Greetings Ham Radio People, thank you Nash and Tomas for the recent Comments they are always appreciated.
The past couple of months have been busy for Me at my workplace which as some of you know already it is a College . This time of year is when we have to make sure everything has been covered and our students will achieve their qualifications. So you can imagine theirs lots to do, I've also just about completed my first year on a part time University course. Which once completed next summer I will have a full Teaching licence and be able to continue practicing teaching in FE. So I have found myself getting in front of my HF Rig a bit later in the evening when usually 20M has closed.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been fortunate to find some good openings on 20M in the evening into the early hours of the following day.
Using the Hustler 6BTV and the Delta Loop I made some great QSOs with big signals exchanged both ways.
On the Hustler 6BTV I worked 5N8NDP(NIGERIA), W1AW(USA), CN8ZG(MOROCCO) PY6RT(BRAZIL) & YV5OHM(VENEZUELA).
On the home brew Delta Loop I worked CO6LC(CUBA), YV5MSG, YV5HNJ(VENEZUELA), LW4EU(ARGENTINA), 9Y4LDK(TRINIDAD & TOBAGO), N8OO(USA) & HC2FN(ECUADOR).
All contacts were made on 20M between 16.15 and 23.00 UTC, the majority after 21.30 UTC from my home station.
I used the Yaesu FT767GX and about 50W of output power, I received some good audio reports and comments about the Heil Goldline Mic I was running. The Home QTH has been back to normal regarding QRN, as noise levels have dropped back to Zero on 20M and around S-5 on 80M. The WX has been good so I believe the noisy conditions previously were down to a particular Wet Moor Land Earth I endured over the winter. Accompanied the rest of us Northerners, at last improved WX and Band conditions!
10 Meters has also been open around 18.00 UTC, with strong QSB and some big signals out of Europe. I havent heard anything Exotic as yet on 10M, but after 25 years of 11M before I got my Licence which was feb 2004, I know from experience there is a real good chance I will hear some distant stations coming through like a few VKs and ZLs. 10 Meters is a truly great band when it is open and I have had some good DX Contacts on QRP equipment in the past so I am looking forward to the Cycle getting some more momentum.
Well that's about it for now, I haven't been /Mobile for the last couple of weeks as the Kawasaki 750cc has been my Iron Horse on most of my journeys. The Mobile station is working well as mentioned in the lat couple of posts, so whilst the sun is shining, and the price of fuel is soaring, I shall be /Motor Cycle for as long as possible h.i.
Hope to catch you guys who are hams on air sometime soon, once again thanks to All for passing by Ham radio Blogspot.Com.
73 Listen out for me /Mobile and Home Base sometime soon on 20M.
THE EQUIPMENT, A FEW ADJUSTMENTS LATER... UP AND RUNNING...
RADIO The radio installation in the vehicle mentioned in the last post which comprises of the Yaesu FT-100 Field Commando radio, it is fed by 12V and wired directly to the vehicle battery (In line Fuse Protection close to the battery).
ANTENNAS Maldol HFC mobile mono band antennas, and a nice big ground plane (Toyota Estima vehicle body).
IMPORTANT INFORMATION Good ground connections are essential to provide maximum performance and good SWR.
The method I use is, by using clamped on antenna mounts, that are grub screwed to something conductive, like a gutter or rear door which provides an excellent ground.
During the installation I had problem tuning the Maldo HFC antennas on all of the bands as well as creating RFI within the vehicle engine management system and music player.
I sourced the problem and found that the HF antenna mount had not pierced the Toyota paintwork on the inside door seam.
I tightened the two grub screws until the paint was penetrated and the bare metal contact of about 4mm diameter X 2 grub screws, was now providing a good ground connection.
The antennas were now fully resonant across the HF bands apart from the HFC 80m, which surprisingly seemed to be resonant over a wider portion of the band than in the previously installed Toyota RAV 4.
The RFI was now minimal, but I still fitted clamp on Ferrite chokes on most of the wiring harnesses that I came across around the Toyota "Brain" engine management system.
Good antenna grounding and the Ferrite's seem to have solved the problem and will hopefully protect the unit.
Even on the output power of 50 watts it is still possible to cause serious damage if these kind of precautions are not taken, so for the sake of a few pounds on ferrite's I was feeling Confident and itching to make some HF /Mobile QSOs.
USER FRIENDLY STATION Radio Operation was much easier now with the in-dash fitted FT-100 situated conveniently allowing VFO Tuning whilst on the move.
The greatest thing of all was the auto gearbox and steering column mounted shift lever, giving my left hand more opportunity's to engage the PTT.
Last weekend we were Camping in Anglesy which is an extremely beautiful Island located off the North Wales coast.
Anglesy always manages to treat us to a great time, with its beautiful beaches and radiant sunshine. It is also an excellent location surrounded by sea water which is more than likely responsible for putting out a good signal from my Mobile HF Station.
THE RESULT & CONCLUSION I worked some great QSOs with some good reports of a "good signal for a mobile" which was a pleasure to receive and also confirmed the new Mobile installation was working well.
During this last week The bands have become a bit more interesting and I have worked many Stations during my Work Run around 07.15 UTC and 16.45 UTC active on 20 Meters.
I managed to make Mobile Contacts with DX Stations from places like the MIDDLE EAST, RUSSIA, CANARY ISLANDS, USA, BELARUS, SLOVENIA, GREECE, UKRAINE, ANDORRA, and MOROCCO.
I am pleased with the Set Up and hopefully will continue to enjoy using the equipment for a long time to come, making many QSOs and contacts on the way.
73, Hope to hear you on AIR, Thanks for passing by Ham Radio Blog spot.com!
I have been considering a different vehicle for a while and I have been more than happy with the Toyota Rav 4, so the decision was difficult to make especially considering the performance of my mobile Ham Station with its three antenna mounts.
Eventually after careful consideration and Our love of travelling to nice remote scenic places that are great for radio, I decided to try another reliable Toyota. This Time I chose the Toyota Luicida, a 2.2 turbo diesel 4X4, fresh Japanese import. The vehicle is low mileage for the year and A1 condition, and with the price of fuel these days I am slightly better off by changing from a petrol 2.0 4x4 to a 2.2 turbo diesel 4X4. The MPV is also useful, spacious and very comfortable especially whilst CQing and catching a few Zs.
I managed to mount the FT-100 (Yaesu) into the dash by removing the Japanese banded radio tuner and cassette player, which then also allowed me to fit my Panasonic CD MP3 Player below the Rig. The Antenna mounts were clamped to the rear door without to much trouble and once I established a decent earth between the door and mount. all of my HF antennas tuned to 1:1 swr with ease (80m-10M Mono Band).
Here is the vehicle during last weekends test drive and Ham Radio test transmissions at Keilder Forrest North England/Scottish Borders. I have made a few QSOs on 20m so far working Greece SV, Israel 5Z, Italy IT, and Spain EA, and have heard Japan JA2 5/8 this morning. Yesterday and the day before I heard two Australian VK Stations coming through, I gave them all a Call but was unable to beat the pile up at the time with 50watts. I am looking forward to having lots of good QSOs whilst working Mobile. Here you can see how my antennas are mounted, they are far enough down the side of the door to still be able to open it without the antennas touching the roof. Here shows the position of the FT-100 which is mounted in the dash. Thanks for visiting and hopefully I will have some DX contacts to tell of next post, until then bast 73 and C U AGN
There have been some signs of improvement with regular openings on HF most days here at My Q T H. My home brew 20 meter delta Loop has been Performing well since I repositioned it in a Vertical configuration. DX. Stations are becoming more regular on 20 M especially stateside and the Middle East. 40 M has provided some nice openings into South America as well as Canada. Ive been fairly active lately making the most of the good conditions making many interesting QSO
I’ve also been putting out some good Signals from the mobile making plenty Of contacts on my favorite band 2OM. It’s always a Pleasure to work new Stations and especially nice to be able to say a quick hello to a nice group of regular radio amateurs. Like Ivan LZ2LP. Mohamed 7X4AN and Gary EW1MM.
I got the illness us Hams get regularly which was the itch and urge to have a go at another home brew delta loop over the weekend. So with the Sun shining I rounded up some tools and wire which turned out to be 3mm plastic coated copper wire. I decided to have a go at making an antenna that might work on 137MHZ which I would use to receive Weather satellites such as NOOA Satellites which transmit imagery data signals on FM. I’ve had good results in the past using the 2M 7/8 wave vertical, with this in mind the resonant length of wire that I cut was for 2M and luckily the SWR was good across the whole of the 2M band.
I used a formulae I came across on the Internet which is very simple to use, it helps you to work out the total length of wire used to make a closed circuit delta Loop on any band.
Length (Feet ‘)
= 1005 frequency
Example for a 20M Delta Loop like the one that I use.
1005 14.200 MHZ = 70.77
+ the length of wire used to secure and connect to feeder and dipole/loop centre = near enough 71 feet. This should be reasonably resonant if fed with a ¼ wave length of 75ohm coax terminating to 50ohm coax. An ATU is required for other HF bands.
The length of wire I used to build the Delta Loop which was mentioned earlier, was only 6feet 9inches in length to provide a low SWR. I came to this result using the same formulae which again proved accurate
1005 145.000 MHZ = 6.93 = 6feet 9inches which worked out well across 2M as well as 137MHZ-WX-NOOA Signals.
Once I crimped some lug connectors on each end of the wire. I laid the wire out on the floor in a triangle with equal sides, then I positioned the feed point approximately 4inches from one of the bottom corners.
Using cable ties/tie raps I was able to connect each corner to a thin piece of rope. This made the delta loop simple to install in the vertical configuration in the near bye tree outside.
As I was putting the new Loop up I had the FT-857 on 2M SSB 145.200 when an Irish Station started to come through the speaker. Louise my YL and HAM (M3TLL) came rushing outside to tell me the news. I followed him and another Station that I was not receiving down to the frequency they were using.I was receiving the Irish Station S-2, Q-5. I headed outside again and installed the loop vertically in the tree using the rope and cable ties. The Irish Stations signal was now up to 5/7 so I was extremely surprised on how well it was working.
I have made a couple of contacts on 2M with reasonable results and I have managed some quality images of the earth via the NOOA Satellites that I’ve managed to receive. I am still in TEST mode for a while before I can really provide accurate feedback, but so far so good.
As far as HF goes the 20M Loop, the 6BTV Hustler and G5RV have received and transmitted some distant signals, with a new DX Country ‘JAMAICA’ added to the collection last Friday night on 40M. I had a lucky break when I got in early during the pile that was about to happen when 6Y1V was 5/9 both ways during the speedy contact we made-Very nice! Last night was also good especially 20M as I was hearing Mexico and The Caribbean coming through 5/7+.
Hopefully the new cycle will bring even more rare and distant signals to be heard at The 2E0HTS Home or Mobile HAM Station.
Last night I was very happy to make my first QSO with Ham Radio blogger and fellow DXer Nash JN4VWH.
We have been in contact via the Internet for quite some time, so as you can imagine it was very exciting and pleasurable to finally make QSO using our radio equipment.
We have both tryed listening out for each other on HF for quite a while, but the bands have not yet been open when we have both found a mutual time that is convenient for us both to play radio.
With propagation not quite reliable enough to work JN4VWH the plan had to change, so we decided to use more Technology that is available to give us a helping hand. Using the Gb3YR repeater I was able to hear Nash JN4VWH coming through loud and clear via echolink through his local IRLP echolink link JE4YIZ-L.
It was a real pleasure to finaly be able to speak with Nash on his new Icom 7000 using my Yaesu Ft-847 and an echolink enabled repeater and Link in England and Japan. Truly great Ham radio Technology.
We had some interesting overs exchanging reports and information, which then lead on to making a second contact using our computers which are both running echolink software.
Once again a real pleasure to be making QSO with JN4VWH Nash. I am hopeful of some good propagation soon and maybe hear Japan on 15M in the near future. Sayonara 73
Below is the Shack of JN4VWH Nash in Japan Below is my Shack 2E0HTS Simon in England
Radio and Computers can work well together!!!
73 thanks for visiting Ham radio Blogspot. de 2E0HTS Simon Yorkshire N.ENGLAND
BBC Radio Leeds Broadcasts Live From The SkillWeld 2008 Contest At Park Lane College Keighley
SkillWeld 2008 is part of the World Skills Olympics and fortunately for myself I get the fantastic job of helping to arrange the regional final to be held at the College where I work. Thanks to a great team and the fact that we have just recently merged with Park Lane College Leeds, Park Lane College Keighley(PLCK) held a very competitive event 'SkillWeld 2008' at the fantastic state of the art Fabrication and Welding workshop based at Keighley. The various welded joints were marked and examined by the judges to extremely high standards and there was quality competition from another college taking part at Keighley. But we still managed to deliver the goods with a victorious 1st, 2cnd and 3rd place finish. Well done P.L.C.K Lads!!!
The event involves using Metal Inert Gas(MIG),Manual Metal Arc(MMA) and Tungsten Inert Gas(TIG) welding processes on Mild Steel, Stainless Steel, Aluminium plate and pipe of various thicknesses. These skills also come in handy for constructing radio masts for us radio Hams.
The winner of this event has a chance to go through to the National final and then go on to the World Championship in Welding which will be held next year in Canada.
With such an important event representing the future of UK skills we were honoured to be Live on Air on BBC Radio Leeds with presenter Daragh at the controls.
As a radio Ham and ex radio DJ, you could guess that I was more than Happy to be talking with Daragh and teaching him how to put a MIG welded run on a piece of plate live on BBC Radio Leeds with 280,000 listeners. I got the chance to operate on the 3m band! hi.
Thanks to everyone involved for all your hard work and it was great to meet Daragh.
Here is Daragh in his mobile BBC Broadcasting VHF Station.
The inside of the BBC Broadcasting VHF Station
A very nice hydraulic mast.
Daragh's BBC Mobile VHF Station
Me and Daragh Live on Air Talking about SkillWeld
In Second Place here is JOE using the TIG welding process to weld a penetrating root run in a mild steel pipe. The 2008 regional SkillWeld champion Craig Welding Pipe using the MMA process to cap the welded joint by using a weaving technique to create a nice looking welded bead/throat finish, as well as a flawless welded joint.
I am looking forward to what happens next in this high pressure welding skills event and very happy to be helping the lads to get on with the help from my Colleagues.
The next project for these guys might just have to be a tilt over mast.
Meanwhile Ham News for 2E0HTS. Conditions on the HF bands were great during the contest last weekend and I managed many Stateside QSOs on 20m, 40m and amazingly using split VFO I worked quite few USA stations on 80m.
