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...

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.

Getting My Feet Wet With PSK

I had my first experience with PSK back in March of this year during a quick QSO with AB9VJ. It wasn't great. PSK takes a little more setup than most would expect. I had just received a new Signalink USB interface and that was all setup, luckily. Unfortunately, I had not considered setting up all the macros in Ham Radio Deluxe. It was all new to me and I just wanted to try it out.

A waterfall display depicting several PSK31 transmissions.

After that first QSO, it would be another 8 months before I would try digital again. Just last month, when I was home for Thanksgiving, I decided to give it another shot. I familiarized myself with the program again and I was on my way. I made over 50 contacts that weekend on PSK31. That would include close to 20 different DXCCs. I think once that an operator has PSK setup and configured, it is a very satisfying mode. It's very fast-paced and you can have a number of contacts in just a few minutes. This will probably be the mode that takes me to DXCC and WAS.

The New Mobile Setup

My mobile setup initially started when I got into CB early last summer. Everything was pretty sloppy, the wiring especially. I wanted to fix it up and add a good VHF rig. I volunteer for a cycling event every year, so a robust VHF install was a must. My original intention was to go to a local 2-way radio and mobile electronics shop and have them do the work for me. I wanted a 3 or 4-radio rack on top of a floor-mounted post. They said it would be expensive and may be uncomfortable to have a passenger in the front seat. I agreed after hearing their argument. The tech suggested on a modified glove box design. I loved it! It would cost me about $600. The week before I driving back to school after the summer break, I called the shop and tried to book a spot. The tech I had spoken to was on vacation and nobody else was available. I even called another shop and they were booked too! I was so frustrated. Now I had to build it all on my own. I started by cutting the back out of the glove box and placing the radios inside for final measurements. After some trimming, I sprayed the inside with truck bed liner to cover the spray-on velvet that was original. Next was securing everything with Velcro. It looked great! Next was wiring. Power junctions were placed in the dash and wired to the battery and coax was run from the rear of the vehicle. I used a short piece of wood to mount all the mic holders to and Velcro'd it to the center of the dash. It took about a month to find the proper Velcro that would last. I found Scotch DualLock to be best with the heat and strength. This is the same stuff that is used for toll transponders.

Field Day 2014

Wow it's been awhile since I have written a good story on here, but for good reason I guess. As a lot of you know I am a college student, so my schedule provides little time to fully explore the hobby as most do. My Field Day was pretty uneventful. I had just come home from a business trip with my summer internship, so I didn't have much time to plan. In fact, I was preparing to leave on another trip! I decided to just use my home station on commercial power. I wasn't going to stay up all night making contacts so I hopped on the radio when I could and made a few contacts. Probably my most boring post, but there's more to come, I promise!

My Ham Radio Story Part I - 12/4/13

I grew up wanting to be an engineer. I love to tinker with electronics. My father has always been an engineer and I loved visiting his office. He worked at a small company outside Boston that manufactured switches and buttons. These went into everything from hospital beds to cell phones. I remember as a kid helping to find a solution to a problem with the keypad that would later go into the Motorola Razr cell phone.

When it came time to go to high school, I chose to attend the regional tech school in place of the conventional high school. I thought drafting would be a good fit, but I couldn't see myself sitting in front of a computer screen all day. I thought about electronics, too, but the math was intimidating at the time. I found that I loved IT. I could tinker and experiment all I wanted. I caught on quicker than expected. I was certified in computer repair at the age of 16.Coming to Pace for Information Systems, I kind of lost my ability to tinker. I ended up working for ITS Client Support for 2 years. I have since moved on to work for the Seidenberg School of CSIS, working not only with general support and repair, but also with servers, labs, and research environments.

I have had a couple of internships since coming to Pace, the most recent being in Charlestown, MA, on the edge of Boston and on the waterfront. I drove 50 miles to and from my job every day. The traffic got me a little aggravated after awhile. I wanted a unique, accurate, and inexpensive solution. I eventually thought about CB radios. These radios were used widely in the 70s by a wide range of drivers. Today they are used mostly by truck drivers to communicate about traffic. After installing the radio, I was able to get through traffic fairly smoothly. Drivers could communicate the location of accidents, disabled vehicles, and speed traps. If a major traffic jam occurred, drivers can even suggest what lane to be in to get through faster. Out of common courtesy, I would report all of this info as well, giving any driver in up to a 10 mile radius a heads-up. I was always seeing how I could get the best range and performance.

After reading up on CB for about a month, I found out about "ham" radio. It did require an FCC-issued license, but I was intrigued. It would allow me to not only talk to people locally, but also around the world, all over a simple radio. Shortly after, I started studying for a license exam. It would cover basic electronics and radio theory as well as governing laws. About 2 weeks later, I felt I was ready. I drove to a local exam session one Saturday in Slatersville, RI. Experienced ham operators called Volunteer Examiners are in charge of issuing exams. The exam was 35 questions. I passed with little issue. I received my license about a week later.

I started off with a small hand-held radio. This allowed me to speak locally. My first contact was made to Grant. Grant was a Pace University alum. Grant and I even shared a common major of Information Systems. I spoke to him right from my dorm room in Briarcliff using a repeater (think cell tower) in Valhalla. Grant was driving in New Rochelle. He informed me that he was a member of WECA, the Westchester Emergency Communications Association. He told me I should check it out and join. I attended a meeting about a week later. What a great group! I decided to join. WECA is one of the largest and most respected groups in the country.

I was even able to get ham operators involved in a yearly cycling event I am involved in. I work in parking and logistics and saw a great advantage to this. I was able to participate as a communications chase car. A team of about 10 operators tracked approximately 300 riders. We were able to ensure the safety of the riders and keep event organizers informed. I was even able to help police officers providing detail to get information and directions from organizers. At that point I knew this was not a standard hobby, I was a trusted resource. Not long after this event, I volunteered for another event in Sleepy Hollow. It was a horse event traveling through the Rockefeller State Preserve. The Preserve has some cellular dead zones and we would serve as precautionary emergency communicators. There had been an accident the prior year, so event organizers were glad to have us. We also had a county communications truck on-site, so that any emergency call could be immediately relayed to emergency dispatch. It was a great day, luckily no accidents, but it was a great event to see.

 

Emergency communications is a large part of ham radio. It is actually written into FCC law. Operators have the unique ability to communicate even when conventional modes are unavailable such as cell phones or landline phones. Operators have stepped in after notable events such as Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. Most recently, operators have been a life-line in the Philippines. I began to follow events closely after discovering their involvement.

I had been connected with an operator named Stanley out in California through Facebook. We, as well as others, wanted to help get people in the Philippines the resources they needed. Stan wanted to send some extra radio equipment he had. We also wanted to get other operators to consider donating. I was able to get in touch with Ramon, the Vice-COO of the Philippine Amateur Radio Association and a customs officer of 24 years. I started coordinating shipments, serving as a link between operators and Ramon. I personally could not afford to send anything since shipping costs were in the hundreds of dollars.

I have decided to start studying so that I can upgrade my license. This would allow me to operate on more frequencies and communicate more easily around the world. I am grateful to have found the world of radio!

Next April, I will be providing logistical and medical communications for the Boston Marathon along-side over 150 other operators. This has been a calling of-sorts since I discovered their involvement. Attending the marathon has always been a family tradition, cheering on runners and handing out water. I wasn't able to go this year. After the events that played out, I promised myself I would not miss it again. When the opportunity to volunteer arose, I couldn't pass it up. Why be a spectator when I could work behind the scenes at the most famous marathon in the world? I have even requested to work at the finish line. See you there Boston!