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- Written by: Chris G4ZCS
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I don’t know how many of my readers work HF but there have been many stations celebrating the centenary of the IARU with special calls. I didn't count the number I saw on air but a quick tally of 25 DXCCs is my rough score with more to come. Likewise, there are many remembering the 80th anniversary of the end of WW2 with over 200 Russians listed!
My perennial problem started again a week into the month with poor reception and loss of power. The main symptom was that testing with a CW carrier, I was watching the power meter dropping from 200W down to 100 in 10 seconds and down to 50W in 20 seconds. As usual I suspected the box down the garden, so a couple of trips out in the sunshine with an assortment of screwdrivers & spanners to check the antenna switches and the Balun. All seemed OK with no burning smell. Next, I checked the twin feeders and the exposed ends of the coax, again all was well. Then into the shack to inspect the HF choke and the ATU - still no visible fault.
Then the obvious! The PSU feeding the Amp’ was showing 13.4 volts instead of 13.8. The 12V car battery I use as a capacitor was showing little if any recharge. I took the lid off the PSU to have a look & found that the negative terminal was not even finger tight; it rattled when I shook it! The voltmeter is connected to the PCB side of the terminal so had not shown the drop in voltage with the key down. With the aid of an 11mm spanner I tightened all the connections. A quick test showed the PSU output back to 13.8V and a two-hour battery charge current of nearly 30 Amps! Problem solved, and all the systems have now been given a birthday check-up.
On another matter, I was reading an astronomical mag’ that was reviewing cycle 25. The general opinion is that we have just passed the peak. However, the huge storms we had last autumn might have distorted the data. So, I’ll keep taking advantage of conditions while they last.
Now to the DX. Over a two-week period in the middle of the month I managed to work a VK2, 11 Chinese, Chile, South Africa, Hong Kong, 5 Japanese, a (very) far-eastern Russian, 2 Taiwan, Cape Verde, Nicaragua, Iraq, Bonaire, and Mali.
The weekend of the 24th & 25th was the CQWW CW contest. Loads of stations to be worked, but I had not prepared myself for quick fire contacts so only a handful of contacts made. However, the first one I did make was with 9M6NA on OC-133 which I had worked before but not confirmed. This time I’ll ask for a card! Talking about cards the postie has been kind again with an early 'Christmas' card!
By the end of the month, I had managed to add another 5 DXCCs to my annual total, but still a long way to catch up with the 'leaders'.
Cheers all
Chris G4ZCS
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- Written by: Maintenance Guy
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Wow, is that ever-so-slightly animated image doing your head in? Because it is mine!
Thanks ChatGPT. I'm glad you can now create custom images from a text prompt. It'll save me even more time, which I can then spend doing radio-related nonsense.
Anyway, I've been out terrorising the ramblers, dog-walkers and beach-goers once again, in the pursuit of some specific POTA awards.
First up were the 'Early Shift' and 'Late Shift' awards, where you have to make 100 contacts before 8:00am UTC and after 6:00pm UTC respectively. The latter was fine by me as I'm a night-bird, but the early start up at Ditchling Beacon was slightly tougher. I was rewarded for my efforts though, by the most beautiful sunrise and the deeply emotional experience of being reborn into a fresh and innocent world of hope(?)
As an aside, I did bump into a chap at Ditchling Common on another activation who was excited to tell me about a lunatic in a Transit van he sees regularly up at the Beacon around 5:00am with a huge drainpipe-style antenna on the roof. I denied all knowledge.
Moving on, I hit 50 unique parks mid-April for my 'Diamond Activator' award, which I've been chasing for a while. Next award at 75 unique parks, which will be hard, because I've done all the local ones now. They'll have to wait 'till I go on holiday somewhere.
On the 19th April, I went out specifically to take part in the Spring 2025 'Support Your Parks' event, where I snagged both my SYPs Activator and Hunter badges. Better than that, I got my 25th Park-To-Park contact (which is what it says it is) courtesy of contacts with DL7UVO and DG1LHM. I've been after that one for weeks too. I do love a Park-To-Park. Brethren.
I accidentally racked up 30 hunter contacts in the P2P process for my Hunter Gold ticket (which I'm not really interested in, personally) before embarking on an absolute mission to achieve my best result yet - the coveted and apparently pretty rare 'James F. LaPorta N1CC Activator' award. This is a special one, where you have to make contacts from ten different parks on 10 different bands each! Challenging, when, as has become abundantly clear to me, not all bands are open every hour of every day, so multiple visits and lots of patience required to tick that lot off. I've learned an awful lot about all the various HF bands this month.
So after all that, you might think I'm obsessed with collecting pointless awards and then bragging about how many awards I've got - but that couldn't be further from the truth. I just like a challenge. When I'm done, I'm done and I won't be carrying on doing the same thing ad-infinitum. I'll just do parks for fun in the nice weather. Many thanks to Phil, who got me into this whole mess, Dick, who helped me out with a couple of 6m entries when I was struggling, and a few regulars from the POTA community across the UK and Europe, with whom I've made many contacts in my ongoing quests. Especially Tony and Paul. You know who you are.
What's next?
A few things. Firstly, there's Mills weekend next weekend (10th and 11th May) where I'll be doing a combined MOTA and POTA on the Saturday from Jill Mill car park using GB0JJM. This is a personal SES event and not an MSARS official event. Sunday I'm at Oldland Mill for the MSARS MOTA, and I'll also be doing a South Downs National Park POTA activation from one of my favourite spots a short walk up from the mill. Pop along if you fancy that.
Next challenge for POTA is the 'Activator Six Pack', where you have to hit ten contacts from 6 different parks on 6m, which could be tricky. Fortunately, you don't have to do it all in one day. Once a decent E's opening occurs, it'll be all over bar the shouting.
The last biggie for me is the 'Rover Rhino' award. That's ten unique parks in one UTC day. A bit like the Three Peaks Challenge, but for old radio nerds. 'Rover Warthog' was too easy at five parks in a day :)
I've done a lot of FT8 in a lot of parks, but soon I'll kick back and do some more voice, in an altogether more relaxed style.
Here are a few pics from a recent Shoreham beach activation.
Antenna: AliExpress special - around £15, including 5.6m stainless steel whip (bargain)
40m loading coil: £17, also from AliExpress (very good price and performance)
Ground rod: found in the garden shed
SO239 to 3/8" x 24 alloy bracket/adapter £15 on eBay
Couple of 5m radials - pennies from the Junk Sale.
Also in the last photo: 20m Ampro Hamstick - around £30 from all good UK radio emporiums. I have one for each band, which does work out quite expensive, but they are very good, and I can recommend them too.
73,
Berni M0XYF
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April got off to a good start; as I mentioned last month, I had an 'eyeball' with Dick G1CWP while we waited for a Covid jab in Haywards Heath. A few hours later I saw Gavin G6DGK at the Brighton hospital.
That evening, however, something went wrong with my treatment that got worse and worse until 5 in the morning when we called for an ambulance. 7 hours of corrective treatment and I was home again but really fuddled in the head, not to mention being bruised from a subsequent fall! That took a couple of weeks to recover from, so not too much radio.
It seems that many of our club members are taking advantage of the current turmoil in the world’s commerce to buy new rigs. It is interesting to hear on-air comments about setting up these new complicated beasts. Perhaps it is only us dinosaurs that can afford them!
This month saw the 100th anniversary of the IARU, so lots of stations to chase. In addition, many countries are celebrating their own anniversaries ranging from 25 to 100 years. Unfortunately, the sun has been overactive for most of the month, so DX has been quite difficult and local ground wave hasn't been much better.
The postman has been kind again, delivering a card from the Indian equivalent of Rockall. Called 'Sacrifice Rock' (IOTA ref’ AS-161) it is just a lump of stone sticking out of the Indian Ocean. A second one from last year was the Chatham Islands, ZL7YL for IOTA OC-038, another ATNO confirmation.
As we come to the end of April which has been quiet for contacts, I managed to get the Galapagos, HD8G in their closing hours, after many attempts on both FT8 and 15m SSB. This is usually an easy DX, but for some reason this activation was especially difficult to contact.
Another interesting one for the month’s end was 4U0IARU from Austria. Finally on the evening of the 29th I was checking 20m FT8 when I heard the floating Russian Polar station. Having worked him first call, I was called by 2 VKs, then a string of DX; 3 JAs, 2 Rs, 5 Bs, 2 Es an HA, a DS, a UR, 3 SPs, one G, an SA, and a TA - all 25 in just over an hour.
That's it for this month. Catch up with you all again next time.
73's
Chris G4ZCS
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Well, here we are, another month gone with Spring arriving and we will see what the equinox propagation will bring.
Following on from last month, I have been trying to get my new radio to run reliably with my computer log, the CW programs, and the FT8 programs. Because of the problems, I set up the radio with a spare laptop to test it. All went well and with only 5W a good number of USA stations were worked together with 4 new DXCCs added to the year’s target.
The connections to the main PC were a nightmare to get to work reliably with all sorts of settings that sometimes worked and other times caused a complete system lock-up. Having spent a ridiculous amount of time going round in circles, with some help, I eventually nailed down the problem.
The new radio & its cable were picking up signals in the range of 2.5 to 5.1 GHz (Bluetooth & WiFi) well out of its design range. Thanks to Berni he suggested the problem might not be the settings but could be the USB cable in use. So, following his advice I bought a new one that is double shielded and has proper ferrites on each end.
Bingo! It all works as it should have all along using the settings I had been trying. (Many thanks Berni)
Lesson learnt? Don’t rely on junk box components, they are there for a reason HI. HI.
Seriously, I am reminded of all the lessons I learnt from the 'old guys' - most of which I seem to have forgotten.
Back to the DXing.
The 1st of the month brought the ARRL contest which gave me a couple of new counties. The next few days produced D68Z, ND7DX/KH6, VP2MMN, V44KAI, and SV5DZR. On the 7th I managed both Nigel VP8TXF and Ian VP8CIW on their DXpedition on the Falklands. On the 9th I got VK9CU, and the 10th EP4HR, XE2KK, C6ACK, OA1F, as well as MP7DX on Guernsey.
To top-off the first half of the month I managed ZL4TT, the first ZL of the year and the first CW DX on the new rig after the big fix! The third week showed a slight change in conditions with Africa and Alaska on 15m and Korea on 20m. Even Ghana on 60m with 90W and FT8.
In the last few days, the gremlins struck again. This time a really bad noise background to the lunchtime net. It was so bad there had to be a problem somewhere. On reflection my noise floor has been gradually increasing for several months, and it was this that had prompted the new radio. Having checked all the radio settings, I remembered the junk box problem. Surely not again?
So, I went on a loose-wire hunt. Success! The patch coax between the ATU and its power supply made an awful noise when waggled. This cable is one of only two I have ever bought ready-made, although it is five years old. Ten minutes with a big soldering iron and back to good as new. The 15m band went quiet as a mouse and the SWR dropped to 1:1. During the tests after, I managed to work South Africa and Lombok Isl’ with hardly any background noise. Another problem solved!
Attached is another present from the postman. This American Samoa activation used an early version of the Radio In a Box (RIB). These are hopefully going to open-up many protected Pacific islands to DXpeditions in the future.
The 29th and 30th was the big SSB contest that I had been looking forward to having a go at. Unfortunately, medical problems intervened, so not this year. However, the month ended with a score of over 170 for the year.
Next month I’ll be reporting on some real DX. One contact in Haywards Heath and a second outside Brighton Hospital. Both in full colour!
73's
Chris G4ZCS
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Spent a fun afternoon up at Jack & Jill on Friday. Checked into the Lunchtime Net at half-one, and when that was done, I set up my new (old) SGC SG-230 antenna tuner on the roof of my car, and attached it to about 8m of wire held aloft by a 10m fibreglass pole, itself supported by a drive-on mount.
I picked up the tuner off eBay a while ago, and although most of them seem to be cream-crackered in 2025, this one still works pretty well, though like most of us old folks, it does seem to need a little RF up it's coax to warm up before it'll behave properly.
Another antenna system to add to my growing collection. My long-suffering wife now refers to my car as the 'radio van'.
Anyhow, 2 hours operation on FT8, 39 contacts made on 9 bands. Yes, 9 bands I tell you!
My last article on POTA raised a little bit of interest in a couple of members, so come on you lot - get to a park near you soon!
Berni M0XYF
