Author: Tom Simpson

Dabbling In Digital

Recently, Jason (ND0JL) put up a UHF repeater in town. The repeater is on 443.900MHz with a +5MHz offset. It’s not located too far from me, and the whole system is actually still a work in progress. He would like to upgrade the antenna and raise it’s elevation, a bit.

The nice thing about it, is that a couple months ago, I bought a UHF 12 element yagi. It has been on the roof since a couple days after I got it, and right after he got the repeater going, I swung it around to point directly at it. I could probably get into the repeater with a half-a-watt, but my radio will only go down to 5 watts.

When he installed the repeater, he also connected it to Wires-X, which is a digital mode, proprietary to Yaesu. There is a room associated with the repeater, called “WHITE-CLOUD”. It is normally left in the room, unless somebody switches to another room for a net, or to make a contact, or something.

I’m very new to this digital mode, and I’ve been learning a lot, since he installed it.

Feel free to jump into the room, whenever you’d like. I am usually monitoring it when I’m not doing anything on HF (since the only radio I have that will connect to it is also my HF rig). Down the road, we hope to get more people in the area (and elsewhere) on there.

2019 November Sweepstakes

UPDATE: This year, I was able to get a total of 216 contacts for a total of 29,808 points. The log has been submitted, and I will be waiting for the results.

Once again, this year, I will be trying my luck on the SSB November Sweepstakes. Last year, I had a total score of 5,694. I hope to top that, this year. The contest begins on November 16th at 2100 UTC Saturday (3pm Central time) and runs through 0259 UTC Monday (9pm Sunday, Central time).

I will be mainly operating on 20m & 40m. I will also give 80m, 15m, and possibly 10m a try, depending on the conditions.

There is quite a long exchange for this particular contest, but once you get a rhythm, it’s not too much of a mouthful. It consists of a Serial, Precedence, Callsign, Check, and Section. All of that is explained on the ARRL website.

This year, I have also decided to set up a second antenna, which I will be using on 20 & 40 meters. The antenna is the one that I normally use for portable operations. It actually has a much lower noise floor than my OCFD. It is also set up “north/south”, whereas my OCFD is set up “east/west”. I will use an antenna switch that I borrowed from Jason (ND0JL) to alternate between the two.

I have never been very good at (or had much luck with) sitting on a frequency and calling CQ, but I will, once again, attempt it. I think that the main reason for this is that my normal set up at my QTH talks a lot better than it hears. Although I have become pretty good at listening to and being able to copy stations that are “in the noise”, doing that in a contest seems much more difficult.

I will be Single-Op Unlimited Low Power. Basically, this just means that I will be making all contacts, myself, with 100 watts or less, and I will be using spotting networks. I will have three of my four computer monitors up and running, while I’m operating. The more information that I can pull in during the contest, the better.

You can watch the Contest Online Scoreboard and see how many contacts are being made. I will be listed at the bottom of that page, in the “SO-ALL LP (A) PHONE” section. Although that page may list me with the club information (Jamestown Amateur Radio Club), I will be using my personal call in the contest, and not submitting any logs for the club.

If you’re reading this before or during the contest, I hope to make contact with you, somewhere. If we’ve already had a QSO during the contest, thank you very much!

October 11 & 12 Blizzard Adam

As I write this on Oct. 12, 2019 (my 50th birthday), the accumulation total for us is at 17″. The snow is still coming down and the wind is still in full force.

The snow is not expected to stop until about 8:00pm, tonight. The wind will remain, but taper off sometime on Sunday.

I tried to work 40m and 80m, last night, without a lot of luck. Pretty sure it wasn’t the storm causing the bad propagation, since the same was reported for most everybody that I was able to hear. I don’t think I’ll be running a portable station, this weekend.

More Pictures From the ISS

I’ll add more to this post as I get them.

The International Space Station is, once again, transmitting SSTV. They will be doing this for the first few days of August 2019. My radio and software will be running, during this period.

All images were received using an omni-directional discone antenna that is located on the roof of my house (not as high as it could be). The radio is a Yaesu FT-991A set to 145.800MHz with the squelch at zero (full static). I use a Windows 10 machine with MMSSTV software, version 1.13A. I also have a major tree with full foliage to the northwest of the antenna.

Card 11 of 12
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There were exactly five passes of the ISS, each day, in the afternoon into the evening, each approximately an hour and a half apart. Depending on when the transmissions started and ended, the noise was better or worse. It also depended, a lot, on the elevation of the ISS as it passed over. The discone antenna is pretty good at not having too many nulls in it’s receive, but that being said… they still exist, due to the mounting location and the surrounding obstructions.

I am very happy that I was able to receive the images that I did, honoring the late Owen Garriott (W5LFL), who was the first radio amateur to operate from space.

V-22 Osprey in Town

Although I’m no longer running any air traffic audio feed, I am still collecting ADS-B data from airplanes in my region. Earlier today, I was out doing some things in town, and noticed a very “different” looking plane in the sky. It had circled, a few times, and from the looks of it, we could tell that it was military.

We decided to run up to the airport, to see if we could get a better look at it. Since it seemed to be military, I thought that they may be doing some “touch-and-go” type training.

It turned out that by the time we got to the airport, it was already on the ground, again.

It was amazing to see this very unique “airplane”, that close up. Here’s some video. The takeoff is toward the end:

I Broke An All-Time Record

I received some very interesting news, today. I got an email from 7QP, which is the 7th Area QSO Party. Attached to the email were two certificates.

  • First place – North Dakota
  • Third place – Outside 7th-Area Single-Op Low-Power Phone

On top of that, I also went to the 7QP website, and realized that I had also broke an All-Time Category Record. On page 33 of the liked PDF file, I am now listed as the record holder for Non-7 Single-Op Low Phone for ND.

I honestly never expected this, since I really wasn’t trying that hard during the contest. It was quite a surprise and I am really excited about it.

Now, I’ll just have to make sure to do even better, next year.

First Visit To The Repeater Site

Today, Jason, I and my grandson drove out to the repeater site. It needed a little reprogramming on the controller, so since I actually got a day off that coincided with Jason, I thought I would take the opportunity to go and check it out.

As most things go… until you actually “see” something… there are some misconceptions that form in your mind, when things are just described to you. Whether reading or just listening to a description, the reality is always a little different.

This was the case for me. I always imagined that the “shack” that housed the repeater and other equipment was much smaller than it actually is. It is actually much more organized than I thought it would be, as well.

I know that there was probably nothing “super special” about the whole thing, but because it was my first visit, there, it’s something that will always stick in my mind, now.

One thing that I was really impressed by was the view from the repeater site. We were only on the ground, and I can’t imagine how much further the view was from the top of the tower. The view (even though it was a lot of flat land) was really impressive. I snapped a few pictures, while we were there.

Just a few…

North Dakota QSO Party

The dates for the 2020 ND QSO party are unknown at this time. Possible dates are April 11 & 12 or April 18 & 19.

Previously:

I will be operating in the North Dakota QSO Party (NDQP) starting on April 13, 2019 at 18:00z (1:00pm CDT). I plan to operate for the full 24 hours during the contest.

Bands I will use: 80 through 10 meters, 6 & 2 meters, (Excluding the WARC Bands). This will depend on conditions, and I will likely stick to 20m, 40m, & 80m for the majority of the QSO Party.

Modes: Phone only. (although I will try JS8Call, which will be allowed if I can get the proper exchange during the QSO Party)

I will be a fixed station in Stutsman County (STN)

My son, Whitney (KE0MHY), will also be operating at various times, using my call.

I will upload electronic logs at the end of the contest to LoTW, eQSL, ClubLog and QRZ. I will not initiate sending physical QSL cards for the contest. If you would like one, just send me yours (no SASE needed) or request one without sending through the OQRS (bottom of my home page).

A BIG THANK YOU to those of you who spot me on the cluster! 73!

2019 ND QSO Party Rules are here.

ADDED: I have tested the exchange for the ND QSO Party on JS8Call and it looks like I should be able to make it work. I know that it is not the fastest digital mode, but it will definitely work for what I need it to do.

The CQ WPX SSB Contest

This past weekend, I participated in the CQ WPX SSB Contest, and managed to do a lot better than I thought I would. Although they are not nearly the “official” results, by far, I managed to end up and #10 in the all band, low power category on the Contest Online Scoreboard.

The contest, itself, was a very long contest, lasting a total of 48 hours. I operated a total of just over 30 hours during the contest. I wasn’t “pushing it” during the time I was on, though, and did a lot of answering CQ calls. I tried calling CQ, myself, a few times, with very low results. I found that I had a much better contact rate when I was just answering them.

During the contest, I got a total of 305 contacts with 157 different WPXs. Basically, that means “prefixes”… the first part of the callsigns, including the numbers. My total points ended up being 74,261. I had 100 individual contacts on 80 meters, 119 individual contacts on 40 meters, and 86 individual contacts on 20 meters.

With such a long contest, and the changes in conditions during the contest, it is interesting to me that I averaged about the same amount of contacts for each band that I worked. I listened to 15 meters and 10 meters, but the signals that I heard were so weak, that I don’t think I even tried… if I did, I was obviously not successful.

A total of 249 of the contacts I made during the contest were in the USA. 6 in Hawaii, and 1 in Alaska. All of the others were DX contacts (even though, for this contest, HI and AK are considered DX), ranging from Canada to Australia to European Russia. (116 total confirmed at 01:10 UTC – April 4, 2019)

It was definitely and fun contest with a really easy exchange, and I will definitely plan on doing it again, next time. For now, I’ll just wait and see what the actual final results are. I don’t expect a plaque, but I will be getting a certificate, since I participated and submitted my log, already.