New CRR Amateur Radio Group Net and (Updated) Oregon Distracted Driving Law

October 1st usually marks the change to more fall like weather in the Central Oregon region. This year is no exception however it also marks the start of the Crooked River Ranch Amateur Radio Group's first on-air net. It will be held on the 147.060+ (Tone 162.2) repeater at 4:00 PM. The goal of the net is three fold: first, to help assess the coverage of the repeater, second, to help encourage amateur radio operators (new and old) to get on the air, and finally, to share information that those checking in may find useful and interesting.

It is also very fitting that the first net being held coincides with Oregon's new Distracted Driving Law update. After over a year of discussion and bartering at the state level amateur radio finally received an answer that there would be an exemption. In the bill there is a list of times when the new law would not apply. The area pertaining to amateur radio "If you are a HAM radio operator age 18 years or older". While the exemption is a welcome sight in the new law please do remember that we should operate our equipment responsibly while driving. The full text of the new law can be found by clicking this link.

APRS iGate Temporarily Offline

Recently I have noticed my TM-D700A, which I use for both voice and APRS, has had poor receive. After doing some investigating I found that the Ventenna I'm using seems to have failed. It use to be resonant in the 2-meter band but is now resonant in the air band, 118.5 MHz. I will be putting up a new antenna once some of the snow melts here and once this is done my local iGate will be back online.

7QP Stresses & Successes

7QP 2016 is now complete. The log has been submitted and uploaded to all of the online QSL sites I use. I would say the event was a success for me with 87 stations contacted.

The 7QP was not without stresses however. Having a new computer in the shack since the last contest I participated in I realized the I had not setup N1MM Logger for digital modes after reinstalling it. With a lot of review of the software's documentation I got the digital settings correct, the macros set for 7QP, and finally made some successful psk-31 contacts.

Successes came throughout the QSO party, which made the stresses fade from memory. My goal was to get 50 QSOs. After reaching that number in the early evening and with most of those on 20 meters I switched to 40 and 80 meters. The propagation on these bands improved throughout the evening until the end of the 7QP.

While most of my QSOs came from searching and pouncing, which worked very well, I did get a small run of stations in the last 20 minutes when I finally decided to find a frequency and just call CQ.

7QP 2016 was a success. Now it's time to start thinking about the next contest which, for me, may actually be 7QP 2017. 73!

Homebrew 20 Meter Vertical

Since many of the National Parks on the Air (NPOTA) stations have been on 20 meters I decided to build a dedicated vertical antenna for this band. My 80 meter dipole, fed with 450-ohm ladder line, is usable on all bands with my tuner. There were times that the stations I was listening to were near the noise floor and hard to pull out with the dipole.

In my "junk" (aka glorious pile of stuff I haven't figured out what to do with yet) I had an old Hygain CB base station antenna which measured about 21 feet tall. Using the standard 234/frequency I came up with about 16 feet 4 inches for the General section of 20 meters. After adjusting the height of the top section and securing it, I bypassed the CB loading  coil in the base by connecting the coax center conductor directly to the vertical element and the coax braid to the mount. The mount is isolated from the vertical element by plastic spacers. I then mounted the antenna to a fence post in the front yard.

After some trial and error I found I had really high SWR.  I added a single radial wire to the mount. The SWR came down to about 1.4:1 across the General portion of the band. I had hoped that mounting the antenna to the fence would create a good ground plane but it didn't.

Initial on air test shows it works very well. It tends to hear about one s-unit better than the dipole antenna. As a side note the dipole center is about 20-30 feet above ground with the ends at about 10 feet.

Now that I know the antenna is resonant I plan to put it on a 10 foot mast and add three more radials (for a total of four).

The best part about this project is that the entire building/modification, mounting, and testing took less than an hour! Along with that it didn't cost me anything as I had all of the pieces and parts already. Now to go chase some more NPOTA stations.

HRDLOG.net QSO Map

I was tinkering with HRDLOG.net tonight and uploaded all of my latest QSO's. I then found the QSO Map option and noticed it has a snapshot of where I am for DXCC. Pretty cool feature. If you use Ham Radio Deluxe check out HRDLOG.net. I keep all of my contacts backed up here as well as at LOTW and eQSL!

Far to long since my last post

It has been over a year since my last blog post; shame on me. I have been on and off the air while updating my ham shack, getting a better HF antenna up, and, in general, spending time with my family.

My ham shack setup doesn't include any new radios but the desk is now setup. The antenna pass through panel has also been sealed in the window so i can have multiple antennas without losing all of the heat in the shack.

Speaking of antennas I have taken down my non-resonant HF vertical and put up an 80 meter dipole fed with 450 ohm ladder line. This antenna is a great improvement even though it isn't very high off the ground.

This year I'm looking forward to chasing (and maybe even activating) the National Parks on the Air (#NPOTA) event stations. With the first weekend of #NPOTA in the books I was only able to get 3 NPS Units logged but it was fun none the less.

New QTH

Over this past summer my family and I have been looking at buying a house rather than continuing to rent. Well the house hunt became successful in late July/early August. My ham shack got packed up for the move. We moved into our new home in September and have been busy unpacking boxes.

Two weeks ago I finally got to the boxes with all of the ham shack radios and accessories. At this point I have the ham shack spread out on my desk. The Kenwood TM-D700A is now back up and operational for local VHF/UHF. I also now have the Igate running off that radio as well. The HF station is on the desk and awaiting the HF antennas to go up. I had intended to use my MFJ Window Pass through however have decided that I'm going to bring the coax cables into the ham shack without using it. When using it in the rental house I had a tough time sealing it in the window and the ham shack was always super cold in the winter. I will post photos and updates over the next several weeks as the ham shack comes together.

Photo of K7TYE Ham Shack desk as of 11/9/2014

New HF Antenna and 7QP

The last weekend in April provided just enough of a break in the wet and windy spring weather to put up a new HF antenna.  I built an 80 meter full wave horizontal loop antenna.  I have fed it with 450-ohm ladder line which I have never used before.  The ladder line goes into a 4:1 balun outside the shack and a short run of coax cable comes into the station.  Thanks to my friend James for climbing the trees and setting up the pulleys in the trees.  After about 4 hours of outside work the antenna went up successfully.

The 7th Call Area QSO party (7QP) occurred on May 4, 2014.  This was the first big test of the new antenna and it was very successful!  I didn't work the entire time the contest was running but I still managed to make 113 contacts throughout the day on 20, 40, and 80 meters.  The bands were wide open and even running 100 watts was able to have tons of fun.

I will be putting up pictures of the new antenna in the next couple of weeks.

Radio Notes: 10 Meter Fun Today

With a little luck and a bit of perseverance I managed to work two European stations on 10 meters today.  I was pleasantly surprised to add both Belgium (OT4A) and Poland (SP9LJD) to my logbook.  With the band being open in the morning my simple G5RV antenna and FT-897D running 100 watts is actually working, which at times I wondered if it was when it seemed no one could hear me.

Today I also had an "Ah ha!" moment with a setting on my Yaesu FT-897D.  I often wondered why stations sounded so, well, just plain bad on receive.  Even when band conditions were not the best I noticed that a lot of stations were hard to copy and their audio sounded like it was coming from a blown speaker.  While listening to a station today on 10 meters today the meter was pegged at 60dB over S9.  After a quick consultation with the manual I turned on the attenuation.  Magically the signal became almost crystal clear.  In fact I don't think I have ever heard audio sound so good on receive.  I tuned around the band listening to other stations and they all sounded great.  So my lesson learned was attenuation is a good thing and to not be afraid to use it.

Anyway that's my radio notes for today!

73
K7TYE

K7TYE APRS Weather Station Off-the-Air

The Lacrosse weather station has finally stopped connecting to the outside sensors.  At this point the APRS weather station will be off the air indefinitely.  The Crooked  River Ranch APRS Igate will remain on the air as of later today (12/28/2013).

Weather Station Update

The weather station has been reset and revived.  It is running however occasionally I lose connection with the outside sensors for a time then they reconnect.  At this time I have added the weather data back to my APRS station beacons.

APRS Weather Station Down

My Lacrosse Technology WS-2810u weather station had a major malfunction.  The wind sensor and main outside thermohygrometer stopped talking to the main inside unit.  After replacing batteries and resetting the sensors they still would not communicate.  After taking apart the anemometer it appears the reset button was not working.  It is now fixed and back together.  The station is inside and currently all sensors are connected. If they all stay connected while inside to night then tomorrow they will go back outside and should be back in full operation.

APRS.fi Screen Shot of Return Trip from California

Took a vacation to see family in the California Bay Area.  Even included a stop at Ham Radio Outlet Sunnyvale to look at all the new radios that have come out.  After returning home I pulled up the aprs.fi map of my track and have included a screen shot of it below.  Click on it to see the journey and thanks for everyone who maintains digipeaters and igates along the way that I used!

VHF/UHF Antenna Project Completed

Another project is now done on the summer list of ham radio to-do's.  The Cushcraft A50-5S was remounted on a longer mast section along with the Cushcraft A270-10S and the Ventenna VT-27.  This now gives me my multi-band VHF/UHF antenna array just in time for the ARRL September VHF Contest next weekend!

VHF/UHF Antenna Array includes (from bottom to top):

• Cushcraft A50-5S, 6 meter 5-element beam
• Cushcraft A270-10S, 2 meter and 70 centimeter beam, with 5 elements for each band
• Ventenna VT-27, 2 meter and 70 centimeter vertical for FM voice and packet

Ham Shack Update

The move of the ham shack from one room to another has been completed!  A new station ground system is now in place.  The Ventenna has been moved from the roof to the mast above the 6 meter beam.  I have hooked up now my old G5RV for now.  Phase two of this project is to get the full wave loop built and installed this summer as time permits.  Now to get on the air and have some fun!

April Showers bring May Antennas!

Finally got my LoTW account setup.  I'm going through old logs and will be adding them over the next few months as time permits.

The ham shack is moving to a different room at my place and will force me to finally finish my HF loop antenna project.  I'm currently finishing up gathering all of the antennas to build the 160M full-wave loop antenna.  This is because the G5RV will be on the far side of the house from the new ham shack location.  This project will most likely mean that my ham shack will be off the air for a short time during the month of April.  This move/project includes all of the following:

• Moving ham desk to a different room
• Upgrading ham desk/station ground system
• Rerouting existing 6M, 2M and 70CM antenna coaxes
• Building and hanging the 160M full wave horizontal loop antenna

Eventually the G5RV will come down and go back in the antenna box in the garage.  As long as this project goes smoothly I will then be working on my VHF/UHF antenna array for weak signal work.

Igate Update

After seeing the APRSIS32 software on Ham Nation I decided to give it a try.  I currently have it loaded and running as my Igate.  It seems to be working very well at this point.  If it continues to run without any problems I will switch to it permanently and not use AGWTracker or AGWUIDigi anymore.

73s.com

Check out www.73s.com.  It's a social media site just for ham radio operators.  I set my profile up today and have had a blast so far!

Come check my 73s profile page out by clicking here.

November Update

October was a busy month.  I haven't been on the air much but working on projects around the ham shack non-the-less.

Fall/Winter Projects I'm Working On:

• Plan and purchase coax for VHF/UHF antenna projects
• Move Ventenna VT-27 from vent to pipe mount above 6 meter beam
• Put Cushcraft AR270-10S up above 6 meter beam
• Move G5RV farther away from the house to reduce noise

Future Projects (No Timeline Yet)

• Loop antenna for HF
• Permanent APRS Igate station with Icom IC-2100H & a Microsat - WX3in1 interface
• HF mobile antenna mount

As I get projects done I will post photos on the site!

73 for now and I hope to catch you down the dial!

Hoodoo Repeater Back In Service

The Oregon Connection Hoodoo Butte repeater (441.625) is back online.  K7UND made the trip up to put the refurbished controller in the rack.  Tested it with him this evening and it sounds great!  The HIDARG net on Tuesdays will now have access to the Oregon Connection.

Thanks K7UND!