Eugene

ARRL RTTY Roundup 2014

Spent a few hours on the radio this weekend playing in the ARRL RTTY Roundup. It’s my first digimode contest and it was an interesting experience.

I’ve found that with digital modes, I like to have the sound on so that I can hear (in addition to see) the activity in the passband. I started off on 20m and right off encountered a bunch of loud and overdriven signals. Some of the transmissions were so bad that they washed out the entire passband during the transmission. Here’s a brief sample of what some of the better transmissions looked like.

20m RTTY passband during the 2014 ARRL RTTY Roundup

I also found that fldigi’s decoding the RTTY signals seemed to be spottier than PSK decoding. I’m not sure if that was just because of the quality of the transmissions it was having to decode or just the nature of RTTY. I’ll have to try to find some non-contest RTTY to test with.

For most of the contest, I was running 30-35W which seemed to be pretty sufficient to get me heard reasonably far. I finished up with around 110 QSOs and decided to call it a day a few hours before the end of the contest because I was getting tired of sitting.

Highlight of the contest was a 20m contact with VK3TDX all the way in Austrailia. That sets the record for my longest QSO at over 16 000 km. Here’s the excerpt from the fldigi log

RX 14132540 : RTTY (2014-01-05 21:34Z): cq test vk3dx vk3tx vk3tdx cqzw qzy
TX 14132544 : RTTY (2014-01-05 21:34Z): ab4ug ab4ug k
RX 14132545 : RTTY (2014-01-05 21:34Z): lieetpab4u ab4u 599 484 484 484 abfuvia
TX 14132540 : RTTY (2014-01-05 21:34Z): vk3tdx 599 sc sc tu 73 ab4ug
RX 14132540 : RTTY (2014-01-05 21:35Z): hvur call? ur call?”
TX 14132540 : RTTY (2014-01-05 21:35Z): ab4ug ab4ug k
RX 14132540 : RTTY (2014-01-05 21:35Z): cciyxly l b4ug qsl 73 vk3tdx qrz w6oat w6oat

There’s some garbled decoding, but it looks like he got everything. Using 35W, I was very surprised he was even able to pick up my signal. I suppose it’s possible he was listening remotely using a station closer to me (with SDR and Internet connected radios, you can listen and potentially operate from anywhere in the world from the comfort of your computer desk). I’ll hang on to the thought that I just had some astoundingly good propagation.

(Sweet, just checked on LoTW and it’s confirmed there. Woohoo!)

At a couple points toward the end, my sound card interface started acting up and would rapidly switch PTT on and off. Not sure what was causing it, but both times it happened there were some really strong signals coming through the radio. Don’t know if it’s related or not, and this is the only time the interface has acted up like that.

After today, I haven’t quite decided if digimode contests are quite my thing. I think I’ll have to try a few more contests out.

Ham radio goal list 2014

Continuing what I started last year, I’m going to make a list of goals for 2014. First, a review of last year’s list.

Get the shack up and running
Build the SoftRock radio kits
Get the OpenBeacon W2MDW gave me up and running
Build my own OpenBeacon
Earn skill levels in CW
Build Moxon antennas for 6 and 10m
Experiment with making antennas
Try some digital modes

As I mentioned in the October progress report, antenna building has taken a back seat to building up the workbench.

I have an OpenBeacon built for 40m now that I need to finish calibrating. I’ve acquired enough gear for the workbench now that I think I can do that.

The SoftRock Ensemble RXTX kit is still sitting in the parts bin waiting for me to get around to building it.

I’ve made some progress on the Morse code part, but not a whole lot. I need to make a routine where I sit down for 30 – 45 minutes or so at a time and really devote some effort to it.

Diving into digital modes with gusto since getting the sound card interface up and running. Having a lot of fun playing digital radio and getting familiar with the various modes.

And now for the 2014 list

Get the 2m radio working in the shack
Build the SoftRock RXTX kit
~~Craft a base for my straight key~~
Earn skill levels in CW
Antenna farm!
- Build antennas for 70cm and 2m
- Build directional antennas for 6m, and ~~10m~~
- Build directional antennas for 70cm and 2m to use with my HT
- Build an antenna for 80m and maybe even 160m
- Rearrange the ZS6BKW so the legs of the dipole are straighter
Get on the radio more
- Get Basic WAS
- Get DXCC
- 10-10 International membership
- Work some satellites with my HT
- Participate in more contests
Build more electronics stuff!
Try my hand at etching printed circuit boards
Learn to do some antenna modelling

It’s quite a bit longer than the 2013 list. Hopefully I’ll be able to check most of them off.

TN QSO Party 2013 award

Results for the 2013 Tennessee QSO Party were waiting for me in my mailbox today, along with a very nice award for the top score (760 points) from South Carolina in the Low power Phone category. My first contest award!

Ok, never mind that I was the only submission from SC. It will make a nice decoration for the shack. The certificate also notes that I was a first time entrant to the QSO party.

2013 ARRL 10m contest

Spent a couple hours at the radio playing in the ARRL 10m contest today. Didn’t get to play as much as I wanted to, but managed to score 28 contacts for 1176 points. I’d have played longer, but the cold I managed to catch from somewhere put a damper on things. Managed to snag SD and ND though, both of which seem to be hard to get states. The ND contact is confirmed in LoTW, so hopefully the SD contact will confirm there at the end of the contest. I should be at least a couple states closer to WAS Basic after the weekend.

Another Heathkit IG-102 mod

Spent another evening poking around inside the Heathkit IG-102 signal generator, this time with schematic in hand and probing around with my DMM to check voltages in various places. I wanted to make sure everything was working ok, and it seems to be. The voltages I was getting were all pretty close (within 10%) of what was printed on the schematic.

I also replaced the original 60s or 70s era power cord with a polarized power cord (harvested from I don’t remember what now). It was a simple replacement and probably not critical but I figured having a new(-ish) cord might make it a little more electrically safe. The hard part was unsoldering the old cord and getting the plastic strain relief thing out of the chassis.

I was able to set my HT to a few frequencies in the 10-30 MHz range and heard tones when I adjusted the signal generator to those frequencies. That seems like a good sign it’s working.