CQ WW SSB contest 2022

The propagation during this contest were excellent with 10 and 15 meters having good openings during most of the weekend. I concentrated most of My time on 10m and some 15m and only checked the lower bands occasionally adding a few QSOs on 20 and 40m. I decided to forgo the nighttime noise on 80m and only operated during the day. 

 Murphy struck My 10m Yagi with the rotor only having limited movement from about 75 to 265 degrees. Not a show stopper but a slight irritation! I used My butternut ground mounted vertical on the other bands and it was working well although 20m is always difficult against the big guns!

 This was My usual casual contest and I had set a goal like most contests of at least 100 contacts. I managed 145 QSOs,28 zones on all bands and 55 total countries between bands for a score of 32,785. I even added an all time new one -V55Y operating from Nambia so thats exciting. If He uses LOTW I will have a total of 129 DXCCs. 

 Fun contest with 10m open around the world. This band levels the playing field between big antennas and high power and makes My little station seem bigger.

73---Tim

Digital Interface to My FT-950- part 4

 This has been a long journey but now My set up seems to be working well. I've discussed the many hurdles getting to this point so onward with the settings discussion. I have a Yaesu FT-950  , Yaesu SCU-17 digital interface and a Dell Windows 11 laptop. The SCU-17 interfaces to the radio with a serial DB-9 cable,6 pin DIN plug and to the PC with a USB interface. It needs drivers installed for the virtual comm ports on the Laptop and the recommended are from Silicon Labs- dual CP210x USB to UART bridge driver which can be found on their website.

 After drivers are installed the ports need to be configured and for My application I have set them both, the enhanced port and standard port to 38400 baud,8,none and 2 stop bits.It is also a good idea to turn power management off for these ports and that is found under device manager and comm port settings menus on the laptop. I also have the FT-950 setup to mirror the laptop comm ports -38400 and CAT TOT-1000. The rest of the CAT menu and RTTY choices are left at default. I also have flow control set to none on laptop comm ports but I'm not totally sure this is correct--but it works for now.

The SCU-17 internal jumper I have set to PTT-DTR and FSK-RTS. This is not the default setting but  will work as long as EXTFSK64 mirrors this setting.I changed jumper setting with old Windows 10 PC trying to see if that change would help it to key radio and left it that way.

 The next program is MMTTY ver 1.68a. There might be a newer version but this one works OK.I found the most important parameter using FSK is making sure under the AFC/ATC/PLL menu that shift is set to FSK and of course PTT is using EXTFSK64. The soundcard also needs to reference  both TX and RX the USB audio codec.

N1MM is the logging/contesting program I use and it interfaces with MMTTY as its Digital engine. Using CAT from the radio requires the enhanced com mport and PTT/FSK the standard. These settings need to match and for My setup Com 3 is CW/other- 38400,n,8,2 with DTR and RTS on. My com 4 which is the standard port is set to Digital with DTR-PTT and RTS -CW.

 With all these programs there are many variations for ease of use and depending on hardware many settings. I read the manuals for each one and adjusted these accordingly. The above settings seem to be the ones needed using a Yaesu FT-950 ,SCU-17 and a Windows 11 laptop. Hope this helps. I might need to edit this description some so check back later....

73--Tim

  

Digital Interface to My Ft -950 part 3

 The previous parts 1 & 2 I discussed My old interface and the reasons for purchasing a new digital interface. Lots has happened since then! My Windows 10 laptop had some memory issues I didn't know about until a semi-major update I tried to install caused a blue screen of death. I thought- okay I'll just use the rescue external hard drive to recover.....oops, I saved pictures and files to it but the actual rescue portion still was for my older Windows 7 machine. Hmmm. , what to do. I did also realize I had a memory problem so I ordered a new memory card which I installed and it did correct the memory errors but the OS was still not happy.

  This whole issue was happening during a very busy time of the year for me---summer in Minnesota. I decided to check pricing on a new laptop with the idea of somehow recovering this old one in the future. It had given me many years of service-first as a win 7 ,then win 10 PC so maybe it was time for an upgrade. Looking online I found many options and I actually found the best deal directly from Dell so I ordered a Windows 11 laptop for a very reasonable price. 

  After it was delivered I went thru the set up process and learning from my mistake made a recovery USB drive very soon after set up. I also made backups of some older Mac books on separate USB drives. Back up ,back up, back up was my new mantra!! Windows 11 I found to be a easier operating system than either 7 or 10. I was able to load ham log information and various files I had saved from  several USB  drives.

  I also worked on getting My digital interface working with Windows 11 and this did take some extra time trying different parameters in software for N1mm,LOG4OM and MMTTY. Luckily I did write down many parameters from My windows 10 set up and was able to use these with windows 11. I realized very soon the old PC had interfacing issues because now I was able to have N1MM and LOG4OM both work with My CAT interface using many of the same parameters. 

  Both CAT for logging and control seemed to be working although N1MM still showed an occasional CAT issue but I think some more parameter manipulation will clear this up. I next wanted to try RTTY using MMTTY which is the first step before interfacing MMTTY with N1MM as the digital "engine" decoding and transmitting RTTY. Add on programs like MMTTY,LOG4OM and N1MM sometimes need external programs to interface to the radio properly. LOG4OM I use Omnirig and MMTTY needs ExtFSK64 for keying the transmitter.

  All of the programs and radio parameters need to be set the same and thats where My problem was for RTTY FSK . I accidentily had RTS and DTR inverted between MMTTY and ExtFSK64 so upon transmit the radio PTT was toggling. Once I corrected this issue I finally was transmitting FSK RTTY but it wasn't until a operator out East informed me about the frequency drift and RTTY not printing at his end that I discovered the final problem. MMTTY was set to fixed and not FSK under the AFC menu. After I changed this menu option I had no problems making RTTY contacts during the contest.

  I will give the parameters for using thr FT-950,SCU-17 interface and associated programs in part 4---- the final saga!!!

73 for now---Tim

 

  

CQ WW RTTY 2020

 I have not participated in a RTTY contest for several years although last year I tried but had issues with My home made digital interface and radio. I didn't know at the time but My windows 10 PC also had issues but thats a topic for another time.

 The new digital interface a ,Yaesu SCU-17 and new PC a Windows 11 laptop both needed to have many options for MMTTY and N1MM set up properly. I thought this had been accomplished before the contest but not being familiar with FSK ---I have always used AFSK for RTTY before this-- and having a new digital interface was a challenge. Only after the contest started Friday night did I realize all was not well. 

 My set up was decoding signals very well but Transmit was only occasionaly working.I was busy for alot of the time on Saturday and only operated on and off.I had more time on Sunday when a very helpful contestant took the time to inform Me what He was seeing from me--or not seeing. Once I changed a few parameters My station was now working very good. 

  I tried to concentrate Sunday on 10m and 15m and even had good luck on 20m later. Lots of DX on My HF6V vertical and even several surprising ones--ATNO of North Macedonia and many European stations. I even heard Ukraine but pile up was too big. Final QSO count was 135 with a score of 33,528. Not too bad for the trouble earlier with My station set up. Works good now!!

 I will post another time about the set up parameters but for now.......

73---Tim

13 Colonies special event 2022

This is the eleventh time I have participated in this special event since 2012, only missing 2009 thru 2011. Four times I have achieved a clean sweep of all thirteen colonies and several times have added the extra stations.I did not have a lot of time this year because of a mini vacation in the middle of this event but I wanted to make sure to participate and decided on a goal of at least six colony contacts and maybe even one or two of the extra if lucky.

 During this short day and a half I was able to get on the air I managed seven colonies and zero extra stations. The station in France-TM13COL- I heard at about an S6 level on 20m but the pile up was too big to break. I didn't hear the Great Britain station or WM3PEN on SSB much and when they were ,again pile ups were huge. I did see them spotted on FT8 several times so maybe next year I will try Digital--My Dell win10 PC failed several weeks ago but thats another blog story for later.

All My contacts this year were on 20m except for a lone one on 40m. Bands were only okay and unfortunately I was not on during any 15m or 10m openings. This was fun while I participated. Next year I might have more time.Already sent donation for certificate.

73--Tim
 

Observations of the June ARRL VHF contest

 

I decided to try out My new SCU-17 digital interface CAT control for this contest.I only operated for a short time but used the contest to setup the interface and N1MM logger for the CAT function. Eventually I need to spend time with the interface to get it working on transmit--receive works very well along with CAT. Fact is the CAT function thru this interface works fast and flawless keeping track of bands and frequency as I turn the dial. The actual Control function seems to work also but I've not spent lots of time to understand the required keystrokes.

 I haven't operated this contest for many years and always had it running in the background while doing other chores in the shack. When bands are open its a hoot but during slow times- well like watching paint dry. The only fun part of the slow times was chatting on air with other local operators.

 Well times have changed! I didn't hear only one local and looking at DXmaps on the internet for activity I noticed when filtering out the digital activity showed--well very little SSB and CW during the time I was on. This contest at least during the slow propagation times has become a digital contest. I'm not criticizing this--actually a litttle jealous not having the digital working. It would have increased my operating time alot! 

 I did have a few 6m contacts when propagation was up but I only have a 10m mono bander with a tuner for 6m horizontal contacts so not the best situation. I also missed several active openings which even with My setup would have made a difference--it is the magic band!

 My last thought is even though My CAT set up works well, the rig only covers HF+6M so any contacts for 2m or 432 is on a radio not connected to My interface. It seems N1MM needs to have the USB disconnected before it will let me manually switch bands being used by the non-CAT connected radio. Just another reason for a all mode all band single radio I guess!

 73---Tim

Butternut HF6V antenna 40m trouble

 The table above shows the SWR before and after on My HF6V vertical antenna. I recently noticed this antenna would not auto tune on 40m , so I did a more in depth antenna check and realized i had lost good SWR on 80,40 and 30m. The upper bands - 20,15 and 10 tuned OK so the problem was not an open coax feed but more than likely a Capacitor,connection issue.

I read through the manual and realized the 80/40m capacitor assembly was maybe the problem area. I hope the door knob capacitors were Okay since they seem to be a rather pricy item to replace. I began by close examination of the connections, capacitors and related hardware. I did not see any particular issue so I took apart each connection one at a time . I used a anti-oxident compound on each connection I reassembled to prevent corrosion. 

 I periodically rechecked SWR before continuing on with too many connections but had not found any specific problem. Eventually I disassembled the door knob capacitors and found a large amount of oxidation on the screw threads where the capacitor and bracket connected. I cleaned this connection and put back together and tested for SWR. It now tested very good on 30 and 40m and even 80m tested good although for a limited bandwidth--exactly like the specifications show!

  This antenna works for now but I will need to check more connections before too long!

73---Tim

Why I like Radio

 

The picture above shows My first CB radio I purchased when I was in high school.It was a used radio that cost Me $75 which was a lot of money back then but a used radio was cheaper than a new purchase. It also was only a 23 channel CB because the FCC had not authorized the additional 40 channels common today. I think I bought this before I had a drivers license so I had it on my desk in my bedroom and used a 12v power supply. My Father allowed me to put up a small vertical antenna attached to the gable end of the house and I remember running a ground down to a short ground rod.It worked and I used it until I finally had a car to install it into.I still have this radio although I haven't used it in years.

  Like many Ham Radio operators My love of radio started with CB radio and shortwave. My father inadvertently introduced me to both- first he showed me a CB radio installed in his car on loan from the Police department which He was a reserve member. It was an old tube radio but listening to him talk to the station really peaked my interest. I also saved enough money to buy walkie-talkies from the local Holiday gas station. Holiday gas stations back then had an abundance of hunting,fishing and outdoor supplies. Those holiday walkie-talkies used CB channel 14 and I was able to talk to older kids using CB radios in their cars. The FCC required a license back then to operate CB radio and I still remember my call from those days!

   The next radio was a Zenith Transoceanic H500 which He brought home for me to try and fix. He was gifted this radio from a local bus service owner who also had a junkyard and it just so happened my father needed some car parts and in addition to them he brought the radio home too. I still have this radio! The outside leather/canvas was dirty but the inside chassis was pristine. It worked just okay and I wasn't able to make it 100% until vocational school electronics when I was taught enough to figure out several simple problems. It still works to this day!

  My home town was small and I think several Ham Radio operators might have been active during that time. I remember some gossip about a guy across town who spent lots of time in his basement talking around the world. I never met him or was introduced so I missed out on possible "elmering" into the Ham radio hobby. That would not happen until my career at the local utility companies electronics division where I worked with several Ham's. Fun times learning and operating on radios was just ahead . 

73--Tim N0UJJ

 

 

  

Digital Interface to My Yaesu FT-950 part 2

 Part 1 was an overview of My journey with Digital modes and Ham radio. I had a semi working setup but I missed a big RTTY contest because of the difficulty keeping My existing setup working reliably. It was definitely time to upgrade so I started researching manufactured interfaces which would simplify my setup-hopefully. 

Lots of the information on the internet was old and I was careful to only look at newer articles  for my research. The amount of information with new equipment was lacking. It seems many radios now come standard with hardware built in and because of this the number of different manufacturers of digital interfaces has shrunk although some of the big players still exist. I looked at most of these but all seemed to be so universal they needed lots of option settings to have the hardware work with My radios. Then I stumbled across an interface from Yaesu --the SCU-17. The price was about the same as an average interface but because a lot was built in to this device the amount of interface cables to a Yaesu radio was minimal. All it required was one USB cable to My laptop, a RS232 serial cable to CAT port of radio and a connection to the data port in back of the FT-950. Easy peasy!!Power is even provided by USB port-- either AC or battery power to laptop is all thats needed.

 The next part I discuss hooking the SCU-17 up and the software parameters needed for CAT,RTTY and hopefully FT8.till next time---

Tim

 

Digital Interface to My Yaesu FT-950- part 1

 Slow scan TV and PSK31 became popular using a PC with built in sound card and free shareware on the internet which prompted a group of local Ham operators to try these new digital modes for ourselves. We had already tried TNC's and standalone "dumb" terminals to access local BBS connected Nodes but these newer digital modes really peaked our interest. 

  I was a little slower to try mainly because my radios were older ,less stable radios. The local group was on every Friday on 6m using SSTV so I eventually fabricated a interface with audio transformers and a transistor circuit for keying.This set up was useable but several years later I upgraded radios and modified My interface with custom cables to plug into a switch box and Data inputs on a Yaesu 857 and My newly purchased Yaesu FT-950. 

  It was fun to finally have a setup working good for SSTV , PSK31 and Olivia. I also eventually was able to figure out AFSK RTTY for contesting and added CAT to both radios I was using which helped to make contesting band changes easier.

   I used this setup from about 2008 till 2016 which was about the time I took some time away from Ham radio--this was right before FT8 really took off. When I waded back into the Ham radio world, some basic things had changed like I now had a reconfigured Win 7 PC I had upgraded to Win10 instead of My old Win XP desktop. The Win10 laptop had no serial ports so I needed 232 converters to use the digital modes and some software was not as friendly for a new operating system as windows XP had been. It took some time but I finally was able to have digital working---kind of--but not reliably. The drivers for the converters were old and had been made for win XP or older OS and they needed to have PC restarted sometimes to be recognized. I also found hardware and cable issues-- My original setup was getting old and had just too many interface cables. The picture above shows the mess after I removed it.

  It was time to consider other options. I decided I wanted a simple hardware interface with fewer cables and FSK capability and more reliable CAT interfacing.Part 2 I will discuss My choices and what I finally ended up purchasing.

73 for now---Tim

CQ WW WPX SSB contest 2022

 I participated in this contest for a short time Friday evening and part of Saturday but was busy on Sunday. I enjoy this contest although the "serial number" exchange always makes Me feel like I'm not achieving QSO's as quick as My fellow contester which is usually the case. Just not serious enough I guess but I am always amazed at the different prefixes I hear. It's fun to add points for all contacts and easy to achieve multipliers both domestic and DX.

  The conditions were good and I was happy to hear contacts on 10 and 15m for most of My operating time. Saturday afternoon was lots of South America stations and towards evening I even had a good time on 20m beating out some stations easily . That usually doesn't happen on 20m so it was very satisfying! My typical goal of surpassing 100 Qs I achieved with 105 total for almost 20,000 points. I'm happy with that .

73--Tim

ARRL International DX contest 2022

 The first night of most contests are usually a tuff go for a low power/limited antenna station like mine so I only operated for a short time to check conditions and My station before calling it a night. I logged contacts on 15m and 40m and skipped 20m because of the first night craziness. I was able to contact a fellow MWA operator on 15m who was using the remote station on Haiti for the contest so that was a big first night highlight.

 I started after sunrise Saturday switching between 15m and 10m and only towards evening switching to 20m-- which was very noisy and pile ups were intense. My day was broken up between helping My wife with chores and checking the bands for good openings plus some other distractions. A very casual operating contest day but fun none the less!

 My goal was to log more than 100 QSO's but if the bands were good I hoped for closer to 200. Sunday morning started with only over 70 logged contacts but I hoped to log many more. Like yesterday I again concentrated on 10m and 15m although a lot of stations I heard I had already worked on those bands so I was not adding to the log as fast as I had hoped.I finally decided I needed to try 20m to avoid the "Dupes" I was running into on 10m and 15m. I was pleasantly surprised on 20m with the success I was having breaking through the pile ups which on Saturday was not happening. I easily logged contacts to surpass 100 and finished switching to 40m for one final try. I happened to run across another MWA member who was helping with an Italian station so My final contact was on 40m- -MWA start and finish!! Nice!

  I ended with 114 contacts for 21,888 as a submitted score but in review I found 2 contacts I think I heard wrong during the exchange.Lebanon and Hong Kong ended up not being ATNO-- all time new ones. Hope  I didn't hear any others wrong. Old ears--oh well

73---Tim

Macbook Pro longevity

 

I have in previous posts championed the various Apple products We have purchased over the years. I admit to owning many windows Pc's over the years and still use a Windows 7 PC I've upgraded to a Win10 machine and I'm pleased its still working well. I use it along with a MacBook Pro in My ham shack.The other MacBook I use in the upstairs mostly for emails and browsing.I have found Windows based operating systems still have many, many programs for Ham radio use so keeping the win10 PC makes sense.

 The two MacBooks I still use are old hand me downs from Our children who upgraded to MacBook Air laptops for college. These two MacBook Pro's are from 2010 and the operating MacOS is High Sierra. The upgrade path disappeared many years ago. I've even replaced both batteries when they failed to hold a charge which ended up being a very easy repair. I didn't use direct Apple replacement batteries because of the cost but they have worked OK so far.

 I wish iPhones would have the longevity these MacBooks have had, but to keep up with the Cell phone advancements of 3G-5G I know the trading up has been necessary. Luckily My iPad is only replaced when it has failed and I use it a lot!!

 I guess in conclusion I just want to express how happy I am when electronics last for a good number of years. Ham radio equipment seems to be timeless if one doesn't mind not having the latest and greatest!!!

 73--Tim

 

Weather Station

 I have thought about buying a weather station for many years but only recently decided to purchase one.They have advanced a lot over the years so no wiring for connections was necessary. Looking at the many options I settled on a model that uses wireless Radio - 915mhz for this specific model and 2.4ghz Wi-Fi to connect to the internet.The internet connection gives the station wind direction, forecasting information, date and time and access to an App on mobile devices. This model has the main station display plus a second small display for indoor/outdoor temperature and humidity.

 The main display shows windspeed and direction, indoor/outdoor temperature and humidity, relative barometric pressure and rainfall data, plus many more options including historical data. The setup and installation was easy following directions both in Quickstart guide, online manual and even the internet app. I first powered up all the devices inside the house and made sure all connected to main display and also connected to the internet.I did install Lithium AA batteries for the Temp/humidity outdoor sensor. all others were good name brand alkaline batteries.

 The outdoor sensors installation did not take much time but the wind sensor was a little tricky with three feet of snow on the ground. That sensor is temporarily on the eave of the garage but later when snow and temperatures improve I will probably mount towards the peak.

  I only have one problem and that is the wind sensor does not want to be recognized by the mobile phone app. That is not a show stopper for now since the wind speed is working on the main display.This is another issue after weather is warmer. 

  I'm very happy with My new weather station and in My research I realized most have similiar options and reviews are good. I did buy this one on sale. Good for me!!!

   73s--Tim