What did you do in the shack today?

ToddDubya said:
Enjoy ;)

I understand the basics of the Smith chart, but it's not the easiest thing for me to use. I'd love to learn so if you have any references beyond "This is what a Smith Chart is", send 'em my way.

My analyzer will give the R+jZ (if on the laptop, as I mouse over) so I use that as I move across the SWR chart to see if I'm being misled. Ultimately the proof is in the pudding. I'm hoping to get this out this weekend and see how it does. Obviously it's compromised, but after working Europe on a ham stick mounted to a length of rebar jammed in the yard next to the house under the power lines with no radials I have adopted a "let's just see how it does" approach.

Fun story, last night after 15m was closed I worked two stations SSB in Japan. QRZ tells me they were 6,666 miles away. 1/4 wave vertical for 40m on the third harmonic with "too-short" radials when the band was completely quiet. No way it should have worked, but I could hear one clearly, and had a downright proper QSO with him. The other, a YL with a soft voice, less so. She sounded hot, though.

View attachment 796355
Click to expand...

Is this an actual plot of your two antennas?
 
Yes. One antenna, two different lengths of coax. It's a random wire, so not resonant. "Random"

I just ran a test on it and activated a nearby POTA park. Mistakes were made. 1) I brought a QRP rig, which would have been fine but 2) I didn't have cell service and couldn't spot myself. So when nobody answered me I couldn't get them to spot me either. I hunted instead and got enough to count it, but it didn't go how I planned. I got good signal reports from all but one, including Italy. 3) It was chilly and made chillier by the steady breeze off the pond.

But after a year and a half of playing POTA I finally activated my own park. I would have liked to get the actual experience of being the "DX" station, but that didn't work out. Next time QRO and/or a park with service.

And, the tuner for the FT-818 had no problem tuning it up on 60-10. I didn't get contacts on all of those bands, but it tuned lickety split.
 
I also printed a desk stand for my FT70D today. I kicked it off while I headed out for my "quick" POTA activation and it was ready when I got home. FT70D doesn't fit, but a Baofeng does. I like it so I might see if I can sand/file it a hair where it rubs.

In the meantime I printed a mic hanger to attach to my FTdx10 using one of the speaker mount holes. I'm gonna have to make a few more of these. It'll be real handy on my other Yaesus.

1694834031405.png

Works like a charm.

1694834170387.png
 
I think these are next on my list. They take about 5 hours or more to print so I didn't kick them off tonight. I like that they slip over the FT-818 so you can use them or not. Or use one and not the other. If you've ever used an FT-817/818 they sit very low.
1694835747727.png

www.thingiverse.com

FT-817 front & back by akhenakh

Yaesu FT-817 stand
www.thingiverse.com www.thingiverse.com
 
ToddDubya said:
Yes. One antenna, two different lengths of coax. It's a random wire, so not resonant. "Random"

I just ran a test on it and activated a nearby POTA park. Mistakes were made. 1) I brought a QRP rig, which would have been fine but 2) I didn't have cell service and couldn't spot myself. So when nobody answered me I couldn't get them to spot me either. I hunted instead and got enough to count it, but it didn't go how I planned. I got good signal reports from all but one, including Italy. 3) It was chilly and made chillier by the steady breeze off the pond.

But after a year and a half of playing POTA I finally activated my own park. I would have liked to get the actual experience of being the "DX" station, but that didn't work out. Next time QRO and/or a park with service.

And, the tuner for the FT-818 had no problem tuning it up on 60-10. I didn't get contacts on all of those bands, but it tuned lickety split.
Click to expand...


Clearly, the plot with the purple lines on the Smith Chart is indicating better, tighter grouping in the middle, thus better "energy transfer" from that antenna/feedline combination to your radio at whatever frequency is represented at that point. If this was done with the same antenna, but different lengths of coax, it suggests that your coax is playing a large role in radiating your signal.

Man, that orange plot had some wild swings between inductance and capacitance.
 
n1oty said:
Clearly, the plot with the purple lines on the Smith Chart is indicating better, tighter grouping in the middle, thus better "energy transfer" from that antenna/feedline combination to your radio at whatever frequency is represented at that point. If this was done with the same antenna, but different lengths of coax, it suggests that your coax is playing a large role in radiating your signal.

Man, that orange plot had some wild swings between inductance and capacitance.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the coax is the counterpoise. It was pretty bad with an actual counterpoise too. I didn't show those plots, but they were pretty bad. I'm sure if the choke was at the unun end of the coax it would have been a different story. Now that I've set it up in the field I realize it wouldn't be really any harder to setup that way. I should test that too and see what I get.
 
Today in the shack... I suddenly remembered to upload my contest log from last week's WAE DX SSB just before the submission deadline tomorrow. I am actually lucky as I totally forgot and a lot of contests have moved to even shorter five day deadlines now.

The other thing is that after importing an ADIF of the contest log into my general logging program (ACLog) I had to add a couple POTA contacts by hand that I had stopped to make during the contest and logged on paper not in N1MM which I was using for the contest.

One hiccup is that after adding those couple contacts to my log they are then out of chronological order and I have to get the program to re-sort the entire log by date.
It is then that I am glad that I build a new powerful desktop PC every 3-5 years. My current log has 43,174 QSOs entered and my computer can sort them by date in about 20 seconds using N3FJP's ACLog.

🐯
 
CatSnoutSoup said:
Today in the shack... I suddenly remembered to upload my contest log from last week's WAE DX SSB just before the submission deadline tomorrow. I am actually lucky as I totally forgot and a lot of contests have moved to even shorter five day deadlines now.

The other thing is that after importing an ADIF of the contest log into my general logging program (ACLog) I had to add a couple POTA contacts by hand that I had stopped to make during the contest and logged on paper not in N1MM which I was using for the contest.

One hiccup is that after adding those couple contacts to my log they are then out of chronological order and I have to get the program to re-sort the entire log by date.
It is then that I am glad that I build a new powerful desktop PC every 3-5 years. My current log has 43,174 QSOs entered and my computer can sort them by date in about 20 seconds using N3FJP's ACLog.

🐯
Click to expand...

I love the N3FJP software.
 
n1oty said:
I love the N3FJP software.
Click to expand...
I just discovered you can change the tab order in N3FJP so you don't have to tab through all of the auto-filled fields (date, time, band, mode, etc). Now to retrain my brain. I haven't tried too many different logging software packages, but it is excellent for contests. I'd like if they made a "contest log" for POTA, but so far there isn't one. I use HAMRS for that and it's a great, simple program.

My overall ham shack upgrade for the weekend has been to clean all the shit off the table. I've got a few things left that don't belong, but I'm getting there. At least I'm not balancing things on top of piles anymore. When I have a proper desk I'll have the keyboard/mouse on a tray and out of the way. That'll be nice.

I watched Ham Radio Crash Course livestream last night and he did a "Roast my Shack" theme. People submitted pics and he just went through the goods and bads. I mostly watched it for the ideas. As you might expect the shacks went from pro grade to an old rickety desk heaped with dusty crap in the corner of a bedroom.

If you have an hour and a half to kill on a cold autumn night... And if you don't, at the beginning he rolls memes on the side that are pretty funny.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBJG2zD8eu4
 
I picked up an Astron 20A supply yesterday, so I set that on the "bench" (AKA my dining room table) and it's powering the FTDX10. My Yaesu switcher is now running the FT-8900r, which feeds a mag mount dual band antenna stuck to a cookie sheet in the corner of the room.
 
Been into capturing HF weather fax reports lately. So I modified a capture program and set up and Linux process to store them in a directory structure for review. Process seems to work well.

I do more digital stuff than phone.
 
Roscoe said:
Been into capturing HF weather fax reports lately. So I modified a capture program and set up and Linux process to store them in a directory structure for review. Process seems to work well.

I do more digital stuff than phone.
Click to expand...
Cool. Have any examples?
 
I was buying some coax from HRO and needed to spend another $30 to get free shipping, so I spent $70 and got an MFJ-1979 16.9' whip. All the way collapsed it's about 2' long so 2m is out, but I should be able to tune it for 6-20m.

Knowing winter is coming and my usual "jam a length of rebar in the ground" technique of deploying ham sticks will be futile, I took this POS guitar stand I found in the trash and modified it to work as an antenna tripod. One leg was shorter than the others so it would lean back (for a guitar). I cut a section out of the vertical adjustable part and made a new leg, and clamped a mirror mount to it. It won't hold up to a lot of wind, but it's pretty sturdy. A little weight will probably help it stay put.

I could also pop those rubber feet off and slide something like rebar up the legs to make them longer, heavier and more stable. But this looks like it'll be nice and compact and light to at least try out.

Yeah, my floor looks like shit. Didn't I mention I bring home other people's trash?

1696013170636.png
 
Roscoe said:
Here is todays ICE Report, and the 500 MB forecast.
Click to expand...
Nice. Those came over the air to your radio as a file? Just making sure I have this correct.
Thank you.



ToddDubya said:
I was buying some coax from HRO and needed to spend another $30 to get free shipping, so I spent $70 and got an MFJ-1979 16.9' whip. All the way collapsed it's about 2' long so 2m is out, but I should be able to tune it for 6-20m.

Knowing winter is coming and my usual "jam a length of rebar in the ground" technique of deploying ham sticks will be futile, I took this POS guitar stand I found in the trash and modified it to work as an antenna tripod. One leg was shorter than the others so it would lean back (for a guitar). I cut a section out of the vertical adjustable part and made a new leg, and clamped a mirror mount to it. It won't hold up to a lot of wind, but it's pretty sturdy. A little weight will probably help it stay put.

I could also pop those rubber feet off and slide something like rebar up the legs to make them longer, heavier and more stable. But this looks like it'll be nice and compact and light to at least try out.

Yeah, my floor looks like shit. Didn't I mention I bring home other people's trash?

View attachment 800796
Click to expand...
Maybe check a local yard sale or cleanout for those plastic weights most people don't want. You could drop one or two on the top section with bracket and knob removed, and that would stabilize things, plus the plastic would travel OK without beating up your car so much.
 
Coyote33 said:
Nice. Those came over the air to your radio as a file? Just making sure I have this correct.
Thank you.




Maybe check a local yard sale or cleanout for those plastic weights most people don't want. You could drop one or two on the top section with bracket and knob removed, and that would stabilize things, plus the plastic would travel OK without beating up your car so much.
Click to expand...

Weather fax is sent using upper side band. When a tone occurs on 1500 offset from there it’s a black pixel. At 2300 is a white pixel, for some graphs 1900 is used for grey. There is a bunch of specific timing i there, but generally a certain tone is sent for a certain length of time that signals the start and Synchronized phases, then the pixel data comes through, then another constant tone to signal the end.

You need some software to listen to the audio feed for these signals and build the graphic from what it hears.

-Roscoe
 
Roscoe said:
Weather fax is sent using upper side band. When a tone occurs on 1500 offset from there it’s a black pixel. At 2300 is a white pixel, for some graphs 1900 is used for grey. There is a bunch of specific timing i there, but generally a certain tone is sent for a certain length of time that signals the start and Synchronized phases, then the pixel data comes through, then another constant tone to signal the end.

You need some software to listen to the audio feed for these signals and build the graphic from what it hears.

-Roscoe
Click to expand...
Is that different from SSTV?
 
Some time ago, I built a homemade 49:1 UNUN. Finally, got settled into new place, used my air cannon to fire a weighted tennis ball into the tree lines and hit the 'bullseye' (high V in a tall maple) on first shot. Spent some time hanging antenna cord and avoiding branches and hung an EFHW antenna. All in all a good outcome today but along the way:

- Took some time to hand the cords optimally avoiding interfering smaller branches. (OCD, sorry.)
- SWR at 40m was way too high, even though I left antenna long. Turned out to be a solder bridge on the feed-line capacitor to the transformer.
- Once that was solved, now into fine tuning length. SWR @ 1.3 but below 40m band by 250KHz. By end of today was close, tomorrow should be spot on.

Should be back on HF at the home shack midday tomorrow!
 
Awesome. Some folks don't care for the EFHWs but I think they're great.

Have you looked at how it tunes on other bands? I found there to be a tradeoff for where they are the best on 40 vs 20/15/10. My last one I ended up with just 40 and 20. I'm sure some adjustments to the capacitor or adding/subtracting a winding might help but I just said the heck with it and know that one is just for two bands.

Not so much a shack activity but once the weather finally cleared I took the new tripod/whip into the field and played radio for a few hours. I was surprised how differently it tuned in the field vs the back yard. At home I had a great SWR on pretty much all of 20m, but in the field I was limited to just the upper end. I was on basically a boulder with thin soil/grass cover, so I suspect that worked against me.

I checked the whip on 20m-10m in the yard and the SWR dip started creeping up as I went up in frequency. I was using four 10' radials for everything, so I suspect that's the problem. Maybe I'll make a couple sets of radials in various lengths, or I might have to try the "magic carpet" idea of using window screen instead of radials. Too bad the roll I have in the basement is fiberglas. Something tells me that won't work the same.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UadUg5H8KO8
 
Coyote33 said:
Maybe check a local yard sale or cleanout for those plastic weights most people don't want. You could drop one or two on the top section with bracket and knob removed, and that would stabilize things, plus the plastic would travel OK without beating up your car so much.
Click to expand...
Got me thinking and I dug some ankle weights out of the closet. I can either slip them over like you were saying or just drop them on two of the legs to keep it from swaying. It was wanting to tip over today when I was out and I threw something from the car on the windward side and that helped.
 
I got my Heil BM-17 headset today. So far I'm just trying it in the shack and it's working great. The audio is comparable to the speaker I'm using, which tells me it'll be much better than the stock speakers on my portable rigs. Gotta get used to the pedal. I put down a little area rug which helps. I don't think I'm yelling, I hope not.

I also got a programming cable for my quad bander. I cleaned up the memories from the previous owner (and me) who had a lot of duplicates. I threw in the ARISS frequency and the ISS repeater frequencies for good measure.

It's like Christmas up in here today.
 
I got a new monitor stand to neaten up my desk, and hooked my Surface Go to its own docking station to run all things radio.

I also got the QRP labs QDX kit I ordered in the mail. After looking it over I realize I am in need of upgrading my soldering iron situation, so a new Weller station is inbound. Hopefully I will be playing with the cool kids on Js8 soon.
 
edmorseiii said:
I got a new monitor stand to neaten up my desk, and hooked my Surface Go to its own docking station to run all things radio.

I also got the QRP labs QDX kit I ordered in the mail. After looking it over I realize I am in need of upgrading my soldering iron situation, so a new Weller station is inbound. Hopefully I will be playing with the cool kids on Js8 soon.
Click to expand...
Awesome. I bought a Hakko station awhile back. No ragerts.

I've been thinking about something like the Surface Go. I have a cheap laptop I've been using for all things ham, and it's getting to be a drag to disconnect things to take it with me. Plus it's developed a vertical line on the screen, which is just annoying, but that's it. Ultimately I'll get a display for it anyway. I was going to get a display for the FTDX10 too, but I don't need that.
 
I ordered the Surface Go 2 on the suggestion of 2 friends and members here, it was like 300 bucks on Amazon, money well spent for sure. I use it as a laptop for general PC stuff to. On a docking station it's a game changer, 2 monitors, 6 USB ports, and it and the monitors are all 12vdc so I could run it from my solar power setup along side my radios. Hopefully I finish that project before the happening happens.
 
I printed up a handheld PTT handle today. I had to enlarge the holes a tad after, something to remember for the future. In the end the hole I added toward the bottom won't work for the headphone jack I have, but no worries. I'll just tie the cable in a knot and run it out that hole for strain relief. I don't have any headphone cables left or I would have finished this up today.

I think I'll be able to type without setting it down, which would be nice.

Sorry for the graphic photo, you pervs.

1696554424584.png
 
I got the perv stick wired up today. Seeing as it looks a little wang-ish, I might have to come up with a nickname for it.

I only had stereo cables, so it ended up using the ring/sleeve contacts. Weird. I got that wrong at first assuming it must use the tip. I also forgot to put heat shrink around the cable and feed the cable through the strain relief hole BEFORE soldering it so double snafu there. But the glue lined heat shrink should be just fine as long as I don't tug it too much.

It works really well. The button is a little cheap so that may need replacing at some point, but I've been using it here in the shack and it works just great. I can kind of hook the pinky around it and free up a couple fingers to stroke the keyboard.

1696707621237.png
 

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