VOTA

Random thoughts: Listening to pirate radio, unused parts, operating W1AW/8

October 28, 2023 By Dan KB6NU 3 Comments

I like listening to pirate radio. Some of the shows can be very creative. This evening, for example, Thunder Chicken Radio broadcast some Halloween music and Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds. And, in addition to that, they sent some SSTV images as well. How cool is that?

HF Underground

For some reason, pirates love to broadcast during Halloween season, so this really is the time to listen. As to what frequencies to listen to, pirates seem to favor a small band just below the 40-meter amateur band. Pirate radio aficionados often spot stations when they hear them on the HF Underground Bulletin Board.

Thunder Chicken Radio was on 6935 kHz tonight. Last night, I heard WENO on 6930 kHz. Thunder Chicken was broadcasting USB, WENO LSB.

Now that I have a radio with two receivers, I can watch for pirates as I operate on the amateur radio bands. I’ve learned several things about how to manipulate the two receivers and the bandscope by listening to pirate radio stations.

Unused parts

Like many hams, I have a stock of parts that I’ve acquired over the years. They often come in handy, but it seems that more often than not, I don’t have to exact thing that I need, so end up buying even more.

It’s too bad that experimenters couldn’t have some kind of clearinghouse where we could share parts amongst ourselves. Unless it was a local kind of thing, though, I guess shipping charges would negate any advantages accrued by sharing.

Operating W1AW/8

This week, I operated W1AW/8 on 40-meter CW for a total of 100 minutes as part of the Volunteers on the Air effort. I managed to work 48 stations. I thought that there might be more activity, as I was operating in the evening, but perhaps at this point of the year, VOTA isn’t such a big deal.

At any rate, if you contacted me, thanks for the Q!

Operating Notes: Ice storm takes me off the air

February 27, 2023 By Dan KB6NU 4 Comments

Last week, I’d signed up to do a turn as W1AW/8 as part of the ARRL’s Volunteers on the Air operating event. I had planned to operate 40-meter CW on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. That was the plan, anyway.

On Tuesday, I simply forgot about operating. My bad.

On Wednesday, I wasn’t really sure how much I’d be able to operate because an ice storm started several hours before I was to begin my operations. I use a non-resonant, 80-meter doublet antenna on 40 meters, and when it gets wet or icy, the antenna can sometimes become untunable.

My 80-meter doublet antenna on Thursday morning.

After dinner, about 6:30 pm, I looked out at the antenna and noticed that there was already some ice on both the elements and the feedline. Even so, I went down to the shack and was able to tune the antenna, so I started calling CQ. Almost immediately, I started getting calls, and the signals were almost all S9, so I thought this is going to go well.

While I was operating, I did notice the SWR vary from time to time, but I could usually adjust the tuning to get it back down to a reasonable value. About 8:00 pm, though, the SWR just went through the roof, and I had to shut down for the night. Overall, I made 80 contacts in about an hour and a half. That’s not a bad rate considering that I had to slow down for many operators, and I took some extra time to swap comments with operators that I knew.

Even though I had to quit operating, I was glad that our power remained on. This being such a bad storm, I thought there was a good chance our power would go out.

Thursday, the temperature rose into the mid-40s, and all the ice melted. I thought to myself that we were in the clear now, and I was looking forward to the evening session. Boy, was I wrong. Before I could get started, our power went out, and we became two of the hundreds of thousands of people who lost power here in Michigan.

The power was out for nearly 72 hours. My wife and I toughed it out in the house for the first two days, but it got so cold in the house, that we got a hotel room on Saturday night. I’m still not sure how we managed to do that with so many who were still without power in the Ann Arbor area on Saturday.

Fortunately, our power was restored on Sunday afternoon, and we’re once again warm and cozy here. And, I’m back on the air. We used to have very reliable power service here, but it has deteriorated quite a bit over the last 10 years. So much so, that some folks here in Ann Arbor are talking about setting up a municipal utility and dumping DTE Energy, the current provider. In either case, I’m thinking a generator might be my next purchase.