With another bright but cold day, it was a good time to get out and get on the air. This time I was packing my trust Alexloop Ham pack antenna along with the IC705, determined to make an activation on my 3rd attempt from Bolderwood.
WX – I caught the ‘warmer’ part of the day at round 9 to 7 celsius
I was no sooner out the car and onto one of the many available benches and quickly setup. The alex loop was out the bag and with a bungee hook strapped pretty tightly to the bench. I tuned for 20m and got a great SWR of between 1.3 and 1.4 but no more than 1.5 and 10W of power. The FT8 contacts came rolling in, and with a busy 20m FT8 was then onto FT4, for even quicker overs.
Alexloop SetupManual Logging
It was great to get a mobile phone signal as I tethered my laptop to the phone wifi and could upload my contacts directly to QRZ via the excellent grid tracker application, I still kept a manual log so it would be easy to confirm the order and QSO’s I had today. The Reverse Beacon Network and POTA app was doing me a great service, as quite a few of my contact were POTA hunters. Getting 10 contacts in under an hour was great given just how cold it was, it was nice to see 5 of the contacts are POTA hunters.
I gave SSTV a go, but the signal where coming in thick and fast, I started to see a response to my transmission, but another station came in over the top. I try to use Robot72 and BW12 to keep my over time on 14.2300 short, but most people dont QSY on SSTV, and even then we tend to get other people talking over the SSTV CoA on 20m as well..
Still, having uploaded my ADIF file from WSJTX to POTA I was soon awarded my 2024 activation. Just in the nick of time ! A good start to POTA in 2024 !
POTA 2024 Award – a good start to the year
I am really excited about getting out and do more POTA – its a great start to the year !
Good news on several fronts today – the replacement parts I ordered just days ago from Sotabeams have arrived, and amazingly I ordered the correct parts. I now have a fully functioning Sotabeams Travelmast again !
Sotabeams travelmast restored to operational !
Previous testing of Sotabeams travel mast at home, before I went out and snapped it 🙁
I found another Sotabeams mast in the garden, in this case a Whip10000, its probably been sat outside in all weathers for at least a year, if not two ! upon cleaning it up, I managed to get all the parts apart from one, which has stuck fast ! How do i get this unstuck ?!
mast section wont budgestubborn section
I also planned over the holidays to get the WSPR scraping on the webtechnologies set up again, as since last year the format on the ‘old db’ changed, which caused my webscraping program to fail. I decided to re-write from scratch and use Python’s panda’s functions to scrape and sort the data. With a bit more Postgres changes I was then able to push data in again !
Webtechnologies WSPR scraper is back !
As time and interest allow I will add more functions as I enjoy the programming and representations of data in different formats from actual transmissions. When I’m 100% sure the code is working correctly, I’ll post the updates to github.
So a quick update and am looking forward to using the SOTA Masts for at the QTH and for POTA activations !
So with new choke packed away and bringing the battery pack, i headed out to Bolderwood in the New Forest, arriving at around 10:15, it was still pretty quiet and I had pick of parking spaces and benches.
bolderwood on New Years Day 2024
I then setup the IC705 with the Toybox antenna and radials, which I found getting the radials out much easier this time. I was able to get the SWR down on 17m to a 1.6~1.7.
SWR less todayradial spreadmuch easier than yesterday
With the antenna setup I then connected the 705 without the MAT Tuner to start with, having the large battery with me was really good as it support the LC IC705 bag nicely keeping the antenna and bag vertical. I then went about attachign the choke-wound usb cable to the laptop.
Uh oh.. this doesnt look good
As soon as the USB cable was attached, the QRM returned ! I could hear the FT8 stations coming into WSJTX without problem, but again when hitting transmit, the audio disconnected. Whilst the QRM was much reduced, there was no doubt it USB cable and laptop was still effecting the radio. I went ahead and the MAT autotuner, to see if that improve the situation, i.e. would it act as any kind of choke between the radio and antenna.
MAT Tuner working greatcould I try a choke hereWill I ever make a contact ?
The introduction of the MAT Tuner had no effect on the QRM, although I could see that with the longer coax between the tuner and antenna, I could potentially try putting chokes on here also. I disconnected the radio and just tried calling CQ on 17m QRP frequency, but to no avail. I could pull in signals and I tried jumping on the back on other QSO’s but think I wasnt getting out at all with the little whip antenna.
So I think whilst I have other options, I will explore those as well, I have always done well with the magloop, and its a great antenna, but the one I really want to try is the UK Antenna 40M EFHW, but currently my SOTA Beams mast is damaged from its first and only outing. I explored the website and was able to order the 3 replacement broken parts, which only cost £17.28 with 1st class postage.
The 40M EFHW UK Antenna – the next one to try when the replacement mast parts arrive…
I will continue experimenting with chokes and the Toybox antenna at the QTH before going back out with it again, I think with enough power, it would work well as a portable antenna, with QRP/10W,its giong to be hard work to get on the air with it…
So having got everything ready and with the weather, whilst chilly, was ok to go and venture out with the radio. I scheduled on the POTA activation website, and headed off to the New Forest to Bolderwood.
The drive in the Hyundai i10 was fine after its recent service, and was good to stretch its legs on the lively A roads in the area. For a small car its got a decent enough poke to make the journey without issue, as I was just carrying my IC705 and a few drinks.. I did notice I had left my ‘large’ battery behind – so I would be running real QRP from the 705’s internal battery and limited to 5W – still, i was nearer bolderwood than I was home, so pressed on.
radials on the floorradial connection to toyboxSWR 2:1 without ATU
I de-tangled the the 30 meters of radials, this took me a little while, but nethertheless wasn’t too problematic, the ends of the radials have a nice round terminator which makes de-tangling more a case of pulling the cables thru, rather than unpicking a ‘rats nest’ of wire (plenty of experience with the DX Commander and radials there!!!) I used the rig expert on 17m got the SWR across the band down to 2.1:1, which for a compromise antenna was ok.
FT8 RX 100%TX = ooopspulsating TX
I hooked up the laptop via Wfview, Virtual Comport and WSJTX. Signals came in no problem at all, and decodes appearing in WSJTX without issue. I then tried to TX, the SWR measurement was the same as the Rig Expert, but oddly the TX ‘pulsated’ as if it was getting disconnected. I went thru and checked the settings once more, no difference between home and here, only delta was the antenna. I tried the USB cable I had packed away to remove wifi/wfview/audio port as an issue, but the noise level went thru the roof! So I went back to trying to get wfview to work, at least at home on 2M I did get out (suprisngly!).
it was not to be my day to make an activation….
As I continued to try to connect, I checked PSK report on my phone – not a single RX. I could only put this down to the combination of the antenna and using wfview, as with a magloop and 5W on an ipad, I would at least get out, and as other POTA activations showed, worked without issue.
With 0 contacts and a slight piece of rain, i forgo the activation and headed home determinted to find out what I could do to solve my WSJTX TX issue.
TX issues with the 705 and using the Toybox antenna
Once home I searched around youtube and found several useful videos and this one demonstrated exactly the issues I faced when using my USB cable.
USB = QRM
With that I searched around the house, the longest USB cable I had was 2M long, and wouldn’t take many wraps of the toroids I have, so have ordered a 5M USB cable and some cable ties from Amazon, hopefully they will be here tomorrow, then I can try USB with a nice toroid to see if that removes the QRM.
a variety of ham specific toroids
I also thought that I should of tried with the ATU between the radio and antenna, as I think that would of also acted as a ‘common mode’ choke, but will try the USB route first as that looks the most promising solution at the moment.
Until next time (which is hopefully early in the new year) 73’s !
Its been quite some time since I’ve been out and done a Parks On the Air (POTA) activation, but with the year coming to an end and a bank holiday for a day off, it as good a time as any to get outside and get on the air !
The IC705, when used, has mostly be used in the shack. I tend to use it on the 6BTV antenna and keep the 7300 on the End-fed Half-Wave (EFHW) for SSTV and other digimodes.
At the moment my Mazda Bongo is awaiting a garage visit due to a poorly alternator (its 27 years old…) so I will be in the Hyundai i10 (to be my son’s car once he passes his test), hence I will be working /P !
Hyundai i10, compact and cheap to run!
I will be taking the IC705 in its LC192 bag, some may say that this is a branding gimmick, but this bag suits the 705 so well, its brilliant! I’m going to the extreme on portable option of using the Comet Toybox antenna. This antenna tends to get pretty slated, but when I’ve taken the time to set it up myself, found it works really well, even with QRP operation.
Toybox antenna
I’ve previously made a video of me using this from the QTH, showing how I tune and make a contact with it, but this will be my first time using it for a POTA activation.
IC705 and Toybox antenna in use
I’m getting all the parts together again, making sure that batterys and the mat705 ATU are good for operation.
MAT tuner charging via USBgigantic battery charging up
WX for around IO90
I’ll probably be heading for the New Forest, as there is plenty of places to park up and get the radio out, i’ll be logging old school pen and paper and using the upload feature once completed.
Hopefully the weather is kind to me and I get out, I have work to do on the eggbeaters still, and thats going well, but will put that in another post, for now, determined to get out with the radio and make some contacts!
With a second bank holiday in quick succession and the WX predictions for the bank holiday being ‘traditional’ I made a impromptu POTA activation in the New Forest. Whilst its not my nearest POTA, there are plenty of nice quite places to go, so I headed off for a evening of radio fun !
As is norm for me, I started out with FT8 – or should I say after some reacquainted got started with FT8 ! As I wanted to do SSTV I used my old laptop and USB cable. This has been running at home nicely for months for WSPR via the IC705/Laptop combo, sure enough, go out in the field and it starts playing up ! Firstly experienced disconnects on WSJTX on anything above 5W, and remembered that I had setup the 705 to be a 7300 to allow MMSSTV to use the same ‘hex codes’ – once I got the power and connection sorted, was soon on the air and the QSO’s started coming in. 17M was very busy but propagation good, the magloop and 5W was getting me all over the world, was very glad to see several contacts into the states from POTA hunters.
5W into magloop on 18 and 20m (FT8 / FT4)
I was soon getting drowned out on FT8 on 17m, so switched to 20M and FT4, whereby i was able to get the 10 QSO’s needed to activate the park. I then switched to SSTV. Receiving was fine, and the absence ‘noise’ produced fantastic RX. I thought I would give it a go, even tho I was ‘limited’ to 10W.
excellent QSO with OK1DNTMMSTV working well with the IC705enjoying POTA SSTV
A very good signal came in from OK1DNT and was reward with a 595 signal report on 10W ! I was overjoyed that the magloop, low power and noise floor worked so effectively. It really was a highlight for me and I think I shall work out how to the webcam on the laptop to capture some ‘live’ PoTA pictures, each time I’ve tried SSTV on PoTA, I’ve made a QSO, so it is most defineatly a viable mode with QRP power. Thanks to OK1DNT for the QSO as well !
I headed home with the Retevis RT73 working nicely doing its APRS positioning beaconing. Whilst the RT73 doesn’t have the TNC/Packet capabiilities of the THD7, it nethertheless does a great job of position reporting. I did struggle with updating the message, but I got it to read ‘POTA G’ I struggled to get numbers and symbols, so will investigate that next time. The RT73 is a ‘neater’ solution for 2m/70cm operation, tho admittedly I’ve not a QSO on it yet !
APRS via Retevis RT73 working well
En route i encountered the lovely horses/ponies of the new forest. I do love the nature and animals in the beautiful scenery.
RT73 and donkeyhaving a nibble on the grass
Once home and unloaded from the Bongo I set about logging. I always use a manual log, even for digitial modes, incase something should happen to the computer/device I used. I was pleased to see some very cool new features on the POTA website, in that its possible to create a manual log via the PoTA page for submission.
Manual logbeta model manual logadding the QSOs
I watched a video on how to do the manual log, shown below and it was easy to follow and create my own log submission.
POTA Manual Log Entry
Sure enough my log submission was done, it was so easy ! Also I could export the ADIF file and upload to QRZ
POTA ADIF to QRZ
Whilst the frequency and signal reports were not the ones from the event, it did at least have the time, band mode and contact, not bad at all and acertainly allot easier than when I first started POTA last year.
Overall, despite the early technical frustrations I really enjoyed this activation, it has made me think about a PoTA strategy for digital modes, i.e. use the mac ipad for FT8/FT4 and laptop for SSTV, if the ipad app had SSTV capabilitiy, that would be amazing, but its a great app as is being totally ‘wireless’. Still, I look forward to more PoTA as the year go on !
Not much happening on the amateur radio front I’m afraid. I did have some very good SSTV QSO’s the other day 80M – quite a few in fact ! With that I have been quite poorly with a cough and a cold, hence the COVONIA which has come to the rescue !
I’ve had a large amount of medicine and allot of sleep which seems to have restored me to at least being able to type up my blog. I was determined to get the BONGO going as well, as the fuel filter had arrived. It took a bit of labouring to get the fuel-filter to fit back on the chassis, but sure enough the bongo is now back in action !
Webtechnologies site updates
Other than doing hands-on radio I made some updates the webtechnologies website which captures all the WSPR transmission reception reports. Basically I’ve made it much simpler and requiring allot less maintenance, with better integration into Git with a fully functional CI/CD pipeline. I had this in place already, but it wasn’t quite perfect, so with a chance to sort it out, I’ve reduced the features (FAX pics and KIWI SDR) and kept it to just WSPR reports and Weather from the the local weather station here at the QTH. This will allow me to develop new features for the site as time allows..
Next POTA
With the Bongo back in operation, i’m hoping to get back out and do another POTA activation soon. I still have a pretty full February now but am determined to get out and on the air, hopefully this time with a UK Antennas 40m multiband end fed. I’m not sure I can squeeze POTA in this month due to commitments, but will see how things work out, rest assured, I will be looking to get back out and on the air thou !
Thats all for this week, please keep well and thanks for reading the blog.
A quick one today, so had a great time watching and being part of the live stream for G5STU. Was great to make contact again with very good signal reports – being very close but hilly terrain between the QTH and Poole Harbour was good to get in the log and hear myself back. Not quite BBC Radio quality on the pronunciation on my part, but not as terrible as I thought. Still, great work on G5STU to run these live streams, its great to hear so many other people and enjoy listening live as well as the live-stream.
SSTV
DG0KT SSTV QSO
Had a great time with a very nice SSTV QSO with DG0KT, great signal reports for what was a very busy 20M with both SSTV and QRM coming in from other operators bleeding into the 20M SSTV Center-of-activity.
POTA
I have a POTA activation planned soon, usually I go in my Mazda Bongo camper van, which has developed a stall fault – the indication is that of fuel starvation (runs but stalls) and having checked the ‘banjo’ filter found nothing wrong there, have ordered new diesel fuel filter.
The suspect fuel filter on the bongo
The fuel filter should arrive on the 13th and hoping its a quick swap-out to get the bongo back on the road ! In the mean time I’ll be going in the XK8 – which will be interesting as whilst its a more comfortable car, getting it setup with a radio and loop antenna will be interesting !
Whilst no POTA Activations myself I did enjoy making some POTA Hunter contacts this weekend, albeit on FT8.
Its nice to be part of something, even when I cant get out the shack to do PoTA activations, I appreciate those guys who do go out and operate from the parks !
G7WKX@G-0620 – Wirral and Thurstaston Country Park
I noticed I was having some issues with the IC7300, i.e. it kept on rebooting ! With some analysis I was able to find I had somehow knocked the power supply output voltage to 9v ! It was quite something to be making contacts at all, but rest assured 13.8V was soon restored and the 50W available to me soon back in use.
Having been playing/monitoring with QSSTV on Linux, I rebooted my Ham PC and went into Windows to use MSSTV – its been a while since I used it, but I must say I find the interface much more ‘friendly’ than QSSTV. I made really good QSO’s via SSTV.
EA3AUW SSTV QSO
First EA3AUW, a very nice QSO into Spain, with great signal reports. Looks like a slight typo in my callsign, but I was glad to make the contact and have the QSO on 14.2300. SSTV gets very busy on weekends, so getting clear images and completing was great.
IU5KZF – SSTV on 20M (14.2300)
I had another great QSO with IU5KZF on 20M – I was really getting thu with my 50W from the QTH, the RX pics was a true P5/595 for the best part. I think the USB Audio codec drivers under Windows are slightly better than under Linux/Ubuntu – I’ve not really looked under the hood, but I seem to get better pictures from MMSSTV than I do from QSSTV. Still, I was glad to make two really great SSTV QSO’s from the QTH.
Elsewhere I was prepping for my next PoTA – Whilst I find the iPad and SDR Control to be amazingly easy to use and setup, I have used my laptop and IC705 out in the field before, having made a SSTV contact for PoTA (Upton Heath Park), so I thought it a good time to check the laptop and IC705 again. My main ‘niggle’ with the laptop was having to the USB Cable. I installed WFView on the laptop, along with VBAudio Cable and the Serial Com Port emulator – whilst I could connected and hear audio from the laptop, the laptop is just old I think it cannot do all the things I need it to do via WFView – I reinstated the USB Cable and went ‘native’ and everything (SSTV, FT8, FT4) started working perfectly again.
IC705 and Laptop running WSJTX for WSPR via 6BTV on 40M
I have now setup my IC705 to hang off my 6BTV doing WSPR on the laptop, I’m running 1W into 40M to do the propergation reports, and its working really well, so I know for my next PoTA I can use the laptop and do/try SSTV again !
1W WSPR Reports – DX into VK on 1W!
I twasn’to be disappointed with how well the IC705 and WSJT~X was doing on 40M and 1W of power, in no less than 12 hours the 6BTV and IC705 had reached all over the planet, needless to say, I was very happy with that the IC705 and 6BTV was working correctly and getting some action, rather than being sat in a bag !
I’m now looking forward to G5TM’s 145 Alive Event on 2M – a way to have simplex contacts via 2M. G5TM has put allot of work coordinating the event and G5STU “should” be within my reach from IO90BS. I’m sure many of us know G5TM excellent youtube channel, but incase you’ve not been introduced, hers the 145 Alive Event posting.
G5TM 2M 145 Alive Event
So I’m almost making the postings back on a weekly basis and there is enough in the shack at least to make something interesting to talk about, hopefully I can keep new blog postings going reguarly.
Happy New year to you all who follow the blog ! Apologies for the absence of postings, hopefully I’ll keep them a little more regular, at least with doing a PoTA once a month.
Having watched several of my youtube hamradio favourites I was really inspired to get out with my radio and enjoy it. With amazingly good weather, I headed out to the New Forest, specifically to Bratley View.
Bongo at Bratley View, New Forest
I was quick to get the Alexloop Hampack antenna setup quickly and the IC705 tuned into 17m quickly. Using the excellent SDR Control on the IPad it wasn’t long before the contacts on FT8 started coming in.
POTA 17M from Bradley Park
In under 30 minutes I had made 13 FT8 QSO’s on 17M. I then tried FT4 on 20M, I could pick up the signals ok, but wasn’t haven’t much luck in making contacts.
20M FT4
I headed down the band to FT8 which was busy as ever ! I had no problem getting out and making contacts there.
20M FT8
With well in excess of my required 10 contacts for me to activate the park and with my lunch finished, I headed back to home to enjoy the rest of the day with XYL.
Lunch was boiled egg and sausages – but I had forgotten my pen !
I wasn’t able to locate my pen, so couldn’t log manually, which I usually do just incase something happens to the IPad.
As I was totally dependent on the IPad for logging, I exported and ADIF file. Since I last done POTA there is now an option to upload your own log files, so I set about checking out how to do that. A great video really helped me along.
Tutorial on how to use the POTA upload
The log export from SDR Control is great, but requires a bit of ‘munging’ to get into PoTA format. I found a script ruby-pota-csv-to-adif available here which made getting the file uploaded right first time.
With the upload complete, the following morning most of the processing was complete, I was pleased to see other PoTA Hunters in the log.
EC7AKV & SP8QC contacts amongst many others!
It was great to get back out on the radio and enjoy the simplicity of FT8 – I’m hoping to get some practice and try out using Telephony QSO’s via SDR Control, or just using the microphone, it felt great to be back out with the radio and enjoying it again!
Hopefully I’l have more progress on other radio fronts as well, but until next time, 73!
