Shed Building Plans

I dont do a lot of amateur radio operating over the summer months with the exception of Field Day or the occasional Straight Key Sprint.  At some point in the early summer before Field Day I like to set up my portable station and do a shakedown operating session to make sure everything is working properly with my gear.

In past years I have set up at my fathers place up on the shores of Lake Erie or even simply out in my backyard.  This year I drug my station to the RoadQueens house and we threw up a wire antenna to a big tree in the yard. I set up the transceiver and telegraph key on her coffee table. 

That weekend a special event called the Museum Ships Weekend Event was going on and I hoped to log a contact with one or more stations participating.  I enjoy WW2 history and this event is full of it.  As a history buff and radio enthusiast I find it a very unique experience to communicate with other amateur operators aboard these old naval vessels sometimes even using the ships original radio equipment.  

My first contact was WW2IND.  Unfortunately the U.S.S. Indianapolis was sunk during the war so the club operating the event was set up near the ships memorial in the town the ship was named after.  It took a while to receive the QSL card in the mail that confirmed our radio contact but eventually it showed up as a pleasant surprise in my mail box.    

How the second contact came about was a real thrill.  After searching around the band a while listening for ship stations to call and not finding any I settled on a clear frequency to call CQ myself hoping to make contact with any ham station.  After my first call I was promptly answered by a loud and clear signal with the call sign WW2DEM.  Holy Cow! A World War Two destroyer had just answered my CQ call!

Old man winter still has us in his icy grip but Ive been keeping warm inside at the operating position at W8MDE.  In the last week Ive taken advantage of the multi-band capabilities of my backyard antenna and worked some DX.  Besides my regular log book of all the contacts I make I  keep a list of amateur stations I work located in other countries and Ive managed to add a few new ones to the list.

As of right now the 10-meter band or 28 MHz is my favorite slice of radio spectrum.  10-meters is a great band for low power long range communications.  Ive noticed every morning just after daybreak signals appear and quickly gain intensity as the band "opens".  It is most definitely hard to tear myself away from my rig to head into work for the day.

I have been mainly using the digital PSK modes to chase DX but Ive also made a few CW contacts using Morse Code radiotelegraphy.  

PSK-31     7.040 MHz      HI8MU     Domincan Republic*

PSK-31     7.040 MHz      EA2BJS    Zaragoza, Spain*

PSK-63     7.040 MHz      F5RHD     France*

PSK-63     7.040 MHz      EH5ANT  Denia, Spain*

PSK-31     7.040 MHz      IT9CCB     Siracusa, Italy*

CW             24.902 MHz    IS0BOY    Sardinia, Italy

PSK-31     28.120 MHz    IV3JER     Italy

PSK-31     28.120 MHz    F1PKH      France

CW             28.020 MHz    E79D        Bosnia Herzegovinia

CW             28.020 MHz    YN5SU     Nicaragua

PSK-31     14.070 MHz    HR1EPZ   Tegucigalpa, Honduras

PSK-31     28.120 MHz     UR5ZD     Pervomaisk, Ukraine

PSK-31     28.120 MHz     R3FO        Dmitrov, Russia

PSK-31     28.120 MHz     ON4BWI  Merksplas, Belgium

*For these contacts I was using the 66 end fed half wave wire.  As a resonant antenna at the 40 meter wavelength the wire works much better than the short Gap Eagle antenna.

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One day I happened upon amateur radio equipment manufacturer Palstar Inc. based right here in Ohio.  What caught my attention was two models of communication speakers made and sold by this company.  External speakers have been around as long as radio but since most modern ham transceivers have built in speakers I never gave the idea much thought.  As predominantly a CW and digital operator the tiny on board speaker of my Icom 718 always seemed to work fine.  If I am sitting down for an extra long session or weak signal copying I usually use a pair of headphones.

After reading a few favorable reviews of the speakers at eham.net I decided the smaller of the two units would fit my needs nicely.  At the time I had a couple of days until I would be operating in the Straight Key Century Clubs Weekend Sprint so I called up the company and purchased the SP30B.  The service I received from Palstar was excellent and the speaker arrived well packaged the Friday before the sprint.

Three different ways to connect your audio in.

The online reviews I read all had one thing in common and that is exceptional build quality.  Like any reasonable person I took this with a grain of salt but as soon as I lifted the speaker out of the box I noticed that indeed it was well built and heavy.

Heres a description from the Palstar website:

The Palstar SP30B shortwave speaker is a custom engineered shortwave radio speaker. To truly enjoy the radio listening experience, you need a high quality speaker.

After completing the R30A shortwave receiver to rave reviews among users, the Palstar team saw the need for a compact shortwave speaker that is tonally matched to the R30A and designed to put out clear, low-distortion reproduction of the frequency range of broadcast human speech.

The key to quality speaker sound is magnet size. The SP30B has an 8 Ohm speaker with a hefty 6 oz. magnet, a frequency response of 60 Hz to 8 kHz, and a 5 Watt power rating in a custom-built wooden cabinet (black or cherry). The SP30B is the speaker that will bring back good sound to your listening experience.

I chose the black cabinet to compliment the rest of my equipment which is also black and it does look great on my desk.  The real test though came when I found a patch cable in my spare parts and connected up the speaker to my rig.  I am truly impressed with the sound that comes out of the SP30B.  The natural background noise and harshness of the HF spectrum seemed to be reduced and the sounds I want to hear pop from the grill more clear and loud than I ever experienced before with my amateur gear.  The tone of received CW signals now have a much warmer and pleasant quality that really does enhance my listening.

Next I tuned in some amateur single side band voice transmissions and discovered sure enough this is where the speaker really shines.  Ive never been a fan of side band audio and the Donald Duck like sound of transmitted voice.  With the Palstars response tuned to the frequency range of human speech it was as if my receiver had been transformed.  The voices I heard had a clarity and warmth that the stock speaker in my radio cant even begin to touch.  I noted the same outcome later that night when I checked out the shortwave broadcast bands.
   

The joinery of the hardwood cabinet is very well done.

 Im very pleased with the performance of this new piece of gear and happy to support a local business. Had I known what I was missing in the audio department I would have bought this thing years ago.  The volume is plenty loud and if its turned up a bit I can easily hear Morse code signals or voice from anywhere in my house.  Kudos to Paul Hrivnak, N8PH the Captain of the Palstar ship and the rest of his crew.  Thanks guys for a great American made product.


   

I spent Fathers Day finishing up my 10 meter rotatable dipole antenna project for this years ARRL Field Day which is coming up in a couple weeks.  I wanted to change things up and try working a different band other than 40 meters where I have operated the past few Field Days.  The sun is putting out as many sunspots as its going to during this solar cycle so it has the 10 meter band coming open usually every day for world wide communication.  So this and the fact that our clubs field day location has a lack of trees for antenna supports I decided to focus on the shortest of the high frequency wavelengths.

This is the second homebrew antenna project Ive built since becoming a radio amateur in 2008 and I had a great time with it.  A dipole is a most basic type of antenna and is easy to build.  Dipoles are usually made of wire and strung up between two supports but aluminum tubing can be used for the elements which is what I used so the antenna would be self supporting.

Materials I gathered from my spare parts bin and local hardware store.  I also used a new to me vendor; DX Engineering, to supply some high quality saddle clamps for the mast to Lexan plate connection and fiberglass tubing for the mast.  DX Engineering is located here in Ohio so I can consider all my antenna components for this project locally sourced.  The Lexan sheeting was a scrap piece from work and I fabricated a small aluminum angled bracket to mount the coaxial connector.  The antenna elements are made from anodized aluminum tubing I got at the hardware store.  

   

The jumper wires are #14 braided copper with crimped and soldered connectors.  The white PVC pipe acts as a support sleeve for the aluminum antenna elements.  I drilled a small hole on each side so a stainless steel sheet metal screw can provide secure electrical contact between the jumper wire and the aluminum tubing.  The feed line attaches at the bottom of the bracket.  In the picture the connector is wrapped with self vulcanizing tape and a cable tie to weather proof it.  Shortly after taking the picture I placed a blob of RTV 100% silicon on the top of the coax socket to further protect the exposed solder joint.  The ground side of the dipole attaches via a ring terminal connected to one of the socket mounting screws.

The cool thing about half wavelength dipoles is that the physical length can be approximated by a simple formula:  468(ft) / frequency (MHz).  I wanted my antenna to be resonant on 28.050 MHz so 468 divided by 28.050 equals 16.684 feet. That number should be close to the overall length of the antenna.

I designed the antenna elements using 6 ft sections of tubing with a smaller diameter 3 foot section that telescopes into the bigger piece.  This allows me to adjust the length of the element legs in or out to set the point of resonance of the antenna just where I want it.

With the help of my antenna analyzer I noted the SWR then extended the ends a couple inches at a time and rechecked the antenna with the meter.  After repeating this process a few times I observed the low point of the SWR curve move right into the area of frequency I plan to operate.  I locked the element tips down tight with a small hose clamp.
   

Im sure most hams would agree the most exciting part about making your own antennas is hooking up the rig and seeing if one can actually make a contact using the homebrew equipment.  It was late in the afternoon when testing was complete and I headed inside to my operating position to hook up the antenna to my transceiver.

Right away I heard signals coming in so that was a good sign.  I set my dial to 28.076 MHz and sent out some CQ calls using the digital mode JT-65.  After a few tries with no response I looked for a station who was calling.  Up popped a ZL prefix station on the decode screen which I recognized as one from New Zealand. It took two tries and on the second go ZL4AD received my signal and we completed the quick JT-65 contact spanning 8,811 miles between us.  

With that as a first contact Im going to call this antenna project a success and I think the thing will work fine for making a few local stateside contacts during the Field Day event.

There is always something interesting going on at Recumbent Conspiracy Headquarters and this weekend it was the Straight Key Century Club Week End Sprint.  I took a few hours out of my busy weekend schedule and got on the air for some casual contesting.  Dividing my time up between three different sessions I made a few contacts starting on Saturday night; followed by a few more with my coffee Sunday morning, and later in the evening as the sprint wore down to the finishing time.

For July the theme of the sprint was "A Revolutionary Sprintathon"  Earlier this month America celebrated her Independence and to apply this to the sprint in an interesting way a bonus of 25 extra points could be won by establishing contact with stations in each of the original 13 colonies plus Britain and France.  I never made a connection across the pond but I ended up with 27 contacts in 19 different states eight of which were in one of the original thirteen.

*Original thirteen colonies.  Only one bonus of 25 points can be taken per colony.  Multiple contacts with other stations in the same colony do not count as additional bonuses.  Too bad to as I hit three different stations in Maryland.

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As often happens my mind experiences Morse Code overload and I need a break but Im still in the mood to make contacts with my ham radio.  During the sprint I did check for signals on 20 meters (14 MHz) and the band seemed uncharacteristically dead for some reason. On my way back down to 7 MHz I stopped and had a listen on the digital/CW only band 30 meters.  The amateur service is considered a secondary user on this interesting little sliver of radio spectrum between the frequencies of 10.000 and 10.150 MHz.  What this means is we can use the band for amateur activities as long as we do not interfere with the bands primary users which are probably made up of governmental, military or scientific services.

30 meters is a cool place to operate which shares propagation attributes of both the 40 meter and 20 meter bands which lie both above and below.  Because of our status as secondary users 30 meters is off limits for contesting so the band is a nice place to go for quiet low power experimentation and ragchews away from the traditional ham bands which can be a flurry of activity on busy contest weekends.

I could hear some radio teletype signals and see that their traces were quite strong on my band scope so I knew propagation was in good shape.  I set my transceiver to 10.140 MHz which is considered a PSK-31 "calling frequency" and sent out some CQs to see if anyone could hear me.  After sending out ten or fifteen calls I was just about to give up when a strong signal appeared in answer and I settled in for a nice conversation with an operator named Don in Peoria, Illinois.  

PSK-31 is a great mode for casual ragchewing and its a real bonus if you know your way around a keyboard.   The digital software in my laptop keys the transceiver into transmit and converts keystrokes of data into audible tones which are then sent out through space by my radio.  It really is amazing and what modern amateur radio is all about.  If you can type at all you can easily stay ahead of the buffer and watch your characters stream out in real time just as you can watch the incoming text appear on your monitor from the other operator. Instant messaging via high frequency radio waves.

On the screen of my laptop among other information provided by the digital program is what is called the "Receive Window"  In this area the incoming signals decoded by the software are displayed as text so the operator can see whats going on.  Outgoing text is also displayed in this window and unlike voice or CW (Morse Code) modes the software basically records both sides of the conversation.  This is an interesting and handy feature as it allows an operator to scroll back through a contact to find information or keep the conversation on track.  

People always ask what us hams talk about on our radios so here is a fine example.  I simply copied and pasted the whole QSO from the receive window and stuck it here on the blog.  I left it just as it was so a few little decode errors appear like typos in the text but over all the exchanges are pretty clear.

As usual radio-activity ebbs to its lowest over the summer months here at W8MDE.  Other interests like bike riding and maintenance on my yard keeps me outside while the weather is nice.  Ive not totally disregarded my station though and have a couple upgrades to discuss.

With autumn comes the shorter days and colder temperatures and thats when I like to start concentrating on radio operations.

Not long into my ham radio career I joined the SKCC or Straight Key Century Club. Through this outstanding club I ran into a  couple Morse Code radio-telegraphy enthusiasts who happen to run a machine shop called LnR Precision located in Randleman, North Carolina.  Back in 2010 LnR purchased the Par End Fedz line of wire antennas from Par Electronics and has been manufacturing them since.

"LNR will be far better equipped to manufacture and expand the EndFedz line of antennas" and "will have much larger manufacturing capabilities and thus amateurs will benefit from much faster order filling. I wish to thank the many thousands of amateurs who have bought EndFedz and whom I think of as friends." - Dale W4OP

A couple weeks ago I installed a brand new antenna from LnR called the EF-Quad.  This is a unique wire antenna that can operate on four bands; 10, 15, 20 and 40 meters with a 200 watt power limit.  My average power usage is about 50 watts or less for most of my operating so theres no danger of burning out the matchbox of the antenna where the coax feedline attaches.

Early in the spring I cut down the two Maple trees in the back of my yard because they had grown too big for the property.  Because severe storms seem to be becoming the norm I decided not to push my luck with the potential damage risk the big trees posed and had them removed.  I wasnt sure how I was going to like loosing my backyard shade but Ive adjusted and found the benefits far outweigh the negative.  I now enjoy a full view of the beautiful night sky and this fall I wont be spending hours raking up leaves. My neighbor was even happy with my decision because he noticed he was no longer constantly cleaning out small twigs, leaves and other detritus from his swimming pool.

The one problem I did have to overcome was loosing my antenna support.  In the meantime I simply pounded in an 8 metal T-post and tied off the antenna support cord to it.  This changed the orientation of the wire antenna into what we call a sloper in ham radio but showed little or no change to the performance of the antenna I had up at the time.

For a more permanent solution the RoadQueen helped me sink a 16 treated four by four in the corner of the lot to attached the support cord and raise the far end of the antenna up into the air a little bit higher than the T-post.    
 

The matchbox up on the tower is at a height of about 38 and the end insulator is now at 17 above ground.  Ham radio antennas work best when theyre up as high as possible and in the clear.


At the top of the post I screwed in a stainless steel eye bolt along with stainless carabiner and pulley to make it quick and easy to lower the antenna for tuning or other maintenance.  At about the four foot level I screwed in a cleat to make fast the support line.


The antenna was cut nearly perfect and was working fine right away.  I made some contacts on 15, 20  and 40 meters but have not yet found an opportunity with 10 meters open to try that band.

Local stateside stations within about 1,000 miles boom in loud and clear due to the relatively low height of the wire.  Working DX is not out of the question either and I had some good fun contacting a few foreign stations using the EF-Quad.

 

Heres a short blurb I wrote about the key for my QRZ.com bio page:

"This key is the latest addition to my key collection and is my first choice if I wish to send with a hand key.  The Pro-Pump was built by LnR Precision of North Carolina, USA.  Its design was inspired by and closely resembles the legendary Amplidan Professional Marine Key sadly no longer in production.

I enjoy straight key sending. I have tried many different keys and in my opinion the long lever design is superior when it comes to hand keys. Sure Ive only been pounding the brass for a short six years and was never formally trained as a radio officer but I appreciate quality tools and fine craftsmanship. I know it when I see it.  The precise and solid feel of the Pro-Pump allows me to send the cleanest code of all my keys. I use "arm off the table" European style of sending which I believe yields the most crisp and accurate code. Prior to acquiring this key I used the SKCC version  of the NT9K Pro-Pump.  That key was virtually the same but with highly polished brass and a decorative painted base. I prefer the more business like appearance of the Pro-Pump Standard model. A very handsome addition to my shack."

Last week I put the key on the air and had a blast participating in the 2-hour Straight Key Sprint held once a month by the SKCC.  These short weeknight sprints are great fun and the speeds are a comfortable 15 to 20 words per minute just right for hand key brass pounding.