Ham Radio - A contact sport

Command Technologies, the HF amplifier company recently acquired by tower manufacturer ANWireless, has been sold to Palstar. So Command Technologies is now a division of Palstar Inc located in Ohio.

This could be a better fit for all companies involved. I’m guessing it will allow Dan Simmonds and ANWireless to focus on their outstanding line of self-supporting towers.

On paper, Command Technologies and Palstar would seem to be a good fit. Ohio-based Palstar had heavy duty tuners, wattmeters and dummy loads, but did not have a line of amplifiers.  Hopefully, this deal works out for the companies and customers involved.

Thanks to Dan for the heads-up on this!

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I’ve been using RufzXP from time to time in order to keep/build in CW copy speed.  It’s a fun way to challenge yourself, build your Morse Code skills and track your progress along the way.

I typically fire up RufzXP (or another CW program), at least once during my lunch hour and run through a practice round. This is only about 5 minutes or so a day, but it’s been a good routine. Unfortunately, my desk is the home of many distractions - the phone inevitably rings during a round, an email arrives, a coworker stops by to ask a question… The results have not been good.

When I travel for work, my flights become like a long lunch hour… a mix of doing some work, reading something not related to work, and at least one run through RufzXP.

Today, I’m returning from Connecticut (my 11th trip there this year). During my obligatory run through RufzXP, I beat my high score by nearly 1000 points (about 10%). My score was 12,746 and a top speed of 216 CPM (which is 43 words per minute). Not a world record by any stretch, but a decent improvement for me. In fact, in the “senior males” category (men 40 years old and older!) that score moves me to #169 out of 349 participants.  

This is the second time I’ve had an all-time high score while in-flight. It sounds strange, but I really get on a roll when I’m at 35,000 ft in an airplane.

I can’t account for this… I’m sure I’m more focused while on a plane. There are also fewer interruptions - and the possibility of an interruption is reduced (apart from the flight attendants and drink carts). 

My only complaint about RufzXP - why is a 40 year old male considered “senior”? Ouch.

With my XYL and daughter both busy this afternoon, I spent a couple hours playing in the WAEDC SSB contest (that’s the Worked All Europe DX Contest) sponsored by the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC).

The idea behind this unique contest is for non-Europeans to contact European stations. Multipliers for non-Europeans are the European DXCC entities.  Europeans use DXCC entities and call districts of the large countries (like the US).  Then throw in a country multiplier bonus depending on the band (4*number of countries worked on 80 meters, 3*# of countries worked on 40 meters, 2*# countries worked on 20/15/10 meters).

As if that wasn’t confusing enough, they introduce the concept of QTCs. What are QTCs? A report of a previous QSO back to a European station (up to 10) which then counts towards the number of QSOs. 

You can see in my scoring example, that I had 3,422 points in the WAE contest - and gave out 19 “QTC” points.  Mostly search and pounce effort for me this afternoon.

Our long drought without a sunspot appears to be over.

In case you don’t follow space weather conditions, August marked the first calendar month completed without a single sunspot since 1913.  This long streak of days without a sunspot made for some poor HF (high frequency radio) propagation conditions.  While it was certainly possible to work DX (make long distance contacts) using HF radio without sunspots - your probability of a successful “QSO” was greatly reduced.

The HamLinks Ham Radio Toolbar just updated its radio propagation data to show:

A:3 K:0 SF:67 SS:12

That “SS:12″ means a “sunspot number” of 12… This sunspot number value is a calculated number that takes into account several variables - but it does indicate that there is at least one spot on ole Sol.

It’s only one small spot - but it is an indication that cycle 24 is finally here. Some had argued that the cycle had already hit bottom, but it’s nice to see this particular run of sunspot-free days come to an end.

Whew! It’s about time.

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Recovery from the two lightning strikes to my tower is nearly complete. Over the past few weekends, we were able to get the Cushcraft XM-240, 4 element SteppIR, Prosistel PST 61D and Icom IC-746 back on the air. It was a sizable effort (with many thanks to Dave/KIØQ for the tower work and others like my father-in-law, my XYL and Bill, KØKT for helping on the ground).

While there are still a few more improvements to make to the overall system (lowband antennas, more grounding, etc.), I’m generally back on the air. First QSO was with BT1OY (Olympic special event station in Beijing) on 20 meters SSB.

Repair costs were roughly $1170 for the SteppIR control box (replaced), Prosistel control box (repaired), Icom IC746 (repaired), and DC power supply (replaced).  That does not include Dave’s time on the tower.  Still waiting to hear from our insurance guy on what would be covered. Thankfully, no damage to anything in the house other than ham gear. I suppose that it could have been much worse.

The HF ham radio contest and DX communities have a new radio to ponder - the Icom IC-7600. Icom displayed the IC-7600 over the weekend at the Tokyo hamfest.  The speculation is that this rig will go into production within a year or so and will be the successor to the Icom IC-756 Pro III. 

The IC-7600 apparently feature dual-watch (unlike the Icom IC-7700), three  roofing filters, a USB port on the front and rear, separate RX antenna port, and the wide TFT display used in the IC-7700. 100W.

Looks like the IC-7600 will be a nice rig - but we will have to wait some time (Dayton 2009) before we see them in the states.

The ham radio contest community has been debating the impact of CW Skimmer since its inception.  Alex, VE3NEA, really seems to have let a genie out of a bottle with this magic Morse Code decoder. The issue doesn’t seem to be that it merely decodes CW. There have been CW decoders on the market for years.

The issue is that it can (with a wideband SDR radio receiver) decode almost the entire band at once - using some slick DSP programming techniques!  My first reaction was - wow, what a great piece of software. Since, I’ve gone back and forth on whether it should be allowed or rather, as the CQ WW rules are now defined, allowed - but it puts the operator into the “Assisted” class.

It’s been an interesting debate (that often delves into “what’s next - QSO robots that run the whole contest without me?”) - but now it’s time to see just how it will impact the world of contesting.

What do you think about the use of CW Skimmer in ham radio contests?

Another evening of working on restoring my Prosistel PST 61D. After removing the MOVs from the potentiometer, I plugged the rotator into the control box on the bench.  I could turn the rotator clockwise and counterclockwise, but the readings were not accurate. Time to plug the controller into my laptop and find out if there were any settings issues.

This whole process highlighted for me the things I like least about the Prosistel Rotator (an otherwise very good piece of amateur radio equipment).

1. The software provided by ProSisTel to test/calibrate/adjust the rotator is awful. It might be fine for a hardware developer, production guy or repair tech - but to provide software like this to end users is not good. My beefs with the Prosistel rotator software are:
   • The user interface is bad. Really bad.  Data field range checking issues, terrible color scheme, buttons with labels like
     “cmd L” (below) - this program needs help.
     
   • Error messages are confusing, along the lines of “Communications timeout on <header>”. 
   • It only provides access to 4 com ports.  Getting the Prosistel rotator controller to communicate with my PC is  a chore. 
   • The latest version I could find on-line is over 3 years old - which would be acceptable if it lived up to expectations.
2. The documentation has a lot of room for improvement.  It was revised to include an error that I complained about (pot resistance values were incorrect leading me to some extra headaches when I first installed my PST61D).
   
   
3. We had to remove the rotor from the tower and pull the bottom cover off to get to the MOVs - which had to be removed. You could argue that the MOVs saved the pot - but I already had a ICE rotator line surge suppressor in place which might have taken the blow instead.  Anyway, when the MOVs blow, it would be nice to remove them without taking the rotator off of the tower.
   
4. Slippage on the mast-rotator coupling.  We did not “pin” the mast to the rotator, but we may have to change that.  I did notice a fair amount of slippage due to strong winds. Apparently, I’m not the only one who has seen some mast slippage in a Prosistel rotator.

Now, that said, this still seems to be a very good rotator that has stood up to the challenge. I just need to refine the installation. I can live with the sloppy config software and documentation (two things that I should rarely need to use).  I was eventually able to sort out my serial/coms issues and get the rotator back on track (with the help of my Black Box DB9 Pocket Tester).

Now, with all of that said, would I buy another Prosistel PST61D? 

At this point, I still think that it is the best choice for my application. I want something strong up there - and this rotator has the best specs on the market in its price range…

In my mind, the Prosistel PST61D still compares favorably to other rotators (HyGain, M2, AlfaSpid, Yaesu) in this class.

PPCMorse, the Morse Code trainer for PDAs, has been updated to version 1.2.73.  Anyone with a PocketPC or modern WinCE based PDA can use PPCMorse to sharpen their CW skills prior to the fall ham radio contesting season (aka radiosport). Amateur radio contest regulars (and DX enthusiasts) know that Morse Code is alive and well.

The new version of PPCMorse fixes a strange bug that would prevent the number 6 from playing properly on some PDAs.  Needless to say, I am glad to have a fix for this irritating glitch.

I’m now considering a future release of PPCMorse with additional features. Let me know if you are interested.

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We spent all day on Saturday taking down the rotator, antennas and assessing the damage done by lightning to my amateur radio station. In short, Dave (KIØQ) spent much of the day on the tower and Rick (N0CFL), my father-in-law, XYL and I worked ground crew.

Weather was nearly perfect (no wind, ~82 degrees) and we were able to get everything safely on the ground without a major incident.

What we learned…

• Prosistel PST-61D rotator motor works (12Vdc will turn the motor) but the heading indicator (pot) was giving bad readings (~91 ohms). I was able to open the bottom rotator cover and found 4 fried MOVs (see pic).  Per instructions from Jay @ ArraySolutions, I have cut these off of the potentiometer and the readings are now normal. Lightning protection for the rotator will continue to be the ICE rotator line transient suppressor mounted at the tower base.
• The 4 element SteppIR could not be tested as the replacement control box has not yet arrived from the factory. However, we did notice deterioration of the rubber coupling “boots”.  Apparently, SteppIR had a supplier issue with these that has now been resolved. For some period, there were antennas shipped with these rubber (plumbing) couplers that were prone to UV damage.  I need to replace these - and I need to test the antenna itself.
• The AlphaDelta DX-B 1/4 wave sloper was removed.  Again, I had low expectations for this antenna and was never really happy with it (even though it only cost me $15).  I now have the parts for my 80 meter and 160 meter inverted Ls.
• The Cushcraft XM-240 two element 40 meter yagi  still needs to be thoroughly inspected and tested. It’s now sitting on two sawhorses over the SteppIR. SWR does not look good - but there could be many reasons for that, including the MJF 259 antenna analyzer issues from nearby broadcast antennas that I saw last fall and proximity to ground.

There is certainly a lot of work ahead, but thanks to some great help from some local hams, I now have a better idea of what needs to be done.