Sunday, November 26, 2006

Antenna Party at VO1NO's place!

On Saturday, Nov 25, several hams gathered at the home of VO1NO/VE3 (Just east of SMith Falls in FN24) to help him errect a 56' tower to support his 6 element 50Mhz bean. It was a beautiful day for tower work and it was a complete success. Check out the pics! I took my kids with me to help out. Matthew is 7 and Anna is 4. They were great helpers!

Here is a pic of the "V01NO MkI Tower Base" setup to be raised using the "Falling Derrick" method.



Pic of the "Block and tackel" setup used for making rasing the tower MUCH easier!




Here are two pics of VA3RDC, VO1NO, and AL's son Jeremy (NOCALL) making some fine adjustments





Great pic of the guy wire anchors (e.g. "There is no such think as over-engineering for safety!"




Every antenna raising party needs a peanut gallery or cheering squad!




The tower is up!



Future tower climbers?



Al's current crop of Towers.. looking good!


Monday, November 13, 2006

222 Beacon Project : Update

Some good news and some not-as-good news.

Click here for previous info on this project.

The good news is that Doug (VE3XK) and I were
able to fix the 222 board up a bit today (added
a cap and re-soldered some connections) and we
peaked the power output. The transmitter is
transmitting at 223.400 (we could not tune it
down to the Crystal freq of 223.340).

The other good news is that Doug brews a great
cut of coffee (even if is was decaf ;-)

The not-so-good news is that the power output,
as measured using Doug's QRP power meter, is
about 15mW. In reviewing the board it seems that
it was built as an exciter only with no final PA
stage included.

As well, we tried to key the transmitter via DC,
but there was a very strong "chirp" that may make
this not a viable option. The tone produced by
the transmitter, however, sounded great and the
freq seemed very stable.

I am still hoping to trace out the schematic to
better understand exactly what this thing is doing.

As I have the 1-10w amplifier provided by Al,
vo1no, one option may be leave the Tx on and key
the amp. This assumes that the amplifier will then
produce about 150mw output.. not really enough but
enough for testing the setup. Doug gave me a 12v
relay that I am going to use to try this... e.g.
use my keyer to trip the relay to turn the amp
on/off.

Another option, once I have the schematics figure
out, is to add the final transister and components
thus adding the final PA stage. Not sure if this
is doable or practicle... hmm I wonder if this is
a kit out there for a mini-amp for 222?

Comments and suggestion are most welcome (other
than suggesting I buy a 28 Mhz IF and a 28-222
Transverter for this beacon ;-)

I am not going to order a crystal until I have
all else figured out.

Tom

VA3NFA

Saturday, November 11, 2006

70cm Test Beacon

Update: Nov 13, 2006

Many thanks to all that provided signal reports for this 432 beacon test. I learned a lot from this project. First of all I learned that my becon keyer is working fine! I also learned that a low power beacon at 432 can be easily heard throughout the Ottawa area, but not much further. In planning for a permanent beacon I will be hoping to find a transmitter that puts out 1 or 2 watts. Assuming a good location can be found then a omni antenna can be used. The ideal cw beacon would be loud enough to be heard in the Ottawa area with a minimal station, but could also be be heard by very good Dx stations (e.g. big-gun in Rochester) when atmospheric conditions are favorable. Another option would be to use a small yagi antenna pointed South West. This would still have ok coverage in the Ottawa area, but would increase the ability of the beacon to be heard in Toronto, Rochester, and possibly Montreal via the back of the antenna.

Thanks again for the signal reports! Hopefully there will be more testing in the near future!

Tom
VA3NFA


To test out my cw beacon keyer I have setup a QRP beacon on 432.350. It went on the air at 8:45pm Eastern Time today and will be up for 24 hours. The purpose of this temporary beacon is to not only test the cw keyer, but to see how well a low-power 432 beacon will work with a omni-directional and horizontally polarized antenna.

Details of the beacon setup:

Keyer: ID-O-Matic
Transmitter: Yaesu FT-817
Frequency: 432.350 Mhz
Mode: CW
Power: 500mw
Antenna: KU4AB E-Factor horizontal loop at 40' fed by ~70' of LMR400
Beacon Location: FN25bh (APRS Object: 432beacon)

Signal Reports Received:

  • VA3KA, ~10 miles West, 549, 28 element yagi @25', FT-736R wth pre-amp
  • VE3CVG, ~30 miles North East, 519
  • VE2SHF, ~15 miles North East,519, Diamond X-50a verticle @16', FT-857
  • VE3BSM, ~26 miles, South, 519, X500 Verticle at 65', D700 FM radio
  • VE3XK, ~10 miles West, 589, 11 element yagi @65', TS-2000
  • Ve3MY, ~0.5 miles North, 599 (He's my neighbor ;-)
  • VE3BBM, ~7 miles South East, 519, 50-1200 Log Periodic, FT-897
  • VE3TUK, ~16miles North East, 519, Icom R10 HT with rubby-ducky, 8th floor apartment
  • VE3AKV, ~25miles South West, 519, FT847, 12 element K1FO beam at 8'

Please email reports to tomzinck@rogers.com and include your location, signal report, antenna and receiver used.

Many thanks!



More info on the WCARC member beacon project can be found by clicking here.

Tom
VA3NFA

Saturday, November 04, 2006

CW Beacon Keyer

While waiting for the manuals to arrive for my 222 transmitter, I went ahead and built another component for the 222 beacon project: the cw keyer. I sourced a very nice kit from N0XAS called the "ID-O-Matic". With my children sitting patiently watching (yeah right) I was able to complete this kit in about 45 minutes. It is a very nice kit and easy to build. The nice this about this kit is that it can be programmed via serial port (using a terminal or terminal emulator) and it can be used as a CW beacon keyer or auto-id for a repeater.

Here is a pic of the assembled board:


To test this keyer I connected it up to my Code Practice Osscillator. Here is what is sounds likes:




Next step is to put this in a metal case with reset switch, powerswitch, etc, and then it will be ready for use once the 222 beacon transmitter is ready.

Tom
VA3NFA