Field Day and the E season

Late spring and summer are times of low activity for me other than 6m and a casual FD trip.
Well the E skip season has been so lack luster that even QST magazine printed an article asking WORST E SEASON EVER ? Well at least in many years.

I was very active on 6m way back when in the 80s and early 90s and off and on after that, I revved up again in 2006 so that is ten years now. In the early days that  I noted it was crazy, DX F2 Es it was a hay day for me then. Running a Yaesu FT 620B at 20W I was working the world on 6 what fun, many of you will remember that time.

The last ten years I have been running a 100W rig and a 3el beam at a very modest height, I started just counting the number of QSOs I was making each year, nothing complicated not counting Es and F2 , AU or scatter just the number of Qs. Without boring you with numbers I will say the 2016 E season has so far netted the lowest Q count for the past ten years. So I hope your part the country has been better ( E and SE) seem to have it better than the NW where I live....Still waiting for the big one here in NW !!!

Field Day was a very nice Jeep trip to a abandoned fire lookout at about 8K feet here in southern Idaho. I was accompanied by my Son who is a Ham and my Grandson. We had a great trip and made a few contacts .

With the sun spots at 0 for many days the decline of the cycle will be felt by all of us in the coming years, I am hoping for a good fall and contest season as my 6m season has been POO....

Remember get on and have fun with whatever you have, enjoy the rest of the summer and 73...K7JAN

Spring 2016

I have been such a slacker with the blog, my last post was December 2015 so lets catch up.
I had a total fail with the big DXpeditions this winter failing to get the VP8's just to much for my HOA antennas and 100w but that's how it goes. I did make a run at the ARRL 10m contest in Dec. and think I may have done ok still waiting for results.

I found myself also floundering in the CQ WW 160 contests both CW and SSB conditions from the North West were just bad for low power this year so not expecting any wall paper this year. So mush for the doom and gloom I sure hope you all had a good DX and contest winter. The good news is that our multi one effort in the 2015 CQWWDXSSB contest won us the number one spot in call area seven so not all bad.

Also traveled to K7BUY for WPX SSB in March and as always best friend time and radio time was great, have no idea of how we did but was fun time.

Two old Hams having a good time. Ok well lets move on to 6 Meters one of the things I look foreword to in the spring....Well here in the NW it is a slow start from the first of May I have only put 15 stations in my log on 6. But three were double hop E to the E coast so not all bad just not many openings up this way. I did replace the rotor on the 6m beam so I guess that is equal to less openings haha.

I did install one of my FT 897's in my Jeep for the summer so I hope we have some 6m action, I do plan to work the summer VHF contests so lets hope for the best. I also made a few antenna changes here in HOA world, I installed a 32 foot vertical next to one of my trees in the back yard and it works very well and is hidden very well also.

Well I hope you all have a good spring/summer and that you get on and have fun with what ever you have....Best 73...Jim, K7JAN

 

SMALL STATION DXing..

Well here it is December Christmas coming soon and then another year past. I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

I am not a world class operator nor am I on the DXCC Honor Roll so what is to follow is some old common sense DX rules an my observations after DXing and contesting from an HOA with 100W and low profile antennas. Coming soon will be some very high profile DXpeditions and ones I hope to work I hope these few hints will help all my small station brethren.

1. Make sure your station is all that it can be, lets assume you have less than perfect antennas due to HOA or lot size restrictions. Make sure they are fed with good coax with good connectors. Make sure if you are running phone that you audio is the best it can be...not full processing and to much mic gain...a good mic with good clean crisp audio is your best weapon with low power and compromised antennas. my choice is the HEIL PROSET HC-4....But play around and find you audio sweet spot.
Pick your mode..what's the best chance for you ? I believe it is CW for small stations.

Know your equipment, understand how to operate split without that embarrassing mistake of calling on the DX freq, it has happened to many of us so just double check before hitting the switch. Understand where the rig perform the best, we have small stations and need to use all the tools we have.

2. Study and understand propagation, many DXpeditions will post propagation charts you can enter your grid locator and your antenna and it will show your optimum times and bands, it is a good and useful tool. Learn and understand the solar numbers A and K index Flux and SN, check space weather.com for updates all helpful and important to us peewee's.

3. Avoid operating rush hours if you can. If you have only weekends to chase that rare one so be it we have to feed the family. I try to avoid weekends and try to set an operating schedule during the week when there will be less of a pileup to deal with...So plan your operating with band opening times and days of the week in mind if you can, this does not always work out but it has worked well for me.

4. be the best listener you can, listen to and heed the instructions put forth by the DXpedition operator, listen to his style and rhythm get a feel for what he is doing. Most DX operators working through a pile up don't stay in one place very long they will be working up and down the pile up so calling where he last worked a station may not always work. Remember our signals are not as strong as the big gun stations so we must be good operators...small and crafty : )

5. Be patent we may not work them at the beginning of there operation it may take many hours and in some cases many days of trying, don't give up the pile up will get smaller as the days pass. It took me eight days to work FT5ZM Amsterdam Isl. last year but on that day I worked them on two modes within the first hour of my attempts....So be patent don't give up, I don't want them on all bands and modes I just want them ONCE that is all I need for new one.

6. DQRM will always be an issue for us and the big guns, it is something we have to live with now sad to say. Don't let these bad apples push you around be patent it always goes away, also band cops are a pain also but once again gut it out your operating time is precious don't let them spoil it hang in there.

I guess I could go on and on but you know my motto, get on have fun and enjoy what ever station you have. Good DX friends...73..K7JAN

QSLing or NOT !

I saw a post the other day that was about a QSL request to a special event station that came back with the dreaded returned QSL and a NOT IN LOG tag. Many of you have been in this hobby as long or longer than I have and you know the pain of collecting those much wanted and needed QSLs.

Back in the day ( before the internet) it was not as easy, no QRZ.com, no manager list on line, no OQRS, no PayPal, no LoTw, no eQSL...and on and on. It was Bureau, direct, or manager but finding the manager was a list published in CQ magazine so you sometimes had to wait a month or two. The Bureau was just as slow then as it is now, IRCs were more readily accepted and your green stamps were stolen about as often as today.

With that being said some DX stations, and many US stations are just bad at sending QSL cards. I will only go into detail on a couple in the recent past we will pass on the many in the past 40 years.
The big DXpeditions are great logs uploaded to see if your contact was good, EZ QSL routs and so on. But lets take the case of the guys trying to get those cards from maybe not so rare places but none the less needed .

WAS : This is the award most of us get first, now you can get eWAS, and LoTw (ARRL) WAS and you can get cards ( I like cards ) but even with that many don't upload to eQSL or LoTw.....and many don't return mail cards....it is just how it is....Yes you may have to work a state three times to get a card, I don't get it but it is true, like you I send a receive QSL with great pleasure...so what is wrong with the others ? Got me !!

I have a couple of QSL stories most of you can relate to, I should use there calls but won't as I am a nice guy....mostly. I have many more rare DX stations in my QSL box than Jamaica, but the station I worked there was the only one I had he was a vacationing VE....very long story short....sent $$ and SAE ..... sent PayPal payment couple of years later and today...yes today... got a card in the mail four years later at a cost of $7 dollars...but I did get it !! So I guess this is the don't give up story.

The other is a station in N. Ireland not that rare at all but once again the only one I have....His QRZ page says...I do not collect cards but if you send me $3 US and an SAE with your QSO information I will send a card.....Well after two such letters being sent, and two email requests to see what happened to my $6 no reply ....none. It is true some guys are just taking our money.

LoTw: I am a new comber to LoTw in the past couple of years...it is a great tool but just remember this...I have uploaded 2500 contacts in that time and have 1100 QSLs so less than 50% it could be better. I have a pile of not in log requests like many of you have sent multiple requests for that elusive last state for 6M WAS ....and some will never come, NEVER ....but don't give up most guys will QSL and you will get most of the ones you need, but some you will have to work again it is just how it is....

Get on have fun and enjoy what you have and QSL always...73 Jim K7JAN

100 Watts and a wire ....

I stumbled on to the 100 Watts and a wire page a few weeks ago on FB, I have been following it now for those few weeks and I am so pleasantly surprised with this site. It is so very cool to see posts from new hams that are excited about building antennas, working DX, getting WAS and overcoming CC&R restrictions ... I am so happy to see all this enthusiasm.

Most of you will excel and pass me by with an Extra ticket I am sure, I have been an Advanced class for 30 years, if you do not know what that class is do some research....Above General below Extra...and still FUN !! I hope you all climb the ladder and enjoy all that this hobby has to offer.

I want to pass on another CC&R antenna that may be of some use to some of you. I have used this antenna stationary mobile on FD and now from my home QTH as a way to get on 30 Meters. My random wire fed with the same UnUn described below just don't like 30M....Hummm you know how it is.

This antenna uses a JacKite pole found on line, search Jackite pole in Google, they come in several lengths, I have the 30ft model. I simply add the appropriate length of wire fed with the 9 to 1 UnUn and let her rip, the pole is a 4ft tube that easily extends to 30ft. EZ up and down so up at dark down at QRT time. 23 feet of wire works 10-40m very well, 40 m works best with a 23ft counterpoise. but not required for the higher bands.

The UnUn, I have built many of these and you can too....

The core is a T130-2

The pole is lite weight and can be mounted in many ways, we have used Velcro straps, pipe clamps, and Zip Ties your choice. The photo below is my friend Tim KD7WD using this antenna attached to a fence post with Velcro straps.

This is a shot of me operating stationary mobile FD with the pole attached to my Jeep.

Well I hope you will give this a try, a great portable antenna and a good nighttime stealth antenna from the dreaded HOA. feel free to contact me @ dek7jan@gmail.com Best 73 Jim.

HOA life !!

HAM LIFE IN AN HOA

Some of us in a manner of speaking are on our way up or on our way down in the Ham station world,  I am on my way down (yikes). Well my point is you may live in an HOA as your first home or in aging ham operator  world  your last home or as I prefer your retirement house may be in an HOA like mine.

I want to stress the fact that no one twisted my arm to sign the CC&Rs for my new home and I do not expect a free pass of some sort, If the parity act should pass that would be nice but it would change my station very little I believe I have reasonable accommodations now . My thought was I am a Ham Radio Operator, I have been doing this a while(40 years) and I will in the words of Clint Eastwood, improvise, overcome , and adapt no problem, hummm.

I left behind intermediate station locations meaning I had a tower with a modest beam at 50ft and full size wires dipoles for 40 and 80 and a KW if needed ( I never operated 160m until I moved to the HOA…It can be done).

I just want to stress that many of us now live in these conditions and I want you all that do to press on don’t let your great hobby fall to the weigh side, it need not. Just keep swimming!  And for you that don’t give us a break, I was asked at a club meeting by a guy ( I was the new guy there) What are you stupid moving into an HOA….Needless to say I was offended and did not return to the club meetings.

We are not stupid, it is the norm these days it is where a great many people live, for work good schools or retirement. What ever your case is we are not stupid just living our lives the best we can in nice neighborhoods.

So let’s talk Ham Radio now station setup, antennas, DXing, contesting all the fun stuff. So now you know now I retired moved to a new town got a new house and live in the HOA world. After the needs of the XYL the move the paint the yard bla bla….I could not wait to get the station setup, I truly had no idea what would take place in the yard but I knew what the station would look like….just like it always looked.

Remember I am the new guy in the neighborhood, no fast moves so my first attempt before winter set in was a fan dipole in the attic 6-20m that would get me on the air, also 220 feet of wire @ 6ft off the ground on the inside of my wooden fence fed with a 9 to 1 UnUn…..That worked great for the local stuff on the low bands but not much past 1500 miles. That was the first winter, but my wheels were turning for the next spring.  

The problem with attic antennas …..there are a few, let’s see 10m sets off smoke alarms, 20m inflates and deflates sleep number bed…..one to avoid when XYL is trying to sleep ! At this point I will say that this was 100w, not the KW which resides now with a ham friend in rural Oregon. I learned to work around most of the problems for the winter but knew I had to get some antennas out and up to solve some of these problems….don’t give up keep swimming !

The very old but good idea of the 4 or 5 BTV in a flagpole came to mind, so in April of 2011 ( I own two such antennas ) I covered a 4 BTV in PVC pipe painted it the same color as my house and installed it pre dawn with old glory atop with a hand full of radials thrown out among the ground cover. It was a good spring  , the antenna worked great and five years later is still working great giving me FT5ZM, and many more great DX contacts. Remember almost nobody will mess with old glory and I love flying her….My thoughts started to drift to the low bands, I had 40 on the vertical but…when you insert a 4BTV in a PVC pipe you have to remove the 40m top hat….so it is not the best match, and here is where I will state that a good antenna tuner or tuners in my case is very important for the HOA Ham to make the improvised antenna do what you want. Most new rigs have built in tuners and most are very good, but some may not have the range needed to do what we ask them to do.

My station is a mix of older and newer equipment, I have two rigs with built in tuners my old trusty Kenwood TS-940s that will tune about anything I throw at it, and a newer Yaesu FT-950 that I am sorry to say just does not have the range I would like….Enter the LDG auto tuners which have a great tuning range and are not going to break your bank. I use them on my FT-897s they are great.

Ok now HOA Ham is on 10-40 and the smoke alarm and sleep number bed are not operating on RF !

Enter a better 40m, 80m and 160 antenna …..well as best as we can do. From the North end of my house to the highest tree on the South side of my house is about 75ft….so that is what I have to work with for 40, 80, and 160 not so hot but all I got! I found some very small but strong #20 wire that I decided to feed with the 9 to 1 UnUn with a remote switch adding some inductance for 160m.

This wire is only about 4ft above the roof of my house but it is nearly invisible, you would never see it if you did not know it was there. And it works very well for what it is.

Let’s move on to VHF and UHF, these are the easy ones, well sorta! I am not much of a 2m repeater guy but I do believe in EMCOM and support of local ARES/RACES units so I kept that in mind when installing antennas. My 2m FM antenna is installed on the North side of my house below the roof line and painted the same color as the house, it works well for all the local repeaters and simplex out to about  ten miles.

I have not revealed my love of 6m, I have been on 6m off and on for many years and I could not pass on an E skip season so it was important to me to get something up for 6 other than the 6m dipole in the attic. The second summer I was here I got my 3el 6m beam out, I painted it OD green put it up at about 12ft with a back drop of a huge oak tree in my neighbors yard and found it was almost invisible…I hand rotated it the first summer and did ok other than running to the back yard many times….guess that Ham-R-Size !

The next spring I added a 3el 2m beam for SSB, a rotor and pushed the limits to 15 feet….It is not visible from the street and the other neighbors would have a hard time seeing it, in the summer it blends nicely with the oak tree and in the fall/winter it blends with the leafless limbs.

I have placed a few nice contest awards on my walls from my HOA QTH, not world class scores but I have won my section/class on 160m four times, VHF once and two DX contests. Retirement is great even from the HOA, I encourage all of you that live with these restrictions to get to it, employ the Ham spirit and make it work, I work many Hams in our situation they are having fun, contesting, DXing, and working new grid squares ….

 

The Antenna farm or garden as it were !!

The main antenna has to be the trap vertical flagpole , it works very well 6-40m with a minimum of radials. I just didn’t have room for many so it has two per band laid in no real order just where I could get them to fit. I have used this antenna with only a ground rod and no radials with good results, so just give it a try.

 

The next antenna that I have gotten many miles out of is my end fed random wire, although this could be called an end fed half wave (at about 40m) it works well on 80 and 160 with the setup I have. Don’t expect a miracle here but expect good results for what it is. I have worked Clipperton Isl. On 80 and 160 with this antenna and K1N on 80 as well. One thing city dwellers have to deal with is noise and lots of it on the low bands I use a TIMEWAVE  ANC-4 to help with the worst times, well worth the money in my book. And by the way this antenna works superb on 40m that being closest to a half wave on that band.

 

I feed the antenna with RG-58 to a 9 to 1 UnUn and switch in some inductance for 160 it is grounded with a 6ft rod and no counterpoise. My inductor was trial and error so won’t bore you with any math.

Well let’s move on to the attic. The attic antennas have fallen in to the backup category now, they work but  I prefer the vertical. I made many contacts on this antenna and the attic is a favorite antenna location for many HOA bound hams, so don’t overlook this location and I am sure most of you will do a better job with design than I did. A balun I am sure would be a big help but this was down and dirty for me to get on the air.

I am sorry but do not have a photo....just a simple fan dipole 6-20 m fed with RG-58.

Okay  last but not least the 6 and 2m antennas. As I stated it seems the OD green paint and the location has kept me out of trouble with the HOA. This antenna has been up now for three years and no complaints, not that it couldn’t happen but all is well so far. The 6m antenna is a Cushcraft 3el and the 2m beam is also a Cushcraft 3el. Not an array to boast about but once again it works well. The best thing about 6m is it doesn’t  take much when things are cracking…I have worked many new grids near and far and in the past three years JA, KH6, KL7, EA, and CE….but DE still eludes me for 6m WAS.

 

 

So in the end, don’t give up on Ham Radio if you live under CC&Rs, just see what you can do to get on the air have fun and enjoy what you have….73 Jim K7JAN  (dek7jan@gmail.com)

Summer 2015 @ K7JAN

Well I admit I am slow to get things off my mind....Ah summer...In Idaho summer is a time to make hay, enjoy those 100 deg.+ days ( To many this year so far) Enjoy the 6M E season openings (To few so far this year ) But a good summer at that. Grandkids around, open Jeep rides and so on....

I have been working on getting all my old and not so old QSL's caught up and all my logs uploaded to LoTw....think I am good there, now just need some new ones so looking foreword to fall and winter for some great DXpeditions that will be on, hope you feel the same.

I have been looking at many online comments about the ARRL raising the dues to $49 a year. To be very honest with you I have been on the fence with the ARRL for many years. I am not a life member but have been a member for 40 years so I guess I can sound off if I want. It will be hard for me to spit out almost $50 a year for the soso...QST and as far as I am concerned the constant dumbing down of our hobby. So with that I guess I am still on the fence will decide in May when my dues come around.

Lets talk 6M for a bit....How has your E season been ? If you live in the East or So. East I bet you will say great, if you live in the West I bet you say soso....I truly do have some high points but for the most part it has been SLOW. I try to keep track of 6m QSO's by year and so far I am about 45 below average. But...I did work Europe  for the first time ever on 6 so no complaints....Well not many !!

I hope you all are having a great summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and a great winter in the Southern. Good DX, get on and have fun enjoy what you have....73  Jim K7JAN