Archiv der Kategorie: Amateurfunk

Kronsberggeflüster

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Gestern fand im Rahmen ihres Februar-OV-Abends der erste „Spieleabend“ der Schwarzen Bären (DARC-Ortsverband H48) in diesem Jahr statt. Nachdem zunächst geplant war, dass diverse Referenten unterschiedliche digitale Betriebsarten vorstellen, stellte sich während der Planung schnell heraus, dass sich schon mit einem Thema ein Abend gut füllen lassen würde – was die Sache auch gleich noch für alle Beteiligten entspannter macht.
Also ging es gestern ganz ausführlich um die Betriebsarten WSPR sowie JT65 (beides MFSK-Varianten von Joe, K1JT). Jürgen, DL2ZQ, stellte beide vor und zeigte in diesem Rahmen diverse von ihm konstruierte Mini-Kurzwellenantennen im Handtaschenformat, mit denen er erfolgreich QRP-Betrieb durchführt. Auch die Bedienung der einzelnen Programme wurde detailliert und für alle verständlich erläutert.
Dann ging es in die Praxis: Mit der von Roland, DF1OE und Eugen, DL5UHR bereitgestellten Funkstation wurde sowohl in WSPR als auch in JT65 Betrieb auf dem 40m-Band durchgeführt. Als Antenne diente eine ca. 1,5m lange Mobilantenne an Eugens draußen geparktem Wohnmobil. Und das ging -wohl nicht zuletzt wegen des guten (hohen und freien) Standorts- richtig gut: Unser 5W-WSPR-Signal wurde nicht nur quer durch Europa, sondern sogar in Australien gehört.
Kurz: Es war für alle ein interessanter Abend, und sicher haben nicht wenige nun Lust bekommen, selbst Versuche mit diesen interessanten Betriebsarten anzustellen.

Im April werde ich das Vergnügen haben, im Anschluss an die Jahreshauptversammlung der Schwarzen Bären, allen Interessierten das Thema PSK näherzubringen. Der Veranstaltungsort und weitere Details werden rechtzeitig im Rundspruch bekanntgegeben.

Zum Schluss noch eine kurze bildliche Nachlese:

SAQ Christmas transmission 2012

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Oh, was I looking forward to last year’s final SAQ transmission. While some of my „normal“ friends might argue that it’s always the same, it is still exciting to listen to VLF every time. Not only are there notable differences in propagation and atmospheric noise, especially when comparing summer and winter, it is also interesting to build new equipment or try out different locations. And since, at least when it comes to SAQ, there are not that many occasions for testing during the year, it is something to look forward to every time.

So, this was my setup: 20m loudspeaker cable (also used as an universal short-wave antenna, being fed through an 1:9 UnUn), homebrew VLF converter (following the „MRK-20“ schematic), Icom IC-728 transceiver for reception – all setup at my QTH in Barsinghausen.
While the equipment itself proved to work quite well, all I received below 30 kHz was strong humming and hissing, reaching peaks between S7 and S9. I did get up early on Christmas morning, hoping that I would receive something, anyway, but had no luck.
I have to add that the man-made noise level seems to have vastly increased since the year before, when I used virtually the same setup. The 80m band was also heavily affected – while it worked quite okay the year before, it now was hard to use even in digital modes, not to speak of phone (which also explains why I only got 32 QSOs (55 in 2011) in the DARC Christmas Contest, even though I was now allowed to use both 80m and 40m instead of only 80m – but that’s a different story).
Since I’m pretty sure that it is none of our gadgets (I tried shutting off about anything in the house), I guess all our neighbours bought themselves new plasma TVs. 🙁

I’ll spare you with a recording of that noise (not sure I even made one), but because some befriended OMs already requested it, here’s a recording of what SAQ can sound like, made by Manfred, DL6OBJ: grimetondez2012_dl6obj.ogg

So, what can we do to cope with the situation? Several possibilities come to mind:

  • Sue all those manufacturers of „noisy“ equipment (no chance of real success)
  • Move to a very rural area (not planning on doing so, soon)
  • Hack into the local power grid, causing a power outage for the time SAQ transmits (actually I like that idea, but it’s not only illegal, but also not as easy in reality as it looks like in Matrix)
  • Make your equipment portable and go outside (I’ll go with that one)

It has shown that it’s often sufficient to move a few kilometers away from any settlements. Also, getting up a hill or something like that might not be a bad idea, even though height is said to have little influence on VLF.
Most people would just take their stuff, get into their car and so exactly so, but since I have neither a car nor a driver’s license, it has to be even more portable for me. Wilfried, DJ1WF, has published a building description for a handheld VLF receiver I’m looking forward to solder myself: http://www.vlf.it/fritz/pocketrx.html

The results he’s achieving with such a small and simple device sound quite promising:

Hope I’ll be writing a more successful report after this year’s Alexanderson day!

CQ Worldwide DX SSB Contest 2012

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I can hardly believe myself that it’s just about one year ago when the CQ Worldwide DX SSB Contest 2011 got me into contesting.
Like many hams, I had several prejudices against contests in general: No „real“ QSOs, just boring number exchanges, „blocking“ of the bands, etc. – while all of this may be true for the listener, at least the first two points change as soon as you participate yourself (at least for me). It’s not about the QSO itself (I dislike „standard“-QSOs in phone, anyway), but about the adrenaline rush when breaking a pile-up or watching the counter in the logging program go higher and higher.
In the meantime, I took part in several contests – as part of multi-operator stations as well as just for myself, so that it feels like I’ve done this for much longer than just a year.

Anyway, it was without question for me that I’d do the CQ Worldwide SSB again this year – again under the club callsign DL0TY.
Last year we had quite a team, which consisted mainly of newbies just like me, and a precise timetable. For this year, there was an unfortunate coincidence: The Interradio, Northern Germany’s biggest ham-fair, was scheduled for October 27th, the CQWW’s Saturday. Of course most hams, and thereby most possible operators, went there, so only my friend Roland, DF1OE and me were left to do the contest. Also, we didn’t manage to build the planned 40m Triple Leg antenna in time, so we „only“ had a 2x40m (half-wave for 160m) Dipole between some high trees and a 15m double quad, as always skillfully built by Stefan, DO7OZ.
And if this wasn’t enough, we ran out of gas for the heating on the first evening, so it became quite chilly.

So, the conditions of the contest station were quite far from optimum this year – but at least the HF conditions did not disappoint: 15m and also 10m were wide open and stations from North as well as Middle and South America could be worked easily, with just 100 Watts from the Kenwood TS-140S transceiver (a PA would be nice, but is out of question due to the station being powered by solar cells only).
In a break from contest operation, me and Stefan, DO7OZ could even receive KQ2H, which is a 10m FM repeater located somewhere close to New York, in excellent quality – and listen to stations from both US coasts as well as Europe talk to each other. If that isn’t fine propagation, nothing is. I even made a short video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ9M8hn3Jxg

40m didn’t work too well (lots of QRM and little chance to break any pile-up), but with the dipole on 160m and 80m and the double quad on 10,15 and 20m, lots of contacts could be logged: 396 in total, to be precise, which equals to about 122.000 points claimed score. That is 23.000 points more than we achieved in last year. Given the suboptimal conditions, this makes me quite proud, because it shows there is potential for more in 2013. With more sunspots being expected for the coming year, I dare to dream of breaking the 200.000 points. 🙂 And yes, I do know that for some of the „professional“ contest stations this is still nothing – but apart from that comparison not making too much sense in my opinion, I just don’t care as long as I have fun!
And fun it was, even though doing contest operation for 2×9 hours straight was quite exhaustive – but hey, nothing comes from nothing.

I hope you liked my little contest report, and I especially hope to hear you on one of the HF bands soon!