KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

A Musing about Bluetooth

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I’m kind of surprised that I haven’t seen any amateur radio projects that make use of Bluetooth. The Bluetooth frequencies are outside of the ham bands, but even so, it is wireless and that’s what hams do.

One application that I think Bluetooth would be good for is remote control. For example, I can purchase a wireless microphone for my Icom IC-207 for about $150. It uses an infrared link to communicate with the base unit, meaning that I have to be within sight of the rig.

Wouldn’t this work much better and cost less using a Bluetooth link instead of infrared? With a Bluetooth remote mike, for example, I could be in my home office on the first floor and still communicate through the rig in the basement.

What I envision is a transceiver that I can plug into the microphone (the mike has a quick disconnect right at the mike) and one that I can plug directly into the base unit. The link would have to be capable of handling both voice and control signals, but I think that’s part of the Bluetooth spec, isn’t it?

Anyone with a little more knowledge of Bluetooth care to correspond about some of the possibilities?

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Icom IC-207: First Impressions

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My Icom IC-207H arrived this afternoon. My first reaction was, “”Wow, this thing is small.”” I’d say that it’s about a third of the size of my old IC-22U, and the IC-22U is a 2m-only rig. Here are some other first impressions:

  • I guess they had to do this because of size restraints, but unlike the IC-22U, there is no power connector on the rear panel. Instead, two wires, terminated by some odd kind of connector, protrude from the rear of the unit. Fortunately, my local radio store had a matching connector, so I could make an adapter to connect the rig to my AC supply.
  • I think my poor, little Heathkit AC supply has reached the end of the road. While it works just fine at 5W and 10W out, it just can’t supply enough current to the rig at 20W output.
  • The programming seems awfully hard to do. I’ve mastered the procedure for programming channels, but haven’t even tried tackling the scan sequence yet.
  • This thing has a noisy fan which kicks in whenever you transmit. I suppose that you really need the fan at 20W or 50W, but I wonder if it’s really necessary at 5W or 10W. If not, they should just leave it off when operating at low power.

I haven’t yet tried it on 440. Never having operated much on 440, I didn’t have a suitable antenna. While at Purchase Radio buying a power connector, I saw that they were selling a dual-band antenna called the Q-Stick. Constructed mainly of PVC pipe, it looked almost homebrew. There was no manufacturer’s identification on it, but it looked like it was well made, and it was only $35, so I bought one.

After I got it home, I did a Google search and found a weird, little Internet electronics store that carried them. It also appeared that they might be the company that made them as well, but when I emailed them about getting more info on the antenna, they replied that they no longer carried them, even though they were still advertised on their website. They did give me the phone number of the guy who supposedly designed the antenna, but I haven’t called him yet. Very weird.

The Google search also turned up a Q-Stick Antenna website at http://www.q-stick.com. Unfortunately, that website is no longer working. I hope I haven’t just thrown away $35.

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Small Wonder PSK31

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A couple of years ago, I bought and built the SST-20 20m QRP rig from Wilderness Radio. While I haven’t had that much success with this rig–I attribute this to my poor antenna skills–the kit went together pretty easily and was fun to build. (If anyone wants to buy this from me, you can have it for the kit price: $85)

Now, I’m thinking of trying it again. This time with one of the PSK31 rigs from Small Wonder Labs. They make several different models, including one for 10m that looks relatively easy to put together. Apparently, these rigs interface directly to a 16-bit sound card.

As for the computer, I have an old Windows box that I was thinking of converting to Linux. Another possibility is to buy an old laptop for use in the shack. The advantage of the laptop is that it would take up less space in the shack. A third option is to try to get one of the Linux PSK31 packages to run on my Sharp Zaurus. A Google search for “linux psk31” turned up quite a few references to PSK 31 software running on Linux machines.

I have a couple of questions:

  • Has anyone built one of the PSK31 units? Having any success with them?
  • Am I crazy for thinking about the 10m unit? Should I go with one of the other bands?
  • Is anyone running PSK31 software on a Linux box? Which package do you think is best?

Waiting for my IC-207

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I’m kind of geeked right now because I’m waiting for my new VHF rig to arrive. It’s been such a long time since I bought a new VHF radio that the radios I currently have both use thumbwheel switches to change frequency. Seriously. The mobile rig is a 20 year-old Icom IC-22U, and the handheld is an even older IC-2AT. Scan rate is not only not programmable, but is determined by how fast I can punch the little + and – buttons.

What I bought is an Icom IC-207H (as you can see, I’m an Icom guy all the way). It has almost all the new fancy features, including dual band operation, up to 50W out on 2m (35W on 440), and 182 channel memories. There’s even a wireless microphone option that I thought would be pretty cool–I could easily talk on the radio while using my exercise bike. Unfortunately, that option costs $150–more than half what I’m paying for the entire rig.

The UPS website says that the box is currently in Minneapolis. It’s supposed to get here on Thursday.

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QTB.Com is now carrying ham radio books

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QTB.Com is now carrying books from the ARRL, CQ, MFJ, and a bunch of small publishers. The list includes:

The 2003 ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications
The ARRL Antenna Book, 19th Edition
Antenna Compendium Volume 6
Simple and Fun Antennas for Hams
Vertical Antenna Classics
Wire Antenna Classics
More Wire Antenna Classics
Yagi Antenna Classics
Now You’re Talking, 4th Ed.
ARRL’s Tech Q&A, 2nd Ed.
General Class License Manual
General Q&A
Extra Class License Manual, 8th Ed.
Your Introduction to Morse Code (audio CDs)
Your Introduction to Morse Code (tapes)
HF Digital Handbook
Hints and Kinks for the Radio Amateur, 15th Ed.
Image Communications Handbook
ARRL Log Book
Low Power Communication: The Art and Science of QRP
Morse Code: The Essential Language, 2nd Ed.
On the Air With Ham Radio
ON4UN?s Low Band DXing, 3rd Ed.
Operating Manual, 7th Ed.
QRP Power
The Repeater Directory, 2002-2003 Ed.
RF Exposure and You
RFI Book
Spread Spectrum Handbook
TravelPlus for Repeaters CD-ROM, 2002-2003 Edition
200 Meters and Down
W1FB?s QRP Notebook
Your Mobile Companion
Disappearing Act
Easy Target
Night Signals
Hostage in the Woods
A Spark to the Past
AC6V’s DXing 101
33 Simple Weekend Projects
Building and Using Baluns and Ununs
Keys, Keys, Keys
Lew McCoy on Antennas
The New Shortwave Propagation Handbook
The Mobile DXer
The CQ Amateur Radio Calendar
The CQ Amateur Classic Keys Calendar
Antennas From the Ground Up
Easy Up Antennas for Radio Listeners and Hams
Giant Book of Electronic Projects
Morse Code: Breaking the Barrier
Ferromagnetic Core Design and Application Handbook
Antennas and Transmission Lines
Practical RF Design Manual
Ladder Crystal Filters
QRP Projects from Down Under
Radio Components Handbook

Many of these are very cool books. The 2003 ARRL Handbook is truly awesome, and includes hundreds of projects and a great chapter on digital signal processing (DSP). The 19th edition of the five books by Cynthia Wall, KA7ITT aimed at teenagers. There are also books on amateur radio history and Morse keys.

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More Fun With Antennas and the CW Sweepstakes

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This morning, I decided that I still wanted to operate a little in the CW Sweepstakes contest. The only problem was that the only antenna I had up was the 40m dipole that was activating the garage door opener. So, the first thing I did was to take that down.

The next step was to build a 10m dipole. To do this, I simply cut down the 20m dipole that I was using earlier.

Since a 10m dipole is short enough, I decided that I’d try hanging it vertically instead of horizontally, with the idea that I’d get a lower angle of radiation. I couldn’t get it completely vertical, but nearly so, and the SWR was pretty low, so I thought I’d give it a go.

This time, I didn’t activate the garage door opener, but the signal was still clearly coupling into the computer speakers. The problem is that my home office is directly over the ham shack. For convenience, the anchor point for the antenna is directly above that, meaning that the antenna is pretty close to the computer. Why I didn’t have this problem on 20m, but rather on 40 and 10, I don’t know. I guess that’s a mystery for another day.

At any rate, not wanting to screw around with ferrite cores on the computer speaker wires just yet, I decided to hang the dipole horizontally. This cured the problem, and I was able to operate a little in the Sweepstakes.

By this time, it was 11:00 am. With an e-mail from a fellow FISTS member describing the protocol, I jumped right in. The first couple of QSOs, I really bungled the exchange, but the operators were gracious enough to stick with me. I appreciated that.

Over the course of the next 45 minutes or so, I made nine contacts. A couple of times, the ops on the other end couldn’t believe the single-digit contact numbers I gave them and asked me to repeat. I got a chuckle out of that.

My signal was never the strongest on the band, but at first, if I could hear them, I could work them. About noon, however, something changed and I couldn’t raise anyone. Very strange. It looked like the power was going out, but it just wasn’t reaching anyone. After about 45 minutes of that, I gave up.

At any rate, I learned a few things about contesting:

  • I need a lot more practice if I plan on doing this again.
  • It might be a good idea to get a memory keyer to prevent wear and tear on the hand.

And, finally, put up the antenna the weekend before the contest!

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A Tip For Using the Autek VA1

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In the last entry, I mentioned not being able to tune the antenna for an SWR lower than 1.5:1. Well, it struck me last night as I was falling asleep why this was so. When calculating the SWR, the Autek VA1 assumes that you’re using a 50 ohm feedline. D’oh!

Fortunately, the Autek allows you to change that setting. You can program it to a number of different values from 25 ohms up to 450 ohms. Now, I’ll just have to remember to do that when working with RG-59 or ladder line or whatnot.

Fun With Antennas

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I got back on the shortwave bands in August, putting up a 20m dipole. While 20m is fun, I’ve wanted to try out some of the other bands, too. When I was a kid, I used to work 40m a lot, especially late at night. So, I decided to put up a 40m dipole.

I’m lucky in that I have a number of trees to use as an antenna support. While there’s not quite enough space to string an 80m dipole, I guesstimated that a 40m antenna would fit quite nicely.

So, I mail-ordered a bunch of stuff from RadioWorks. The stuff was very nice quality, but I was a little miffed that some of the prices were higher than advertised. I understand that prices can change, but they really should make an effort to update the ads they run in QST and other magazines. It looks to me like they haven’t been updated for more than a year.

At any rate, I got all the parts, and in rummaging through my junk boxes came across a 1:1 balun that someone had given me. I built the dipole using that balun instead of the RadioWorks balun that I’d just purchased. The antenna wire I bought is that fancy, flexible stuff. As advertised, it was very easy to work with, and looks to be quite strong, too. I also put together a 100′ RG 59 cable.

So, Saturday afternoon I get out into the backyard and string it up. Using the Autek VA1 antenna analyzer, I adjust the length for the lowest SWR I can manage. Oddly, it doesn’t seem as though I can get it much lower than about 1.5:1, but that’s OK. It should still work. (More about this later.)

Finally, I get the thing up in the air, and hurry down to the shack to give it the smoke test. I check the SWR again with the Autek, and it looks pretty good. I connect it to my rig–an Icom IC-735–and tune around for a clear frequency. Finally, I put the power to it, and adjust the internal SWR meter.

Wow. The SWR looks even better than it did with the Autek. I send out a few Vs, and then my wife comes rushing downstairs. “”You’re coming in loud and clear,”” she says, “”over the computer speakers! AND you’re making the garage door go up and down, to boot!””

Yipes. I didn’t have this problem with the 20m dipole at all, and I thought a balun was supposed to help reduce RFI.

At this point, it was almost dinnertime, so I just pulled the plug on the rig and decided to sleep on things. It’s too bad, too, because I had wanted to make a few contacts in the CW Sweepstakes Contest. Oh well.

My Icom IC-735

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The rig I use on the HF bands is the Icom IC-735. I like it a lot, and while it doesn’t have some of the features found in the newer rigs, such as DSP or spectrum display, I really don’t feel the need to upgrade at this time.

The receiver is very good, and it puts out about 100W, which is sufficient for most operation. I also really like the break-in keying.

Having said that, it does have a few quirks. Several years ago, the backlight on the display quit and the power on-off switch is now intermittent. Anyone else out there have this problem? If so, is it an easy fix?

CQ CQ CQ de KB6NU

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My grandparents were responsible for getting me into ham radio. They had an old Philco console with an AM band, a shortwave band, and a built-in record player sitting in their basement. I used to love to go over there and listen to shortwave broadcasts from the BBC, Radio Canada, and all the other SW broadcasters of that era. The shortwave band included the 31m and 19 m broadcast bands as well as the 20m ham band.

One day while tuning from the 31m band to the 19m band, I asked my dad what those stations were that were sending Morse code. He replied, “Oh, those are ham radio operators,” and explained a little bit about amateur radio. As the radio did not have a BFO, I couldn’t really copy the CW or the sideband phone signals, but I still thought it was pretty cool that you could actually set up your own transmitter and make contact with stations all over the world.

It took me a while–mostly because our family didn’t know any amateur radio operators–but I finally obtained my first ham in 1971. In fact, my first license was dated July 16, 1971–the date of my sixteenth birthday. My first call sign was WN8KTZ.

I operated from the basement of my parents house, first using a Heathkit DX-60 transmitter with a Hammarlund HQ101 receiver. I soon upgraded both my license and my station, becoming WB8KTZ and buying and building a Heathkit HW101. My antenna was a Hy-Gain 14AVQ vertical.

College put a damper on my amateur radio activities, although I still operated from time to time. After receiving my BSEE from the University of Detroit, it was off to Sunnyvale, CA. My first job out of college was with Amdahl Corporation, then manufacturing a line of IBM-compatible mainframe computers. Being a recent graduate, I didn’t have much money for a place, so we ended up in at one-bedroom apartment. There wasn’t much space for antennas, and I wasn’t on the air at all from that QTH.

My immediate supervisor was Dave Roznar, W6TGE. Soon after starting there, we both decided to upgrade to Advanced class. We blew off work one day, took the train up to the San Francisco FCC office, where we both passed our Advanced written exam. That’s how I became KB6NU.

In light of the fact, that they are no longer issuing Advanced class tickets, I’m thinking of keeping mine for the duration. My goal is to become the last living Advanced class licensee in the US.

Despite having been licensed for so long (I even qualify for QCWA!), I really haven’t been all that active over the years. While in California, I lived in apartments and condos, and not being an antenna genius, I never could seem to get an antenna to work very well. When I moved back to Michigan, I just never got motivated to get back on the low bands. I bought an HT and worked the repeaters, but that never seemed like “real” ham radio to me.

Fun on Field Day
Now, however, I’ve seen the light.

What got me started was taking part in the ARROW 2002 Field Day. To be honest, I wasn’t going to go at all. I was feeling a little guilty about not helping set up, and Sundays are when I usually go bicycling (my other big avocation).

That Sunday, however, I was feeling lazy and it was really hot. So, I opted to go to Field Day instead. The first guy I met when I got there was Mark W8FSA, then president. He had been there most of the night and was just eating some breakfast. When he finished his bagel and coffee, he said, “Well, you didn’t come to hear me chatter. Let’s do some operating.”

He had set up his Kenwood transceiver in a trailer that someone had towed out to the site. He first suggested that we try 20m phone. The only problem he said was that the G5RV antenna that he had connected to the rig wasn’t really working all that well on 20m and the antenna tuner didn’t seem to be much help. After a fair amount of fiddling, he finally got the antenna tuned, but it was quickly apparent that we weren’t putting out much of a signal. We made a few contacts, but more often than not, stations we called did not come back to us.

That’s when I suggested we try CW. Neither of us had done much CW operating lately, but I reasoned that we’d have more success with our poor signal on CW than phone. Mark was kind of hesitant, but I said, “What the heck. We may not be the best CW ops, nor are we the most experienced contesters, but it will be fun.”

After prodding him a little more, he finally agreed. I went off to find a key. When I got back, he’d already gotten the rig tuned up on 15m (our other HF station was working 20m CW). We connected up the key and started tuning around. We soon found a station calling CQ FD.

“Call him,” I said, wanting to give Mark first honors. He pushed the key over to me and said, “You do it.” So I called and the guy came right back to me. How cool! It was the first CW contact I’d made in years. It took me a little while to figure out the CW contest protocol, but soon I felt pretty comfortable with it, and we started making contacts. If we could hear them, they generally could hear us. We were really rusty, though. Sometimes after we’d made a contact, we’d have to listen for a while to make sure we got the other station’s call right.

I’d like to say that we racked up hundreds of points that morning, but by the time we got on CW, it was already noon, so we only had a couple hours left. And because I wasn’t the most experienced contester, I only called stations that I heard calling CQ. All in all, I made 24 contacts from noon to 2 pm. Not a stellar performance, but it was a lot of fun.

Back on the Low Bands
That experience has prompted me to get back on the low bands. I dug out my Icom IC735, which had been languishing in the closet since I moved two and a half years ago, and found the box containing my antenna parts. Fortunately, I had enough wire and coax to build a 20m dipole. Consulting an old Handbook, I cut the elements so that the antenna would resonate about 14050 kHz. To install the antenna, I attached a pulley to my house about 25 feet up. The other end I attached to an obliging tree in my backyard. The length of RG-59 coax I had was just long enough to make it into the shack.

Now, as I’ve said, I’m no genius when it comes to antennas, so I was pleasantly surprised when the SWR was low enough to not blow the finals in my rig. It wasn’t resonant on 14050, but close enough, so I began tuning around for a CQ. The first station I heard was XE2AHN. I called him, and he came back. My first HF contact in years was a DX contact!

I’ve since filled up a page in my log book. Amazingly, almost half of the 30 contacts are DX contacts. I’ve worked Wales, Italy, Ukraine, Russia, England, Brazil, Colombia, and Spain. I’ve also worked a bunch of domestic stations, and chewed the rag with a couple of them. I’ve also joined FISTS, the International Morse Preservation Society. Seems like a pretty cool group. My FISTS number is 9342. My immediate goal is to improve my CW operating abilities enough to really rack up some points next year on Field Day.

Projects and Other Activities

  • I’m the treasure of the Arrow Communications Association. We operate several repeaters in Ann Arbor, MI; our 2m repeater is on 146.96(-) MHz. We also hold classes and volunteer license examinations. We’d love to have you as a member if you’re in the area.
  • I’m doing a little research into the Internet Radio Linking Project and what it would take to get our repeater linked up. I think it would be really cool to talk in on 146.96 and talk to someone in New Zealand or Great Britain.
  • The ARROW is now in discussion with the Hands-On Museum to set up a station at the museum to teach people about ham radio. If you’d be interested in helping with this project, please e-mail me and I’ll put you in touch with the right people.
  • I built a 20m Wilderness Radio SST QRP rig. I hope to take this out on a bike tour sooner or later.
  • I also need to work on some kind of multi-band antenna before the winter. I’d like to work 40m as well as perhaps 30m and 10m.