Listening Around

Last night I was away from home, visiting the YL's family, so no radio operating! In common with most of the UK the weather here has been awful with high winds and torrential rain, so when I arrived back home I was pleased to see that my antennas had all survived.A quick PSK contact with an RA1 on 30 metres confirmed all was OK.
Tonight I am hoping to have time to do a little bit of shortwave broadcast listening, listening for a very special station.

Radio St Helena transmits once a year only from the tiny island of St Helena. Tonight at 2200 they will be beaming towards Europe on 11092 USB. Since I am not normally in the shack this late I think I will set up my digital  sound recorder and leave the rig on frequency.
Given the location of St Helena (See the picture above) and the current conditions I am not too hopeful of getting anything but I will give it a try. I have picked the station up in years past and have a tape recording of it somewhere.
Radio St Helena I believe uses an Amateur HF transceiver and around 1000W, that may seem a lot but its flea power for a broadcast station!!

Normal Service has been resumed.

Good news for me. My TS830 is back up and running. I was concerned that it may have a fault of some sort but since replacing the fuse all seems ok. Whilst I had everything on the deask pulled out of its place I took the opportunity to calibrate the low power scale on my MFJ antenna tuner. I can now read powers down to 1 watt or less. Careful adjustment of the soundcard volume and the TS830 Mic gain has allowed me to get my power on WSPR down to 1 watt.
This evening so far, with just my single watt on 30 metres  I have been reported in WSPR by U.S German and one Austrailian station- Amazing!!

I had similar reports last night on 30metres, yet when I moved up to the PSK section of the same band I was only able to hear and work one OK2 station, apart from that the band was dead.
I don't think I will be able to get the TS830 down to much less than 1 watt reliably. I am considering at some point getting a slightly more modern rig for data modes and using the TS830S as a backup to my Yaesu FT1000MP main rig, The 830S is capable of superb transmit audio and is slightly wasted on PSK!

I am rapidly becoming convinced that 30 metres is quite a seasonal band. Certainly as winter approaches it seems to "drop out" around 2100 UTC , something that was not happening in the summer. If I am operating any later I find I have to drop to 40 or 80 to make contacts.

POP......Goes My TS830!!

Well there I was, in my shack, tuning up my TS830  so I could do some operating in PSK on 30M when Pop!!! the rig went dead. Once the initial panic had passed I found that the screw in AC fuse at the back of the rig had blown. This is a 4amp fuse and of course I didn't have any. I replaced it with a 2amp, which will run the rig on receive OK. I am hoping to get some replacement fuses in Maplins  on the way home from work tomorrow. Until then its receive only on the data modes here!

Rising to the challenge

Well I had some limited success on 17metres this afternoon. I was heard by W1BW and heard several spots from LA3JJ. Now darkness is upon us I think I will put the TS830 back on 30 metres PSK. I may give 15m WSPR a try tomorrow if I get time.

Believing the worst?

Yesterday I was driving home from a work appointment. In my car I have a VHF/UHF rig coupled with a dualband Antenna. I don't like using a hand microphone in the car so I have a 20 year old Yaesu switchbox which allows me to just switch between tx and rx. Whilst motoring along I heard a very strong station calling CQ on S20, quite an usual event these days, so immediately I returned his call.
When I replied, unknown to me my trusty PTT switch had failed and I ended up transmitting a blank carrier with no audio. Now the reason I am relating this fairly mundane tale is that at this point, the other station assumed I was an idiot, a jammer,an IQ0 whichever term you prefer. To be honest his response was perfectly polite but it was clear he thought I was someone who was out to disrupt. Realising what had happened I didn't transmit again, and today I have fixed the fault, a bad solder joint on the plug from the microphone that goes into the PTT box.
This got me thinking- how often do we  dismiss someone as a poor operator or an idiot when in fact they are a genuine amateur perhaps with a problem with their equipment or perhaps lack of operating experience? Now I am not talking about the misguided souls who insist on jamming and blocking repeaters with inane comments and strange noises. I am sure they know what they are doing! What I mean are those stations with poor audio or perhaps have not adjusted various settings properly or with what to us is poor operating technique. The latter often occurs when the newcomer doesn't have experience of listening on the amateur bands.Years ago most amateurs started out as shortwave listeners and by the time they obtained an amateur licence that already had a good idea of operating procedure.In these days of repeater abuse and the general poor operating that seems to happen in the UK on 2 metres in particular,it is all too easy to dismiss someone as an idiot. The next time I hear A blank carrier on 2 metres FM I will try to see if I can help first!!

Bas, PE4BAS has challenged me to try WSPR on one of the more difficult bands following my good results on 30 and 40 metres.This afternoon I tuned up my 830S on the 17m WSPR frequency and unleashed my 5 watts on the unsuspecting radio world. Nothing heard as yet but I will report back. I suspect in any case there are far fewer stations using WSPR on 17m than on 30 or 40 metres so that will limit my results but we will see. As an aside my inverted L is a fairly good match on 17metres, It shouldn't be really but I was suprised to see the ATU was not required.

Quick update

Having read on G4ILOs blog yesterday that last night was an activity evening on WSPR on 40metres I duly tuned up the TS830, cranked down the power and set up WSPR on that band at 5 watts. After wondering why nothing was happening, i.e no decodes I realised that I had not Synchronized the PC clock! Once this was done I was up and running.So Last night my 5 watts was heard in the USA, Brazil and Austrailia!! truly amazing. What a superb piece of software. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could dig SSB and AM signals out of the noise the way WSPR does? Maybe in this day and age of SDR receivers, some of which are apparently very impressive we are not so far way from this.
Tonights picture has nothing to to with radio, rather its my excuse as to whay there hasn't been much radio done here this evening as I went along to the local firework display!

Thoughts for a new month

Well November is here and winter approaches fast. In August of this year I decided to concentrate most of my HF operating on 30 Metres (10Mhz) as this is a band I had almost totally ignored in 25 years of being a licenced amateur. I had wondered if after a few months I might have worked all the "regulars" on that band and would have difficulty makiung new contacts. Three months later and several hundred QSOs on I am still working new stations and have worked farther afield than I expected.Now I am using WSPR running 5 watts  from time to time and am amazed at how a 5watt signal from a less than ideal antenna can be heard so well.
I am making an effort at the moment to make a few PSK QSOs at the 5 watt level as well and I have had some success although there is a temptation to turn up the power if the going gets tough..
What I like about this hobby is that there are so many angles to it. From my own point of view I can chat to the locals on 2metres, work HF SSB and have voice contacts, use the data modes or simply turn on one of my receivers and tune around the bands, amateur broadcast or utilities. I have always thought it such a shame that some people take the trouble to obtain their licence and just  operate through the local VHF repeater. maybe thats something peculiar to this area but there are a number of stations you will only ever hear via a repeater. There is so much more to the hobby than that.
For the past few months I have made a conscious effort, wherever possible to have at least one QSO per day! I haven't set any specific rules about this just that it must be a direct contact, repeaters don't count! This may not sound like much (and normally I manage more contacts than that) but I think if everyone that could did this we would see much more activity. Look in a callbook if you have one? How many amateurs are in your area? How often do you hear them? Yes they could be operating CW or data where its not so easy to hear them but many are simply not active, or at least they don't transmit! I know from experience of local clubs that you will meet amateurs face to face that you never hear "on the air".
Anyway I will try and maintain my activity and I think I will stick to 30 metres for a while. When the band is quiet I do pop on to 40 or 80 and I keep an ear on the higher bands but since CQ WW a few weeks back they seem rather dead. I really should put up a monoband antenna for 10mhz. My inverted L was designed for 40 and 80 metres but it does work OK on 30. The layout of my garden means that I am unlikely to get away with another vertical for transmitting, particularly as I am planning to install an active loop for listening, but more of that another time!

The picture accompanying this entry is of one of the most used pieces of equipment in my shack the Kenwood R5000 communications receiver along with a Yaesu ATU. I have lost count of the number of receivers I have owned over the years but this is one of the better ones.