KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

It’s cute, but not for everyday use

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You may have noticed that many CW geeks have a big collection of CW sending implements, including straight keys, bugs, and paddles. I’ve felt like a piker because up till now all I had was a straight key and the Bencher BY-1 paddle.

Well, all that’s changed now. I now am the proud owner of a AZ ScQRPions/W5JH Paddle. This paddle was designed by Jerry Haigwood and is sold by the AZ SQRPions club. It comes in kit form and only costs $25.

It’s quite a cute, little paddle. The base measures only 2-in. square, but because it’s almost entirely brass, it’s heavy enough that it stays put as long as you don’t beat on it too much.

How can it cost only $25? Well, it is a kit, for one thing. You not only have to assemble it, you have to finish the brass pieces. This means buying four different grades of sandpaper and sanding down the six brass pieces four separate times. This took me about two hours total to do. Once you’ve sanded down the pieces, you then have to polish and/or apply lacquer to them. It’s a lot of work, but if you take your time and do it right, you’ll have something that you can really be proud of.

After the sanding and polishing, you assemble the paddle. The included instructions are very good, and the paddle went together without a hitch. One thing I’m not real crazy about is the way the paddle arms connect to the common connection. To make this connect, you much solder a small silver wire to each arm and then route the wire through a hole in the base to a lug on the bottom of the base. It seems as though the wire could easily fatigue and break as it moves every time you move the arm, but the arm doesn’t move that much, so I guess it’s not too bad.

Another thing that I don’t like about the paddle is that it doesn’t sit up that high off the desk. The center of each finger piece is only about 3/4-in. off the desk. Maybe I’m just used to using the Bencher, though, whose finger pieces are about twice as high.

I’ve been using it a little tonight, and I must admit that the action is pretty smooth. It has a nice feel to it as long as you’re not too ham-handed. It can’t be too bad–tonight while using it on 30m, I worked both the HK0GU DXpedition to San Andres Island and the 3B9C DXpedition to Rodrigues Island.

Will I use it every day? Probably not. It is, though, a nice piece to add to my collection.

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QSLs from Stations Whose Calls Spell Words

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I just finished processing the latest batch of QSL cards from the FISTS QSL Bureau. In this last batch, there were two cards from stations whose calls spelled words. That kind of amused me, so I thought I’d plow through the pile of cards I have here to see how many other QSLs I had from stations whose calls spelled words. Here’s what I found:

  • AA1OF
  • KA2NAB
  • W4MOW
  • KB3JAR
  • KA1OX
  • KA3RED

I’m kind of surprised I don’t have more.

Update 3/22/04: In browsing NM4C’s Vanity HQ, a site that keeps track of the availability of vanity callsigns, I note that K3ZEN is now available. Maybe with that call, I could discover the true meaning of ham radio.

Update 12/6/04: I just got a card from Joe, KI6ON. He suggests that, if I get enough cards, I could form sentences with them. Great idea, Joe!

Squeaks and Squawks

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While browsing the eHam forums this afternoon I came upon an item with links to websites that have recordings of the sounds of various digial modes. These pages are great if you’re thinking about getting on digital and want to try copying some signals before jumping into it all the way. There are four of them:

The latter has quite an extensive set of recordings of digital modes used by the railroads, law enforcement agencies, and other utility radio users.

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Now, I Want to Work Satellites

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Tuesday evening, Tom Bray WB8COX graciously volunteered (without too too much arm-twisting on my part) to give our club a talk on operating the satellites. Tom has been working them for quite some time, and he put together a very informative talk, including some sample audio. (I plan to post his slides as soon as he sends them to me.)

Of course, now I want to work the satellites. I probably won’t, of course. I just don’t have the time to do everything, but it’s a cool thing to think about, anyway.

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Don’t Be Shy

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Yesterday, I called CQ on 30m, and a station came back to me. He was sending kind of slowly, but that’s OK. I’m happy to work guys just getting their feet wet.

Unfortunately, this guy stumbled a bit sending my call the first time, tried it again and made another mistake, then disappeared altogether. I called QRZ? to get him to try again, but he was gone, apparently too nervous or embarassed to try it again. I understand the emotion; I’ve done that myself in the past. But, I’m still sorry that I didn’t get to meet the guy.

My advice for new operators is to stick with it no matter how many mistakes you make. In my book, you get points for trying, and if other ops give you a hard time, then to heck with them.

If you’re a new op or a slow op, don’t be shy. If you hear me calling CQ, call me back no matter how slowly you send or how many errors you think you’ll make. You can only practice so much on your own, and at some point, you just have to jump in and start making contacts. I hope one of those is with me.

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Two Finds

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The Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library hold a sale every Saturday and Sunday (except during the summer). According to their web page, the Friends resell more than 100,000 books a year. I used to go nearly every weekend, until my bookcases couldn’t hold any more books. I still go there from time to time, but I’m much more selective now as to what I buy.

I just got back from the library. I donated a bunch of old software and culled a few books from my collection. Feeling as though I now had some space for more books I did a walk-through to see if there were any gems. I actually found two:

  1. The Radio Amateur’s Handbook, 1954 edition. In 1954, the Handbook costs $3. Possibly the most interesting thing about this edition is the catalog section. It’s 180 pages long and includes ads from well-known names, such as National, Hallicrafters, and E.F. Johnson (of Viking and Matchbox fame). What’s perhaps more interesting, though, are the ads from companies long out of business, such as Lampkin Laboratoies and the Multi-Products Co., the latter of which apparently made the PMR-6A receiver and AF-67 transmitter near here in Hazel Park, MI.
       Many of the advertisers made both assembled receivers, transmitters, or test equipment, as well as components. James Millien, for example, advertised oscilloscopes, a grid-dip meter, and a linear amplifier, as well as panel dials, tube socket, and variable “condensers.”
  2. Elements of Radio, Third Edition, Marcus and Marcus. I’ve owned several copies of this book, which according to a source on the Internet, was first written as a World War II training manual. After the war, Prentice Hall published four different editions of the book for use in high schools. Of all the books I’ve read on radio and electronics, this one is the most well-written. I never really understood how capacitors were supposed to work until I read the appropriate chapter in Elements of Radio.
       If you ever find a copy–and it’s not too expensive–buy it. If you don’t need it, you can always pass it on to some beginner who is having a hard time with the theory. That’s what I’ve done with most of mine.

Finding this 1954 edition of the Handbook has gotten me thinking that maybe I want to try to collect as many of them as I can. Several years ago, I bought a 1965 edition at the Friends’ book sale, so now I have two of the 80 different editions that the ARRL has put out over the years. Got any you want to sell cheap?

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Because I Can

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I spent a lot of the years I was inactive as a ham riding a bicycle, racking up close to 1,000 miles every year. I did many of those miles with the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society (AABTS). On a typical AABTS ride, you’ll find riders at all levels: speedsters, plodders, and all those in-between. You often hear the slower riders wondering, “Why do those guys ride so fast, anyway? What’s their hurry”? The answer always given is “We ride fast because we can.”

Now, I was never a true “A” rider, but at one point, I was just good enough to hang with the big boys for a little while, anyway, and I can understand that answer. It’s a real rush when your muscles mesh with your machine and you find yourself flying along at 20+ miles per hour in a paceline.

What does this have to do with ham radio? Well, working CW is kind of the same thing. First of all those that don’t work CW are always wondering why we even bother. In the bike world, the answer is, “Because it’s fun.” It’s the same with CW. We use Morse code it because it’s fun.

Once you get past that, the next thing some CW ops hear is, “What’s the sense in operating so fast?” To that, the only answer is, “We do it because we can.” Just as it makes little sense to ride a bicycle at 20+ miles per hour, there aren’t that many good reasons to operate CW at 20+ words per minute, but the QRQ CW ops do it because they can.

Just as I don’t pretend to have been an “A” bike rider, I don’t pretend to be a QRQ CW operator. At best, I’m currently running at 25 wpm.

I do have flashes, though, of what it must be like to go really fast. Sometimes, I’ll tune into a QSO proceeding at perhaps 30 words per minute, and I’ll actually be able to copy a sentence or two of it. Maybe I’ll even get most of a transmission. I feel like I’m actually copying words and not characters. When I can do that, I get the same kind of rush that I get when I’m on the back of a fast paceline.

Even though I never quite made it as an A rider, I still have hopes of making it as a QRQ CW operator. Becoming an A rider means spending a lot of time on the bike. Becoming a QRQ CW operator means spending a lot of time wearing headphones and banging on a paddle. The question is whether or not I have the time or the desire to it.

Filed Under: CW

IARU Monitoring System Keeps Watch for Intruders

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Last week, I was chatting on 30m with N3HE and I happened to mention that there seemed to be some weird QRM down around 10.117 MHz. He says, “I’ll go take a look and be right back.” So, off he goes. When he does come back, he explains that he is part of the IARU Monitoring System, and that he’s always on the alert for intruders into the ham bands.

Although he didn’t have much to say about the QRM I’d heard, I asked him to tell me more about the IARU Monitoring System. He pointed me to the IARU Intruder Watch website. According to the website:

The Monitoring System (MS or intruder watch) of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) is dedicated to identifying and removing all non-Amateur radio stations from those Amateur bands which are allocated exclusively to the Amateur and Amateur-Satellite Services by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Stations which violate these frequency allocations are called intruders. The work of the IARU MS is carried out by volunteer Amateur Radio monitors all over the world, working for their national Amateur Radio societies and co-ordinated by the IARU MS in each of the three ITU regions of the world.

The website is very informative. It has pages devoted to describing the work of the Monitoring System, copies of the system’s newsletters, and several pages of “technical stuff.” These pages go into some detail as to how to identify a signal and how to accurately measure its frequency.

There is also quite a bit of information as to how to use a spectrum analyzer to identify an intruder. This section includes a page, describing eight computer-based audio spectrum analyzers you can use to identify the type of modulation an intruding signal is using as well as other characteristics, such as power supply hum and radio frequency drift, which will help you identify an intruder.

This is a part of amateur radio that I’d never heard of before and that I think deserves more publicity. We are almost all familiar with the mess that the 10m band is becoming. We certainly wouldn’t want that to happen on the other bands as well.

Contesting and Band Choice

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After my mediocre performance in the Fists Sprint a couple of weeks ago, which I blamed on my antenna, I decided that I’d better put up my 20m ground plan antenna again. So, this morning, just before the North Carolina QSO Party was to start, I threw a rope over a tree branch in the front yard and hauled up the ground plane. I spread out the two radials, snaked the coax into the house, and I was in business. The SWR measured 1.2:1.

I tuned to 14.040 and worked a couple of stations and began to think that I was going to do OK. That quickly came to an end, however. The band must have changed, because stations that were truly coming in 599 suddenly dropped way down in strength. In fact, I was hearing European stations calling the NC stations that were stronger here than the NC stations. I even tuned down to 14.033 and worked one of the Germans just for the heck of it.

Apparently, the radiation angle of the ground plane was too low and skipping right over North Carolina. I probably should have gotten on 40m, but I still don’t have an antenna for that band. I guess that should be my next project. The best band to work NC at this point might actually be 30m, but by gentleman’s agreement, there’s no contesting on the 30m band.

Oh, well. The contest runs to 10 pm tonight, so perhaps I’ll get back on a little later and see if anything’s cooking.

Update 5-9-04:
Despite my mediocre performance (7 total QSOs, 155 total points), I actually had the highest score in the state of Michigan. (It was probably the only score from the state of Michigan.) For my efforts, I received a certificate, noting my first place finish.

Use your antenna analyzer to test ferrite chokes

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From Tim, KT8K…

Here’s a test procedure to test the snap-on ferrite cores you buy at hamfests or Radio Shack.

Ferrite chokes are widely used to reduce or suppress RFI in electronic and electrical equipment. Many computer cables, in general, have lumps in them which are built-in ferrite chokes. Of the many different types of ferrite material, mix 43 is generally accepted as the best choice for stopping RF from getting through your power and audio cables. Other mixes are not much help in amateur radio applications.

The cool thing about this technique, I think, is that now I can pop some batteries into my MFJ259, sling it over my shoulder, and actually evaluate the chokes I consider buying at swaps before I spend my money. In the past I just bought them and installed them and hoped that they were helping. Using this procedure I can be sure of what I’m getting.

The following procedure is adapted from and courtesy of Alan Applegate, K0BG. Read this article for more details.

To test snap-on ferrite cores, you will need an antenna analyzer, such as the MFJ-259, and enough hookup wire–size 22 is ideal–to make 5 passes through the bead plus enough to connect the ends to the analyzer.

Test Procedure

  1. Wind 5 turns of 22 ga. hookup wire through the ferrite core to be tested and connect the ends to the center and shield connection on the antenna analyzer.
  2. Set the frequency to 2 MHz, and measure the reactance. If it is mix 43, the inductive reactance will be approximately 500 ohms.
  3. Push the mode button three times to bring up the inductance menu. If your bead was made with mix 43, the inductance will be about 40 μH. A lower reading may indicate that the ferrite is not mix 43, and it may not work properly. If the reading is higher, that’s fine to a point, but double these figures may indicate mix 77 (ui=1800), which is better suited for 160-meter suppression.

Note: the 259B hasn’t enough range to check mix 43 at much more than 2.5 MHz unless you reduce the number of turns.

A note from KB6NU…

I just ran down to the shack, and pulled out my Autek VA1 Vector Analyzer to perform this test. The results were quite interesting. Testing four of the five snap-on ferrite cores that Tim KT8K bought for me at a hamfest about a year ago, I got the following results:

Bead Inductance (μH) Reactance (Ω)
1 34.5 432
2 35.6 448
3 37.1 465
4 34.5 430

These values aren’t too far off, so I’d say I got a decent batch.

UPDATE 8/9/17

This post just got some attention on Twitter, so I thought I’d revisit it. As a result, I changed the wording from “ferrite beads” to “snap-on ferrite cores.” That’s really what this procedure tests.

I also got a question from Adam, @MU0WLV. He asks, “is it possible to do this with toroids too? after all they are ‘beads’ just not split ;-)” The answer, of course, is YES! Just wind 5 turns of hookup wire through the core and test away.