It has been a lovely sunny down here in Bournemouth and have been able to take full advantage of the good weather by getting on with assembling and tidying the gardens.

First off i set about extending the Nebula as far as I could on my own. With much twist I managed to get it to 17m32cm, which is what the docs say is ok to use.

I dont mind saying it took me a few times to get the antenna out fully, the first attempt with trying to get it to lock from the bottom-most sections didnt work out, so i put it all back down, then carefully took out the furthest (top) sections carefull and locked each section. There is a fair amount of flex, but I’m stil careful as the top looksl like it could snap if careless exertion took place.

Once extended, i set about putting electrical tape on each joint of the mast, to give additonal support and minimize any tension scratching from the jubilee clips.

with the mast now ready for the plates, i headed back in and started work on those.

Building the radial and element plates was straight forward. The bolts, washers and wingnuts fitted perfectly with little or no resistance going into their thread – good manufaturing process there. The plates themselves look great and built to last. They are considerably bigger than the ‘classic’ plates, the amount of radial mounting points is great – and its those raidals which really helpin with the direction and ability to ‘push’ the transmission out.

I’m going to follow Callum’s advice and start with 3 elements, namely, 80, 40 and 20 – as those are the bands i use the most. When i have all the SWR for each band as good as they should be i will add all the elements for more band coverage, but walk before I can run so to speak!

Alignment by using the documentation provided was easy enough and one less job to do outside. I dont like littering and despite my best attempts previousy the label-backs have flown off after sticking on, theres a fair bit of nature (birds,insects,etc) and I dont want to ruin their habitat with sticky label backings (what a hedgehog makes of an 18m mast has yet to b eseen.. I did have a robin visitor earlier this year tho !).

With the spreaders in place i was able to take the measurements of the heights to calculate the length of the guy wires. I’m going to use (as per doc) 1, 2 4 spreader points for guying, but will start with #1 first to ensure my measurements and cutting are accurate. All values are cm

I will double check these measurements again, so if your planning to do this between now and tomorrow morning – please do check your measurements as mine havent been applied yet!

I then set about tidying everything up and removing the existing end-fed wire. This took quite a bit of time and the end fed got caught in the tree – thankfully the tree wasnt damaged and a good ‘yank’ set it free ! Here is my video of the tour of the QTH after removing the end fed and the nebula work-in-progress.

And with that I then moved the nebula to the side garden where it will be erected. It was a real handful to move but i got it around the corner of the house from the front garden to the side eventually and have safely mounted it above ground height.

Tomorrows weather doesnt look as good as todays, so progress may be limited, however I’m pleased with what i have acheived so far, and as ever, am greateful for all the hard work Callum has put into creating what I’m sure will become a legendary antenna.

Stay safe and hope to publish more progress tomorrow !

Alan/2E0FWE

So having not only being able to listen to G5TM on air today, he published yet another fantastic mobile operating video.

I was mulling over what to do today, I always have enough to do, but Tim’s video made the decision for me that I will at least try out my 20M antenna which I had purchased from Thunderpole.

As ever, there was a light drizzle, but i was determined to at least try out the IC-705. My Mazda Bongo already had a fitting for an antenna on it, which hasnt seen much action at all in ove ra year I suspect, but thought I would give it a try.

I headed out with the the Rig Ex[ert AA-55 and started to read results off the antenna. First reading was ok

I took the anntena down and readjusted the bolts, simple enough, especially compared to putting a great big mast/vertical up and cutting/adding lengths each time.

The second adjustments brought very good results with almost less than 1:2 SWR across the band, with a very nice low in the morse area (more motivation to learn morse now !) with the SWR at 1.5 to 2.1 on the telephony side of the band I think this is acceptable, ideally i’d like to get it down further across the whole band but for 30 minutes fiddling, this was good enough to start with.

I continued my fettling and got the SWR down to 1.03 and less than 1:2 on the SSB telephony range. For a £19.99 antenna, i think this is a satisifactory result. I then went about attaching the IC-705 !

So i was very happy with the reception across the 20m band with the whip antenna, apologies for the quality of the video with putting my phone down,etc – i’m not even an ‘amateur’ when it comes to making videos like this, but I will get better 🙂

I tried a test transmit but the SWR was way off the readings the rig-expert had given me, which was slightly disappointing, but if everything went perfectly the first time of trying, it would make it the interesting hobby that it is.

As i said, the mount has been on the bongo for quite some time, and the metal around it has got quite corroded.

So i have brought in the antenna mount and intend to rub-back the rust and treat it before returning the mount to see if the SWR improves.

I still am very happy that the intial experience was generally positive and am very much looking forward to operating mobile.

I’ve ordered an ATU kit from america, but that will take some time to come (Jan 2021), but am looking forward to building and trying it out!

Until next time, stay safe and 73

2E0FWE

Fantastic news is that my shipping label notification for the DX Commander Nebula arrived in my inbox. I am really looking forward to this antenna – hopefully it will be with me for this weekend.

I have measured a 5 meter guying radius ready for the whopping 18 meter tall antenna.

I reckon the build will take some time, everything is quite scaled up. So now I’m waiting for that big package to come.

Exciting – yes – alot of work to do, VERY MUCH SO !

73

Alan, 2E0FWE

I can report that all the rigging and daily inspections insured that the end-fed antenna stayed up well despite storm alex lashing down wind and rain of epic proportion !

Whilst I have been enjoy several QSO’s on other digital modes (SSTV, BSPK) other than FT8, id thought I do an update on the next steps for the End-Fed antenna.

Whilst my signals are not bad, there is a noise floor present. Whilst I have largely removed alot of sources of QRM from ‘the shack’ (see earlier posts on QRM) my end-fed antenna seems particuarly good at picking up ‘noise’. Maybe its good to state what I think noise is as well.

When I tune the radio, I should be able to, ideally, hear all stations on that frequency (and mode). What noise brings is either man-made or remote interference to a weak signal. For noise that is ‘local’ the weak signals hide in a ‘noise’ band, this can be upto S9 for thinks like washing machines/VDSL/construction equipment.

With the ‘local’ noise its possible to use the an external antenna (lets call that a receive antenna) and transmit on the existing antenna, then between the two ‘phase’ the noise until it is no longer present.

I am going to use the MFJ-1028 noise canceller as I was using this already with my Kenwood and DX-Commander multi-band vertical, but as both a send and receive antenna making using of the ‘T/R Delay’ – The Icom 7300 doesnt come with its own ‘receive only’ port unlike its ‘bigger brothers’ in the Icom range, but is easily adapater to have one via the a plug-in kit from Inrad.

The installation looks simple enough as shown in the video below. I face the challenge that I am also using an external ATU (MFJ-993B) so getting both ports in will mean doing the install slightly differenty.

I have a number of antennas i could use as a receive only, but a recommended ‘noise gather’ is the ‘mini-whip’. I picked mine up off ebay and it arrived in a bout a week.

I have yet to install the miniwhip, but have all the necessary parts, including a rather impressive 4th ground pole ! I will be following the guidance from the following video

I will first try using the mini-whipa and end-fed combo and feedback on results !

Hopefully there will be less bad weather in the coming week allowing more ‘build’ work outside, for now i’m glad my masts have stayed up and we are all staying safe at home !

Until next post – 73 !

Having originally booked the Intermediate course and exam back in March events stopped that happening.

Thankfully the RSGB started with the Foundation Level exam in starting on-line exams and rumours of the Intermediate being made available on-line soon started. I had been building my kit for assesement since earlier in the year, and not sure what would happen about the practical assesment carried on with it, albeit at a much slower pace !

In July it was announced that the exams for Intermediate would be on-line so I immediately booked mine. I wanted to give myself enough time to kick-start my learning and give myself the best chance of pasting, but also fit in with everything else I have going on. Post September alot of my time outside of work will be taken up with my MSc and I had already booked a holiday for the bank holiday at the end of August, so went for August 23, first thing in the morning !

All the participants of the exam were given an invite earlier in the week and hooked up. This was a great idea and we was given a nice introduction to our group. Vitally I learned i would need *two* webcams, one on my PC I was using and another to see me from behind. So i set that up via my ipad. I would say if you dont have 2 webcams, use your PC for your main camera and use your phone – you will need WebEx on your phone, but belive that is possible.

In the two weeks upto the exam I made myself a schedule and broke down the notes/exams questions into days. I found this really helped me understand where I need to focus my learning. I had no problem at all on anything related to licencing and safety, most of the challenges come from the maths and equations on theory.

Although the video came out close to my exam and the revision was well underway, the video from Tim G5TM really helped ! I followed his techqnique and it made me much more at ease during the exam. I took my time and went thru the ones i knew for sure and left the ones i didnt until the end, and at worse could take an educated guess – but i was in control (or it seemed!)

In the week leading upto the exam i continsualy tested myself on both the RSGB provided Test Papers and the questions in ‘Exam Secrets’. I cant recall the questions word-for-word but for sure there were many that were very close to what were present, and probably doing the test exams in ‘rote’ method got me over the line to get a pass mark 🙂

The only negative side to the on-line experience was other people making a noise during an exam, as they finished or whilst they worked, there was a level of noise I wouldnt expect during an exam situation. For this i just removed my headphones and concentrated on my exam but listening for anythign that the invigulator might say (rather than just random noises).

I was told immediately of my score and I had passed, so am now just waiting notification from Ofcom so i can apply for my Intermediate licence ! I can wait to setup a working beacon and use 50W on HF, i think it will make a difference on the telephony contacts for sure.

Well its been busy and for the last few weekends very mixed weather here in the UK with masts going up and down due to the winds and more recently forecasts for thunderstorms ! having just passed a mini heat wave here in the uk, it seems the weather, albeit the wind is still blow a bit, has calmed down somewhat !

With that I have been tidying up in the shack some more whilst I coudlnt transmit. One thing I was not happy about was the amount of vertical stacking on the TS690s.

I had a room re-jig and moved all the book-cases to allow an additonal desk to put the associated radio equipment on. This got the same earthing/bonding treatment i had done for the orginal table, which is giving a good common ground amongst the equipment.

I’m much happier that with moving the printer and giving room for the equipment it gives a better layout to operate it. I can quite comfortably operate the transceiver from my computer, or if i want to get close and use it direct, have plenty of room.

I have been doing antenna fettling and this weekend and general mast tidying, but thats for another post when i figure out how to show some other developments as well 🙂

The main speaker on the Kenwood TS690-S is not a bad one. I’ve been using it now for around 5 months, and although no expert, it has been good in terms of being able to listen to what ever made it thru the antenna and to the audio stages of the transceiver.

However, with the addition of the Auto-tuner and DSP, there is quite a bit which ‘blocks’ the speaker. Whilst not muffled, its ironic that I have such a good DSP and not a good external speaker. I do have a very good mixing desk (Behringer X2222) which I use on ocassion to process and amplify the audio from the transceiver, but ordinarily I keep the radio audio seperate from the synths/drums/guitars. Another issue would be managing the sizeable ground loop between mixer and transceiver as the earth/bus bonding isnt the whole way around the ‘shack’ yet.

This lead me to search for a speaker for the TS-690s. Whilst not an ‘audiophile’ I do understand a little about speakers, housing and acoustics of them. I was very lucky to find a really great condition Kenwood SP-23 from ebay. The item itself is in incredbly good condition. I cant tell if its one month or 10 years old. It looks gorgeous. When findng the SP-23 I also searched for upgrades to it, this is without hearing it, but I’ve come to trust the reputable amateur sites on the internet, for example eHam reviews of the SP-23 talk about the quality *compared to other speakers* – I guess when you buy a speaker you want it to be the best buck for money. The most often given upgrade was to the GPH-K23X speaker and applying Phonema K23A PHITS acoustic coupling. I ordered both immediately and was amazed that these arrived from the USA in just a few days – amazing work from FedEx.

Having had the speaker for several days un-modded I was quite happy with the audio quailty. That said I still dont do enough telephony work to really say how good it was, and other than the internal speaker have no real reference on what ‘good’ is in terms of HF transceiver speakers.

As the kit arrived so quick, i jumped over a couple of other projects to immediatly upgrade the speaker and apply the acoustic foam.

I was really impressed with how well the speaker and foam had been packaged, its quality throughout and is a good sign that this is a quality purchase.

I am always slightly relectant to make changes to orginal equipment, but when I do I make sure i can recover it back. In this case i carefully de-soldered the orginal speaker. I did have to cut a little of the positive wire as it has been wound so well, but it was a minor inconvieane.

I was then able to start trying to work out how to install the new GPH-K23. Reading the instructions it discusses a bracket and furthermore has pictures of ‘clamps’ which are not visible in either the kit or in the existing speaker. I was slightly confused how this could happen, give this speaker is designed for the SP23. In the website for the GPH-K23 is describes a ‘plastic’ front version of the SP23. Mine is very metallic. With that i was somewhat perplexed on how to mount the speaker, especially as I had now de-soldered the orginal speaker just moments ago.

I was undettered by the fact that the instructions and mounting didnt match. There must be a way to do this. I had kept the old parts safely, ready to be placed in the SP-23 box so that they are there for future records and changes if required. I examined the brackets which held in the orginal speaker. The backing card was too small (diameter of hole) and too thick (widness of backing card) to mount the new speaker on.

Looking at the parts I had and the design of the case, there was a possibility to use the ‘brass’ clamps from the speaker back to hold the new speaker in place. I tried out the existing screws to check a good fit, and sure enough i was able to use the brass/copper mounting plates to hold the speaker in place !

Looking from the front the speaker looks very centrally located.

The foam fitted really well in the speaker, i was very impressed with the cutting and density of the foam. Getting the case back on required some real effort to it fitted, but on it went and back in the stack it went !

Now, i think its very subjective on how good something sounds, so here it is in action.

I for one was very impressed and felt the additonal parts did bring something to the speakers audio clarity. I would recommend that anyone that does have the SP-23 to get the coner and baffilng. I had to choose between one or the other, start with the baffling !