Amateur radio antennas, circuits, techniques and related topics. By Peter Parker VK3YE/AK3YE.
Newer material appears at https://vk3ye.com and https://youtube.com/vk3ye .
Backyards On the Air is a local activity intended to substitute for portable operating during these shut in times. The last one also coincided with ANZAC Day (26 April). Here I've set up a temporary station (FT817ND & 1/2 wavelength wire end-fed) to make some 40m FT8 and JS8 contacts.
Six metres or 50 MHz is often associated with high sunspot activity like we haven't seen for a couple of cycles. And it's true that's when most of the really long distance DX is worked.
But 50 MHz is not a one trick pony. For example in summer there's sporadic E propagation for some really strong signals even with low power and small antennas. That should be exciting for those in the northern hemisphere. And throughout the year there's meteor scatter communication. Modern digital modes allow at least exchanges, if not real conversations, to be frequently made. Even if your antennas are fairly modest. This latest video is a few mornings of receiving 6m meteor scatter activity on a very basic HF wire antenna and noisy location. Stations from as far away as 1500 km were decoded.
New to MSK144 and meteor scatter? You might enjoy my first video where I try receiving it on 50 and 144 MHz.
Now's a great time to be reading books. Especially with not much else to do.
RadioPrepper on YouTube has a great run-down of various channels that could be worth subscribing to on YouTube (hit the bell icon etc!). They will appeal to people into QRP and portable.
PS: Enjoy building antennas? Many hams do. Hand-carried QRP antennas, my first antenna book has been very popular. That concentrated on basic concepts and the lower HF bands. Anyway here's the follow-up. Called More Hand-carried QRP antennas it describes more than 30 antennas and accessories that you can easily build. And there's more of an emphasis on upper HF, VHF and UHF antennas that the previous volume didn't have so much on.
I won't say much except to encourage you to watch them!
PS: Into low power amateur radio? Minimum QRP is the top-selling manual on the equipment, antennas, operating and strategy of successful QRP operating. It's available for under $US 5 each in electronic form. Or you can get a paperback version. Visit VK3YE Radio Books to find out more.
With many people at home now might be a time to start on those projects you've always put off. Something good for the shack, especially if you live in an area with high noise, is an HF noise canceller. The idea is that you have a second deliberately poor antenna that picks up mainly noise. The signal is combined with the main antenna. Changing the phase relationship of arriving signals should allow a point where the noise can be nulled out.
I was just browsing through a real estate advert. It was for a beachfront house. As is normal they had pictures of the view. And would you believe they were photographing while I was out portable. See if you can find the picture of my portable station here:
Has this happened to you? Have you discovered pictures of your portable station taken by an unrelated person for an unrelated purpose? If so please leave your comments below.
PS: My latest antenna book, More Hand-carried QRP antennas, is now available in both ebook and paperback formats. More details here.
Being shut in getting you down? Lots of people are reading ebooks with sales currently booming. Why not write one? It's not hard if you've got a favourite sport, hobby, cause or passion. This concise ebook tells you how. It covers topic selection, planning, writing and marketing, drawing on my experience of writing seven previous successful ebooks. This video tells you a bit about it.
For more information visit the Make Your Passion Pay Facebook page. You can also search the title on Amazon. It's great value at just $US 2.99 (or equivalent). Direct links from popular countries are below.
In a previous post I mentioned the VI3RA activity from the former Radio Australia transmitting site just outside of Shepparton, Victoria. Amateurs were able to load up the antennas one last time.
Here's a bit more about the site and activity. Below is a video tour by Lee VK3GK. It describes the station and antennas.
Operations like these require a lot of work. For a behind the scenes look read the various accounts in the newsletter of the Shepparton and District Amateur Radio Club. This will be an event many will remember for many years. Many local and DX stations were worked. There was also a repeat of the achievement from many years ago of bouncing HF signals off the moon.
Now's a great time to be reading books. Especially with not much else to do.
With many of us cooped up inside more of us are building, listening and operating. Here's a receiver that I've been doing some work on. It may soon become a transceiver. It's based on the original Bitx for 20m but shifted to different bands and with a DDS frequency synthesiser added.
PS: My latest antenna book, More Hand-carried QRP antennas, is now available in both ebook and paperback formats. More details here.
Last weekend I had the use of VK5WAT - the callsign of the VK QRP Club. My access to it coincided with the annual John Moyle Field Day where stations go out portable to work each other (and home stations).
Clubs cancelled their multi-operator efforts but many went our as single operator stations. And here in VK3 the weather was perfect for field days: cloudy, 18 degrees with no wind.
Anyway this video shows my activities. I operated about 4 hours on the afternoon and 3 hours on the following morning. The morning activity was under a shelter as light rain was forecast (we only got occasional drizzle). I used an FT817 to a 20m wire end-fed.
A total of 84 contacts was made, mostly on 40m. However there was some DX including to the US on 20m.
Now's a great time to be reading books. Especially with not much else to do.
