I read an article about a QFH antenna in the May 2018 QST magazine (page 38, link for ARRL members) that could be used for receiving NOAA satellite weather imagery using an RTL-SDR dongle and a Raspberry Pi. This is a very common project with RTL-SDR dongles(which are $20~ USB radio receivers), check out RTL-SDR sub-reddit for lots of people’s results. QFH stands for QuadriFiliar Helix. It looks like this: I purchased all the parts besides the coax and PL-259 connector from home depot for around $30. At first I followed this instructable on setting up the Raspberry Pi to automatically download the images. I ran this for awhile and didn’t…
Club tower damaged in tornado
The club tower was bent badly during a storm that came through on Thursday night which had a tornado. The club weather station clocked the wind at 65mph. It’s bent at the first extension so we can’t lower it. We’re working on what to do next to get it down. Local news article on the storm: https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2020/02/07/storm-damage–reports-of-a-tornado–downed-trees–damaged-homes
Winter Field Day 2020
Once again we had Winter Field Day at the Clearwater Fire Training Facility. It’s a great location and they give us the run of the training areas. We setup a beam, a rotating dipole, 2 slopers and an off center fed dipole. We ended up with over 1200 contacts and covered every US section. It was a really nice day but rather cold once it got dark. I worked almost exclusively on the CW station and found I was able to keep up with the slow field day sending speeds. I think it was a success and everyone had a good time.
Easy Rotor Control(ERC) and Yaesu G-450A setup
After I ordered the Flex, I wanted a way to move the antenna when I wasn’t in the shack. The are some after marker rotor controllers but they are pretty expensive and don’t get the best of reviews. I considering building one out of Arduino following some plans from K3NG. It looks like a fun project but I would want a spare rotor to test with (I looked at the last ham fest but the prices weren’t great on the ones I saw). So I searched for alternatives and found the Easy Rotor Control, ERC v4. I bought the kit version from Vibroplex, which is the US distributor. It arrived…
WWV Fort Collins
I was in Colorado on vacation so I drove past the WWV site outside Fort Collins to check out the antennas. Wikipedia has more info about it. You can’t get very close because it’s a secure facility but I got some shots from the fence:
New portable transceiver, KX2
I’ve been looking for something more portable for taking with me when I travel and settled on the Elecraft KX2. I looked at the KX3 as well but its a little bigger and not much more powerful, and I already have the FT-891 at 100 watts so I went with the smaller one. KX2 is a 10W QRP radio. I tested it out today on the porch with some FT8 and the Wolf River Coil. Here it is next to my mac, it has a built in battery. I added a BNC to SMA connector and use RG-316 coax to the antenna in an attempt to keep the weight down…
POTA K-3615 Dade Battlefield Historic State Park
I’ve seen the sign for this park many times on the way to my parents house. I left a little earlier on this trip to beat the heat and give a little extra time for an activation. This way my first real test of the Wolf River Coil I picked up at Hamvention. Band conditions have been really poor lately so I can’t say if my signal reports were bad because of the antenna or just condx. I got a couple 59’s out of 12 contacts but most were 33 and 44 or 53. The antenna is much less obtrusive than the 40ft pole I’ve been using but I wouldn’t…
Tower Antenna Party
I helped as ground crew installing a new tower at Tom NY4I’s house today. Dan K1TO is a very experienced tower installer, he made it look easy. It was my first time seeing how a gin pole works. We pulled up 3 sections of Rohn 55 tower onto about half a section that was above ground as the base. There’s still a last mast to be installed at the top of the tower which will hold the main antenna, but they’re saving that for another day. For now Dan installed a 2m/70cm vertical. It was an interesting day seeing how it all goes together. Here’s a video of the tower…
Yaesu FT-891, FT8, USB-C Mac, PS/2 cable
There was a lot involved in getting this working so I thought I would write a post about getting the Yaesu FT-891 to work digital modes (FT8 in this case) with a new Mac the only has USB-C ports. There are probably other ways to do it but I think what I am describing will be the lowest cost route. First, here are the settings in the FT-891 menu system that I ended up using: 05-06 CAT RATE – 9600bps 05-07 CAT TOT – 100msec 05-08 CAT RTS – ENABLE 07-12 PC KEYING – RTS 08-01 DATA MODE – OTHERS 08-03 OTHER DISP – 1500Hz 08-04 OTHER SHIFT – 1500Hz…
Antenna upgrades
Yesterday I upgraded the balun on my 80m Off Center Fed Dipole from a 4:1 MFJ to a Balun Designs 4:1. The new one is designed to work in compromised environments, such as over a house like mine is. Since I was already on the roof and had put up an extra pully on the thrust bearing under the hexbeam when I installed it, I used the old balun to install a 30m Off Center Fed dipole. I went with off center fed since it would fit the location of the hex beam on the roof better (as well as already having a 4:1 balun leftover from the 80m upgrade)….