Radio

Well, now that Hannah and I have the new radio, it’s interesting to see the difference it makes compared with the ft-707, and that difference is huge.

Before we could only pick up the odd strong signal on 80 metres, but now we can pick up a whole lot more.

A better antenna would help a heap at home, but unfortunately in a rental property there is little we can do.

Also now looking at joining a radio club, the Eastern and Mountain districts radio club seems to be the most interesting.

And I’m really looking forward to getting licensed.

~Ivy

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Well, we finally did it. Yesterday Ivy and I bought a bunch of radio gear so we could get on the air.

• Icom 706 mark IIg radio
• Icom PS-300 power supply
• LDG AT-7000 automatic antenna tuner
• Diamond X50 V/UHF antenna
• Diamond SRH-771 HT Whip

We got most the gear from StrictlyHam. Ross didn’t have the tuner so we went to visit Dave from TT Systems. He was really nice and showed us his high power remote antenna tuner project, and even fitted off some coax for us. We couldn’t wait to get to Ivy’s parents’ to start operating. What perfect timing, too. This weekend was both the Lighthouse weekend and the Australian Rememberance Day contest. So after plugging everything in, we tested out the X50 at first on the repeater which could only barely be heard on our Yaesu VX-5, which worked really well. On HF, we were still trying to figure everything out. No matter what we did, we couldn’t get our SWR down. Our dipole was resonant at 1.5:1 for 40 metres, which is what it should be, but infinite through the tuner. Hm. So we ended up listening for a few hours, working out the DSP and other filters. The radio is quite amazing in what it can pick up, compared to the Yaesu FT-707. Early in the day we were able to pick up CE1KR clear as day. South America! Later on a VA2 station from Toronto was on. Only just before the rememberance day contest started at 20:00 local did we finally realise. The bloody tuner was plugged in backwards. I guess thats what happens when you try to operate radio after a few beers.

Once we figured everything out, it worked really well. The contest was a great way to start transmitting on HF. We managed to talk to 30 different Australian and New Zealand stations. We didn’t put a whole lot of effort into the contest, as I had done with previously ARRL V/UHF contests. We ended up going to sleep about 00:30 and listening to the WIA news at 09:00.

Some stations we talked to in Queensland reported we had a strong signal. Quite amazing considering we only have 100Watts and an antenna about 3 metres off the ground. There is much room for improvement, but at least now the upgrades will only be the cost of wire for better antennas

de VK3GNU

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PSK31 has always interested me as a digital mode. Taking up only ~31Hz of audio bandwidth, and a usual SSB signal transmitting ~2.5kHz, you can fit quite a few QSOs in the one passband. This lends itself perfectly to having a single PSK31 call frequency per band, where many people can all co-exist without stepping on each others toes. Today we were finally able to decode PSK31 on 20 metres, at 14070kHz. We heard a signal from the Marshall Islands, as well as W7PTT from Lynnwood, Washington. The fading and noise were pretty horrible. More often than not, the signal could be seen on the waterfall, but all that is heard from the speaker is nasty static noise.

I really look forward to getting a Ic-706 or so, so I can join in.

de GNU

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One of the things we can pick up quite well on 40 Metres AM is radio New Zealand, on 7.145MHz it’s kinda neat.

Such a clear signals.

~ivy

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Well this is our last week without been able to transmit, next week we will go down to strictly ham, and get ourselves an IC-706 MkIIg (yeah we did want the IC-7000 but the price was a little high.) A power supply, and an AT-7000 antenna tuner.

We can’t really wait.

~Ivy

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Well I got the standard learning materials from the Radio and Electronics School and have been going through them quite quickly. They are a little rough and ready, but all the information I need to learn is presented well and explained. Which is good.

I guess I should book in an exam at some stage, the standard license has three parts to the exam. The first been theory, second been regulations, and the third is practical. The only part that worries me is the regulations part of the exam but with more study I should be fine.

~Ivy

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Tried to build a 146MHz J-Pole using wire, following some of the online guides. It seems simple enough: stick a half wavelength vertical on top of a quarter wavelength matching section. The ends of the matching section have very high impedence, while the bottom is very low. So, somewhere on that path is 50 Ohms. I must admit my ability to construct isn’t the best, so the joints and connections are probably shoddy at best. Ended up using a 150 cm jumper coax bought from a local supplier. Cut one end off and connected alligator clips, one to the braid, one to the center conductor. Made few loops of coax about 4 cm in diameter as an RF choke.  Alas, I’ve been told I have a hum in my transmission. Not having an antenna analyser for VHF, I can’t *really* tell where the 50 Ohm feed point should be, but even just a few millimeters off shouldn’t add a hum. I’m a bit baffled. I guess the best explanation is not enough RF choking, and the microphone or IF stage in the radio are picking up a bit of stray RF. Next will be to add a ferrous material to try and increase this.

Eventually, I hope to build a larger J-Pole for 14MHz. This isn’t a very conventional antenna, but will be the easiest for our situation. Having access to a large tree will allow me to put the ~15 meter tall antenna up rather high. It will have a feedpoint close to the shack, at the bottom of the tree. Best of all, it won’t require a huge amount of radials to get a bit of low-take off radiation happening. Hopefully this will work for a bit of DX on 14MHz.

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Poor little VX-5. I’ve had the thing for years now. It was one of the first radios I got when I became licensed 3 years ago. I had upgraded the stock antenna to a simple, but higher gain, dual band Diamond whip. Unfortunately, the poor thing shattered to bits at the loading coil when the radio got dropped the other day. Back on the stock ducky antenna, I was able to finally hit a local repeater on Mt Dandenong. It seems though the stock antenna just isn’t quite powerful enough to hit them from home. Today though I was able to talk to both VK3PB and VK3TXT on the Olinda repeater. My first contacts in Australia. Yay!

de VK3GNU

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Well on Wednesday Hannah posted of to the ACMA the paperwork for her license, and now she’s the proud owner of the call sign VK3GNU. I have to say I am amazed at their turn around time.

Now if only the FT-707 transmitted.

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Well I’ve been thinking of which license to go for to get me started, there are three classes in Australia. Foundation, Standard, and finally Advanced.

I’ve been going through the sylabuses for the three levels and I know I could get foundation without much if any study, but it is too restricted,  for example a foundation license can’t use 20 Metres, which at the present moment is where the fun is.

So looking at some of the online tests for the standard exam, I managed to get 68% on it without much study, the pass mark is 70%. So I’m going to go for standard, and later on advanced.

~Ivy

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