Porta Paddle II – new toy in my shack

My new CW paddle finally arrived from US. I bought this Porta Paddle II from Doug W6AME, American Morse Equipment for 80$, shipping included to DX.

I was looking for a paddle suitable for base and portable operation for my FT-817, and this one seems that it meets both requirements.

The paddle came in as a kit. It takes no more than 10 min to assembly and any other extra tool needed is a small screwdriver. An allen key is included in the kit also.

The base size is 38 x 48 mm, and with the levers, 65 mm long. It is incredibly small, but very solid equipment, made by dural and brass. And the finishing quality is exceptional.

I didn’t ordered the steel base for it (was 38$). I am thinking to mount on top of FT-817 with magnets or on a small plate, for portable, and for home use I will build myself a steel base.

And the keying is very pleasant, after a few QSOs I was already accustomed to.

Some pics:

And a short video keying a CQ:

Portable UHF 4 elements Yagi Antenna

Although I’m not a big fan of V/UHF, going over DK7ZB’s website I was impressed by his numerous Yagi antenna design and their good efficiency, and also, myself, eager to do some mechanical construction, I decided to try building this four elements Yagi for 430-440Mhz, to use it this summer in portable operation, mounting hiking etc.

DK7ZB 4 elements 70cm Yagi

The antenna has 7.5 dBd (9.6 dBi) gain at 436 Mhz and the SWR varies from 1.3 at the lower edge, almoust to 1.05 to midband, and 1.9 at 440 Mhz. The elements were cut and position like in the dimensions table (maybe with an error of +-0.5 mm). I tested the antenna with a Rig Expert AA-500 borrowed from a local ham friend, and the result was the same as in DK7ZB’s SWR diagram.

Portable UHF Yagi

The boom is 500 mm long, 15 x 15 mm rectangular aluminium pipe, together with the elements, bought from a local hardware store. The elements are 8 mm diameter and 10 for the radiator. All the plastic mounting supports and pipe caps purchased from the internet.

Portable UHF Yagi unpacked

I choose to use a BNC connector instead of N-type, because the last element, the reflector is to close to the connection box and it wasn’t space for a N…broke one box to realize that.
All the parts are easy to transport and quick assembly. I am looking now for a way to make a carry bag for it.

28 to 50 Ohm Match

The antenna has 28 ohms impedance, so I used the DF9IC match to make it 50 ohm. This PCB match design is very easy to build and uses one lambda of RG 179, 75 ohm coax cable, which I bought it from ebay; I think 5-6 usd for 3 meters I spend for it.

Baofeng UV-3R and YAGI Antenna

Yeeep, I plugged the Baofeng to it…if I calculate, I think the antenna was more expensive then this little chinese radio. Also, I was brave enough to connect to my FT-817 and surprisingly it shows no SWR line.

Hope this days the weather will go better and take out the antenna to field to test it in real QSOs, maybe I could open some UHF repeater from far away.

And…already a 6 elements and an Arrow Satellite Yagis are under construction. I might get the taste for VHF & UHF from now on…

QSO stats for 2012

Here is my ham radio traffic summary for the past year. Thanks to ClubLog and my Excel logbook (still looking for the perfect logging software) I managed to make some statistics.

Totally I have worked 833 QSOs and made 72 DXCC countries, around 90% working with my 5W QRP setup, the FT-817 and the 2 x 10m compromise Inverted V antenna, the rest with 10-20W when I had the IC-7000, and only one DXCC, Falkland Is., worked with 100W from the local club.

More than a half I worked in CW, but those were in contests or IOTA-WFF only. Hope that in the next year I will be more confident and try to make also normal CW QSOs others than the usual “599 TU”.

All time I have 73 DXCC worked, this year made 59 new ones. Now I am looking forward to reach 100, and also to qualify for the Worked All Europe Class I (60 European Entities), now I have 44.

Inverted V Balcony Antenna

In the end I wish you all a Happy New Year, best wishes for you and your families and may the 2013 bring to you a lot of new DXs and nice QSOs!

CQ World Wide CW 2012…after party

So, the biggest CW event of the year is already finished, but in my ears I can still hear dots and dashes everywhere I go. It was great fun to work this contest, and a good occasion for me to add new DXCCs to my collection.

I was using for this contest an IC-7000, which is in my shack for some couple of days to play with it, thanks to Victor, YO4SCY. I was running 10 to 20W in the contest because of the LDG Z817 antenna tuner rated input. I have also the AT-180 for the Icom, but it won’t tune my 2x10m dipole for 40 and 10m.

CQ WW CW Setup

Band  QSOs  Pts     ZN   Cty
7           28       28      4      15
14         117     155     9      35
21         73      135    12     26
28         12       20      3      6
Total    230    338    28    82

Score : 37,180 Category : Single Op All Band Low Power Assisted

I started Saturday morning with 40m at 0700 local time ( UTC 0500). Only that band I could hear at that hour. From 20m and up I could barely hear something, the propagation was very poor at that time. But in about two hours they were alive. The 20 and 15m bands were full, a very big portion of spectrum of about 120kHz was occupied on each band. The madness has begun.

After a few minutes in 20m the surprise came. I was hearing D4C, Cape Verde, very loudly, and after two calls I got him, with 10W. Lucky to be there at the begging of the pile-up.

Totally I have rounded up with six new DXCCs. As far as I remember I have now 71, worked only this year. The other new ones were, 9H Malta, A4 Oman, EA8 Canary Is., CT3 Madeira and the last big surprises were definitely ZM1A, New Zeeland, 17.000 km away, and VK6LW, Australia, worked in 15m on Saturaday afternoon with 10W and a SWR of 3:1. Also I managed to work quite easily a few K and VE station too.

This was the first time I have used CW sending from the computer. With a simple USB to Serial adapter, bought with 1.7$ from eBay,  I connected the DTR pin, via a optocoupler, to the CW key on the transceiver, with the N1MM logging software, edited the predefined text macros and ready to go. Because of the lack of experience in this “high tech” morse code sending, there where moments during some QSOs when I was mixing up the buttons, but I have noticed this to other fellow hams as well.

N1MM CW Macros

I didn’t connect any CAT to control the rig, it wasn’t necessary, I did the band exchange manually, and plus, is an extra noise source for the rig.

Now I realized the effectiveness of a CW filter when I worked with the IC-7000 and switched between the two digital filters, 250 and 500Hz. So the next objective is to get a CW crystal filter for the tiny FT-817, which, by the way, I felt a little sorry for it not using in this contest

In the end, it was nice experience this event. Now its time to write QSLs to the folks!

20W HF Amplifier with RD16HHF1 (K5BCQ’s kit) #1

Looking for a HF amplifier for my FT-817 and some QRP home made rigs I have, I found this interesting kit from K5BCQ, a 160 to 6m amplifier with two RD16HHF1 transistors in A/B class. I ordered this kit from Kees, K5BCQ, a few weeks ago and these days the pack arrived in good condition. The kit price is quite reasonable, 50$ plus 7$ shipping to DX, and includes everything you need for the amp, except the LPFs and the enclosure, but for these two there are some hints on the schematic from the autor if you want to buy them elsewere. Also, I did not choose any heatsink option. My box height is not enough for those heatsinks that Kees offers.

K5BCQ 20W HF Amplifier Kit

The amplifier has a maximum input of 1W and there is also a place on the PCB for a “pi” attenuator with three resistors. In the pack supplied by K5BCQ there is a resistor set for a 3db attenuator, and if you don’t need any  power reduction a jumper can be placed instead of the series resistor, leaving the other two unconnected.

The quality of the PCB board is exceptional. And it is only 76 x 66 mm, which can fit easily to some computer’s CPU heatsink-fan systems. I will not use this setup, as I said before, the height of my box is 70 mm, so the board plus heatsink and fan will be to much, and I don’t like to put them outside.

K5BCQ Amp Kit PCB Top

K5BCQ Amp Kit PCB Bottom

The kit is powered with a common 12V power supply. The RD16HHF1 MOSFET transistors are rated 16W at 12.5V in the HF band and they have much better linearity then IRF510. Also their price is not so big. For a pair you pay 10$ at www.kitsandparts.com.

RD16HHF1 Transistors

Amidon Toroids – 20W RD16HHf1 Amp

Coil Wires K5BCQ HF Amplifier Kit

All in one I think is a good investment. I read good reviews from other hams who build similar projects with RD16HHF1 transistors. At first I had in plan to build a project with IRF530, but after building about 50% of it, I abandonned that in favour of this. I already ordered a 170x150x70 metal box for this project and I will put inside also a LPF with Amidon toroids. These days I will begin mounting the components and hope to do some tests.

A412 Transceiver. Construction Part 2

Transceiver’s box is starting to take a nice looking shape. After a long break with this project, these days I took some time drilling the front panel and adding all the buttons and connectors. The only thing left to do is the digital scale and the S-meter/PWR meter on the blank upper-right side of the image. This I will probably do in the next week or so.

A412 Transceiver Front Panel

On the inside I put all the pots and the two rotary switches, mode and band, on a PCB board with 6mm spacers to the front panel. It was the best solution for the button knobs to come out nicely on the panel.

A412 Panel Inside Board

A412 Panel Mount

For the digital scale I will use OM3CPH’s LED digital scale project. In the image below there are the 7 digits LED dispalys, a 9mm digit type, common anode. And for the S-meter/Power meter the schematic with LM3914 and a LED bargraph.

A412 Panel Components

Also the “A” and “F” boards are almost  completed. I found a factory made 9Mhz Crystal Filter (made by our defuncted ROMQUARTZ), togheter with side bands crystal. They are already mounted. Probably in the empty space there, for the CW filter, I will put a homemade 9Mhz filter with a bandwidht of about 500Hz.

A412 Transceiver – F Board

The front-end board, “A412-A”, is about 95% done. I still have to mount 2 more coils for the band pass filter. They are already made, only the holes on the PCB are drilled weird, so I have to make them more large so the coil will fit.

A412 Transceiver – A Board

See also related articles:

A412 Transceiver. Construction Part 1

A412 Transceiver. Description

A412 Transceiver. Description [RO]

Solar panels test for portable battery charger

I am thinking of building a small solar battery charger for future QRP portable operations where power supply conditions do not exist. I got this two 6V/2W solar panels many months ago from ebay, but only these days I got the chance to test them properly.

6V 2W Solar Panels

Througout ebay there are a lot of models with various voltages and currents. After a long scout I took these two panels for testing. It is probably the best price per watt I could find at that time.

The main goal is to charge the batteries for my FT-817ND. Instead of the stock battery pack, 9.6V @ 1400mAh, I have also 8 x AA Sanyo 2700mAh rechargeble batteries. So two solar panels of 6V each putted in series will handle the 9.6V of each pack.

This is the setup I used for testing. Beetwen the batteries and the panels I mounted a schottky diode for reverse current protection from the batteries (with this diode I have a voltage drop of about 0.3V – it is a 5819 type, supplied by the chinesse ebay seller in the solar panels packing). A voltmeter and ammeter was monitoring the circuit. Note that no limiting resistor is used, the panels are going directly to the batteries only via diode.

Solar panels charging the 9.6V QRP pack

The maximum current I got was 200mA, with bright sun from 1 to 2 PM that day. The voltage was around 10.9V at the battery pack, aprox. 1.36V/cell, and 11.2V at the panels. These values were constant during one hour.

With no load, the panels in series deliver about 13 to 14V.

So with this setup, at 200mA, I think I will be able full charge the 1400mAh in about 10hours, at C/10, and for the 2700mAh pack the time will go double, aprox. 20hours. But the sun will not always bright for this long in a ordinary day, so I will probably go for an extra pair of panels to add to the setup. I am thinking also to charge the cellphones with those. With proper connectors and voltage protection will be a nice tool also for camping.

See also related articles:

PIC Frequency Counter

Simple RF Generator

This weekend: YO DX HF Contest

The YO DX HF Contest will take place at the end of this week, from Saturday 25th at 1200UTC, till Sunday 26th 1159UTC.

I intend to go for a weekend break outside the city, to the Danube village Chiscani, and hope to spend some time working in the contest with my FT-817, 5 Watts and a portable multiband dipole antenna on 20, 15 and 10m. Most I will try working CW, but during daytime I will go also for some SSB mode. My multiplier district will be BR.

View Larger Map

 

Some extracts from the rules:

The contest will take place on 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10m, SSB and/or CW.

There are a lot of category entries to choose from, unfortunately no QRP one, so I will go with my 5 Watts to LP catergory.

A. SO-AB-CW-LP      B. SO-AB-CW-HP   C. SO-AB-SSB-LP   D. SO-AB-SSB-HP   E. SO-AB-Mixed-LP
F. SO-AB-Mixed-HP  G. SO-SB-Mixed (3,5; 7; 14; 21; 28 MHz, any power)   H. MOST-AB-Mixed
I.  YN (youngster and novice) operators under 16 years of age or with maximum 3 years since the first authorization.

Exchange: DX stations: RST+serial number, YO stations: RST+district.

You can check the districts list here. (Note: in the contest, Bucharest, B, will be BU)

Points for DX stations: QSO with YO 8 points; with DX 4 points; with own continent 2 points; with own DXCC 1 point.

Multipliers: DXCC+YO districts (only once/band, regardless of mode).

Logs to be sent to: yodx-contest@hamradio.ro within 30 days after the contest.

Full contest rules can be found here for DX stations or here for YO.

Good luck in the contest and hope to give you the 8 points and multiplier

FT-817 Portable Operation

Portable in Bucovina

A few weeks ago I went out for a small holiday in the Bucovina region, Northern Romania. It was the first opportunity to do portable operation this year, so I took with me some of my equipment, hoping for some nice weather to use my toys.

Well, the results were modest. First days was raining all the time, so I was a little discouraged to go out for a portable HF set up. Finally, one day before departure, when me and my YL went for a trip to a famous old monastery, Voronet, 20km away from our place, Vama, Suceava, the weather started to improve, just some drops of rain, so I took my equipment with me.

The setup was:

- FT-817ND, 5W, with factory supply 1400mAh battery. I had also a 2700mAh back-up, but never used;

- LDG Z817 Autotuner;

- Home made Inverted V – Dipole Antenna, 2 x 5m (1.5 sq mm electrical wires).

Throwing the antenna up in the trees

First location was just near the monastery, under an abandoned well.

Operating from the well

From here I made a few QSOs in 20m band with some stations from Europe: Italy , Norway, HB9, two IOTA stations from Denmark etc. Controls were from 52 to 58. After an hour or so it started to get cold so I packed everything and went back to our place.

Antenna packing

Few hours later, when we came back, I went out again up to the wooded hill in the back of our hotel.

Bringing the antenna up

Here I decided to try only the 17m band. And the results were two Kuwait stations.

YO4HHP & FT-817

73′s and QRP is still fun!!!

Radio Shopping in Sines, Portugal

After two months sailing in the 30 plus degrees South Asia, a surprising good news came for me from the company, to be transferred to a short route vessel in Portugal. Nice! So almost everyday we do ports now, mostly cities like Lisbon, Sines, Porto Setubal and sometimes Valencia, Spain.

First stop here on this blog is Sines, a small town of about 15.000 inhabitants. Far for being on the big tourist trail, Sines is known as the birthplace of the portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. Unfortunately, only his statue near the Castle remains the sole trace of him.

Well, in one of my few escapades here till now, my “ham radio sixth sense” discovered this tiny electronics shop, called Alcina Cavalheiro, on one of the beautiful narrow streets that surrounds the castle. Inside was a nice friendly old lady, that didn’t speak any english, but with a little bit of italo-spanish-romanian mixed up, we managed to bring the level up. I spend about an hour fouling around on the components drawers, shelves, showcases, and with nothing specific in mind to buy from the beginning, the final result was this:

Not to much thought and I already knew their destination. Some RF connectors and switches for my pending projects, 2700 mAh Sanyo rechargeable batteries for a future solar charged supply project for my FT 817 and two little enclosures, a tiny one with 9V battery space and a (very hard to find for me) Euro-Box 205x180x70, probably for a small 20W PA. Prices were ok, I could say maybe 10 to 20% higher than big electronics stores, but I found them reasonable for a small town shop. The most expensive parts were nevertheless the battery packs, 8 x 4.37 euros.

So after “drugging” myself with this little shopping, now came the time to enjoy the city exploration.

Sines Castle, Vasco da Gama’s place of birth. You can see tiny on the left his statue.

Sines fishing port

A close view of the Vasco da Gama monument

“The Mother Church of Sao Santiago”

Sines, narrow old streets

Sines sunset, view from the Castle

See also related articles:

India Shore Pass – photo gallery