In this episode, i joined Martin Butler M1MRB, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT and Ed Durrant DD5LP to discuss the following:
Other news includes:
This episode’s feature is MFJ8504 Review and Understanding HF Controls.
In this episode, i joined Martin Butler M1MRB, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT and Ed Durrant DD5LP to discuss the following:
Other news includes:
This episode’s feature is MFJ8504 Review and Understanding HF Controls.
About a year and a half ago, I bought an Icom IC-2820H at the Findlay hamfest. It included the UT-123 option, which is a board that you plug into the main board, which gives it D-STAR capability. I mentioned in a previous post that I’d be willing to remove and sell that board as there are non D-STAR repeaters in my area.
I got one offer about a year ago, but that never panned out for some reason. Then about a month ago, someone else offered to buy it. After agreeing on the price, he sent me a money order for the amount, so yesterday, I attempted to remove the board.
I hit a snag, though, in getting the board out of the unit. To remove the board, you have to remove 10 tiny Phillips head, M2 screws. I don’t know who installed the board, but whoever did, really torqued down these screws, making them very difficult to unscrew. I got the first nine out OK, although some of them i had to really bear down on some to get them out.
The tenth was another matter. I stripped the head, making it unremovable, at least by any method I could find on the internet. I tried using a straight screwdriver and then a rubber band, but the darn thing just wasn’t coming out.
This morning, I took it over to my favorite hardware store, Stadium Hardware. The people there are really amazing. They’ll help you with almost anything. I knew that if it was possible to get that screw out, they could do it.
At first, the guy said, “Hmmmm. Looks like we’re going to have to drill that out and re-tap whatever it’s screwing into.” But, then, he walked away from the counter and came back with a set of damaged screw removers and a drill motor.
At first, it looked like he was just shaving more metal from the stripped screw, and I’m thinking that I’m really screwed now. Eventually, though, the screw began to turn and it came out. I ended up buying the extractor set, of course.
I took the radio home, popped the lid, removed the board, packaged it up (the guy who sold me the radio even had the original box for the UT-123), and I sent it on its way. The hardware store didn’t have the right screw to replace the ruined one, so I only had to replace nine of them.
The whole process was kind of a pain, but it was a learning experience, too. I learned how to use a screw extractor, and I now have the right tools to do the job.
Warning!! This is a partly-baked idea, so go easy on me….Dan
I worked for Northern Telecom (NT) from 1985 to 1991. They had purchased a company here in Ann Arbor, MI and formed a division that was developing an integrated voice and data system, called the DV-1. It used quite sophisticated technology, and we had some talented hardware and software engineers, but ultimately the product was a failure because it wasn’t really what customers wanted.
Customers didn’t really want an integrated voice and data terminal on their desks. They wanted a PC. A couple of our engineers developed a PC interface card to allow PCs to be used with the system, but that never really caught on. They tried to use the hardware as a database server for NT phone switching systems, but since the hardware wasn’t designed to be a database server, per se, that didn’t work out all that well, either.
The problem, of course, was that there was no marketing. Some engineers somewhere said, “Hey, we have this neat technology. Let’s make a product and sell it.” What they should have said is, “Hey, we have this neat technology. How can we design a product incorporating that technology that people will want to buy?”
I think that ham radio suffers from a similar lack of marketing. There are lots of ham radio projects and products that suffer from ills that make them either unusable or annoying. It could be that the setup is too complex for the benefit to gained, or that a product is lacking a key specification. A transceiver, for example, may have an output power of only 500 mW, making it useful only in certain, limited applications. That same product might be a lot more successful, however, if it had an output power of 5 W or 10 W.
Many will say that hams should be savvy enough to deal with these limitations and still make things work. That’s true, but sometimes even the most savvy don’t want to be bothered, or they don’t see the benefit from taking the time to complete a complex setup. Many hams are tinkerers, but they don’t have an unlimited amount of time. If the obstacles to success are too great, they’ll abandon a project or sell off a piece of equipment that’s too hard to use.
I’m not really sure what the answer is. I’m not a marketing genius, either. It’s easy to say that hams working on projects need to start thinking like marketers, but it’s a lot harder to do it. If you want your product or project to be successful, though, that what you need to do.
A little over three years ago, I got a pretty good on a Flex 6400. So, although I’ve been an Icom guy since the 1980s, I bought the Flex and sold my IC-7300.
The Flex is a great radio, but after three years, I got a hankering for a radio with real buttons and knobs. The obvious choice for me was the IC-7610. I’d been thinking of getting one for more than a year now, but got serious about looking for one about three weeks ago.
My first stop was QRZ.Com Swapmeet. I had really only intended to see how much used IC-7610s were going for, but found someone selling one for $2,300. I noted that there were a couple of guys already interested in purchasing it, but I emailed the seller and told him that if neither of them came through with the cash, that I’d buy it from him.
A day or two later, he emailed back saying that both of them decided not to buy it after all, and if I still wanted it that it was mine. I sent him a cashier’s check for $2,378 (shipping was $78), and about a week and a half ago, it was delivered to my door.
Honestly, I was a little concerned about buying it sight unseen. Yes, there were pictures on QRZ.Com, and it did look like a well cared for radio, but unless you can play with it, you don’t really know if there are any problems or not. I was relieved that when I took everything out of the box (which, by the way, was the original packaging) that everything looked to be in mint condition. There wasn’t a single scratch on the radio.
The next day, I crimped some PowerPoles onto the power cable, disconnected the Flex, and installed the IC-7610 on my operating desk. I had to either make or find the proper cables to connect the headphones and key to the rig (the Flex used 1/8-in. phone jacks while the IC-7610 still uses 1/4-in. phone jacks for these two connectors), but once I got those in place, I was ready to roll.
So, here are some first impressions:
Overall, these are two great radios, but they do offer two distinct operating experiences. I think that as we move forward, it’s the user experience that is really going to differentiate products. They’re all going to offer great performance, so it’s the ergonomics that’s going to become important.
One of the things on my ham radio bucket list was to learn how to use KiCAD and design a PC board. Being a newbie at PC board design (when I was an engineer, we had PC designers do the actual layout), I decided to do something simple. Since I teach ham radio classes, I decided to design a board based on the circuit in Figure T-1 of the Technician Class question pool.
This diagram illustrates a couple of ideas:
Since I already had the schematic, the first step in designing the board was to choose the components. I had a bunch of 2N2222 transistors in my junkbox, so that was an easy choice.
Choosing the lamp wasn’t quite so easy, though. Normally, I’d just use an LED, but LEDs require current-limiting resistors, and adding a resistor to the circuit would meant that it wouldn’t match the diagram. I did an Amazon search and found some LEDs with built-in current-limiting resistors.
Since they’re designed to operate from 9 – 12 V, it was natural to choose a 9 V battery. This meant that I had to find the snaps to plug the battery into. A quick Mouser search yielded the Keystone 593 and 594.
Once I’d decided on using a 9 V battery, the next step was to choose the resistor. I figured that connecting the input to the 9 V battery would be the easiest way to turn on the lamp, and I calculated that 47 kΩ resistor would give enough base current to turn on the lamp.
Since the current through the resistor was so low, I thought that an 1/8 W resistor would do. While that’s true, choosing that value probably wasn’t a good idea. The reason for this is that 1/4 W resistors are much more readily available than 1/8 W resistors. The next revision of this board is going to have space for a 1/4 W resistor.
Making the schematic was pretty straightforward, but laying out the board was a little more complicated. First, you have to assign a footprint for each of the components, then place them on the board, then route traces. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it takes some time to get used to how to actually do this.
Once I thought I had a decent design, I ran it by one of my friends here in Ann Arbor who has designed several PCBs. His first suggestion was to increase the size of the traces. I had just used the default size, but he noted that it’s easy to lift traces when soldering if they are too small.
He also suggested that I make the board as small as possible to reduce the cost. I did do that, but as you can see from the photo below, the batter hangs off the board. That’s not really a big deal, but I did want to include an image of the Figure T-1 schematic, as the circuit is supposed to demonstrate how the circuit in Figure T-1 works.
To make the board, I chose AllPCB.Com. They were really very patient with me. For example, when I first submitted the design files, I forgot to include the copper layers!
I haven’t used one of these in any of my classes yet, but I think it will make an effective demo. If you’re an instructor, and would like to have one of these boards, I can sell you a kit for $6.
Also, if you have any suggestions on how to improve this board, please feel free to contact me.
Safari, the web browser that I use most often, has a feature called the “reading list.” It’s like a bookmark, but much more temporary. The list is meant to be a parking lot for sites that you want to read, but not read over and over. Once you’ve read it, you’re supposed to delete the site from the list.
Of course, a lot of sites get stuck on the list, so periodically I actually go through it and read some of the sites on the list. Here are three that I think hams will be as interested in as I am.
Many components are not only marvels of electronics engineering, but mechanical engineering as well. Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Basic Electronics shows us how beautiful electronic components can be. The authors, Windell Oskay and Eric Schlaepfer, have painstaking opened many electronic components and taken some really amazing cross-section photographs. Here’s an example of a 15-turn potentiometer.
Also included in the book are photographs of transistors, integrated circuits, printed circuit boards, and more. Even if you don’t buy the book, taking a look at some of the photograph’s on the book’s web site is well worth it.
I found out about this board via a Tweet by one of the designers. The RFzero is a multi-purpose, GPS-controlled Arduino shield that uses a Si5351A clock generator to generate all kinds of RF signals. Designed by designed by Johan, 5Q7J; Bo, OZ2M; Hans, OZ2XH; and Steen, OZ5N, the web page says that it can be used for all kinds of things, such as a beacon (IBP, SPB, CW, FST4, FST4W, FT4, FT8, JS8, JT9, ModeX (JT65, Q65, …), PI4, WSPR, …), stand alone WSPR/FST4W transmitter, signal generator, VFO, QO-100 dual LO, low cost GPSDO, e.g. for 10 MHz, IC-9700 LO, 90 MHz frequency counter, and more. Being Arduino-based, you can, of course, write or modify the software yourself.
It looks like a very cool board. I might even get one myself. The price is 500 DKK, or about $73.
I came across this via a tweet from RTL-SDR.Com. RTL-SDR.Com is one of those websites that you really want to read if you’re doing anything with software-defined radio (SDR).
Joe, NE2Z, has developed this Linux distribution called SIGpi. SIGpi is an installable Linux distribution for Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi 3/4 that focuses on providing multiple open source SDR programs that can be used for signal intelligence. with emphasis on capabilities in the VHF, UHF, and SHF spectrum. Optionally, you can install HF SDR software, too. For a complete list, see the SIGpi wiki.
SIGpi runs on the following platforms:
This sounds like something fun to try on my under-utilized RPi4. Now, I just have to find the time for it.
This documentary has been praised by many in the amateur radio community. Here’s how Montana PBS describes the film:
Join us as we investigate the culture of Montana Amateur Radio Operators, or “hams”, as they recount their admiration for the global Amateur Radio community. This niche hobby has produced long-lasting friendships between radio enthusiasts around the globe, and has been a pastime of choice for much of their lives. Produced as part of a new Certificate in Documentary Film program, by students in the School of Journalism and the School of Visual & Media Arts at the University of Montana, this short film takes an in-depth look at the particular ways in which amateur radio enthusiasts remain active both locally and globally.
A presentation by Ian, VK3BUF. He shows you how to deal with noise at your station.
This is an update to the IARU Region 1 program, “Shaping the Future.” This is a short video, and worth watching if you’re interested in the future of our hobby.
In this episode, I join Martin Butler M1MRB, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT, Edmund Spicer M0MNG and Ed Durrant DD5LP to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. We discuss:
The feature is “Radio Tips to Start 2023.”
Just before Thanksgiving, I received an email from Cara Chen at Retevis. She wrote,
I am responsible for the radio review cooperation. We have a SDR radio HS2 for review cooperation. Are you willing to test and write a blog about it?
When I asked her what that meant, she said that she would send me an Ailunce HS2 SDR Radio, if I would review it here on my blog. When I told her that I would be brutally honest in my review, she seemed OK with that and sent me the radio.
What follows is an honest review. It’s not a QST-style review. I don’t have the test equipment that they do, nor did I have the time to put the radio through all its paces. Even so, I did operate the radio on HF and VHF, phone and CW, enough to make the review worth reading, I think.
If you don’t want to read the rest of this review, I can sum it up as follows: The Ailunce HS2 is a fun, little radio, with lots of potential. It’s not perfect, though. The buttons are too small, the display is too small, and the manual needs work. More about all those below.
As you can see below, the radio came with a handheld microphone, a DC power cord, and a USB cable.
First impressions:
Getting the HS2 on the air was relatively easy. After unboxing the radio, I crimped a couple PowerPole connectors on the DC power cord, plugged it into my DC power strip, connected an antenna, and I was receiving.
The first thing that I thought I’d try is to make a contact using one of the local repeaters, so I started paging through the manual to find out how to do this. My first time through, I completely missed the instruction, though, because the section containing the instructions for repeater operation is labelled, “Relay operation.”
After some fiddling, I finally managed to get the appropriate frequencies programmed into the radio. Doing this is a bit more difficult than most VHF/UHF radios as you have to program these frequencies as if you were operating split on HF. That is to say you have to program them separately. And, it’s a good thing that our repeater doesn’t use CTCSS tones because it probably would have taken me an extra 15 minutes to figure out how to do that.
Once programmed, though, everything seemed to operate quite nicely. I even got a nice report on the audio.
The received audio is quite nice, too. The 2.5-in. speaker is on top and produces loud, clear audio. I hate to say it, but it beats the speaker in my KX-3 hands down.
The next day, I thought I’d put the radio through its paces on HF, in particular 40-meter CW. That’s where I made my first mistake. I didn’t realize that I had to take it out of split mode, so my first couple of calls were not on the frequency that I’d been receiving on. When I got it set up properly, I had much better success. <grin>
The radio has two different power output ranges. The first has a maximum output of 5 W. The second a maximum of 30 W. There’s a separate setting for % output power. So, for example, if you want to set the output power to 20 W, you’d first set the output range to 30 W, then set the % output power to 66%. I’m not sure why you need two ranges, but that’s the way it works.
The keyer and other CW features seem to work quite well. One of my paddles has a 3.5 mm plug on it, and that plugged into the KEY jack on the back of the radio and worked right off. With the CW SET menu, you can also set up the KEY SPEED, if you’re using a paddle, the sidetone frequency and volume, and the TX-RX switching time. Note that the HS2 does not offer full break-in. Since I’m used to operating in full break-in mode, I found that to be a little annoying.
I didn’t do any fancy measurements of the transmitter’s output waveform, but no one I contacted had anything bad to say about my transmissions.
Setting up the bandscope and waterfall display takes a bit of fiddling. You first set the display mode (bandscope only, waterfall only, or both). Then you set the bandwidth to be displayed, the reference level and the waterfall speed. The display is really small (about 28 mm x 38 mm), and there are no grids displayed, but even so, once you get used to it, it’s handy.
Setting up the filter width is kind of screwy. You don’t set the filter width, as you might with other SDRs. Instead, you select from a menu of pre-programmed settings. I got a little frustrated trying to find the right setting for CW, so I selected 0 – 1.4 kHz. It’s a little wide, but it works.
One feature that I was kind of disappointed that I couldn’t get to work was connecting it to HDSDR running on my PC. I reckoned that connecting it to HDSDR would make the bandscope/waterfall display more usable and that it might be easier to set the controls using the PC, just like I do with my Flex 6400.
Unfortunately, the firmware in the HS2 doesn’t seem to support this option. The manual says to set the USB output mode to IQ, but when I enter that menu on the radio, that selection isn’t available.
This is one area where the manual really needs to be improved. One of the instructions says to, “Open the HDSDR software and set the parameters in sequence according to the figure.” The figure, unfortunately is so tiny that it’s impossible to decipher.
I think that this could be a really killer feature, and I’m hoping that perhaps there is a firmware update coming that will enable me to use the radio with HDSDR in the future.
There are some instructions in the manual on how to get the radio to work with N1MM contest logging software and the WSJT software suite, but I haven’t gotten around to trying that yet. I would expect this to work well, though. The USB output menu does have the right selection (DIGI) for this operation. Apparently, the HS2 emulates the FT-817 when being controlled by external software.
I set the radio aside for a couple of weeks, but yesterday, I decided to hook it up again and give it another go. The Straight Key Night operating event was still in full swing, so I hooked up a straight key to it and made a couple more CW contacts.
After that, I plugged in the microphone and made several sideband contacts with Parks on the Air (POTA) stations. Without making any effort to set the mic gain or It seemed to work just fine on sideband, even at 30 W. The default receive filter setting for sideband operation is 2.7 kHz.
As I was setting the radio up for SSB operation, I somehow managed to get it into the mode for programming memory channels. This was really annoying as I couldn’t figure out how to get out of that mode, and the manual was no help. There were no instructions on how to program memories at all. I resorted to an internet search and, fortunately, found the information I was looking for in a blog post on the Ailunce website.
One thing I noticed is that as I used it, the controls became less annoying. I guess that’s only natural. I still wish the buttons were bigger, though.
The HS2 has many other cool features, some I’ve tried, some I haven’t. These include:
The HS2 is still very much a work in progress. Ailunce admits as much. On their website, they say, “We will continue to update the firmware to improve the functions, If you strive for perfection, please think twice before placing an order.”
It’s certainly got a lot of potential, especially if they can get the connectivity features working. Being able to control the radio from a PC would mean that operators wouldn’t have to hassle with the small buttons on the front panel and would be able to see the bandscope and waterfall display on a bigger screen.
Finally, if you want to order the Ailunce HS2, check out all of the pages on which it appears. They all seem to have a different price. On https://www.retevis.com/hs2-full-frequency-full-mode-ultra-portable-sdr-radio-us, it says that the list price is $1,438, and the sales price is $906.99. On https://www.retevis.com/amateur, it says that the list price is $1,118.00, and the sale price is $707.99. On AliExpress, the price is $699.99. On https://www.ailunce.com/hs2-hf-vhf-uhf-sdr-transceiver#A9154c, the sales price is $599.99.
Here are some more great YouTube videos I’ve come across lately. This first one is a pretty good introduction to all the digital modes we, as radio amateurs, can operate.
I’ve been thinking about putting up a hex beam here for a while. The only reason I haven’t done it yet is because I’m thinking about moving.
Have I ever mentioned that I’m a Begali fanboy?