CQWW CW 2017 - 40mtr was the ruler this time!

Last year CQWW, I had discovered value of low bands during the contest and wanted to improvise one band at least this year.  Well, there was great news on propagation with improved Solar Flux with new sunspot appearing on Sun's plate. So hope for higher bands as well. However,it is "the" contest time :)! So...

40mtr authority!

After much of background work talking to many hams in VU and reading some DX articles, I thought of settling on 40mtr vertical. However, I was having issue with listening. VU Contest group member VU2PTT extended his help by providing me a kit of N6RK loop components. Few weeks before the contest I started experimenting with this combo first with only vertical and then fixing N6RK loop. I could hear EU very well, however, W6 stations reported deaf on cluster during our grey line period. I was really amazed at the same time by one another ham from Bangalore working W stations (update Jan 15 2018: Topband reflector discussions on some using NA based SDR for RX and making QSOs from VU. It was no surprise then for me that I could not hear anything on my antennas!). Also there were hams in Kerala (they have location advantage and some use large beams) working US on 40mtr without much difficulty. So there is lot to improvise to dig out layers of callers in future as well. For now N6RK loop was great booster to me on getting that 2nd tier stations.

W6PQL amp got extra breathing space!

Now with one additional band in relatively good condition, I was happy and prepared. During final station check on Friday evening around 10 UT, I got a shocker with Spiderbeam behaving badly with varying SWR. Panic rush to terrace and tightening balun and wire lug contact nuts seemed to resolve the matter. 

American pan cakes to celebrate morning  Caribbean Qs

Contest day morning provided good start on 40mtr and then after around 5UT, turned to 15mtr to buzz that for next few hours putting more than 350 Qs by 10UT. There was no sign of 10mtr having any signal which limited any possibility of big runs. By this time, I was hoping to switch to 20mtr and try to put another 300 before switching to 40mtr at night. The problem with Spiderbeam SWR contacts surfaced again and had to suspend the 20mtr operation till next morning as our apartment security would not allow us to enter terrace after dark!. Bit disappointing, but hope lingered around 40mtr to make most of it. And, sure it did so running for next few hours till late night around 20UTC. By this time, QSO count had crossed 700. I could make clear difference from operating with only dipole last time vs with vertical + loop combo this time. Stations which used to be in shadow of noise earlier emerged in clear this time.

Desi Chinese Soup
kept me going for mults!

Second day, I went and fixed contact issues around balun where there was some residue of rubber around the washer and nut. I had planned outing with family rest of the morning hours. I may not have missed any openings, as when I returned around 9UT, there was no sign of 10mtr opening. 15mtr and 20mtr SnP started on slow pace. Did not get much response to running other than K3LR, W3LPL, ZF9CW and few other North Americans coming back. However the signals were not strong. Partially, the new high rise building which has comeup north west to north east might be the cause as well. As per HFTA software, high rise is cutting down low angle elevation signals which are crucial for NA shortpath from here. Finally, I made some drag towards the end on 40mtr before closing early at around 19UTC after crossing 1000 mark.

There are lessons each time. 

1. Use of UP and Down arrow functions to control RIT during Run pileups. This is very nice feature of N1MM logger to dig out stations from the pile.

2. Improve reception to the max before turning the power to max - many low power and QRP stations located in quieter locations (and probably with good RX antennas) can hear and call you. 

3. Better yourself at usage of SDR waterfall and spectrum in assisted mode. Anchoring for the run or to identify weak multipliers it can be a good tool. Also if you are using SDR, try SO2V function, i tried to make it work but did not take it much further. Unlike SO2R, SO2V does not require second amplifier if you are making jump on the same band or have amplifier with auto band switching for the multipliers.

However much one is prepared, expect some issues. Low bands are really rulers in these times. Hopefully, I can add another band - 80mtr next and even better receiving capability.

Thanks all for the QSOs.

73s

VU2XE Kiran

Following are the detailed count from contest log:

Band     QSOs     ZN   Cty  
    7      475     24   71

    14     150     17   46   
    21     370     23   63   
    28       8     2    2   
 Total     1003    66   182

Score: 632,896

Link to last year’s blog post: http://kiranpadiyar.blogspot.in/2016/11/what-got-me-here-will-not-take-me-there.html

40mtr Vertical project

Here is new edition to my station... Homebrewed 40m vertical. Nothing fancy, just aluminium sections clamped to specially designed tilt base.

Base plate, made with 1.5mm aluminium sheet.

Tilting mechanism designed by me
and VU2MUD

closeup of vertical

Vertical on our terrace

Construction story to follow on ARSI HRN magazine soon!

VU2XE

VU7T Lakshadweep DXpedition

Just returned from a Radio DXpedition to Lakshadweep.
Following is the regional news coverage of this event:
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/111017/grand-get-together-on-air.html

Lot of learnings, friendly people, joy of spreading awareness about Amateur Radio and many more hams across the world getting their most sought after DXCC score made this trip a fulfilling experience.


Cheers
73
Kiran VU2XE

Youtube live event on Radio Contesting

Amateur Radio is taking me to many areas of learning. Recently, i have been elected to Amateur Radio Society of India as a GC member and then got requested to play Contest Manager role there.

I believe in learning and sharing the knowledge all the time. Thought of reaching VU hams via newer mediums such as Youtube live events. I attempted first live event today at my following: Amateur Radio Channel :

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgcvEOny7T5AGbQksYowPsw/videos

It took good amount of hours (probably 25 hrs over 3-4 weeks  to collect materials, format slides, record and edit all necessary elements.

Software used:

1. Videopad for editing
2. OBS for streaming
3. QSOOrder (connected to N1MM during contests) for sound clips
4. Bensound.com for sound track

What I gained? - many friends in ham world and learning of new techniques in the process.

Cheers!
DE VU2XE
Kiran

SWR raise with Power and troubleshooting

We are hit by late Monsoon rains here in Bangalore. Probably month's worth of rain down poured within few days last week. It is the time when hams here normally need to be extra vigilant about antenna and open area transmission lines for any moisture traps in the line.

During WAE SSB contest (9th and 10th Sept 17) while giving WTC, I noticed that suddenly otherwise all good SWR shoot up and drowned the signal putting my amp on alarm mode. Went to terrace to check all the antenna parts and coax joints etc. I have a Spider beam and a 40 meter vertical connected with separate Coaxes coming down to shack where they end up in the Antenna Switch, then to Directional Coupler for my SWR/Power Meter, then to LDMOS Amplifier and finally to TS590.

I found that small drops of water inside of the spiderbeam antenna coax joint. Shook that part to drain any drops out of the joint and then put insulation tape again on top. Back to shack, it did not seem to improve the SWR. Even with Amplifier on  bypass mode, i could see SWR going over 9 on power meter.
I suspected that the homebrewed Balun box at antenna feedpoint getting flooded due to rains. I didn't had any drain holes made to them to take care of such situation. This means, i had to lower the spider beam which is a cumbersome task for me..

Many of my friends VU2PTT, VU2IBI, VU2DED, VU3NXI and others provided some very good tips including how to check Coax separately, Checking the connector etc. I thought i checked everything.
Couple of days later, i just connected Coax coming to shack directly to the rig, bypassing all other jumpers, power meter, power amp etc. I could see SWR as expected less than 1.5. wow!. When I connected back to Antenna switch, again SWR shoot up.. So now it seems i have cornered the problem.

But then, that evening again i started some more test. I connected coax directly to TS590 and started given 100W for few seconds. I could see that SWR raising from 1.2, 1.3-1.5 , 1.7-1.9 and then 2.5 and i stopped. This indicated that my problem is not so easy to solve.

I then went for Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) with VNA to see if i can detect anomalies in the Transmission line. Following images show the patterns i observed. First one is for line running to 40mtr vertical (it has LMR 400 25 mtr and 15 mtr lengths), second one is for line running to spiderbeam (it has RG213 25 mtr and 10 mtr lengths) and last one is brand new 15mtr length quality 213 rolled in my shack with one open end.

I could make that on RG213 line running upto the coax junction, there is no reflections and segment is holding good on pattern. It indicates to me that, line is clear of any water content. Then i went and checked the barrel joint to find a sticky type of material on center pins. So, replaced the barrel connector with the new spare one i had  to find that the Spiderbeam is now giving the expected results!.
On the Vertical antenna path, i noticed that the crimped connector on LMR400 is freely rotating giving up ground connection. This requires replacement of my coax till i get a new crimp done.


So this troubleshooting continues...!

Enjoy
73
Kiran

I cannot afford an island! – Living with noise in our times

For sometime i was pondering about RF noise. I have seen and read many articles about fighting noise in the past. There are great articles out there for those who wants to jump in and get those well proven methods implemented. I wrote this article couple of week ago trying to think bit differently.

Hope some of you will find interesting as well and probably attempt concept mentioned here.

Please check this PDF article at following link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8FrRlsLMAHpQi1XMEE1VENyaHBmNGlmNkRic2ZoaVJQYm93/view

73
Kiran
VU2XE

What got me here, will not take me there ! - experience from CQWW CW 2016

Writing this blog post as I just return to normalcy of life out of the biggest CQ contest of the year!

Learning a lot from this year's contest, thought of sharing it will readers here. Hope you will enjoy..

Last year by this time, I had just given license upgrade exams and was awaiting results. As VU3KPL, I had distinct advantage of the low power (50W) and my operating style which was mostly Search n Pounce (S&P) during the contest and intermediate runs on the higher bands. This skill was built over few years which gave me a lot of frustration and fun at the same time. Frustration when stations could not hear me well and fun when my 50W made a big impact all over for short propagation duration.

This time as VU2XE, a minimum 2 S unit difference was available with me, but....

1. Power to run is great , but do not forget about S&P for juicy multipliers:

Difference being, this time a perfectly working LDMOS amplifier which I could drive to VU legal limit upto 400W, but overall lower propagation conditions. This amp dragged me into running more, and less of S&P. Some moments during the run were so fierce that I could not pick calls as fast as I would have otherwise. This might have driven some high speed callers away and bringing my run lower than 120 Qs/Hr. Not bad in usual case, but during those narrow propagation windows we observed during the weekend, it proved bit frustrating. These runs got me into another mode of "wanting more" on run whatever it may be, forgetting the juicy multiplier search elsewhere.

2. Turn off DX cluster window if you are not using it from the start:

Important aspect which I did not consider was finding some mults using cluster spots. Never used spot window effectively because of the rush during the contest. I have to be frank to admit that, I only used it while parking my run frequency. It is considered by me as using assistance, so logging as Assisted mode!. If you turn on cluster window, do some justice as mentioned in point #1 above

3. Propagation may swing rapidly and get the best out of it:

A pattern observed during this contest was about 20m band conditions. In recent months, 20m normally stayed open till 14:30 or 15:30 UTC to Europe and then only to NA and Caribbean for some more time. This time, it closed to all directions by around 2:30 UTC or so. In small windows towards NA, there were big stations calling me such as K3LR. But they were RST 559 or so. Some stations, i could hear trying to make Q with me but vanished under QSB :(. 

On the other hand, 20m showed best of its colors to me during the day time. I think it must have been open since mornings, but my operations only started after 9 UTC on 20m.

4. Lower Band antennas are must:

We are entering into no excuse years. One who concurs 40 and below will be on the winning race for sure. I did not have great antennas there. With OCF dipole and lower power, I managed 140+ Qs on 40m. There is lot more improvement on lower bands at my station required for sure.

So, these are some takeaways from this contest which is ultimate test for contester's preparation, skill and station quality (only big variable being propagation!)

See you on air

Kiran VU2XE