Thursday, October 29, 2020

SILENT KEY Memorial Nov.01.2020 - update

November 1st is almost over. 

95 QSO's made on 40m CW only, during 3hours Memorial, with "PF7M"  report, making Johan's call to be heard again on the waves...  R.I.P 

~~~~~~

       A day of remembrance, about all the folks already gone. 

No doubt all of us lost some ham radio friend, known personally, or even those never met "radio friend" always ready to talk, joking or just help. 

Some of them were daily on KST duty, giving You new one, pile-up fun on the expedition, or just sharing knowledge with You.

Hardy DC8TS/DI2BK, Johan PF7M, Arvo ES1CW to name a few... Maybe You miss your friend  worth to remember?  

Let's give their callsigns a life again. 

For 3 hours their callsigns can be heard again like sign of good memories.. 

November 1st is the best day to do it... 

Hungarian Radio Society MRASZ organizes Silent Key Memory Contest. 

Contest will start 06:00UTC, end at 08:59 UTC on 80 and 40m. 

Rules can be found HERE

 

 

Saturday, October 10, 2020

OZ9KY 70MHz #JO57GG operation LOG

 Below You can find logged stations at OZ9KY operated on 70MHz.

Thanks to Henrik OZ8ZS for pic's & update. Log closed now.

JO57GG 4m: ON4IQ, DH2UAK, ON7EQ, DK2PH, DK2EA, G3YHM, OH7LMQ , G3SHK, OZ2OE.

NC: PA3DOL 

The OZ9KY Contest team L-R: OZ1PBS, OZ1GWD, OZ1DLD, OZ5TG, OZ3Z, OZ8ZS

OZ9KY 70MHz antenna used for operation

OZ9KY 4m shack - IC7300 barefoot - Operator gone somewhere :-)

Early morning Contest QSO

Contest shack

 

73!


Friday, October 2, 2020

Cheap GPSDO kit - a must have for service bench.

Sometimes we all need to compare quality of our equipment, make some tunning of circuits, or just check/recalibrate rig frequency. 

For those working on TRX repair good stable and accurate signal frequency is a must have. Unfortunately, modern (mostly from BY) cheap frequency counters using (as per description ) internal TCXO generators, but the truth is, they are not locked perfectly and from my experience they are "no go" for proper RIG tuning/calibration. All this lead me to "buy" some GPSDO. 

Because I am not happy "buying" things I can make with my own hands, so decided to buy a kit instead. 

Fortunately polish ham Marek SQ7HJB designed some neat GPSDO device with Arduino Nano, GPS module and SIS5351 with two signal outputs, and neat OLED display. Max frequency is determined by SIS5351 and in my case ends up at about 155MHz.

Completed PCB - pic source: http://sq7hjb.pl/index.php/mini-gpsdo/

 GPSDO diagram - pic source: http://sq7hjb.pl/index.php/mini-gpsdo/

Overall cost of this GPSDO kit (without Hammond enclosure) is ~ 50 Euros. That's not the price to make bank loan.     

Below You can see my approach to this nice piece of equipment, if You decide to make something similar I can help You with Polish language :-)

Below You can see a kit - THT version of PCB, Arudino, encoder, WaveShare GPS with ceramic antenna, OLED display and SIS5351 generator.

Comple GPSDO kit - pic source: https://radiohobby.pl/projekty/gpsdo-z-si5351-generator-czestotliwosci/

After soldering all joints, voltage regulator and pins ( which takes ~1hour and it's very easy ) we can power the device and check for proper voltages, non intentional shorts etc. If all is ok, now time to solder heart and brain of this device. Be carefull as all of them are ESD sensitive! 

Asembling instructions is VERY accurate and exact, unfortunately in Polish but this should not be a problem. All vital information You can see on RADIOHOBBY project page, if You need more info, mail me. 

You should end up with PCB looking something like that : 

 If all well GPSDO is running form first shot showing some information.




You'll see LED on GPS module lit (red one on pic above), and will start blink immediately after picking up satellite signal.

After some minute or two when generator will be locked at programmed frequency "LOCK" LED(green) will lit as well and after few (2-3) GPS count passes we can switch the display to show frequency correction. Small @ on the right show that GPS is locked, and accuracy is better than 1Hz.

There are several ways to program frequencies - with encoder, or with PC. If You are familiar with Arduino programming sources are available on project page in package. To be honest I get mine already programmed kindly by Marek (tnx a lot).  

4 memory banks for most needed frequencies can be programmed with multi encoder, which is also suitable for QRG step change, time zone settting and display switching.  

Two outputs of GPSDO can be populated with low pass filters - i.e one 10MHz filter for frequency counter clock, and second for frequency You need. Or - just leave the second one unpopulated - feed directly from SIS5351 output for various frequencies as I did. Also, if needed (as in my case) - I had to change GPS antenna for ordinary external GPS car antenna block with 3m RG174 cable.

All this fit perfectly into Hammond enclosure, but this depends on your choice.

In case anyone need more info - don't hesitate to drop me @.

73


Thursday, October 1, 2020

Digging in the "salt mine"

 My friend Arvo ES1CW (R.I.P) said to me one day, that working with the QSL's card is like salt mine digging...well, Arvo was main ES (ERAU) QSL manager, so his salt mine was much bigger than mine. The only thing I have about, it's every QSL is like piece of crystal, keeping inside "moment" of QSO. Each one is different, and each one should have it's way to recipient. You can have e-qsl, LOTW - but it won't give You same personal memories when You keep paper card in your hands..

So if You have in your log S.E.S callsign 3Z95IARU (I know few of You 6m op's worked them) - You'll get your card soon (I hope). At least I'll do my best to make it happen. 

95yrs of IARU S.E.S QSL
  
Small :-) 31kg's batch just sorted for each DXCC. Guess which DXCC is won ths battle? 3rd column... yes, it's DL packet. Imagine how big it must be in Central PZK Bureau...?