Author: Tom Simpson

Another Hamfest

I went to West Fargo, to the RRRA Hamfest on Saturday. I went with my son and a friend. Had a great time, and picked up some pretty good deals while we were there.

I bought lots of coax and five receivers. I haven’t figured out exactly what I’ll be doing with all of these new radios, but I’m sure it won’t take too long to figure it out. I spent less than $50 for about 150′ of coax and the five analog scanners (along with a few other things). We also saw some great radios for sale, but they didn’t fit into the budget, even though they were priced right.

Can’t wait for the next hamfest, now.

A Little Tropo and Some Radar Vids

Had a little tropo event, today, but no contacts actually made. I was able to hit, and hear the IDs for Watertown, SD, Bismarck, and Fargo, as well as hear a conversation on the Sabin, MN repeater.

I came home to look at the radar, and saw that it looked a little strange. Some weird “beige” area around the Bismarck radar, which I have never sen before. Here’s what the Bismarck radar looked like. Both of these videos are “vertical”… sorry about that.

UPDATE: I’m thinking that this might possibly be due to the amount of smoke in the air, due to the fires in MT and ID. I inserted a screenshot at the bottom of this post.

I also saw what I describe as “fan lines” on the Upper Mississippi Valley image (below).

Below is a screenshot of the fire map.

Feeding Flights

Today, I received a package that I had been waiting for since last month. I had applied for a FlightFeeder from FlightAware. My request was approved pretty quickly, and it took a while to get it shipped out, but I finally received it, today. For no cost at all, they sent me a FlightFeeder Orange, an ADS-B antenna, filter, and coax. They did this because my geographical area had no coverage on their site, and I have a pretty good location. The nearest person that is feeding data to their site is 83 miles away.

As soon as I got home from work, today, I opened up the box and unpacked everything. since I already had my home brew 1090 MHz antenna mounted on the roof, I decided to just hook it up to that, and get it working. In under 30 minutes, I had it connected and talking to the FlightAware website. Super simple process!

Just in the past couple hours, my stats are rolling in. You can check the current stats out here. On August 17th & 18th, they actually tested the hardware, before sending it to me from Texas. That’s why you’ll see a spike for those days (if you view it within the next couple weeks).

I have the next couple days off from work, so I plan on trying the antenna that they sent, also. I’ll be installing a 10′ mast at the peak of my house, with the antenna they sent near the top. I’ll measure out the cable run, first, just so I don’t have to use anything other than the cable they sent. I have a feeling that I’ll be able to get it up that high without a problem, though.

I am able to get a live view, directly from the feeder, anywhere on my local network. The tracker on their site is slightly behind…. just by a minute or so. Since I am now feeding data, they also gave me a free Enterprise account. That, in itself, is worth about $90 per month (which is what they charge). Lots of little extras come with that.

It still amazes me how much air traffic is 25,000+feet overhead (and lots of others lower). Some days, after working 10 hours, I’d come home and have 200+ planes in the log.

Fun With SDR

A couple weeks ago, I got my first SDR (Software Defined Radio). I’ve been messing around with it, every chance I get, and I’m really liking some of the things it does. At first, I had it hooked up to a discone antenna on my lower roof, and it seemed to work really well.

Within the past week, I discovered ADS-B, which is basically data frames that are sent down from airplanes on 1090 MHz. The information sent includes altitude, location, speed, identification, and more. That information can be received by a program that decodes it, then another program will allow you to visually “see” the plane on a map. Even in the middle of nowhere, it’s amazing to see just how much flies over us.

I got into it so much that I wanted to build a better antenna, just for 1090 MHz, and put it in a better position on my roof. The other day, in under two hours, I had built a ground plane antenna for that frequency, and had it mounted and the wires ran to the SDR. It actually performs a lot better than the discone. Not sure if it’s because of the design or the location, though.

The antenna was built for receive only, so I wanted to see how it performed on other frequencies, too. Since there’s no transmitting, there’s no way I could hurt anything by listening. Amazingly, the antenna actually picks up the local 2 meter repeater better than the discone, too (which really makes me think it’s the mounting location difference).

Yesterday, I wanted to see if I could also pick up any satellites or the ISS with it. I fired up the ISS Detector app on my phone, and started switching through different satellites as they passed over. The only thing I was actually able to pick up was a couple of NOAA satellites. I really wanted to catch the ISS (which passed over, almost overhead at about 10:20pm), but I wasn’t able to hear anything. I’m sure I’ll try again, when I have some time.

In other updates, I have been making more contacts on 10 meters, and started logging them on LoTW. I also sent my very first physical QSL Card. Chad – KD9AXO – asked me if I send them, and I told him that I wanted to, but haven’t done too much HF, and was waiting. He gave me the kick I needed to get something designed and printed. It wasn’t real pretty and not on as heavy of card stock as I wanted, but hopefully he understands. The funny thing is, the first QSL Card that I sent was for a 400 mile contact on 2 meters during a beautiful Tropo event. He was running 5 watts through a vertical, and I was going through the repeater. IMO, it counts.

UPDATE: Chad actually sent me a QSL card, as well. I received it the day after I originally posted this. He sent his out before mine even reached him, so they crossed in the mail. Very nice surprise!

Small Update

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated, so I thought I should let you all know what’s been happening.

Back on April 29th, we attended the Optimist Club Respect for Law and Emergency Services Day which was held at the Buffalo Mall in Jamestown, ND. The attendance was not too bad, considering that the mall, itself, is becoming a lost cause. The local police, fire department, and other emergency services were all there, and all of the kids that came we treated to a movie and given a bicycle helmet.

We set up a trailer in the parking lot, as well as a “booth” inside the mall, and provided information about amateur radio.

KCØGCJ (Jason) and I had built a 10 meter inverted V antenna that was put up next to the trailer in the parking lot. No actual contacts were made, but not for the lack of trying. KCØLAC (Michelle) manned the inside booth for most of the event, and quite a few people showed interest in the hobby, and picked up flyers when they stopped by.

After the event, we had talked about planning for the upcoming Field Day. More on that, next!

New Callsign

After applying for multiple different 1×2 and 2×1 vanity call signs, I finally decided to apply for one that I knew I could actually get. I had quite a few others “picked out”, but one of them stood out from the others, so I decided to file the single application for it. On April 12th, I filed for KØAGM and on May 2, 2017, it was assigned to me.

I got the domain name and bought some eyeball QSO cards before it was even granted. This posted was actually written on April 18th, but not published until everything was final.

There may be some misconceptions about vanity call signs out there, I realized. The first misconception being that you have to spend money to get one. As of September 2, 2015, there is NO COST for applying or getting a vanity call sign. There are websites that will tell you exactly when certain call signs are available (this is the one I used), and describe the process of how to apply for them. The process is actually very easy.

The first thing to do is make sure that you have an FRN. This makes things much easier to keep track of. Once you have that, just log in to the ULS on the FCC website using the “online filing” log in button. Enter your FRN and password, and submit. Over on the right side of the page, click on “Request Vanity Call Sign”. Select “No, No”… then click continue. Select “Primary station preference list”, then press continue. Put in the call sign that you want. If you have a list, put the one that you most prefer in the #1 spot, the next in the #2 spot, and so on.

From that point forward, it’s pretty self explanatory. Just digitally sign your name, exactly how it’s listed with your FRN, and submit. It takes around 19 days to know if you got the call that you requested, or not. It no longer costs anything to request a vanity call sign or to actually get one, so there is no reason for expense to get in the way.

Here is another good site to check, if you’d like to see how many others have applied for the same call. I’ll let you explore that site, yourself, since there are a lot of different things that it will help you out with.

Announcing: KEØKEC /AE

That’s right! In the past month, not only was I able to study hard enough to pass the General, I became good enough on the practice tests and studied for the Extra. This morning, I went to the Central Dakota Amateur Radio Club Hamfest in Bismarck for the “main” purpose of testing.

I was pretty confident about passing the General, since I was actually hitting 90% or higher on each practice test I took. Once they graded my General and let me know that I passed, I immediately started on the Extra Test. As I was taking the test, my youngest son was notified that he had passed his Technician test. Super proud!

Once they graded my General test, Bob (NoTC) told me that he had some “bad news” for me. Then he said that it looks like I’d be spending a lot more money, soon, and congratulated me on passing.

Now, it looks like I need to spend some more money. In the end, Bob was right.

Couple New Radios

A while back, I purchased a used 10/12 meter radio. I found a really good deal on a Ranger RCI-2985DX. It’s the low powered little brother of the 2995dx. While the big brother will do 150+ watts, the one I have will do 25+ watts. It’s definitely not a fancy, modern HF radio, but for me, it’s a step in that direction. Sure… It would be nice to have a Kenwood TS-990S, but at this point, I have no use for it. Even if I was able to afford it (I don’t have $6,800.00 laying around), the thing would just sit there, for the most part, until I upgraded my license. Right now, I can legally get on SSB between 28.3 and 28.5MHz. Hopefully at the end of February, I’ll be able to expand that out to the full 10 & 12 meter bands.

As it sits right now, though, I am still waiting until spring, before I can throw up another antenna without worrying about sliding off the roof. I’m just listening to it using a temporary antenna, right now.

Today, I also received another radio in my mailbox. I found a Realistic HTX-202 for $27, and couldn’t pass it up. It was the first kind of HT that I owned, back in 1997, when I got my first license. The guy that I bought it from even sent me an Icom HM-46L speaker/mic. I quickly realized why it was such a low price and why he sent the speaker/mic, though. The internal mic doesn’t work. It’s not a huge deal, and I may rip it open and see if I can fix or replace it, at some point.

For now, though, I decided to use it as the receiver for the Broadcastify feed that I provide. It can be directly powered by 12 volts, so there’s no transformer or step-down converter to use. I used to have a small ground loop buzz on my feed, when I was using the scanner, and there was really no way to completely get rid of it. Now, the feed sounds a whole lot cleaner than it used to. Because of that, the audio is quite a bit louder and easier to hear.

I suppose that’s it, for now. Until next time…