Dayton 2016 Part 1

It has been awhile since I wrote a new post, but I think it's about time to fix that. Just like 20,000 other hams, I returned this week from my first visit to the Dayton Hamvention in Dayton, Ohio. The Hamvention is one of the world's largest ham radio conventions, attracting some 20,000 hams every year to the city of Dayton. This year was the 64th Hamvention and boy does it impress! While there have been rumors and complaints about the dilapidated Hara Arena that has hosted the convention for decades, most attendees simply don't care. We're there for the people, the products, and the knowledge. 

On your first trip to Dayton, you'll notice that hams literally take over the city for the weekend. Rental cars, hotel rooms, flights, everything is simply booked solid. You need to plan months in advance. This event attracts hams from around the world, and that is no exaggeration. I was lucky enough to have some hotel rewards saved up so I only had to pay tax on the 2 room suite I booked in Miamisburg. 

One thing you'll notice is that you are far from being the only one on the roads around Dayton with crazy antennas on your car. In fact, you'll start to see the antennas on cars some 50 miles outside of Dayton! 

When going to Dayton, I didn't have too many things in mind that I needed to purchase. I wanted to go mainly to socialize and experience this incredible event. I also wanted some input from the "experts" on some upcoming projects. 

100 Watts and a Wire members (l-r) Marty, Mike, Joe, Christian, and myself

I joined a group called 100 Watts and a Wire (100wattsandawire.com) about a year ago. The group was founded by Christian Cudnik, K0STH. Since joining, it has been a fantastic social avenue for many hams. In Dayton, many of us were able to finally meet and talk about what we were doing in the hobby.

Ray, N9JA at the Youth Forum. Marty, KC1CWF is at the podium. 

 Ham radio accepts people from all walks of life and Dayton is a true demonstration of that. There is no division of race, nationality, age, or gender. We are all there for 1 thing - radio. Where else could 14 year old Marty (KC1CWF) speak in front of a room full of adults without being looked down on? Even Ray Novak, N9JA shared a picture of the great turnout to see Marty. Ray himself represents ICOM America. 

Dayton is a place where anything is possible. Want to learn about satellites? You can at Dayton! Heck, there's even a place to try your hand at operating on one while it orbits the Earth! The big thing I wanted to learn about was APRS. Now, APRS has been around since the 1980s. It's nothing new, but there are new products and opportunities coming into play that will change how it is used. What about an APRS satellite that has voice prompts? It's in the works! 

Hams are brilliant people. We see an opportunity to improve a gap in communication and we excel at it. Many technologies used by commercial and military markets were developed by hams, simply because they saw an opportunity. This really is the adult version of STEM! 

to be continued...

2015 ARRL New England Division Convention

This year was my first time attending the ARRL New England Convention, also known as the Boxboro Hamfest. The event is run by FEMARA and all the proceeds of the event go towards an ARRL scholarship fund. I was one of the FEMARA scholarship winners last year and really made an effort to attend this year. I am so glad I did. I even got to present on a research project I conducted at school on the Broadband-Hamnet system.For those looking for the presentation, here it is:

BBHN boxboro

Broadband-Hamnet

One of the other great things I saw was a live demonstration of SO-50 by Robert, KB1SWZ. I recorded the whole thing in 4K HD video.

A New Antenna!

As some may remember, my only antenna used to be a Radiowavz DX40. Unfortunately that came down last month. It was a great antenna and I wanted to put it back up, but the antenna hasn't fared too well with the bizarre weather in Massachusetts over the past year. The balun was rusting and the wire was snapped. It was time for something new. After researching some different designs to save money with a homebrew antenna, I found that a loop antenna could be made very inexpensively. I wanted to put up the biggest one possible in order to take advantage of the available space in the yard. I found that a 40m full-wave loop would fit well. I also found it to be incredibly simple to make and put up. Here's a quick list of what you'll need:

•  About 150 feet of wire. I used 17 gauge aluminum electric fence wire. If you go with that, DO NOT use steel wire, the impedance is 4x that of the aluminum. This stuff is really inexpensive. I purchased 250 feet for about $5. 
• Support rope. 200-300 feet, depending on your setup would be enough. I use UV-resistant high strength parachute cord. You can also use Dacron. 
• 4 dogbone insulators. These are pretty cheap, about $1-2 each at any ham supplier. 
• 4:1 balun 
• 1:1 isolation transformer.

You can also do this with ladder line and eliminate the transformer and the balun, but most new hams have coax, so I'll cater to that. The formula for wire length is 1005/frequency (in MHz). I used 7.2 MHz as a target. That comes out to about 139.5 feet. You don't need to be exact with this. Loops are very broad-banded and you'll be using a tuner anyways. With loops, you can tune the antenna using a tuner from 10m all the way up to the target frequency. So in reality, if you had a 160m target, you'd have an all-band antenna. Here's a sketch of my antenna and how it's configured.

   

The yellow square is the antenna, the green is the support rigging, the blue is the insulators, the white square is the balun, and the star is where the coax enters the shack. The isolation transformer is just outside the shack window. Here are a few helpful hints as you move through your project:

•  Symmetry is not critical.
• The isolation transformer will help because it keeps rf off the shield of the coax. Loops are more susceptible to this than a dipole as there is so much more area to collect static. 
• Height is not critical, but higher is better. Mine is about 20 feet up. 
• The balun can be placed ANYWHERE on the loop. 
• You don't necessarily have to hook it up to a meter or analyzer and tune it. Just do the measurements correctly and you'll be ok.

You'll be surprised by the performance of a loop. If you're used to a dipole, you'll be amazed when you can break pileups and get that far-off DX contact! If you have any questions, send me an email at kc1ajt@kc1ajt.com


Update 12/28/15: The loop came down last week as a result from sharing a support with a new antenna and putting too much weight on the 17 gauge wire. I made the decision to put the antenna back up in the same configuration, but with 14 gauge wire. This time, I planned ahead and purchased 1/4 mile of wire for any future projects. The thicker wire is a little harder to work with because it doesn't bend or stretch as much, but in the end it will be better in the end.

Project Update

A couple of months ago, I posted some projects I wanted to get done. Well things haven't gone EXACTLY as planned. Moving the ADS-B and scanner feeds to Raspberry Pis hasn't happened, nor do I think it will ever happen. The current setup works and really isn't using a ton of power. Right now my desktop, 2 scanners, a monitor, and an LED lamp pulls about 110 watts. The APRS iGate project was scrapped and redone a few times. The final conclusions: the Argent Data radio shield is just not sensitive enough for this application and the crystal scanner I intended to use just had too wide of a receive on it and was catching interference too easily. I went with a cheap Whistler scanner instead. I did put a new antenna in the attic that now feeds both the scanner feed and the iGate. It seems to be working well. I have also scrapped the idea of putting up a digipeater. There are about 4 or 5 that cover most of eastern MA. Putting another on the air would just clutter the frequency even more. I also reorganized the shack this week and added battery backup. The computer and feeds can remain online for about 40 minutes without power. If my HF rig is on, it will take that down to about 18. I think this will greatly benefit the police/fire/ems scanner feeds in the event of an outage. Still a few more small tasks to go, but I am happy overall, as we rarely have a power outage here.