The Go Box

It has been over a year since a contact on HF was logged from AB8XX base. The FT-950 was boxed up last year. There were no antennas up. We are at the top of the solar cycle and propagation is still poor (worst cycle in 100 years). 

So, what do I do? I make a Go Box. An entire shack in a box. The rack mount kit weighs 35lbs and is phone and digital ready  160m to 70cm. Includes APRS and Crossband Repeater functionality as well.

Why a Go Box? Because Amateur Radio is more fun when it can be portable. It is perfect for Parks on the Air and Field Day. All it needs is some electrons and antenna hookups. 

Here's what I managed to squeeze into a single 3U rack mount flight case:

FT-857D for HF/6m, backup 2m/70cm

TM-D710A for 2m/70cm, APRS + Packet

HF semi-automatic antenna tuner

Signalink USB Digital Mode Interface for 857

25A compact switching power supply

7Ah sealed AGM battery

Low Loss Powergate for batt. charging and switching

4 port fused Anderson Powerpole distribution block

4 port powered USB hub for TNC and HF Digital interfacing

32GB flash storage on USB hub

Serial to USB converter for TNC

Custom rear panel for RF, AC, DC, and USB connections

Custom front panel with main buss master switch

2 12v accessory outlets

More to come...

Struck Down

Lightning. Electrons from the sky fried my big 100' oak tree tower. It had to be cut down. No more antennas. No more HF. The base station now serves no purpose.

Here is a photo of the tower before the antennas had to come down.

Ohio State Parks on the Air

This was the first year I was able to participate in the field for the Ohio State Parks on the Air event. Over the course of several hours I was able to activate Caesar Creek S.P. and Little Miami S.P. in SW Ohio. Used the good old FT-897 on solar and battery power with the 16' Buddipole mast holding up a 102' G5RV. See the video.

ATAS 120A Antenna Maintenance

My Yaesu ATAS 120A mobile HF antenna was acting quirky so I disassembled it for inspection. KB5WIA has a great blog entry discussing how to take it apart, inspect, and reassemble this antenna found here. It seems like anything can be found on YouTube nowadays but there have been no videos showing the guts of an ATAS mobile antenna until now. Check it out!

20m 30m 40m Tri-Band Ground Plane, chasing CW DX

I designed and put up this new antenna a few weeks ago. The 80/40m vertical came crashing down in some high wind and all the ground radials needed to be rolled up for spring anyway. I have always wanted to have a decent vertical antenna for 30m so this provided an opportunity to do that while still having a decent 40m radiator as well. Since it was not much more difficult to add another band, 20m was built into it as well. Take a look at the video to see the construction details.

It performs just as any other ground plane. The assembly hangs from a 60' tree branch and the feed point is about 20' off the ground. So far I have worked half way around the world with it on 30m.

It has been quite a while since my last post about the cw key. I have been putting it to use since then and about 2/3 of my DX contacts are now on CW. I do not have the guts to ragchew on CW as of yet though. Fast paced pileups and contest is where I mostly use that mode for now.

73, AB8XX

P3 CW Touchkey

I have had this key a while and thought I would show it off. It is a "no moving parts" electronic iambic key that is touch sensitive and can be found at http://www.cwtouchkeyer.com/HOME.htm. Mine is just the P3 kit and made my own key into a small project box with an internal battery. A switch on the back allows you to select battery or external power pole. The paddles were fabricated out of some 0.032" aluminum I had. It works pretty good. Only problem is I am working on improving my CW skills and am afraid to use it on the air lol! 73, AB8XX

80m 40m Vertical Video

I recently completed the video on the new 80m/40m Dual Band Vertical. It shows some detail of the matching network and also analysis with the AIM4170. Take a look at it!



73, AB8XX

An 80m/40m Dual Band Vertical

With solar conditions being the way they are right now, I decided that putting up a decent antenna for 80m and 40m would be a good idea. Things need to be kept low profile here but I am fortunate to have a 90' tall oak tree to work with.

After pondering a few ideas for a good performing antenna to use on 80 and 40, I recalled an article from September 2005 QST by Dan Richardson K6MHE about a dual band 40m and 20m vertical described previously by Wes Hayward W7ZOI . By using a modified L-network, the antenna appears as a regular 1/4 wave vertical on 40m, but has a shunt capacitor to match the very high impedance of an end fed 1/2 wave vertical on 20m. Two bands, one antenna, switched automatically. Nice!

A copy of the article can be found here:

http://www.k6mhe.com/files/DualBandVert.pdf

After reviewing the article, I decided to give a 80m/40m version a try. Parts for the matching network were salvaged from an old MFJ antenna tuner. I wired the network together and did some test on the workbench with my AIM4170 impedance vector analyzer. For convenience and future changes I decided to leave the inductor rotary switch mechanism attached as removed from the tuner. See diagram below. By positioning the switch for the best tap on L1 and adjusting C2, I found that the L-network would work satisfactory down to 80m. Tuning was done empirically after the antenna was constructed. L1 ad C2 are adjusted to be a low impedance path on 80m and shunt C1 is adjusted for resonance on 40m.

The network was assembled into an outdoor electrical junction box that can be found at Lowes or Home Depot. Due to my limitations on antennas, only 4 68' #14 solid radials could be used. The vertical radiator is 68' #10 stranded running nearly vertical up to a pulley from a branch in the oak tree which allows me to raise and lower the antenna. The radiator is a little longer than needed on 80m being resonant around 3.45MHz but ends up falling resonant right in the middle of the 40m band. I figured that I would rather have a higher SWR using coax on a lower frequency than a higher one. Further adjustments to the network did not improve this much. I used the same type 20-300pF air variable capacitors for both C1 and C2 and would recommend using a lower range value on C1 for easier adjustment on 40m. Stainless steel hardware and rubber washers were used for the radial and radiator connections through the weatherproof box. A standard SO239 was mounted for the coaxial connection.
Due to 40m being an end fed 1/2 wave vertical dipole on this system, there is the potential for having RF on the shield of the coaxial feedline and radiating as part of the antenna. Several turns of coax were wound on a large diameter plastic tube creating a RF choke at the feedpoint to help reduce this effect.

Using EZNEC to model the antenna, it has good omnidirectional pattern on both bands with a takeoff angle of 24˚ on 80m and 19˚ on 40m. Since having it up for a few weeks now, on the air test have confirmed these patterns. I cannot hardly hear anyone within 400 miles with it on 40m but works well for long range contacts requiring lower takeoff angles. On 80m it seems to hear in a little closer than on 40m, but works good long range as well. I have made many contacts into Europe with it so far.

Below is a scan using the AIM4170 Analyzer. Click the image for a larger resolution. A portion of the video created about this antenna covers the analysis.



Hopefully this will help others looking for a good 80m/40m antenna. I have enjoyed this antenna project and it works very well.

73 and hope to see you on the lower bands!

AB8XX

Hello world

Greetings my fellow Radio Operators. This blog is something new for me. Hopefully it may contain something interesting for others to try themselves. You have probably come across this by typing my call in QRZ.com or Google. Most pertinent information about my station can be found there. Items that require more detail and depth can be found here.

A little bit about my operating:

You will find me the most somewhere on the HF bands. Most of my operating tends to be in the evenings or late at night. Recently I have spent most of my time chasing DX on 80m and having casual QSOs on 40m. When conditions are good, 17m is my favorite band. No contest and everyone is friendly. Sometimes I get on a couple of local repeaters but not very often due to the times I can operate. Every now and then I dust off the TNC and chat on VHF Packet. One of my favorite things to do is operate HF portable in the great outdoors.

That may give others an idea of what I like to do.

73 AB8XX