VUCC!

A little less than a year after first transmitting on the Magic Band, I qualified for VUCC. This was a goal of mine, just to see if it could be done on FT8 and using the same EFLW that I use for HF. If fact, it is possible!

Next, I want to try my hand at SSB on 6m, as FT8 is getting a little old. I've been brushing up on my Morse and hope to jump into that again soon. 

Field Day is just around the corner; this is such an awesome hobby!

Adventures in the Shack: Rookie Mistakes

I recently got a Yaesu FTDX-3000. It's an amazing radio. The DSP and filtering are extremely effective, and it almost makes the FT-991A feel like a toy, which is most definitely is not.When the radio arrived I carefully installed Anderson power poles to the factory DC cable and applied power. The radio came to life. 

A bit of background. For roughly the last year I've concentrated on FT8, with the exception of Field Day, which was done outdoors using SSB on the FT-891 (yes, I like Yaesu equipment). In the shack, which is on the second floor of my home, 98% of my operating has been on digital at powers not exceeding 30 watts. My radios are powered from one of two Astron RS-35 linear power supplies, using cables that I carefully made with eye hooks and power poles. Being on the second story raises the specter of effective grounding. I had strung a copper wire down to the grounding rod associated with a whole-house 30KW generator, which was itself bonded to the house entrance ground. It all seemed fine. 

After spending some time marveling at the FTDX-3000 receiver, I tried transmitting at CW signal at 100 watts. I keyed down and WHAM -- the rig rebooted! Was this a bad unit? I tried again and WHAM -- the rig rebooted again. I tried a different band. WHAM -- reboot. I tried reducing the power to 50 watts. WHAM! Reboot! I shut down and went to bed, sorely disappointed. 

The next day I suspected grounding issues. Specifically, I wondered if I had a good DC ground but a poor RF ground. After putting in a much more respectable ground with a shorter path to a cold water pipe and bonding to the house entrance, I tried again. WHAM! Another reboot. 

Well, I thought, maybe RF from my end-fed long wire is dumping RF into the shack and affecting the sensitive electronics in the '3000. I lowered the power to 20 watts and was able to transmit. I increased the power to 30 watts and was able to transmit. At 40-50 watts, however, the radio rebooted. So I tried winding some feedline chokes, and it seemed to make a little difference in that now I could transmit a little over 50 watts before encountering problems. 

I ordered a common mode feedline choke from MyAntennas and that seemed to help a little -- and my noise floor decreased, which was nice -- but the radio still wouldn't get much above 50 watts before rebooting. 

I tried disconnecting everything from the radio and transmitting; the problem persisted. I tried cleaning oxidation off fuses; the problem persisted. I disconnected all other radios from the RIGrunner power distribution system I use; the problem persisted. I put ferrites on all the power and other cables; the problem persisted. 

A local amateur with whom I had been discussing the problem suggested shortening the power cables, which come from the factory very long. I didn't do that, but I did try a new power supply, figuring that the higher current drawn on the higher power might have uncovered some instability. When I went to remove the eye hook connections on the power supply, I saw that the positive power cable was brown and stiff -- charred, in fact -- around the eye connector. 

It turns out that the eye hook I had installed was not heavy enough to carry 20 amps. The rig was rebooting because it couldn't draw sufficient current to transmit. Because I had operated at lower power levels until now, the issue had never surfaced. 

I felt like such a rookie. 

There a many lessons here, but perhaps the most fundamental is that, when encountering such problems, always start with the power. If I had simply looked at the power cables at the power supply unit source, maybe it wouldn't have taken three weeks to identify the root problem, which was easily solvable.

Of course, my station is now much better for all the things learned and steps taken to harden my setup. This hobby is so great that teaching lessons.

Birds and Antennas

A rapid de-tuning of an end fed long wire (EFLW) antenna mid-QSO is usually a sign that something bad has happened, especially when the rapid de-tuning is accompanied by a lot of squawking.

Birds and EFLWs don't always coexist peacefully.

In the middle of an FT8 the other night I noticed the SWR increase dramatically. Not catastrophically, but very significantly. In the morning the cause was clear -- the far end was no longer tied to the tree as it had been. It was on the ground.

I think birds had landed either on the antenna or on the branch where the nylon line had been tied off. They clearly didn't appreciate it when the line snapped.

Neither did I!

Six Meters: The Magic Band

While I've never dipped a toe into VHF beyond 2m or 70cm FM, the weak signal modes above HF have always intrigued me. A tweet this afternoon alerted me to a 6m opening, so I decided, just for giggles, to see if I could hear any FT8 signals. I've only got an end fed long wire (EFLW) antenna, a 117 foot long wire with a 9:1 unun (the MyAntennas EFLW-1K), which I love but had limited expectations for on 6m.

In fact, I heard signals. Six meters was alive!

Well then, I just had to try transmitting. The antenna tuned up just fine, and on my first day ever on 6m, I managed to work 11 grids in 7 states -- using a 117 foot EFLW antenna.

That's why they call it the Magic Band. I'll be putting up a dedicated antenna soon.

Field Day 2020

This year was a strange reintroduction to Field Day, being the first FD event I've participated in since roughly 1985. COVID-19 prevented a group outing so I went it alone with a Yaesu FT-891, Wolf River Coils telescoping vertical (Sunday I used a MyAntennas EFLW), and 20Ah LiFePo4 battery.

Despite the sub-optimal band conditions, challenging weather, and lack of company, it was still a blast. I operated SSB to keep it simple this year. After giving up on 20m QRP Saturday afternoon and switching to 40m and 100 watts, I racked up a mediocre 50+ QSOs while marveling at the performance of the FT-891. The digital noise reduction and variable bandwidth filters made the difference between QSO and no-QSO many times. It's a nice rig.

Other random thoughts on FD-2020:  

• Very few on air spats or snarky comments heard.
• There were lots of polite "thank you" and "good luck in the contest" comments peppered into exchanges. 
• I heard a goodly amount of slow and medium speed code, helpful for people building (and rebuilding) their CW skills.
  

Other than limited propagation and the usual poorly tuned amplifiers producing QRM on nearby frequencies, the event was enjoyable. Hopefully next year we can deploy in groups.