40 Meter Pile-Up K2GXT

I operated K2GXT remotely through Ham Radio Deluxe to control the radio and Skype to pass the audio last night on July 23, 2009 starting around 7:30pm on 40 meters (7MHz). The station uses a Kenwood TS-2000 running about 100 watts into an off center fed dipole on top of the Student Alumni Union. More information about the club station and remote setup can be found at Brent's, KB1LQD, article Remote Controlled TS-2000.

I only planned on operating for 30 minutes or so but a huge pile-up formed on me while operating on 7.188 MHz. I ended up operating for about 2 hours and made 41 contacts as K2GXT the Rochester Institute of Technology Amateur Radio Club. I did not treat it as a contest and made a nice several minute conversation with each contact. The pile-up really tested the remote link and how it performed as well as my HF skills!

The log can be viewed online at this log analysis.

AO-51 Apollo 11 Special Event

So I stayed after work to catch the 6:20PM pass of AO-51 (Amateur OSCAR 51 "Echo") over Massachusetts on July 20, 2009. There is a really nice parking lot which is raised up a bit so with an Arrow satellite antenna I can hear AO-51 with ease from just under 10 degrees above the horizon. I was unaware that the control operator of AO-51 played a continuous recording through the satellite to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Mission.

The transmission starts with a clip from John F. Kennedy giving his famous speach of America's mission to go to the moon in 10 years "... not because it is easy, but because it is hard....". It then goes into 30 seconds or so of Niel Armstrong (I think...) stating that the engines of Eagle are off, a few seconds later "the Eagle has landed". Following this is mission control telling them that most of the people in mission controle are "blue" and can finally breath again! A Robot36 encoded SSTV transmission follows.

I tried to record it with my laptop microphone but something wasn't working and its a silent audio clip. Maybe some other bloggers heard these commemorative transmissions or even anyone who is interested please feel free to comment and let me know what you think or experienced!

DX Engineering Hustler 5BTV Vertical Antenna

I have spent the last 3 weeks installing a ground radial system for my DX Engineering Hustler 5BTV 80M-10M (3.5MHz - 28MHz) vertical antenna. Opting for the marginal benefit of sixteen radials cut at the lowest frequency I plan to operate on. This means that each radial is thirty-three feet long! The picture to the left shows a view of the antenna and surrounding area. The two traffic cones are covering some horseshoe pit metal poles. They most likely affect the antenna but it's not the worst problem in the world!

Each radial is made of #14 wire I stripped out of three cable Romex house wire leftover from building our garage (yes we built it ourselves). I soldered ground lugs onto each end and attached them to the antenna base at the U-bolts since I do not have the radial plate.

Fanning each radial out about 22.5 degrees (just and estimate with the handy protractor), but I was not strict on the angles being exact or laying the radials exactly straight. Instead of digging trenches for each wire, simply taking a square shovel and making a long slit in the ground worked great and left minimal marks. I took a piece of scrap metal and shoved the cable down and followed with the shovel pressing the ground back into place.

It took me three weeks which consisted of about 20 hours in all of laying the wires. It could have gone much quicker but I had to get set up each time I went out to work on it because most of the time I would do this after work and only had a few hours of light. There is a compost pile right next to the antenna which I had to move for each radial, in the end the whole pile was turned over so I guess I "hit two birds with one stone". It hadn't been turn in a year or two so the tough and slow part was moving the wet flattened leaves.

Before I laid the radials for the Hustler 5BTV it performed like an aluminum rod stuck in the ground. It really didn't pick up signals well and was deaf by antenna standards. Any attempts to adjust the SWR were not easy, very touchy, and almost unable to be tuned below a 3:1 VSWR on the amateur bands. After putting these radials onto the antenna, I am able to adjust the elements as suggested by the manual with ease and so far have adjusted most bands to <1.9:1 VSWR. The picture to the right shows the base of the vertical a few days before I was finished installing the radials. The coax can also be seen which attaches under the antenna by simply splitting the sheath and center conductor appart. The Hustler 5BTV is mounted about 4 inches above the ground as suggested by the manual.

The Hustler 5BTV vertical antenna went from performing like a 21 foot aluminium rod stuck in the ground to a 80m-10m antenna! Using an MFJ 269 antenna analyser has been great and I hope to have SWR data and operating performance soon. The 4BTV is exactly the same except there is an extra trap and whip antenna attached to the top which makes the 5th band (80m).

I'm Back!

So its been almost a year since my last post, wow. To say the least, my second year at RIT a an Electrical Engineering major while also rowing for the crew team was INTENSE. I survived on about 3-4 hours of sleep 6 days a week September 2008 through May 2009 with the once or twice per week >2 hour nights (several times it was only 45 minutes). While not bad at once, do that for 9 months and yikes! I seriously thought I was going to have to quit the crew team but I somehow managed to stay on. I guess going through life with a positive attitude helps out! Well I guess its time to start documenting some more stuff on the blog and see if more traffic can come to it! Hopefully a bunch of projects will suffice, I have some good ones going on now and since I am currently on a 6 month Co-Op... I HAVE THE TIME TO DO PROJECTS!!!! Which also means no homework :).

RIT Crew Fall Season

We've started classes for the Fall quarter here at RIT and I have started my first year as a Varsity rower for RIT Crew. Early morning practices (before dawn) work a lot better with schedules and its great to have so much competition between all the boats. Being on the shorter side, it's daunting to be competing for a seat in the varsity boats but I feel that it's a goal that I can reach. If this year continues on its path, RIT is going to have some fast boats!

dynDNS deleted my account for KB1LQC Website

So apparently the dynDNS.com account I had redirecting to my website at http://kb1lqc.ham-radio-op.net was deleted for no reason. I apologize if anyone wanted to see some projects or whatnot and could not view them. The site will go down while I move back to Rochester Institute of Technology at the end of the month. I hope to set up a .com while there and will probably buy a domain name. Thanks to the open RIT network they should allow a DNS server so I can do this. At home Comcast does not allow personal DNS servers on a home account and in order to host from my house I must buy a comcast business account... not happening!

It's Been a While

It has been a while since I have last posted. I have been home and very busy! Like I would actually sleep even while not at school haha, I'm still working on projects into the late hours of the night! So far I have taken on the immense task of researching the RIT Amateur Radio Club history as the newly appointed club historian. Since I started I have found out a lot of information that was lost over the years! More can be found on the K2GXT website history section when I update it (probably sometime in September, I want to put up most of the information at once).

As for other projects, I am now hosting a website off of an old Pentium II computer! Comcast does not allow a DNS server on home users so until I get back to RIT I cannot have a ".com" but the website is located at http://kb1lqc.ham-radio-op.net. I am slowly updating it, working full time and designing some cool projects takes up a good amount of my day! I will eventually get everything on there.

Right now I am designing a Sofware Defined Radio! It's almost done! After taking a class about digital circuits I feel that I have enough knowledge to tackle this type of radio. Before this projects I have only worked with analog (still my favorite!) circuits. Recent redesigns of the circuit have really improved its performance and soon I will be printing and etching my own PC boards!

As the academic year approaches at RIT I will start updating the blog more! If there is any interest in any of these topics please comment and I will try my best to answer.