FT8 – M0AWS Amateur Radio

6 September 20236 October 2023

Getting back onto 160m “Top Band”

Since setting up the new HAM station here in the UK the one band I’ve not yet got back onto is 160m, one of my most favourite bands in the HF spectrum and one that I was addicted to when I live in France (F5VKM).

Having such a small garden here in the UK there is no way I can get any type of guyed vertical for 160m erected and so I needed to come up with some sort of compromise antenna for the band.

Only being interested in the FT4/8 and CW sections of the 160m band I calculated that I could get an inverted-L antenna up that would be reasonably close to resonant. It would require some additional inductance to get the electrical length required and some impedance matching to provide a 50 Ohm impedance to the transceiver.

Measuring the garden I found I could get a 28m horizontal section in place and a 10m vertical section using one of my 10m spiderpoles. This would give me a total of 38m of wire that would get me fairly close to the quarter wave length.

For impedance matching I decided to make a Pi-Network ATU. I’ve made these in the past and found them to be excellent at matching a very wide range of impedances to 50 Ohm.

Since I still had the components of the Pi-Network ATU that I built when I lived in France I decided to reuse them as it saved a lot of work. The inductor was made from some copper tubing I had left over after doing all the plumbing in the house in France and so it got repurposed and formed into a very large inductor. The 2 x capacitors I also built many years ago and fortunately I’d kept locked away as they are very expensive to purchase today and a lot of work to make.

Getting the Inverted-L antenna up was easy enough and I soon had it connected to the Pi-Network ATU. I ran a few radials out around the garden to give it something to tune against and wound a 1:1 choke balun at the end of the coax run to stop any common mode currents that may have appeared on the coax braid.

Connecting my JNCRadio VNA I found that the Inverted-L was naturally resonant at 2.53Mhz, not too far off the 1.84Mhz that I needed. Adding a little extra inductance and capacitance via the ATU I soon had the antenna resonant where I wanted it at the bottom of the 160m band.

With the SWR being <1.5:1 across the CW and FT8 section of the band I was ready to get on 160m for the first time in a long.

Since it’s still summer in the UK I wasn’t expecting to find the band in very good shape but, was pleasantly surprised. Switching the radio on before full sunset I was hearing stations all around Europe with ease. In no time at all I was working stations and getting good reports using just 22w of FT8. FT8 is such a good mode for testing new antennas.

As the sky got darker the distance achieved got greater and over time I was able to work into Russia with the longest distance recorded being 2445 Miles, R9LE in Tyumen Asiatic Russia.

In no time at all I’d worked 32 stations taking my total 160m QSOs from 16 to 48. I can’t wait for the long, dark winter nights to see how well this antenna really performs.

M0AWS Map showing stations worked on 160m using Inverted L Antenna

The map above shows the locations of the stations worked on the first evening using the 160m Inverted-L antenna. As the year moves on and we slowly progress into winter it will be fun to start chasing the DX again on the 160m band..

UPDATE 6th October 2023.
Been using the antenna for some time now with over 100 contacts on 160m. Best 160m DX so far is RV0AR in Sosnovoborsk Asiatic Russia, 3453 Miles using just 22w. Pretty impressive for such a low antenna on Top Band.

More soon …

1 July 20231 July 2023

Antenna Analysers – The New World

Many years ago I had an MFJ-259B antenna analyser that I used for all my HF antenna projects. It was a simple device with a couple of knobs, an LCD display and a meter but, it provided a great insight into the resonance of an antenna.

Today things have progressed somewhat and we now live in a world of Vector Network Analysers that not only display SWR but, can display a whole host of other information too.

Being an avid antenna builder I’ve wanted to buy an antenna analyser for some time but, now that I’m into the world of QO-100 satellite operations using frequencies at the dizzy heights of 2.4GHz I needed something more modern.

If you search online there are a multitude of Vector Network Analysers (VNAs) available from around the £50.00 mark right up to £1500 or more. Many of the VNAs you see on the likes of Amazon and Ebay come out of China and reading the reviews they aren’t particularly reliable or accurate.

After much research I settled on the JNCRadio VNA 3G, it gets really good reviews and is very sensibly priced. Putting a call into Gary at Martin Lynch and Sons (MLANDS) we had a long chat about various VNAs, the pros and cons of each model and the pricing structure. It was tempting to spend much more on a far more capable device however, my sensible head kicked in and decided many of the additional features on the more expensive models would never get used and so I went back to my original choice.

Gary and I also had a long chat about building a QO-100 ground station, using NodeRed to control it and how to align the dish antenna. The guys at MLANDS will soon have a satellite ground station on air and I look forward to talking to them on the QO-100 transponder.

Getting back to antenna analysers, I purchased the JNCRadio VNA 3G from MLANDS at £199.96 + postage and have been trying it out on a couple of antennas here at the M0AWS QTH.

M0AWS - JNCRadio VNA 3G Packaging — M0AWS – JNCRadio VNA 3G Packaging

M0AWS - JNCRadio VNA 3G in box with connectors and cables — M0AWS – JNCRadio VNA 3G Packaging

Initially I wanted to check the SWR of my QO-100 2.4GHz IceCone Helix antenna on my satellite ground station to ensure it was resonant at the right frequency. Hooking the VNA up to the antenna feed was simple enough using one of the cables provided with the unit and I set about configuring the start and stop stimulus frequencies (2.4GHz to 2.450GHz) for the sweep to plot the curve.

The resulting SWR curve showed that the antenna was indeed resonant at 2.4GHz with an SWR of 1.16:1. The only issue I had was that in the bright sunshine it was hard to see the display and impossible to get a photo. Setting the screen on the brightest setting didn’t improve things much either so this is something to keep in mind if you plan on using the device outside in sunny climates.

(My understanding is that the Rig Expert AA-3000 Zoom is much easier to see outside on a sunny day however, it will cost you almost £1200 for the privilege.)

A couple of days later I decided to check the SWR of my 20m band EFHW vertical antenna. I’ve known for some time that this antenna has a point of resonance below 14MHz but, the SWR was still low enough at the bottom of the 20m band to make it useable.

Hooking up the VNA I could see immediately that the point of resonance was at 13.650Mhz, well low of the 20m band and so I set about shortening the wire until the point of resonance moved up into the band.

JNCRadio VNA3G showing 20m Band EFHW Resonance

With a little folding back of wire I soon had the point of resonance nicely into the 20m band with a 1.35:1 SWR at 14.208Mhz. This provides a very useable SWR across the whole band but, I decided I’d prefer the point of resonance to be slightly lower as I tend to use the antenna mainly on the CW & FT4/8 part of the band with my Icom IC-705 QRP rig.

Popping out into the garden once more I lengthened the wire easily enough by reducing the fold back and brought the point of resonance down to 14.095Mhz.

JNCRadio VNA3G showing 20m Band EFHW Resonance 14Mhz to 14.35Mhz Sweep

The VNA automatically updated the display realtime to show the new point of resonance on the 4.3in colour screen. I also altered the granularity of the SWR reading on the Y axis to show a more detailed view of the curve and reduced the frequency range on the X axis so that it showed a 14Mhz to 14.35Mhz sweep. With an SWR of 1.34:1 at 14.095Mhz and a 50 Ohm impedance, the antenna is perfectly resonant where I want it.

It’s interesting to note that the antenna is actually useable between 13.5Mhz and 14.5Mhz with a reasonable SWR across the entire frequency spread. Setting 3 markers on the SWR curve I could see at a glance the SWR reading at 14Mhz (Marker 2) , 14.350Mhz (Marker 3) and the minimum SWR reading at 14.095Mhz (Marker 1).

M0AWS 20m Band EFHW Vertical Antenna 13.5MHz - 14.5Mhz SWR Curve — M0AWS 20m Band EFHW Vertical Antenna 13.5MHz – 14.5Mhz SWR Curve

M0AWS 20m Band EFHW Vertical Antenna SWR curve 14Mhz - 14.350MHz — M0AWS 20m Band EFHW Vertical Antenna 13.5MHz – 14.5Mhz SWR Curve

I’ve yet to delve into the other functionality of the VNA but, I’m very happy with my initial experience with the device.

More soon …

27 March 2023

WSJT-X Log file to Map using Node Red

Following on from my other Node Red exploits I’ve put together a flow that creates an interactive map of contacts that is generated from the WSJT-X ADI log file.

The flow is fairly straight forward and self explanatory so I won’t go into detail here but, will make a copy of the flow available for download at the end of this article.

Node Red Flow for processing the WSJT-X ADI Log file

The flow is incredibly quick at generating the map with all the pins on it, one for each station worked. The pins are colour coded, blue for FT8 and green for FT4. If you want to add other modes then just create a new colour entry in the Dynamic Icon Colour function.

The resultant map is fully interactive with each pin being clickable showing the QSO information in a tiny popup.

Node Red map generated from the WSJT-X ADI Log file

You can download the flow and try it yourself using the link below.

More soon …

M0AWS-WSJTX-Log-processing-flow Download

23 March 202324 March 2023

Realtime WSJT-X decode data map

Following on from my previous article on Enhancing Digital modes with Node Red I’ve now got to a point where I have realtime decode information from the WSJT-X digital application being plotted on a Node Red world map not just for CQ calls but, for stations in conversation too.

The flow has become somewhat more complex than it was originally as more and more functionality has been added. I have deliberately split out the flow process into more nodes than are really necessary so that the flow is easier to understand. Anyone from a programming background like myself will soon realise that a lot of the nodes could actually be combined into one big node however, the overall flow process wouldn’t be so easy to understand for the Node Red newcomer and would possibly put people off from trying it out.

Above is a screenshot of the flow as it currently stands. It’s pretty easy to understand what is happening in the flow due to the fact that the processes are broken out into small, easy to digest blocks.

From the top down we connect to WSJT-X via UDP port 2237 and listen for the data stream. As the data is received it’s passed directly into the WSJT-X-Decode node that converts the information into a Node Red compatible format. The data is then filtered with only the information required being passed onto the next node. There are two outputs from the filter node as we require two different streams of information, namely “CQ” and “TX1” data. All the rest of the data from WSJT-X is ignored as it’s not required at this time.

The “Get freq & SNR + Others” node builds a decode message payload with all the correct data, in the right format ready to be passed on along the flow. This node also sets a number of parameters required by the map node to be able to control the display of the data.

The next node along is “Set msg.payload”, this brings together all the necessary data into a single message payload that is then worked on by all the nodes further along the flow.

The next 3 nodes perform the simple task of moving some of the data into the objects defined by the world map node, if the data isn’t moved into these specific objects the map will not plot anything.

Now we get onto the slightly more difficult bit that might put off those who aren’t from a programming background. The next 7 nodes are all javascript functions which I have created to perform tasks that cannot be done via the standard Node Red pallet.

At this point it’s worth noting that I’m not a javascript programmer, I’ve used Python, Rust, Go, C and many other languages during my 40 plus year career but, javascript has never been one of them. I’m sure any seasoned javascript programmer will most likely raise an eyebrow at my attempt at javascript programming but, you need to remember that I’m doing this in my retirement and my enthusiasm for learning yet another programming language has wained somewhat!

So, getting back to the flow, each javascript function does just one task each of which is as follows:

Set rx_time – Sets the time the data was received/processed
Remove RR73 in tx1 – Remove decodes where RR73 is in TX1 instead of a valid callsign
Set Dynamic Icon Colour – Sets the icon colour depending on what type of call is decoded
Maidenhead to LON/LAT – Converts Maidenhead locator codes into LAT/LON Coordinates
Calc Distance – Calculates the distance between “My QTH” and the DX station
Calc Bearing – Calculates the bearing/beam heading to the DX Station from “My QTH”
Generate Search URLs – Generates the URLs for QRZ and my own online log lookups

Editing the ***Calc Distance*** function with debug info in the far right panel

Once all the functions have run the resultant data set is forwarded on to the WSJT-X Stations Map node where it is plotted real time on a world map.

To view the map point your web browser at your PC running Node Red as follows:

http://radiopc.your.domain:1880/worldmap/

Or if you haven’t got a DNS setup at home then just use the IP Address of the PC instead:

http://192.168.100.10:1880/worldmap/

Don’t forget that for all of this to work you must configure WSJT-X to send data via UDP on port 2237 otherwise the flow won’t be able to connect and listen for the decode data.

You may have noticed that there are 3 other nodes that I haven’t mentioned yet. The two green greyed out nodes are Debug nodes that can be enabled when required to help see what is going on in the flow. These debug nodes will display data in the debug panel on the right of the flow editor screen when they are enabled, they are extremely useful for debugging!

The third is the blue My QTH node, this contains data pertaining to my QTH that is plotted on the map using an orange icon. You can easily edit this node to point to your QTH instead.

WSJT-X Node Red map showing orange icon denoting my QTH

Once the flow is deployed you’ll be surprised how quickly the data starts to be plotted on the map. Stations calling “CQ” are shown by Green icons and stations that are in a QSO with another station are denoted by the Red icons.

Each icon is clickable and will present all the information collected by WSJT-X for each station viewed.

WSJT-X Node Red World Map showing FT8 stations realtime on the 12m Band

The popup also has two clickable entries, one will take you to the qrz.com page for the station being viewed and the other will search my logs to see if I have worked that station already and if so it will open a new tab showing the information.

Node Red Function Editor showing the ***Generate Search URLs*** function

You can edit the “Generate Search URLs” node so that it points to your online logs search engine so that you can view your own log data instead of mine.

Below is a close up of the popups that are displayed when each icon on the map is clicked. The popups show the information collected from WSJT-X for each station plotted on the map.

Left – Green “CQ” Popup and Right – Red “TX1” in QSO popup

If you fancy trying this out for yourself but, don’t fancy creating all the nodes in the flow manually then I have made an export of the flow available for download. All you have to do is download the file, unzip it and then import it to Node Red and you’ll have everything built ready to play with.

M0AWS-WSJTX-Flow Download

I’ll probably be adding more functionality to this flow as time goes on and will post further articles about it in the future.

More soon …

21 March 2023

Enhancing Digital modes with Node Red

For a couple of weeks now I’ve been playing with Node Red to add functionality to my digital mode applications.

To get to know how it all works I initially used Node Red to create a series of dash boards for my servers and virtual machines to show realtime information on CPU temperature, CPU load, memory usage and storage etc.

Node Red Flow to collect information from a virtual machine (VM)

This worked very well and I was soon able to generate the information I needed in a palatable format. This was a great way to get to know Node Red flow building and introduced me to using gauge and graph nodes in flows.

The resultant Node Red Dashboard for one of my Virtual Machines

Once I had mastered creating dashboards for servers/virtual machines (VMs) I then started to investigate using Node Red to plot data from WSJT-X on a map.

I currently use the PSKReporter website to see stations that I hear on a map as WSJT-X sends the data to the site automatically however, this information is always 5mins or more old. For some time I’ve been wanting to see the information realtime as it is received and so I was hoping to be able to achieve this via Node Red.

Node Red has nodes available for a multitude of applications all easily installed via the Manage Palette menu in the flow editor.

I installed the WSJT-X Decode and World-Map nodes and set about building a flow to capture the data and plot it on a world map.

Building a Node Red Flow to decode WSJT-X data and plot it on a World Map

Putting the building blocks of the flow together is fairly straight forward and easily achieved using the excellent flow editor built into Node Red.

I configured WSJT-X to make the decode data available via UDP on port 2237 and then started the flow by creating a UDP node that connects to WSJT-X using the same port. The data immediately started flowing and I could see the information via a debug node.

I can’t stress enough how useful debug nodes are in Node Red. You can add debug nodes onto any output on any other node to capture the data as it flows. This gives you the ability to check what you’re getting is what you expected and also to see the format the data is in. The debug data is displayed in the debug panel on the right of the flow editor in realtime and gives you a great view of what is going on in your flow.

I decided to start with capturing the data for stations calling CQ as this was easily identifiable in the JSON object coming out from WSJT-X.

Passing the output from the WSJT-X-Decode node into a switch node I added a rule that filtered out data containing “type: “cq” and passed it onto the next switch node that created a payload consisting of the station callsign, maidenhead grid square and type so that it could be passed onto the next node for processing.

The next node in the flow is a function, this is where it gets a bit tricky. To be able to plot data on the map we need the Lat/Lon coordinates of the station making the CQ call. Since WSJT-X uses maidenhead locator data I needed to convert this to Lat/Lon coordinates before passing the data to the map node to be plotted.

Since Node Red is written in Java all the functions have to be written in javascript. The problem here is that I am not a javascript programmer and so this meant I’d need to learn yet another programming language. Unfortunately Node Red doesn’t allow functions to be written in C, Rust, Go or Python, all languages that I know well and after retiring from over 40 years in the UNIX/Linux/IT world my enthusiasm for learning yet another programming language has wained somewhat.

Being so close to having a working solution I pressed on and after much head scratching I finally put together some javascript that converts the maidenhead locator information in to good old fashioned Lat/Lon coordinates. I’m sure a seasoned Javascript developer wouldn’t be impressed with my code but, it works and does what I need and so I’m happy with it for the time being.

WSJT-X FT8 stations calling CQ on the 60m Band plotted on a Node Red World Map

Once I had the location information converted it was just a matter of passing the data to the world map node in the correct format for it to be plotted realtime.

As you can see on the screenshot of the map above, it worked extremely well with stations popping up as they were decoded by WSJT-X.

I now need to refine the data sent to the map so that it shows the frequency the station is calling on, the time they made the CQ call and the mode (FT8/FT4 etc) being used.. I would also like to add the distance from my QTH to the station calling CQ to round the information off however, this will mean writing another javascript function which, I’m not sure I want to dive into just yet.

I also need to add into the mix stations that aren’t calling CQ but, who’s callsign and grid square are passed on from WSJT-X. This will mean I will then be able to add to the map those stations that are actively working other stations and maybe I might even be able to show a line between the two stations that are in QSO.

This has been a fun but, steep learning curve however, it will certainly add some great functionality into my radio room and enhance my radio HAM addiction even further.

More soon …

16 January 202317 January 2023

Funcube Dongle Pro+ / GQRX / Kubuntu

Many years ago I purchased a Funcube Dongle Pro+ (FCD) SDR. Since it’s arrival it has just been stored in my “Get round too it” drawer.

It’s been many years but, today is the day it comes out into the light and finally gets powered up.

I’m hoping to be able to use the FCD as the receiver in my QO-100 satellite ground station setup.

The output from the 10Ghz dish mounted LNB is around 739Mhz, well within the FCD receiver range of 150khz to 2Ghz. This will save me from having to transvert from 739Mhz to 430Mhz (70cm band) on the receive path.

This will also give me full duplex operation as I will use my Icom IC-705 on the 2m band (144-146Mhz) to drive the 2.4Ghz transverter for the satellite uplink whilst listening to my own signal via the 10Ghz downlink fed into the FCD.

Before I can even start to build the QO-100 satellite ground station I need to get to grips with the FCD, get the software installed, configured, resolve audio routing via virtual audio cables and get it decoding FT8/JS8/WSPR etc.

Talking to G0DUB in the General Amateur Radio Chat room on Matrix he recommended trying the GQRX software to drive the FCD. GQRX is open source which fits perfectly as I want to control the FCD from my Kubuntu PC.

Checking the Ubuntu repo’s I found that GQRX v2.12 is available for installation.

sudo apt install gqrx-sdr

Once installed I fired up GQRX and set about configuring it. Initially it appeared to have automatically detected and configured the FCD however, when I started the FCD the software ran for 5 seconds and then just hung.

Diving into the configuration settings I found that the FCD actually appears twice in the list of available devices and all I had to do was select the other one in the list and start the software again and all was well.

I connected my 20m Band EFHW Vertical antenna and trawled up and down the band. The receiver performed well even with fairly strong signals so, I spent some time listening to a few of the stations coming in from the USA.

Next I wanted to sort out the configuration for digital modes. I already have a couple of virtual audio cables in the form of loopback audio devices configured on my Kubuntu PC as this is how I connect the audio between WFView for the IC-705 and WSJT-X/JS8CALL.

Sadly, GQRX doesn’t recognise the loopback audio devices that already exist and so I had to do a little further research to get to the bottom of the issue.

Digging deeper I discovered that GQRX requires loopback audio devices created using Pulse Audio and not the kind I had already created at the O/S level. A quick read of the pactl man page and some further searching online I found all the info I needed to create the correct kind of loopback audio devices.

Two commands are required to create the pulse audio server audio loopback devices:

pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=gq2jt sink_properties=device.description="gq2jt"

pactl load-module module-loopback latency_msec=1

Once I’d created the loopback audio devices I was able to select the gq2jt devices in both GQRX and WSJT-X/JS8CALL so that the audio was routed correctly.

GQRX SDR and WSJT-X working with the Funcube Dongle Pro+

The overall solution works well and doesn’t put much load on the CPU of my Kubuntu PC, leaving plenty of horse power for me to do other things at the same time.

So I now have the Funcube Dongle Pro+ working perfectly on my Kubuntu PC, all I need now is a 1.2m dish, a 10Ghz LNB and some high quality coax cable.

UPDATE: I decided to leave the FCD connected to the 20m Band EFHW Vertical overnight and monitor FT8 on the 40m band. The EFHW antenna isn’t anywhere near resonant on the 40m band and so I thought it would be interesting to see how well the FCD performed on a completely non-resonant antenna.

To my surprise it did exceptionally well, stations from all over the world were heard with ease, the FCD really is an excellent little SDR receiver.

Map showing stations heard on 40m Band FT8 over night 16/17 Jan 2023

If you’re looking for a relatively cheap but, effective receiver for FT8/WSPR monitoring then I can highly recommend the FCD. If paired with a RaspberryPi then it would be a really cheap to purchase/operate solution for any HAM operator or short wave listener (SWL).

More soon …

3 January 20233 January 2023

A Great start to 2023

The 2023 new year has got off to a great start here at the M0AWS radio shack with my first QSO with New Zealand since setting up the new radio room.

It’s been almost a year now since I started putting the radio room together and throughout all this time I’d not been able to secure a complete QSO with New Zealand.

Well today was the day that I finally achieved what seemed like the impossible.

M0AWS WSJT-X QSO Map as of 3rd January 2023

ZL4AS was the first New Zealand station that I’d managed to complete a full QSO with, up until now I’d made a few ZL contacts but, never managed to complete the QSO due to conditions on various bands.

The band of choice today was 17m, a great WARC band that has provided me with much of the DX over the last year. This band really does give full global comms when it’s open.

With a new longest distance of 11776 Miles to ZL4AS in Balclutha New Zealand, I’m looking forward to see what new countries 2023 brings to the M0AWs radio room.

More soon …

30 November 20221 December 2022

Getting chatty with JS8CALL

I’ve been chasing the DX on the HF bands using FT8 for a while now and I have to say it’s been very successful however, it does get rather boring after a while just exchanging SNR reports and nothing else. I noticed that my time spent in the shack was getting less and less, not a good sign after all the work I’d put into building the new radio shack.

Since there’s not a lot of CW on the bands these days (everyone is on FT8) I thought I’d give JS8CALL a go.

Initially I started with trying to get JS8CALL working on my Kubuntu PC to my Icom IC-705 wirelessly. This turned out not to be as straight forward as I’d hoped but, I persevered.

I found that to communicate with the IC-705 via WFview wirelessly I needed to use FLRig as a go between. I installed FLRig from the Ubuntu repo’s only to find it’s an old version that doesn’t have support for the IC-705. Downloading the IC-705.xml file didn’t help either so I uninstalled it and headed to the source forge website to grab the source code for the latest version of FLRig.

Once I had the right development libraries installed compiling the code was easy enough and I soon had FLRig talking to the IC-705 via WFview wirelessly from my Kubuntu PC.

My first JS8 QSO was with Jonny, SM5COI in Sweden on the 20m band, using just 2.5w I had a very reliable link from my 20m band EFHW vertical antenna to his 20m band yagi antenna.

I also worked GM0DHD/P via OH8XAT using the relay capability built into JS8CALL, it works incredibly well and allows you to work the stations that you cannot hear directly, very useful!

Later in the morning Jonny, SM5COI emailed me asking for a sked on the 40m band later in the afternoon, of course I agreed and decided that I’d also get my MacBook Pro setup with JS8CALL so I could give my Yaesu FTDX10 a spin on JS8 mode.

Installing and configuring JS8CALL on my MacBook Pro was much easier and I had it fully operational in minutes.

The sked went well on 40m and it was good to get Jonny on another band.

With 3 JS8 QSOs in the log it’s great to be using a digital mode again that allows you to have a good chat with other radio HAMs around the world. I think this may become my preferred digital mode going forward.

More soon…

11 July 20222 March 2023

All night DX fest!

Having just completed building my new radio shack I thought what better way to break it in than to do an all night radio session chasing the DX.

All nighters aren’t anything new for me, I did many an all night session low band DXing when we lived in France (F5VKM). Back then I had a massive cellar, part of which was a very well fitted out radio shack. With some very large antennas in our field out back I was truly spoilt with some great times on the 160m band in the dark winter months.

Now back in the UK and only just getting back into the hobby after a long break things are somewhat different. I now only have a typical small UK garden and only vertical antennas. Better than no antennas though!

The new radio shack is small compared to my super spacious setup in France but, it’s perfectly formed with all facilities.

For my over night radio session I decided to use my trusty Yaesu FTDX10, it has the best receiver I’ve ever used and is built to withstand the long haul operation.

Antenna wise I decided to use my 30m band EFHW vertical that can be tuned on most bands from 80m and upwards. I use a CG3000 remote auto tuner to match this antenna to the 50 ohm coax feed and it does a great job.

Being comfortably setup in the shack I tuned up on the 30m band and had a listen to see what shape the band was in.

Using FT8 I worked a bunch of European, Russian/Asiatic Russian stations with ease, the band was in fairly good shape albeit localised around Europe and Russia. Wanting to work stations a little further afield I decided to move up on to the higher bands. 12m is a band I really like but, always seem to miss when it’s open.

Tuning up on the 12m band using the same vertical that I was just using on the 30m band the FT8 section was packed with signals. At last, I’ve tuned up on the band when it’s open!

I suddenly noticed Bobby, VP8ADR down in the Falkland Islands in the WSJTX waterfall and gave him a call. He had a fair few people calling him and so I joined the list. In no time at all Bobby answered my call and we exchange SNR reports of -8dB both ways. This was surprising as later on one of the FT8 Facebook groups Bobby stated he was using 200w into a Hexbeam during our QSO, I was only using a measly 18w into my Vertical, I would had expected a much lower SNR report. Clearly Bobby’s setup was doing all the work!

Right after the QSO with Bobby I immediately went on to work PY7ZC, LU8YD, PY2ATI, LW6EQC, PY2EBD and PY2THO all in quick succession. With the Falklands, Brazil and Argentina in the log so soon it was looking like it was going to be a fun packed night.

Next up on the waterfall was 9Y4DG in Trinidad and Tobago and 8P6ET in Barbados, two really nice locations to get into the log and new ones on 12m for me.

Having worked all the DX I could hear on 12m and not wanting to just spend hours working endless European stations I tuned down onto the 17m band using the same vertical antenna. This antenna really does work well on bands it’s not designed for.

First 3 stations in the log on 17m were all from Japan, JR3NZC, JQ6RUP and JA5BDZ. With all 3 stations being well on the way to 6000 miles away this was a good start. The propagation strangely swung to the west and I got YV5DRN from Venezuela in the log.

Not seeing any other stations that I wanted to work I retuned back onto 30m again and found it was open to South America and the Caribbean.

In no time at all I had YV4CLF in Venezuela, HK2AQ in Colombia, NP4TX and NP3XF in Puerto Rico and PY7ZC in Brazil all in the log.

Being in complete darkness I decided to tune down on to the 60m band, one of my favourites, to see if there was much going on. Sure enough there were a few stations active on the limited space available.

First station worked was a new one for me FP/KV1J on St. Pierre and Miquelon Island just off the coast of New Foundland. I have to admit I had no idea where this little island was and confess to having to look it up on google maps.

I then went on to work a few East Coast USA stations all with good SNR reports for this time of year.

Having worked all the notable DX on 60m I tuned back onto the 17m which was now wide open to the world.

I stayed on this band for the rest of the night well into the morning grey line and beyond working some great DX including some new ones for me.

I worked many East Coast USA stations but, stations of note were 6Y5HN in Jamaica and AK6R, K6EU and K6EI in California on the West Coast USA. It’s rare for me to get into the West Coast USA for some reason.

UA0SDX in Irkutsk Siberia was also a nice one to get in the log. This is a town I was going to be riding my motorcycle through on my Mongolian trip before COVID19 and the war in Ukraine broke out and stopped the trip from happening. More information about my motorcycle adventures can be found on my Feralmoto website.

It was good to get an Ozzy call in the log too, VK6EI on the West Coast of Australia came in at a strong -15dB SNR giving me a surprising -14dB SNR report, incredible considering I was using just 22w into my vertical antenna.

Well after sunrise the DX was still pouring in and I worked KL7TC in Fairbanks Alaska, a new one for me that made me very happy as I’d been trying to get into Alaska for some time but, never seemed to time it right. Today was my day!

Another station I was really pleased to get into the log was V31MA. I’ve tried to get a QSO with this station many times but, have never succeeded until today. I called for about 20mins and eventually got a reply putting a huge smile on my face. -16dB SNR sent and -19dB SNR received, I was happy that I finally have Belize in the log.

The last station worked was RA0FF way over on the far East Coast of Russia, the complete opposite direction to Belize. Located in Yu-Sakhalinsk right on the Russian coast opposite Japan and at 5270 miles, this is my longest distance Russian station worked so far and one I was very happy to have in the log. I always get good take off towards Russia whether it be directly east or over the North Pole to the far eastern parts of the Siberian wilderness.

I had a great night chasing the DX on the HF bands and being retired didn’t have to worry about going to work after such a long night. I highly recommend that you try an all nighter at least once in your HAM radio career, you get the opportunity to work stations that you’d normally not hear during the day time hours.

You can see the full list of stations worked on the over nighter on my WSJTX Log page.

More soon …

9 July 20229 July 2022

How low can you go?

Now that I’ve got my new radio shack up and running I decided to give my Icom IC-705 QRP rig an outing and see if I could work a distance of 2000 miles with 1w output.

This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while but, only being able to sit at the picnic table in the garden or in the summer wasn’t particularly conducive to a long stint on the radio.

Icom IC-705 wirelessly connected to my MacBook Pro

For this challenge I decided to use FT4 or FT8, whichever was active on the bands. This is a great mode for QRP operations and can get a tiny signal through when other more traditional modes fail.

I used both my EFHW vertical for 20m/10m and my EFHW vertical for 30m that can also be tuned on most of the other HF bands too. This gave me most of the HF bands for the challenge.

Initially I worked a lot of stations in the 600-700 mile range, conditions weren’t brilliant and there was a lot of deep QSB.

My first notable distance QSO was with YO4DG near Mangalia Romania at 1383 miles, this equates to 0.72mW/Mile, my lowest mW/Mile achievement up until this point.

Not long afterwards I saw SV8DCY on the WSJTX waterfall, I wasn’t sure if he’d hear me or not but, I gave a call. To my surprise he came back and became the longest distance QSO for a short time. At 1485 Miles to Kalloni Lesvos Island, Greece this equates to a new low of 0.67mW/Mile.

I then went on to work a bunch of stations in the 1000 miles or less range for a while as conditions on the bands were up and down. It’s amazing how many times I got an answer from a station only for them to disappear completely before the QSO was completed.

The next contact of note was with CU3HN in the Azores, 1713 Miles at 0.58mW/Mile, a new lowest mW/Mile record set. it’s amazing how far you can get a signal with such a tiny amount of power.

RV6F in the Stavropol region of Russia was the next big mile marker, 1932 miles at 0.51mW/Mile. It took a number of attempts to get the QSO to complete as we kept losing each other due to the deep QSB that was between us on the 20m band but, with a little patience and persaverance we eventually got the QSO to complete and it was in the log.

At this point I decided to switch over to the 10m band to see if it had opened up to more than just Europe. When I checked earlier there were only European stations being heard, most being well under 1000 miles. Sure enough the band had indeed opened up and I was hearing stations out to the east that were in excess of 2000 miles.

PSKReporter map showing signals heard on the 10m band

After tuning up and listening for a bit my first call was to RL9F in Perm Russia. This was the one that I’d been looking for, 2084 miles at 0.47mW/Mile this was the one that could complete the challenge.

After a few failed attempts due to deep QSB we eventually got a complete QSO in the log finishing the challenge.

2000 miles using 1w is a lot of fun, frustrating at times when you’re being heard by stations on the east coast USA but, none are answering your reply to their CQ calls.

PSKReporter has proven invaluable, being able to see who can hear you makes a big difference when trying to eek out the last mile when using next to no power.

In total 31 stations were worked over a 9 hour period, not huge numbers but, for many an M0AWS call sign isn’t exotic enough to answer and so many of my calls to stations were ignored. Sad really.

You can view all the log entries for the 2000 Mile 1 Watt challenge on my WSJTX Log.

So, what next? Well I guess it has to be 3000 miles or more using just 1w from my trusty Icom IC-705.

More soon …