PA7MDJ Amateur Radio Blog

March 12, 2017

It's alive!

Last edited: 14.03.2017

After about one and a half months of carefully soldering, assembling, winding toroids, checking joints for shorts with a DVM, fitting everything into and onto the enclosure, and wiring it all together, my Ultimate3S WSPR transmitter (U3S) from QRP Labs is finished. The U3S is a standalone WSPR transmitter not needing any PC to generate the WSPR signals. It's only sold as a kit. The U3S can also transmit in various other modes like JT9, CW, Hellschreiber, and Opera, but most users will use it to transmit WSPR beacons with it though. The U3S can be programmed to transmit a WSPR beacon for instance every 10 minutes. You can leave the transmitter on, go to sleep, do some chores, or whatever, and later check on WSPRnet.org where your signals were heard. It's great to study propagation, do antenna experiments, or just for the thrill of it, to see how far your 250 mW beacons are able to reach. I will not go into explaining the technical and operational details of WSPR here, as this information can be found in abundance elsewhere on the internet.

I bought the following from QRP Labs:

- U3S QRSS/WSPR Transmitter kit
- QLG1 GPS Receiver Module kit
- Low Pass Filter kit 40m
- Low Pass Filter kit 20m

The remaining components I needed for this project, I already had lying around, things like bolts and nuts, wire, buttons, switches, various connectors, and a still virgin plastic case.
I wanted to keep it simple and low cost. The latter is also one of the reasons why I didn't order the special QRP Labs U3S Enclosure kit. The QRP Labs case looks really smart, is pre-drilled, and the kit also contains all the needed screws, spacers, buttons, switches, and connectors. So I must admit that I was tempted to buy the case kit, but since I wanted to have the GPS module (with onboard patch antenna) and U3S fitted together in one enclosure, I had to find another solution anyway as the aluminum case of QRP Labs would prevent the GPS signals from reaching the patch antenna.

In order to increase the chance of the project being succesful, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. That's why I also chose not to order and install the Relay Switched LPF Board kit. This means that now everytime I want to change band, I have to manually plug in another LPF. It's not a big problem, as the plan was to mainly focus on the 40m band anyway. But still I must admit that now that everything is working ok, I regret a little that I didn't buy the Relay Switched LPF Board as well, as with it installed the U3S can be programmed to automatically switch bands, and to automatically transmit in a specific band sequence of your choice.
To simplify LPF switching, I'm now thinking about making some changes and placing the LPFs in their own small case and connect it to the antenna connector on the outside of the main case, instead of plugging it in on the transmitter circuit board inside.

After powering up and switching on the U3S for the first time it came alive directly! It was an exciting moment, as with my soldering and kit building skills, it might have sent only smoke signals instead. After adjusting the contrast of the LCD screen, it read "Diagnostic Mode" which was a good sign! The LEDs of the GPS module started pulsing, indicating the presence of serial data bursts and a 1PPS signal, and after clearing the "Diagnostic Mode" screen, soon GPS data with the correct latitude, longitude, and altitude appeared. I was ecstatic; so far everything was working perfectly!

Now I still had to go through the learning curve of how to operate the U3S, which took me quite some time. Once I had the U3S transmitting, I adjusted the PA bias with the help of a Diamond SWR / Power meter. I had programmed my callsign, and the GPS had synchronized the time and automatically set the correct grid locator. But still no spots were appearing on WSPRnet.org.
More transmitting cycles followed, all without success. After each transmitting cycle a calibration cycle follows during which with the help of the GPS 1PPS signal the transmitting frequency is calibrated. I decided to start listening to the signal of the U3S on my Yaesu transceiver in CW mode with a 50 Hz digital filter, and I found out that the U3S was transmitting outside of the 200 Hz wide WSPR band.
I just needed some more patience. I didn't expect that the initial calibrating would take such a long time, and I didn't know that it would need more than one cycle. After reading the manual a bit better and making some changes to the calibration settings in the U3S menu, speeding up the initial calibration, with every transmitting and calibration cycle, I gradually saw the U3S signal getting closer to the WSPR frequency segment of the 40m band.

And then suddenly there it was, more than 20 spots for PA7MDJ, from all over Europe! The next night the U3S and a simple end-fed half-wave wire antenne even managed to get my 40 metre WSPR beacons across the Atlantic to various US States including Florida. The fact that it's just a power of about 250 mW and a transmitter that you built yourself gives it all an unexplainable sense of satisfaction.

The first results

Day one

Crossing the Atlantic on the second night

The power output of the U3S varies for every band. According to my Diamond meter it puts out about 180 mW on 20m and about 280 mW on 40m. It might be a little more or less. For exact values, more accurate measurements with a scope are needed. Although in the 5 W setting the Diamond meter is quite accurate (as tested with a Yaesu FT-817 putting out 500 mW), making an accurate reading from the meter's dial is difficult.

The U3S needs a 5 V power supply, and I was wondering where to get it from. Thanks to a tip I found on the internet I now have a good solution. I connect the U3S to the 12 V switching Power Supply I also use for my other radio equipment. The 12 V is not delivered to the U3S directly though, but via a cheap USB smartphone car charger instead which converts the 12 V to a stable 5.1 V, even when the voltage of the Power Supply is varying. I can also connect the U3S this way to for instance a 12 V gel cell battery. I already had the car charger lying around, but otherwise they often can be found for very little money.

The results of the U3S are really impressive, especially on the 40m band. For both the 40 and 20m band I use a HyEndFed 10/20/40 wire antenna in sloping configuration. On 40m I'm heard all over Europe, and occasionally I reach into Ukraine, Russia, Canary Islands, and across the Atlantic to the US. And who knows where I will be heard next; it's all up to the ionosphere and propagation conditions.
The 20m band has been a little disappointing. I did reach into the US East Coast and states like Alabama and Georgia, and I'm also being heard for instance in the more distant parts of Europe, northern Russia and the Azores, but it's the amount of spots that is disappointing and most of the time is low in number. This has nothing to do with the U3S. It's all about propagation, which lately has been really terrible. Or maybe my expectations for this band were just too high. I also wonder if on the 20m band maybe the loss in the relatively long length of RG-58 coax cable between transmitter and antenna is starting to play a role. I wonder how much of the 180 mW in the end is being turned into Effective Radiated Power.

Reported frequency drift on 40m is mostly 0. Reported frequency drift on 20m is slightly more, mostly -1, sometimes -2. On every first transmitting cycle after the U3S hasn't been used for a while, both on 40 and 20m, the drift is often bigger and up to -4, but this is mostly back to normal levels at the second transmitting cycle. I haven't experimented yet with setting a "park mode frequency", or with putting some insulation around the crystal of the frequency synthesizer to prevent any airflow changing the crystal temperature. This might bring the drift down to 0 on 20m as well.

Last but not least, I'd like to express my gratitude to Hans Summers, G0UPL of QRP Labs for developing and making available such excellent kits, and with very good after sales services and support to boot! A special e-mail forum offers support to U3S builders and users, and is a huge source of technical and operational expertise, coming both from Hans and other U3S users.

Front side. A red LED on the left of the front panel indicates if the transmitter is keyed (see also the photo at the top of this blog). I only had one push button, so the switch on the left toggles the button on the right between switch S1 and switch S2.

The U3S transmitter module. On the left with the three yellow toroids is the plug-in LPF.

Three switches on the rear side. One for switching on/off the unit, one for switching on/off the LCD screen, and one for switching on/off the GPS module.

The GPS module with the patch antenna


Rear side

The case housing both GPS and U3S transmitter. A small window allows checking of the GPS module LEDs.

The magical little box. Size comparison with a match box.

See also my earlier posts about the U3S here, and the U3S used in High Altitude Ballooning here.

February 26, 2017

Antarctica (IOTA AN-016)

Last edited: 04.03.2017

Map of Antarctica (source)

As most of you probably know, or otherwise will have noticed while tuning around on the HF bands, we're currently getting close to the minimum of Solar Cycle 24. This means HF propagation isn't optimal, and especially the higher bands are in bad shape and will remain so for the coming years until solar activity picks up again to start the climb towards the peak of the new solar cycle. You may have noticed that the 10m band is dead most of the time, and that even the 20m band does not deliver DX anymore as easily as it did a couple of years ago. For the ham operator with just a wire antenna and low power, the challenge has been raised to an even higher level. It's in times like these that one starts to appreciate CW even more; I'm rarely able to work DX in phone these days.

But life's too short to mourn the lack of sunspots! Forget the higher bands! Just tune into the 40m band, do your thing, and you might be in for a pleasant surprise! Even with a simple wire antenna and low power. I know many hams underestimate the possibilities of 40. Don't!

I've always been surprised by the DX I'm able to work on the 40m band (in CW, digimodes, and even SSB) with my HyEndFed multiband (10/20/40m) wire antenna and 100 Watts or less. This antenna basically works as a so called Zepp antenna or end fed dipole. Electrically on 40 metres the HyEndFed 10/20/40 is a half wave length. Physically it's much shorter though (about 12 metres). The trick is in a trap / loading coil at a distance of 10 metres in the antenna wire which on the 40m band lengthens the antenna electrically. Since 12 metres of wire is pretty much the maximum I can fit in my small garden, for me the HyEndFed 10/20/40 is the ideal 40m antenna. An inverted V dipole would be great, but the limited space available would mean the apex angle will be too small.
I used to have the HyEndFed in vertical position, dangling from a 12 metre telescopic fibreglass pole. But this was only a semi-permanent setup, as, even though the pole was guyed, as soon as the winds picked up, the pole had to be taken down. I now have the HyEndFed in a permanent sloper position from about 9 metres height at one end to about 1.5 metres height at the other, partly close to my house, and partly close to the ground. Not an ideal situation, but at least now I can get on HF anytime and independent of weather conditions. And, as far as I can tell, and much to my surprise, it's working just as well as the vertical configuration. At least it seems to be; I'm not able to do side by side comparison, so there might be difference in performance after all. Whatever may be the case, with the sloper configuration I still work plenty of DX.

From my QTH in the Netherlands with the HyEndFed on 40m especially the Caribbean region is a relatively easy target. But also eastern North America and parts of South America are worked quite regularly, and recently I've also been quite succesful in getting my signals on the African continent, making CW QSOs with DXpeditions in countries like Ivory Coast and the Central African Republic. With JT65 I once managed to make a 40m QSO with VK-land. Despite all these succeses, I never could have dreamed of one day working Antarctica on 40 though. But recently I did!

On January 27th, 2017 around 21:47 UTC on 7.018 MHz I heard the CW signal of RI1ANR. He was working simplex. As soon as possible I started keying the familiar Morse rhythm of my callsign, and much to my surprise quite quickly I heard my call coming back; signal reports were exchanged, a TU and a 73 and the QSO was in the log! And I'm still in shock! I worked Antarctica on 40m!

Contact with RI1ANR confirmed in LotW

RI1ANR is located at Novo Airbase, or Novo Runway, close to the Russian Novolazarevskaya Research Station in Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica. Novo Runway is a so called Blue Ice Runway where aircraft can land using wheels, i.e. their normal landing gear, instead of skis. During the austral summer there are regular flights from Cape Town to Novo Runway with the Ilyushin IL76 TD heavy-cargo aircraft. Novo Runway acts as a major Antarctic transport and logistics hub, and from there cargo and passengers are flown in to other parts of Antarctica and further inland.

Novo Blue Ice Runway (source)

Ilyushin 76 at Novo Runway (source)

Then on February 10th on 7.004 MHz around 01:15 UTC I again managed to work Antarctica. This time I worked RI1AND (op. Mikhail Fokin, RW1AI) at Novolazarevskaya Research Station itself. Again a simplex CW contact.

eQSL from RI1AND

Mikhail Fokin in the radio shack at Novolazarevskaya Station, Season 2016-2017 (source)

Mikhail Fokin at Novolazarevskaya Station, Season 2016-2017 (source)

Novolazarevskaya is a Russian base located at the Schirmacher Oasis in Queen Maud Land. It was opened in 1961 as part of the 6th Russian Antarctic Expedition. The population during summer is about 70. About 30 people winter over at the station. The inland ice sheet south of the station at a distance of 50 km already reaches a height of 1500 m.

Novolazarevskaya Station (source)

In the mean time recently on many nights I've also been hearing the 40m CW signals of LU4CJM/Z and LU1ZI from the Argentine Carlini Base on the South Shetland Islands, but unfortunately I have not been able to QSO them yet.

Then on February 17th I again put Antarctica in the log, again on 40m CW. I made a contact with KC4/N2TA which after some research I learned also is Mikhail Fokin at Novolazarevskaya using the callsign of the Brooklyn based Russian Speaking Radio Club International N2TA, with KC4 added for Antarctica. Fokin has been using this callsign before from Antarctica, for instance from Vostok Station in 2002, as shown by the QSL card below.

2002 QSL card from KC4/N2TA (source)

To me, Antarctica is the ultimate in DX. Historically, the isolated explorers, researchers, and base personell of The Great White Continent relied solely on radio communications and ham radio to stay in touch with eachother and with the outside world. I recommend reading this article in the Antarctic Sun about the "Madey Boys", two teenage brothers who with ham radio in the 1950s helped the US Navy men of "Operation Deep Freeze" in Antarctica stay in touch with their loved ones at home.
To me, working Antarctica is pure emotion! Already as an SWL in the 1980s and 1990s I especially enjoyed tuning in to signals coming from the Antarctic. I have particularly fond memories of listening to the ships and bases of the British Antarctic Survey on 9.106 MHz. I might get into that further in another blog entry.

The contacts on 40m weren't my first Antarctic QSOs. My first one was back in 2014 in JT65 on 10m with DP0GVN (op. Holger Bauer, DH1HB) at the German Neumayer Station III.
I had noticed this odd looking German callsign in my JT65 decodes, but hadn't payed much attention to it. At the time I was quite addicted to JT65, and while making contacts I kept track in near real time via Hamspots.net of where my signals were heard. At one point I noticed my signals had been picked up in Antarctica. And the station there that had spotted me was the one with the odd looking German callsign! A quick look on qrz.com taught me that the callsign belonged to the German Neumayer III Station. I quickly started attempts to make a QSO with DP0GVN, and I succeeded!

Screenshot of my JT65 contact with Neumayer Station

Neumayer Station III is located on the 200 m thick Ekström Ice Shelf, Queen Maud Land. The building is resting on hydraulic feet which during an annual lifting procedure lifts the building by about 80 to 100 cm to prevent it from sinking and eventually being buried in new snow.

QSL card from DP0GVN, Neumayer III Station

My second Antarctic contact was back in 2015 on 20m CW, also with Mikhail Fokin, the same operator whom I recently made a contact with on 40m. At the time Fokin was working out of the Russian Mirny Base with the callsign RI1ANT.

QSL card from RI1ANT, Mirny Base

Mirny Base is located in Queen Mary Land, East Antarctica. It was opened in 1956 by the 1st Russian Antarctic Expedition. The station hosts about 170 people in summer and 60 in winter. The average temperature is -11º C and on more than 200 days per year the wind is stronger than 15 m/sec.


Mirny Base (source)

Mikhail Fokin in the radio shack at Mirny Base, Season 2014-2015 (source)

Check out Mikhail Fokin's website at http://www.qsl.net/ua1ake/logs/.

Last but not least I'd like to mention the site of the Worldwide Antarctic Program at www.waponline.it. It's packed with information on 60 years of ham radio in Antarctica.

I will end this blog entry with the subject I started with: solar cycles. I can happily report that on December 20th, 2016 the first sunspot of Solar Cycle 25 was observed. This doesn't mean that cycle 24 and the minimum is over though. Usually solar cycles overlap up to 4 years. Read all about it here on the site of the Solar-Terrestrial Center of Excellence.


First sign of solar cycle 25 (source)

January 19, 2017

PH9HB/AM

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Here on www.dxcoffee.com, you can find an interesting interview with Jerry van der Goot, PH9HB. Beside being a passionate ham operator, Dutchman Jerry also is a Boeing 737NG captain for a carrier based at Amsterdam-Schiphol. During flights, when duties permit, he often can be found on the HF ham bands operating from the cockpit as PH9HB/AM using the aircraft's HF radio. "AM" stands for "Aeronautical Mobile" and is added to the radio amateur callsign when the operator is aboard an aircraft in flight. Just as "MM", or "Maritime Mobile", is added to the callsign when aboard a ship at sea.

It's always a thrill to work an /AM station. I've done it only once, with ON/GM7DIE/AM on 20m back in January 2014. I also managed to pick up Jerry's signals, but so far I've never had the pleasure and luck of making a 2-way contact with him. Jerry's /AM activities always attract a lot of attention, and getting through the pile-up isn't easy.

Jerry PH9HB (source)

PH9HB/AM take off (source)

As Jerry explains in the interview, the antenna used on the Boeing 737NG airplane is a so-called Shunt antenna. More information on this antenna type can be found here.

See also:

https://www.google.com/patents/US7511674
https://www.qrz.com/db/PH9HB

January 08, 2017

Meet Tom Christian

Last edited: 05.03.2017

Of all remote places on this planet, to me, one of the most fascinating and most intriguing has always been Pitcairn Island (IOTA OC-044). This tiny island in the southern Pacific Ocean has quite a remarkable history, and probably few places speak to the imagination as much as Pitcairn does. The island was settled in 1790 by the British mutineers of the HMS Bounty and the Polynesian men and women that accompanied them, an event retold in numerous books and films since, and therefore still well known today worldwide as the famous Mutiny on the Bounty.

Pitcairn forms the last remaining British Overseas Territory in the Pacific and actually is a group of four islands; Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno. Pitcairn Island, the second largest of the group, measuring about 4 km from west to east, is the only inhabited one. Adamstown, called after John Adams, one of the Bounty mutineers, is the capital and only settlement on the island. The entire population of Pitcairn lives in the capital and counts about 50. The HMS Bounty was set to fire by the mutineers and its wreckage still can be found today at the bottom of Pitcairn's Bounty Bay, where in 1957 it was discovered by an explorer of National Geographic. Pitcairn Island can only be reached by boat.

Tom Christian (1935-2013) (source)

Most of the residents of Pitcairn are descendants of the Bounty mutineers. So is Tom Christian (1935-2013). To the radio amateur community Tom was probably the most well known Pitcairn Islander, as he was a very active ham operator holding the callsign VR6TC and later VP6TC. Tom was the great-great-great-grandson of the leader of the Bounty mutineers, Fletcher Christian. Tom Christian also was the Chief Radio Officer of the official radio station on Pitcairn with callsign ZBP, and for a while also worked as a radio operator on a freighter ship. In 1952, at age 17, he got a training in Wellington, New Zealand to become radio telegraph operator. Tom's wife Betty Christian also holds a ham licence and was assigned the callsign VP6YL. Both Tom and Betty also regularly used ham radio to contact two of their four daughters, Jacqueline VK2CD and Raelene ZL2RAE, in Australia and New Zealand. Imagine what shortwave radio meant to the isolated Pitcairn Islanders before satellite communications and the internet found its way to the island. Unfortunately, OM Tom Christian in 2013, at the age of 77, became a Silent Key. In 1983 he was appointed the MBE - Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Tom Christian was one of the most sought after operators in ham radio ever.

QSL card from Tom Christian from the collection of Jeff Murray K1NSS. Photo courtesy of Jeff Murray.

My interest in Pitcairn was rekindled by a recent posting of Jeff, Murray K1NSS on the Facebook QSL Chasers group, and of course by the announcement of the upcoming VP6EU 2017 DXpedition to Pitcairn, which will take place from February 16th to March 5th, 2017!

Above you can see a photo of a QSL card from Tom Christian from the collection of Jeff Murray. It's lying on top of a copy of the book The Bounty Trilogy. Jeff did not contact Christian himself but found the QSL card in a collection he purchased at a local flea market. The card is a very interesting piece of ham radio history indeed, and definitely is a wonderful keepsake!

Tom Christian in his shack in 1988 (source)

My fascination for Pitcairn was born back in the 1980s when I was still a teenager and an avid shortwave listener. It was born from a small article in RAM - Radio Amateur Magazine written by Dutch journalist and top shortwave listener and DXer Michiel Schaay. Schaay had a column in the monthly RAM magazine with listening tips for SWLs. There was no internet at the time, and club bulletins and magazines like these were the only source of information in those days. Imagine how I was looking forward every month for the new issue of "the RAM" to appear at the newsstand. Schaay had picked up Tom Christian's transmissions from radio station ZBP a couple of times on 18.407 MHz with official radiotelephone traffic from Pitcairn to New Zealand. Needless to say that from then on I was monitoring this frequency whenever I could, unfortunately to no avail.

Article by Michiel Schaay in Radio Amateur Magazine nr. 104 of September 1989. If you look closely on the map on the southern part of the island you will find the location of the radio station.

Pitcairn is on top of my list of places I'd still very much like to make contact with one day. I'll have to depend on DXpeditions, as I believe there are no active hams left among the inhabitants of Pitcairn. It's going to be a tough one anyway, as for my "little pistol" station from the Netherlands, the Pacific always has been the most difficult part of the world to reach. But who knows, a couple of months ago I also managed to make a contact with Easter Island, which I also thought would be impossible to work. CW hopefully will do the trick someday. I'm not holding my breath though.

Addendum 05.03.2017
An interesting story dealing with the history of wireless stations on Pitcairn can be found here on the blog of Shortwave Central.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamstown,_Pitcairn_Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Christian
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10253305/Tom-Christian.html
http://www.pitcairn2017.de/
http://www.qsl.net/oh2br/
https://theroguephotographer.smugmug.com/keyword/tom;christian

January 07, 2017

A package from Japan - Ultimate3S WSPR transmitter kit, a little project for the new year

Last edited: 08.01.2017

Just before the year's end I was surprised by the delivery of a small package from Japan. It turned out to be the Ultimate3S WSPR transmitter kit that I had ordered from QRP Labs. I was surprised that the package came from Japan, as I thought QRP Labs is a UK based company, and this is also where I expected the package to come from.

This will be a little project for the new year. The Ultimate3S is a standalone 250 mW WSPR transmitter not needing any PC to generate the WSPR signals. I've also ordered the GPS receiver kit with it, which will be used in conjunction with the U3S. I've purchased both a 20m and 40m plug-in Low Pass Filter, but my main focus will be on the 40m band. I'm planning on building a 40m band C-Pole wire antenna and put it up in sloping configuration to use together with the U3S. It's all highly experimental, and I'd also like to see if this antenna can improve the reception on 40m of SOTA CW stations within Europe. With the often extremely weak QRP signals of SOTA activators, even the slightest improvement is very welcome.

See also my blog entry about the use of the U3S in High Altitude Balloon payloads.

Stay tuned!

January 01, 2017

Various QSL cards

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Here's the QSL card received recently for my contact with the F8UFT expedition to the Mont Blanc! It's one of my most prized QSL cards! Many thanks to Gérald F6HBI. For more information on the expedition, also see my blog entries of December 11th and November 12th.

This is the most recent batch of bureau cards for PD7MDJ / PA7MDJ. Picked up at the local VERON club station on 16.12.2016. Lots of cards received via Global QSL this time, including quite a few for my SOTA contacts with HB9CBR/P.

December 25, 2016

Worked All States Award

Last edited: 26.12.2016

This arrived a few days ago, just in time for Christmas; my Worked All States certificate! Mighty proud! Earned for working all 50 states of the USA, including Alaska and Hawaii. Working them is one thing, getting them all confirmed in LotW is another. In the spring of 2015 I worked Hawaii, and with that already unofficially completed my WAS. Oregon was a tough nut to crack though QSL-wise. But a couple of weeks ago a long-awaited LotW QSL came in for Oregon, and I finally had all 50 states confirmed, eventually resulting in the certificate shown here!
All states are confirmed in SSB and/or CW, except for North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, which are confirmed only in digital modes JT65 or JT9.