Last Nights DX'ing on 40m

[VK2WAR]

Last nights DX''''ing wasnt too bad.  With the new Amp I managed to get

VE3YJ from Torronto, Ontario  and received a 5 x 5

KC0ZRX from  Springfield, Missouri and received a 5 x 9

VU2PLL from Erode, Tamil Nadu, India and received a 5 x 7

Now I did hear S56P from Slovenia as I was calling it quits but just couldnt stay awake any longer.

I also had my first QSO with home (VK6 land) with Peter VK6APZ in Kelleberrin and picked up VK8JM in Sanderson (Darwin)  so an awesome nights work from my perspective.

Anyways, thats it for now.  Enjoy.

Jase

[VK2WAR]

DX''ing last night, well I didnt, but I did get up, alright actually I didnt go to sleep but tried to, and got up at 315am.

40 meters was atrocious, really atrocious, couldnt even get a local. 

However, around 530am things started moving (thats AEST time and you can add or minus the D cos I cant remember where we are at
and Im too lazy to check it out).

Anyways,

I made my first european contacts. In fact even got thrown onto the DX Cluster which is what I''d been waiting for.

okies, now heres what I managed to pull in.

IZ8JAI from Calabria, Italy and received a 5 x 7
S56P from  Bistrica Ob Dravi, Slovenia and received 5 x 7
5B4AIX from Peyia, Paphos, Cyprus and received a 5 x 4
A41LD from Muscat, Oman and received 5 x 8
EA8CEQ from Brena Baja  (La Palma Island (((Im guessing thats Palm Island))) one of the Canary Islands) and received 5 x 9

So there ya have it, bugger all for two hours, and then the place rocked, but having said that, I couldnt hear most of them above the noise very well.


Cheers for now, thats my update on 40m.


Jase

[VK2NET]

Sensational work Jase, well done mate, you are killing it 

Btw, I went and signed up for that QSL program and next session you can walk me through hooking it up to HRD.

Keep up the great DX''ing and it looks like that new Amp you got is a winner 

[Anthony Pappin]

Hi Jase. Well done! Some really good contacts there. Your making me jealous!. You may have already told us about the amp but could you just tell us the specs please? What antenna were you using? Keep up the good work. Sleeps over rated anyway! Anthony in Colac VK3 73s.

[VK2WAR]

Yeah hi guys,

How remiss of me Anthony, I should have pointed it out earlier so thankyou for bring to my attention that I hadn''t mentioned what I used to get it.

Okays, heres a list of the kit in my shack.


1 x Yaesu FT-897D with external 4.5" LDG FTL-Meter (Which is awesome however Im running out of power points here and I havent had a chance to get the light on on that one)

1 x MFJ Versa Tuner III (MFJ-962D)

1 x SignaLink USB Sound Interface for Digital modes and CW

1 x MFJ-564 (Chrome Iambic Paddle for CW although Im hopeless but I can make fleet standard time apparently which is set at a low 6wpm but Im straining for reading that quick LOL)

Now for antennas I have two up at the moment.

1 x TET-Emtron TEV-1  (and by the way if you ever hear me online saying the word "Tac" or "Tack"  I mean the DASH between the TEV and the 1) which is basically a broadband Ae 8.5meters in length made up of six lengths. 

1 x MFJ G5RV (I cant remember the number its probabbly 1778 or something but dont quote me its the 102'' job)

Aright, now I am not using the G5RV with the AMP until I get the RG-58C/U changed out with RG-213 for obvious reasons, now I know RG-58 is capable of taking up to 1000 watts  in controlled circumstances but Im not going to push anything into it, I dont know how clean civilian made stuff is and I honestly dont care to burn the house down).

Now the G5RV I originally had running down along the side of the house completely.  I have it''s center point tied to a regular 1.8 meter long regular television Ae standoff.   Now I have the radiating element running diagonally across the back yard, whilst the earth side of the dipole remains where it started off.  Unfortunately I cannot secure it completely across the house as the house power supply lines get in the way and I dont particularly want to fry by arse trying to negotiate them. 

The balanced line feeder to the center point of the dipole I have running down the side of the house, from its centerpoint on the standoff, to about 1 foot off the ground, and it runs around the house from the side of the house to the rear of the house, where it meets RG-58 in a 10 turn by 6 inch choke.  (I hope all that makes sense).  Basically, I cannot put the antenna anywhere else or in any other configuration without really scaring the neighbours and myself as Id rather not look like a crispy critter.


Okay the TEV (Tac) 1 ie.  TEV-1 is mounted on probably the most bent out of shape 2 1/2 inch steel pipe I could find for free (at the time) and its about 6 meters high.  I have that driven into the ground and concreted into a thermal figure 8 brick about 2 foot down into the ground.   It is braced at the southern side of the patio colour bond awning come roof whathaveyou thingy doosawhatsit (You get the point).

The colourbond patio covering is earthed to a 2 meter copper pipe which I have dug into the ground just over a meter deep (its the best I could do with a broken arm/hand at the time).

The TEV-1 is 10-13cm above the height of the patio covering and I have run 2 lengths of 2.5mm 7 strand copper wire across it as radials. And it is also bonded to the patio covering.

All equipment in the shack is earthed to the copper pipe (Transceiver and Tuner and AMP (however the amp is bonded to the PSU with 213 copper braid and that runs straight to the tuner). 

Now the AMP, well that is a Homebrew PSU and RF Deck in seperate packages.  The PSU has 2 x 866 valves and the RF Deck utilises 4 x 811A''s.  It puts out up to 600Watts PEP.   I just wrote a thesis on the difference between PEP and Average power as displayed on your average antenna tuner VSWR meter.  But I would refer you to VK Logger and to search for PEP.  There are a  couple of links to pages written specifically on it.  I probably have the link somewhere but I am well and truly over tired right now so if you cant find it, just message me or email me, I will send it to you.  And of course I am running the AMP well less than the capabability of the Amplifier.   For legal reasons obviously.

Further to this, I am manually switching the Amp T/R switch.  And dont laugh.  I am using a Dicksmith Electronics 160 circuit project kit thing to switch the AMP at the moment because I havent gotten to JayCar yet.

Why am I doing it manually.  Well, heres the story.  The FT-897D is capable of singing 400ma of current at up to 50Volts.   More than enough to cover the 16.97volts that the AMP is providing for this relay, and at .260ma. 

Now the radios PTT circuit via the Accessories (ACC) socket when properly jumpered (J1027) will provide the PTT on the ring of a 3.5mm plug.  However, I tried this.  Being solid state, there remains a .6v residual through the transisitor base to emitter.  This is not low enough to run the relay in the Amp so when the relay is in situ the .6volts remains on the switch, the relay doesnt activate.

Thus I stole 12volts from the CAT plug, and tried a 12volt relay.  But before I even had a chance to connect it to the AMP the transistor and probably in line fuse, shorted to ground.

Not good.  Purchasing a similar setup from Andrews at a cost 89 dollars for a virtually similar circuit run from the DIN cat connector didnt solve the problem as the two circuits activate simultaneously and thus one is the other and inline and now dead.

Oh dear, well yes oh dear, the radio is going in to be fixed on Friday. 

Hopefully it doesnt take too long for them to fix it.  I could look at it myself but I dont have replacement ribbon cables and they look particularly fragile, so if someone is going to wreck them it wont be me.

Thus I am not going to fix it myself, its too small and I hate SMD re-work anyways.  So for now I will run it manually, and it works anyways as one can see.

The pictures I provided of the AMP is in the Homebrew section of this Forum I think from memory. 

Okays, thats the setup guys.  Any thoughts, any comments, any criticisms are welcome.  So let loose and enjoy yourself.  I will.  And to that, Im going to turn everything on in the shack and give it a whirl. 

Ive now been up for 72 hours on 4 hours sleep due to lack of meds and Im going to exhaust myself now till I sleep.

Cya around 40 meters.  I cannot seem to tune the Vertical to 80meters with the AMP in situ so I am waiting till I get the 213 into the G5RV to tune for 80 meters.  I may give 20/15 & 10 ago very soon to see how it goes though.


Bye for now,

Jase.

[VK2WAR]

Hi Guys,

40 Meter report for this morning.

Well this morning with VK8JM and VK7JAZ we started working stations from around 4am.  VK8JM started reeling them in after I added him to the 40M DX cluster.

As soon as that happened wham !!!! LOL no one just listens anymore, they just follow the cluster by the looks of it.

Stations started calling in from everywhere.  At first the band conditions were terrible.  A lot of QRN which started to increase towards Sunrise.  As the sun rose they really got worse. After Sunrise
They improved dramatically for the first hour and half.

With VK8JM, VK7JAZ in tow, I pulled in

RV6LO from Russia with a 54 report
G3UUV from Chippenham, England, with a 53 report  (but that was better a little later although I forgot to update the log so will wait for the eqsl card)

Vk8JM (John) pulled out not long after that but was having great success.  A few stations were really well audible. 
But between the 3 of us it was a bit overcrowded so I let a lot of them go, some idiot also started a digital transmission over
us so it was very difficult to hear them, all though we could tell they were brilliant signals, especially  G3UUV.

Could have had a good conversation with him and did a little later on another frequency. 

So for a while after the band crashed for a bit then reopened up.

F6GNZ from Jouars Pontchartrain, France and received a 56 report although I had him 54

UA3GZ from Lipetsk Russia, and received a 57 report although I had him 53

IK1UGX from Demonte, Italy and received a 55 report although I had him 53

RZ6MM from Russia, and received a 57 report although I had him 53

Then things really opened up completely with real conversations able to be had beyond just brief signal reports.

OE8HIK from St Andrae Austria, and received 57 although I had him 56 (Awesome Contact)

DF3KV from Auetal Germany, and received 53 although I had him 58

I5MPK from Montecatini Terme ( Pistoia ) Italy, and received 58 and had him 58 (brilliant conversation)

9A2EU from Zapresic Croatia, and received 56 and him 57 (Great contact)

By that time the band died down dramatically and Bill (VK7JAZ) didnt bother calling CQ after that.

So between 550am and 630am things really went well.

So thats it for this mornings report people.  Hope you have a great day.

Cheers

Jase.

[VK2NET]

Hi Jase, two totally awesome postings mate, one after the other. The first about your gear is really interesting, I''ve seen most of it, except for your new Amp and the new upgraded tuner, so I''m keen to get back over to your QTH and see it all in action.

Your second posting about your Dx’ing is fantastic, really stimulating, especially to those who are not achieving such good results yet and for those who are sleeping right through the best times 

Please continue to post your contacts in the forum to act as a source of inspiration to those of us who are yet to get to your level, also please give out the forum address to your contacts so they can come and read your words and see references to themselves, that might give them a little kick.

Okay, thanks again for becoming so active on the forum, sharing your exploits and the obvious passion you have for this hobby.