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Announcing the addition of an Elecraft K3 to the shack. I've had it for a few weeks and so far my impression is quite favorable.

This is a useful site for HF propagation reports and explanations.

#hf propagation #sunspot cycle #ham radio #solar storms

The K9AY loop system is said to be as good or better than beverages in a lot of cases and it takes up far less space. See the original article by K9AY here.

I will be experimenting with such a system in the near future as soon as the poison oak I caught on my last antenna building expedition heals and I build the steering/preamp kit I purchased.

#k9ay loop #ham radio #receiving loop antenna

RTTY contesting is fun!

Thanks to the advice of Dennis, KT8X, I installed MTTY and played around in the BARTG RTTY contest a few weeks ago and also the WPX RTTY this past weekend. My impressions:

It's fun in a similar way to CW

The noise is more grating on the ears/psyche than CW

People do seem to run some nice rate on RTTY

Most of all I found it entertaining to observe the various strategies that different stations used to maximize the intelligibility of the exchange. Some did things like separate repetitions of the serial with a dash, others sent it 3 times, etc.

Also, the timing of calling CQ and waiting seems to be very different than with CW or phone -- some stations barely wait at all for callers and other wait a very long time.

After the contest, the audio isolation transformers I ordered arrived. Until next time!

#ham radio #contesting #rtty

I added an RF speech processor to the station along with the amp. It appears to require some subtle adjustment to sound just right, but it appears to work well. I felt like my audio was punchy and clear after I adjusted the passband knob counterclockwise a bit.

I even got one unsolicited report of "Excellent Audio" after the passband adjustment.

#tentec #rf speech processor #ham radio

I recently purchased an AL-80B. As a kid I used to chat with Jim, V31BB in Belize and occasionally listen to his MFJ "Junk Net". Jim had a fascinating personality and a big signal, and was always willing to take a break from the pileup to recommend books to me, etc. It was quite a thrill to meet him in Dayton, etc.

In spite of the warnings I'd heard about Ameritron amps, I did some research and decided that the AL-80B would be a nice affordable amp to help get the station off the ground. Most of the stations I operated at years ago had automatic tuning Alpha amps, so I never really learned how to tune one, so I'm learning now. It doesn't seem all that bad, though it seems to take an eternity.

Initial results? I was able to get through a variety of pileups on 40m last night with the first call... I guess gain is gain (on transmit, anyway) whether it comes from an amazing antenna or an amp.

#3-500z,#linear amplifiers,#ameritron #hf #v31bb #al-80b

Wow, I just read a fascinating article about curtain antennas written by W8JI. It turns out, curtain arrays offer the most gain per acre of any kind of antenna. The main reason they haven't been popular among amateurs is probably because they can't be rotated.

But W8JI has decided to build a massive 80/40m curtain aimed toward Europe. It's an amazing work of engineering, and he explains the theory at great length in the lined article above.

It turns out he's written about a lot of other types of antennas and debunked some popular myths. Per his advice I'm going to attempt to replace the 40m delta loop I put up with a 20/40m lazy H. Not only does the lazy H offer fairly significant gain over a dipole, but it has a fantastic name as well.

#lazy h,#w8ji curtain antenna #ham radio #antenna design

I thought I'd replace my old econo-keyer with a new one... but it's just not worth the $60 that MFJ charges for it (this is something whose price should have gone down in the past 12 years, not up) I bought an Arduino and loaded the Iambic Keyer sketch published in QEX magazine on it. It worked fairly well, but without a suitable enclosure the keyer was very sensitive to RFI from the nearby transmitter.

So I began researching and discovered the K1EL WinKeyer. It's a full featured iambic memory keyer that comes with an interface to connect it to your PC. I bought the WinKeyer USB (I got the HV version which seems to be the only version sold at present).

The device comes as a kit, and I had to buy a soldering iron, etc., to build it. I hadn't soldered in over ten years, but the kit went together extremely easily. All the parts fit perfectly and the enclosure is also a perfect fit.

The moment of truth came when I plugged it in. I first tested it in standalone mode, since my windows PC is actually VirtualBox running under Linux, and I was afraid the USB setup might be a bit convoluted. So without plugging it in to USB, I powered it up. It worked! I noticed that it seemed more responsive than the Arduino keyer, and it came set to Iambic B mode, which I prefer.

Next I followed the instructions for setting up the USB interface. I had to update VirtualBox to include the USB2 expansion pack, but after that it worked! The keyer has lots of settings to fine tune dit and dah length, memories, etc.

Bottom line: This is the best keyer I've used and the price is a steal compared to other keyers available. A must have for the CW enthusiast and a very accessible kit.

#ham radio #cw #keyers #k1el #winkeyer #winkeyer usb

It turns out the TenTec Corsair has superb receiver performance. Take a look at the chart here and explanation here.

I think the annoying sqare-wave CW sidetone is probably the main reason more hams didn't recognize this amazing piece of equipment's true merits. Keep in mind that the Corsair was made in the 1970s, decades before most of the other radios on the list.

The long wire loop is a marriage of the venerable long wire antenna and a horizontal loop. Each antenna has both advantages and disadvantages, but as shown by the results of this theoretical study, when combined together you get all the advantages of both and the disadvantages of neither

Setting up a station.

After over a decade away from ham radio I decided to set up my station again. This blog is a journal of my efforts to set up the station, etc. That's all for now.

My recommendation to anyone trying to set up a station on a budget would be to go on eBay and buy a TenTec Corsair or used Elecraft K2.

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