver with 120mA current consumption.

Day long monitoring of diverse HF frequencies, mostly CW, and a bit of QSOs with 5W, RX current consumption about 300mA

Day long monitoring of 28.200, the frequency on 10m for the International Beacon Project, at the moment using my old IC703 with 600mA current consumption. As soon as I set the 703 to 28.200 the 4X6TU beacon was received with good signal strength. Yes, 10m is open.

There is a possibility of reducing the power consumption of the monitoring system, but this requires some building and other activities. At the moment I am working on getting the heating for the house, so I am ready for the winter, because, as they say: "Winter is coming!"

A Bit of Progress With the HB100 Modulator(s).

Just to remind possible readers of this blog, much of what I write is also a store of ideas and information that I want to be able to find again.

Lately I have not been so active with the soldering. However, since the first test of a modulator I have built another one on a new PCB. This one is a version shown on the website of F6HCC .

My version is simplified, as the idea was to use it with one of my MP3 players for modulating a test signal. This could be voice or (WBFM) modulated morse code.

As far as I know there is a kit out there for the F6HCC modulator, but I built my version on an experimental PCB, as modifications are a lot easier than on such a board.

Compared to the original F6HCC I omitted the (microphone) audio amplifier stage, assuming that the MP3 player should have sufficient output for modulating the HB100. 

The initial test, like the test of the first modulator, shows that the output of the IC-821 transceiver when using the CW side tone, works nicely, and can be adjusted to a voltage deviation of +/-100mV at 4.9VDC.  This looks like a good start. Now, the MP3 players seem to have a too low output for the purpose, at least for the modified F6HCC modulator. Now I have two options:

1) Add the second audio amplifier stage, or

2) Build the "digital" morse generator. This could be:

- a keyed CMOS oscillator, like the F6HCC one, but with a simple keying circuit. I have ordered some CMOS 4001 (NOR gates) IC. Amazing that I did not have any in my stock of components, but they are on the way.

- a simple beep-beep generator as described in the F6HCC modulator, or

- the CMOS oscillator with a microprocessor generating a repeated CW keying signal. Somewhere I should have a program for that in a PICAXE. The other option is using the Arduino. I think I found a program for a "beacon keyer" with dual output, a simple CW key output and a (side) tone output. With a (hardware or software) modification a simple input for a CW keyer, even a straight key, is possible. The microprocessor road will require me to learn to set up programming of the processors, and I have to learn some programming, too. The PICAXE with the BASIC programming language that I have a decent grasp of, is probably the simplest way, and the smallest of the PICAXE processors is an 8-pin DIL package, so there is plenty of space on the PCB to have that as well as the keyed oscillator.

It looks like I will be building a third modulator PCB on a slightly larger PCB, because this time I want the full circuit on the PCB, with space to spare. The very first modulator used an external AF amplifier for modulation, but I want to avoid that for mechanical simplicity - and also avoid lots of wires between PCBs, switches etc.

The end result will have the microphone amplification, so it is likely to be usable for the MP3 player, too.

Later, I expect to make myself a "WBFM modulated CW beacon", that I can set up in the garden and test the range of the setup. That could be a simplified version using the microprocessor keyer/audio generator and the F6FCC modulator without the extra audio amplification.

The microprocessor should also be usable as a true CW beacon keyer.

Oh, yes, I do need to (re)learn some programming and get the things set up for PICAXE and/or Arduino programming. Everything takes time.