Movements are afoot.... It's all go you know...

Well,

Been fiddling with antennas a bit whilst home this time, I've moved the 4M antenna from the side of the house and put it on top of the HF antenna on the main tower.

Here's a picture from "Antenna Cam" at dawn this morning:

and here's one from just a bit later on:

You should be able to see that the 4M beam is now sat happily on the top of the tower. Inspired by the site of Brian, G0MJI:

http://www.qsl.net/g0mji/

I've set up a WSPR beacon on 4M.... time will tell but it sounds like a lonely kind of activity to me....

I've also been fiddling with Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD), my internet router, the FT-5000 and various other bits and bobs to try and see if I can control (and operate) the Yaesu FT-5000 radio remotely (read from A71 land).

So, HRD runs on the shack PC, this communicates with the radio over the conventional Yaesu CAT interface. As is well documented the modern radios allow control of just about everything via this interface.

Now, you then set HRD running in remote mode and then run the client application on the remote PC (in my case this is a laptop). With a bit of fiddling and a port open on the router I can now control the FT-5000 remotely, this is what HRD looks like on the client PC:

So this will be something interesting I can fiddle with next time I am away from home. I've also set up a remote desktop access to my shack PC so in theory, I should be able to connect and run RTTY via logger as if I was sat here.... shouldn't I?

You might remember an episode of "extreme soldering" from quite a while ago:

http://g0mgx.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/its-done-well-extreme-soldering-is.html

Well, I've been fiddling with this SDR again, It's really quite good fun, here's a screen grab from the Software, my waterfall is a little too intense, but you get the idea:

Fun, egh?

SO2V - SO2 What? Ah, 2 VFOs!

Well,

During a two day break from work, I've been fiddling about with Writelog and Logger32 (the programs I use for RTTY) to try and experiment with the 2 receivers I have in the main FT-DX-5000 here.

The idea being that I can have:

1. Main receiver to an MMTTY decoder providing the main RX window
2. A clone of the main receiver window running an alternative decoder (2Tone)
3. The second receiver on the same or a different band into a third decoder running either/or MMTTY and 2Tone.

So far, In logger32 I have achieved everything I set out to do:

I have the two receivers in the radio, both with frequency read from the radio correctly and the ability to receive in both 2Tone and MMTTY on both.

Now, in WriteLog I almost have the same thing:

But not quite! I have two receivers feeding two versions of MMTTY with the main receiver also having a clone using 2Tone. What I can't get to work is reading the receiver frequency of the 2nd receiver within the radio. Eventually, of course, I would like to be able to TX back to a signal received on either receiver i.e. TX on the main or sub receiver frequency; I suspect that may be asking just a bit too much, although I think it's possible if I had two separate radios, so I dont see why not...

I'll keep trying, I wonder if anyone else has this set-up working?

Complex, egh?
 

RTTYing in A71 Land

Well,

Its been snowing hard in the UK (so I understand), but I'm stuck in A71 land this weekend....

The Qatar Amateur Radio Society were doing a stall at an exhibition recently, I called by to see them, here's the set up:

I've actually spent some time at the QARS main site today, you may remember I visited them a while ago:

http://g0mgx.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a7-land-a71a-ah-qatar.html

I've been running RTTY using one of their FT-2000s. You may recall I made an interface for my FT-450 a while back:

http://g0mgx.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/hows-interfacing.html

Well, here it is on top of the FT-2000 - plus an adapter for the rig end of the cables:

So been running on 20M RTTY today with the callsign A71A. Been quite hard work as at times there were many stations calling, but no single signal decoding, I guess I perhaps need to consider working split next time.

Fun though, egh?

WPX? Ah, Worked All Prefixes!

Well,

Been playing in the CQ-WPX RTTY contest this weekend, managed 512 QSOs for 1446 points and 352 unique prefixes in 61 DXCC entities.

As is becoming the norm, here's a map of the logbook:

Very pleased to manage to get some RF all the way to New Zealand; but who wouldn't be?

Fun, egh?

XE test? Ah, Mexico!

Well,

Been dabbling in the Mexico International RTTY contest this weekend:

http://www.fmre.org.mx/concursos/2013/rtty/rules-rtty-2013-english.pdf

Running pretty much maximum allowable bananas for my full UK license and trying to get as many Mexican states as possible (these count as multipliers to your total score). Mexico is a fair distance from the UK (like 5,300 miles) and conditions didn't seem that good. So given that most of my late afternoon CQing was with the antenna pointed at the appropriate part of the world, my sum total of 3 Mexican stations is rather pants.

Anyway, I'll be entering my log for a laugh, but here is the (now traditional) map of my contacts:

The maps I create of my logs are done here:

http://www.adventureradio.de/analyzer/

Odd isn't it, how I find myself beaming to the north west (300 ish degrees), working mainly stations in Europe and then suddenly work a VK4 in NE Australia.

Cat was trying to help keep log:

Fun though, egh?

ARRL RTTY Roundup

Well,

Had a play in the ARRT RTTY roundup this weekend, conditions seemed quite poor, 10M wasn't open at all and most of these contacts were on 20M and 15M. I'm a bit dissapointed really, would have hoped for a bit better:

 

What do you think?

My Power Struggle is Over

Well,

Following all the palaver associated with my Power Meter project; I've finally completed it.

Here's the finished article:

The front panel (which is covered in Fablon) isn't anything like as bumpy as it looks in the photo to the naked eye; it's perfectly acceptable.

I've finally decided that the switches need to switch between short and long sample times (as before) but the second switch that I had used to peak hold the meter, now switches the units primary display units from dbM to dbW - each of these has the power converted to watts in brackets.

The unit had quite a bit of use this weekend in the WAE RTTY contest - and yes I was sending and receiving QTC traffic! - but the meter certainly seems to work at full UK power from my linear, it's a damn site more accurate than anything else I have here, but most impressive was the ability of the unit to read really low reflected powers so I can tune the antenna far better with this unit than I can with any of the analogue meters I have here. This meter can tell be that I have -20dbW reflected power when an analogue meter wont even be moving.... I'm actually quite impressed.

Cat's not overly enthusiastic about it:

Impressive though, egh?

 

JARTS - You What? Oh, JARTS

Well,

Had a little dabble in the JARTS RTTY contest today and yesterday, conditions seemed to be really good, but there wasn't as much activity as I had hoped for. Here's my log from the contest in map format:

There were a few new countries for me, but NOTHING in Africa at all! And also no VK (Australia) or ZL (New Zealand) but hey, ho, it was fun all the same!
Still, rather impressive, egh?


 

How Much Power?

Well,

Myself and my chum Vince, G0ORC headed off to the National Hamfest last Friday, following a lot of consideration I was thinking of changing the Linear Amplifier that I have here for HF work. I have been using a Ameritron 600 watt Mosfet linear, with great success, however I was wanting to be able to run UK legal limit RTTY without pushing things to far.

ML&S had a very intersting linear amplifier at the show which just took my fancy, another great re-shuffle in the shack and it's in:

The linear is manufactured by a company called ALPIN:

http://www.alpinamplifier.com

And contains a single 4CX800A tube capable of 1300W SSB and 1000W continuous CW or RTTY work. The amplifier looks (both inside and out) to be a close copy of the ACOM 1000:

http://www.hfpower.com/

I am told that Alpin are ex-employees of ACOM or something like that (I don't actually believe a word of this).

Anyhow, the amp certainly looks the business:

and it's very easy to tune, I have created a chart of the "starter" settings for my setup and you simply rotate the "load" control as instructed on the LCD display and then peak the "tune" control for maximum smoke (RF out).

There is a good review of the amplifier here from RadCom:

http://www.alpinamplifier.com/images/RadCom%20Review.pdf

The review seemed to say the right kind of things....

I've had a dabble in the CQ WW RTTY contest this weekend and have been delighted with my station performance. This is a map output from my log from this weekend, most of the contacts have been on 10M:

you can see that I have worked far and wide and the RTTY station here at G0MGX is clearly working well!

Cat's not been helping much as normal:

Good though, egh?