Monthly Archives: August 2011

Ham Radio – First DX Contacts

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This weekend was a great radio weekend for me. I accomplished a few things that have really opened my eyes and has taken away some of the worry / fear I had about what all I would truly be able to accomplish with my little radio and dipole setup.

It can be a little daunting as someone new starting out to read about and see all these big fancy radios, huge monstrous antennas and all this talk about power and the amps they have.

Makes you wonder if they need all that then what possibly am I going to be able to accomplish with a meager 100w radio and simple wire dipole antenna I made and strung up with no precision at all.

Well… let me tell you, some really neat things are possible. You can make some far away contacts with very little.

This weekend I managed to get my first DX station. I “thought” my first DX station was Germany, but apparently the Hawaii station I worked shortly before is considered a DX station as well. I thought DX stations were basically other countries, so I didn’t think Hawaii counted as anything but a state.

Saturday morning UTC: 13:10am (8/27/2011) I made contact with KH6CE in Honolulu, Hawaii on 40m, 7.180. Approximately 4088 miles away from Lafayette, Louisiana.

Saturday night UTC: 01:12 (8/28/2011) I made contact with DK3FW in Pattensen, Germany on 40m. Approximately 5054 miles away from Lafayette, Louisiana.

Sunday morning UTC: 12:17 (8/28/2011) I made contact with KH6LC in Keaau, Hawaii on 40m. Approximately 3965 miles away from Lafayette, Louisiana.

Sunday evening UTC: 22:36 (8/28/2011) I made contact with EF1DFP in Spain on 20m. Approximately 4822 miles away from Lafayette, LA.

Sunday evening UTC: 23:04 (8/28/2011) I made contact with OE3DIA in Vienna, Austria on 20m. Approximately 5448 miles away from Lafayette, LA.

I also got some new states over the weekend to go towards my WAS award; Montana, North Dakota, Hawaii, Michigan, South Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Iowa.

Now I just need QSL cards for all these places! Over 60 contacts and QSL cards sent out by me so far and yet I have only received one to date. Got about 6 confirmed via LOTW however so thats good. Waiting on QSL cards takes a lot of patience apparently.

Regardless, great weekend on the radio. Learned a lot. And my interest is even more peaked now then it has ever been since making some DX contacts.

Absolutely amazing hobby with a lifetime of challenges and awards to work towards.

73,

Dane – W5DLD

PSK31 Super Browser

PSK31 – Digital Master 780 “Super Browser”

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In my last post showing my radio station I mentioned being able to run DM780 also called Digital Master 780. This is another application that is part of the Ham Radio Deluxe suite. On my screen in that photo is what is called the “Super Browser” in DM780 that is basically decoding digital PSK31 conversations in real time. As I understand it you can see multiple conversations at one time when you tune to one frequency because PSK31 only uses 31Hz of bandwidth. Anyway… here is a screen capture I found else where that shows a closer view of the Super Browser and the many streams / conversations taking place. It’s pretty neat stuff IMO.

Ham Radio Station

My “Ham Shack”

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Well I don’t have a “ham shack” like others really. But I do have a very modest little ham radio station that is currently working very well for me.

Pictured is my Icom IC-7000 Radio and LDG AT-100ProII Antenna Tuner which is hooked up to home made OCF dipole antenna (90′ leg and 45′ leg), Laptop running Ham Radio Deluxe radio controls on one screen and Digital Master 870 or logging software on the other. Also Kenwood TH-F6A handheld hooked up to external vertical antenna to monitor the local UHF/VHF repeaters. I have a little audio splitter on back of radio sending audio out to laptop mic in and to a little MFJ ClearTone speaker. The MFJ speaker helps since I’m pretty deaf. Helps when I’m trying to pull out those stations that sound faint on my end. I’m going to get a Heil Proset headset for Christmas it’s already been decided.

WAS – Worked All States Award Status

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Current Timeline of States Worked via Ham Radio:

August 10, 2011 – Colorado (My very first HF QSO/QSL!)

August 13, 2011 – Minnesota, Louisiana, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New York, Ohio, Illinois

August 20, 2011 – Maine, North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Mississippi, Indiana, Maryland, Kentucky, Nebraska, California

August 21, 2011 – Delaware, South Carolina, Florida, Ontario (I know its not a state), Indiana (State Fair – Special Event Station), New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Missouri, Georgia.

August 22, 2011 – Kansas and Tennessee

Not bad at all considering this is all done on 50w of power with a little wire dipole antenna I made and have strung up between trees. Have I mentioned how much I love this hobby?

First HF QSL!

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Well… after months of listening on HF and participating in a few local area HF nets I finally made my first real HF QSL. I took time to make my first contact because I really wanted it to be memorable. Knowing I want to earn the ARRL Worked All States award, and since Colorado has a really special place in my heart, I wanted my first contact to be in Colorado. Last night the opportunity presented itself and on August 10, 2011 at 00:52 UTC I worked NA0L in Boulder, Colorado on 40m SSB (7.178 MHz). This was done with my Icom IC-7000 and my home made wire dipole antenna operating with only 50w of power. From Lafayette, LA to Boulder, CO is approximately 1008 miles. Not too bad.

For those that don’t know, a QSL is what is referred to when two radio operators make a contact and confirm the contact with each other. This usually involves confirming each others call sign, as well as at a minimum a signal report (RST) which each operator confirms with the other.

This is significant for a variety of reasons. The first is just personal in nature I believe. For me it confirmed that my studying for my license finally paid off. It confirmed that all my listening and making sure I understood proper procedures paid off. It confirmed that I am getting the hang of my radio and it showed me what a home made wire antenna is capable of. In amateur radio there are many awards you can earn through the ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League), one is the “WAS – Worked All States”. This one is pretty self explanatory, you have to log a confirmed QSL / contact with at least one operator in all 50 states. This is what I believe many US operators first try to earn, and it is what I am working towards now.

Looks like my next order of business is going to be to make me some QSL cards to send out as I start making each contact. I have a some what ulterior motive in sending out QSL cards of my own, I just really want to get my first QSL cards in return. I’d love to get one from each of my contacts I make towards my WAS award. Many don’t seem to do the QSL cards these days due to all the electronic alternatives and cost of the cards and stamps but I’m hopeful I can still accomplish this. Such a great old tradition that I hope continues to survive along with amateur radio.

This week in Ham Radio…

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What have I been interested in and learning about this week? Pretty much my attention has been on ham radio again. Making good progress with some things.

Let’s see, ARISSat-1 was launched despite one of the antennas being broken / missing. So far it seems to be working and people are picking up it’s telemetry, voice and SSTV signals. Should be a couple of good close passes next week so I’m going to try making contact and capture the voice and SSTV pic.

I’ve decided to try one of these audio interface cables “Icom IC-Cable-8″ from xggcomms.com to finally starting playing with some of the many digital modes.

Spent some good quality with HDR over the past week or so and it’s interface with my Icom IC-7000. HDR makes accessing some of the many features of the IC-7000 very easy. Been playing around with various settings and filters and really starting to learn my way around things. Now I can hear a conversation, fine tune and really clean up the audio pretty nicely. Really loving this radio and HDR.

Came across some really neat stuff for tracking or visualizing openings and propagation. One of them is a web tool called “DX Sherlock” which can be found here: http://bit.ly/qG1ykz

Also some software called “DX Atlas” which works in conjunction with “IonoProbe” to show you F layer’s critical frequency in areas along path. Still have a lot to learn with trying to understand and leverage propagation mechanics. http://www.dxatlas.com/DxAtlas/

Really looking forward to getting into the digital modes. Also hoping to start making real contacts soon and get to work on earning my WAS award. Fun times ahead!