January 2006 - Rochester DX Association
Contents
1. 18 19 Feb CQ WW 160m Contest SSB 25 26 Feb Contest Commentary N2CK ARRL RTTY Roundup I played a bit in the RTTY roundup last weekend I ended up with 167 Qs broken down as follows 80M 33 40M 62 20M 63 and 15M 9 I didn t work as much DX as I would have expected Japan England Ireland Mexico Columbia Slovenia is there ever a contest those guys don t enter and Aruba made the log I worked the following RDXAers KOSM K8FC KIPY K2MP and WITY I had some fun with Vic when I sent him a signal report something to the effect of 236 I did end up giving him an official report of 599 though I had nice chats with Vic Joe and Ed I did say hi to Andy but I m not sure he knew who was at the other end Most of my operation was search and pounce though on Sunday afternoon I tried CQing a little I had a nice little run going on 7 055 where I worked 9 stations in a row That s when WITY found me Imagine my surprise when I continued on CQing after working Rick that I saw someone else calling CQ on my frequency Reading the MMTTY display I can clearly read DE WITY WITY QRZ Talking to Rick later it seems he tried to assist me by posting a spot for me on the cluster After he returned to the test he mistakenly thought that my frequency was his calling frequency As I was frequency agile and not working single band I wandered up the band a little and found2. ROCHESTER DX ASSOCIATION ROCHESTER DX ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER Regular Meeting January 17 19 00 local 300 J ay Scutti Boulevard Gander Mountain Meeting Room How to Maximize Your 100 Watts Back by popular demand we re having another ask the experts roundtable discussion this time focused specifically on different ways we can maximize the effectiveness of our 100W transceivers Many experienced ops in the club used to or still run barefoot and have learned many ways to get the most out of a modest station With many DX and contest Qs in their logs they know from whence they speak Come hear what they ve done that you can do yourself to improve your station 2K 9K DK DK 9K DKK DK OK OK OK 9K KK 9K KK OK 9K KK 9K KK OK Social after the Meeting Scotch amp Sirloin Winton Plaza President s Soapbox By Dave Wright N2CK Hello everyone I hope the wx continues on in this mild fashion Here it is mid January and we don t have any white stuff on the ground It s almost like we got an additional grant of a month to work on antennas Thanks to some tower work by Doug N2BEG I now have an additional antenna for 80 and 40 plus 160 as well Watch the scores from the N2CK super station climb now Actually I m looking forward to having an additional antenna on 80 40 F m sure there will be times when one will perform better than the rdxa com JANUARY 2006 other Also at this point
3. and 80 metres especially during morning and evening hours It also provides different band openings during winter and at higher latitudes than 40 metres Here is a recently updated list of SMHz channels bands and frequencies related to amateur radio as of December 2005 Page 4 102 0 5102 0kHz Australia WIA WICEN emergency 167 5 5167 5 194 5 5194 5 DRA5 beacon 250 0 310 0 5250 5310 Bangladesh SS 258 5 5258 5 UK Canada experimental 267 5 5267 5 Canada experimental 278 5 5278 5 UK Finland Norway Iceland 288 5 5288 5 UK Finland Canada 5S PES Notas tetera 298 5 5298 5 318 5 5318 5 ar experimental 327 5 5327 5 Canada experimental 330 5 5330 5 USA Finland Norway Iceland St Lucia 346 5 5346 5 USA Finland Norway Iceland St Lucia 355 0 5355 0 Australia WIA WICEN emergency 366 5 5366 5 USA Finland Norway Iceland 371 5 5371 5 USA Finland Norway Iceland St Lucia 398 5 5398 5 UK Finland Canada 5S SS neiayteand_ permena Canada experimental 403 5 5403 5 USA UK Norway Iceland St Lucia Frequency assumes USB emission on all channels Notes on the 5MHz List International Frequency Above listed frequencies are dial frequencies as you see them on your radio The center of channel offset is already figured out for you The center of channel is usually 1 5kHz higher than dial frequency Worldwide The current worldwide standard for Amateur Radio on 5MHz is Up
4. HF stations Some HF remote base stations in USA have been in operation on 5371 5kHz using Internet Remote Base or Echolink with voice squelch and or UHF remotes Evening Night Guidelines 5MHz channels are a shared resource with many users In many countries amateurs are secondary users and must QRT when a primary station is on the channel For this reason transmission time should be kept to a minimum and it is best to wait a few seconds before responding during a QSO Considerate hams usually try to avoid longwinded ragchews during peak evening hours whenever activity is high and propagation is open for wide regional communications on the SMHz channels Iceland 8 channels with 3kHz bandwidth USB or CW at 100W Bangladesh 5250 to 5310 kHz Amateur Applications Amateur propagation experiments with stations of administrations permitting such activities Secondary status St Lucia J6 has the same 5 channels as USA and there continues to be activity Other countries Some other authorised 5MHz operations have been reported such as the SZ4HW DXpedition in Kenya Some experimental operation has also been reported from Russia Other reports of operation include Columbia and Mexico Useful Operating Techniques for the 5MHz Channels 1 Put the SMHz channels in your transceiver memory including the USB mode If possible also include narrow TX bandwidth and the correct transmit power level 2 Before transmitting check your trans
5. So I burned out one of the sets of relay contacts using my preferred settings The reason I was able to get back on 80m was because luckily I found an alternate group of settings using the opposite relay contacts that also provided a match According to the guys at Palstar what I need if I am going to run IkW RTTY is their re engineered balanced tuner that has open frame relays with 45 amp coin silver contacts Live and learn AF2K ARRL 10 Meter This Contest in December was a genuine struggle at times on a real quirky band Nevertheless it takes a contest to activate 28 MHz and bring some life to it Managed to rack up 387 SSB Qs only a dozen more than 2004s effort and 75 mults identical to last year s of which 25 were DX entities Propagation was totally strange at times plus band conditions often resembled 6 meters But did have fun and that s what matters Have we hit bottom yet in the Cycle Propagation AD5Q s notes from Cycle 22 J an 1995 Solar Flux Range 73 97 Summary January is the coldest month of the year and also has the lowest MUFs This combined with the low solar activity leaves us with little remaining activity on 15 meters East west paths are open so Africa is still workable Few signals are coming through from Europe and we have reached a stage where Europe is more easily worked on 80m than on 15m 20 meters is not in good shape and most activity is along the grayline paths in the morni
6. another spot where I worked another 24 stations before wandering back to 20m to see what I could find there All in all a fun contest with the added benefit of having the opportunity to chat with and also have some fun with both during and after the contest fellow club members When you see Rick suggest that he needs to check the edges of his passband every once in a while K8FC ARRL RTTY Roundup As usual great contest I look forward to the RTTY RU every year as it is a very relaxing contest and fun to do Only got in about 19 hours this year because of other commitments but never the less really enjoyed it Thanks to my Colorado friends who gave me a point I would also like to congratulate Steve Foster KTODX on his excellent RTTY RU finish for 2006 he should probably be amongst the leaders I suspect The bands were not spectacular here when I operated I wish I could have spent more quality time on 80 and 40 10 meters was never open the times that I checked Page 2 Score total 727 Qs State Prov 53 Countries 32 total score 61 795 Thanks again to all the folks who gave me a QSO K SM ARRL RTTY Roundup I hadn t done this contest since 1998 and it was a bit of a last minute prep I was hanging a dipole during the first hour of the contest I think I might just have to try to extend Christmas vacation next year just for this I invited a new ham over because he had never done a contest nor RTTY so that
7. ceiver s calibration against a time frequency reference signal such as WWV on 5000 000 kHz Select a channel check your power setting lock your VFO dial and lock your microphone channel Up Down switch and keypad 3 Use your RIT or receive clarifier to tune other stations in Do not change your main VFO dial or transmit frequency unless you discover that you are out of calibration 4 Avoid long auto tuning or manual tuning times if possible Transmission of a carrier especially zero beat is not allowed in some countries such as USA RDXA Bulletin e January 2006 5 Before starting to transmit listen on the channel for at least 3 minutes If it is vacant start by just saying your callsign Similar to VHF repeater operation it is not necessary to call a long CQ Just announcing your callsign phonetically and your location is sometimes enough to start up a contact 6 If you have a very high receive noise level at your QTH be very cautious about transmitting because you may be interfering with primary users or a QSO that is already in progress between amateurs 7 Try to peacefully co exist and share the channel with other stations talking in the background Unlike other HF SSB ham bands 5MHz is channelised and very limited Don t insist upon a totally clear channel because it is possible for there to be several layers of QSOs going on simultaneously in different areas on the same channel 8 ID more often than you
8. dband connection As I have both the service and user manuals I didn t waste bandwidth to see how long the service manual would take Try this service if you ever pick up a bargain rig or TNC what are they at a hamfest and need documentation It looks like the manuals are scanned then converted to PDF files but what the heck for free It s right up a Ham s alley Ok that s enough mindless drivel for this month Hopefully Pll see a bunch of you next week Additionally I hope lots of you stragglers contact Charlie and re up We really don t want to lose you folks Where else can you tap into this much combined expertise frivolity and abuse for a mere 15 00 a year Why the answer is only RDXA Dave N2CK J anuary Contests ARRL Straight Key Night CW 1 Jan ARRL RTTY Roundup RTTY 7 8 Jan KAOP Oe 14 14 Jan UK DX RTTY RTTY 21 22 Jan CQ 160 Meter Contest CW 28 29 Jan BARTG RTTY Sprint RTTY 28 29 Jan More Contest Info http www sk3bg se contest index ht February Contests Mexico Int 1 RTTY Contest RTTY 4 5 Feb CQ WW RTTY WPX RTTY 11 12 Feb RSGB 1 8 MHz Contest CW 11 12 Feb ARRL Intl DX CW
9. e to examine propagation predictions etc so I could pick the best time bands to work you folks back home DX Logbook By Chris Shalvoy K2CS Atlantic Division DXAC BRITISH AMATEUR RADIO STATION Richard D Cridland 13 Clarendon Avenue Redlands Weymouth ENGLAND Dorset PSE OSL DIRECT VIA RSGE ro ranio K LGS Hi Caney CONFIRMING OUR gt S Osc Te Vov ore che OF AA OSaT O SS A eo r Hy nko ON on FOS 5 MHZ m RRL or UR RST S 4 He Pua AD Meg E gt aga Hap A V on Loy ed ae 4 TX kasii i fz ar inveerep V Def OA A AF e i INPUT 1GO wow JCS amp G3ZGP confirms QSO with K2CS on 60m See you in the pileups Best DX es 73 Worldwide 5MHz Frequency and Channel List This information on worldwide 60 meter channels was excerpted from a post by Bonnie Crystal KQ6XA on QRZ com Ed The use of 5 MHz by amateur radio operators is expanding into more countries with emergency channels propagation experiment operation secondary status and normal amateur use Australia s amateur radio organization the Wireless Institute of Australia is the most recent addition to 5MHz WIA now has a licence for two new 5MHz channels in emergency situations involving the Wireless Institute Civil Emergency Network WICEN using non amateur callsigns and type approved radios that are common in Australian outback HF land mobile Propagation on 5MHz fills in the distance gap between 40 metres
10. gain or calculations of the antenna gain No amateur station shall cause harmful interference to stations authorized in the mobile and fixed services nor is any amateur station protected from interference due to the operation of any such station SMHz Interference from BPL and Home Plug Transmitters Some Broadband Over Power Line BPL and in building powerline communications systems PLCs use HF and low VHF spectrum for transmitting signals which radiate in the general area of the power lines Some of these systems have voluntarily conformed to the HomePlug standard which uses spectrum notches in most of the HF ham bands in their effort to mitigate some of the interference they cause to hams However the existing HomePlug standard does not provide spectrum notches for the SMHz channels The USA FCC requires that any new BPL systems have the capability to notch out frequencies whenever they generate interference to licensed services However in practice it is has been difficult to get BPL system operators to deal with interference complaints Page 5 ROCHESTER DX ASSOCIATION W2RDX This Bulletin is a the official organ of the Rochester DX Association and is published monthly September through June Email your articles tidbits ham ads etc to Mike NIOKL at the addresses below by the first Tuesday of the month for inclusion in that month s issue All those with an interest in amateur radio and DXing and contesting a
11. in the sunspot cycle I want to be able to have a greater impact on those bands At the Board meeting last night we discussed the number of folks who have not renewed their membership I m sure that there are some who don t wish to renew for personal reasons I Il be sending out follow up email s trying to encourage those folks whose membership has lapsed to ante up and rejoin the fold Regrettably those who don t chose to renew their membership will be removed from the RDXA mailing list but not forgotten Chris K2CS will be circulating a sign up sheet for the usage of W2RDxX call at the January meeting As Chris mentioned in the December newsletter the goal is to get DXCC and WAS for the club by the 60 anniversary Take a look at the contest calendar and pick some time to use the call Just remember to work within the constraints of your license class which as most of us are Extras is not an issue There are plenty of smaller contests out there state QSO parties etc So pick some time and use the call I wanted to direct your attention to a website I found interesting The site is ae el In addition to modifications broken down by manufacturer and model try at your own risk of course there is a section of user and service manuals I downloaded a PDF file of the C 765 user manual just for grins People are limited to 2 downloads a day When I downloaded the user manual 4M it just took a couple minutes with a broa
12. is why I m M S low There was only one radio in the room so the 10 minute rule was a pain in the butt occasionally I m excited about what this station could do if I operated the full 24 hours SOLP and had a real 20m antenna My country count was way low compared to what it was back in the 90s when the 204 BA was on the tower Some of the missing countries are too embarrassing to mention Also keep in mind that being in the middle of the country has its advantages not the least of which is that I m one hop closer to all those Californians Highlights Working first EU on 80 RTTY that never happens and working a bunch of JAs on 40m never worked JA from here on 40 I got the rate meter to hit 187 hr for the last 10 during an 80m run I m curious if any of you did SO2R in this contest It seems it would be a big help when the rate starts to drop on Sunday For those of you who ran multiple decoders any wisdom to share I didn t get around to that Maybe next year NIOKL ARRL RTTY Roundup Looking at the cluster spots about an hour after the contest started and checking what I could hear I decided to fire up the rigs on 15 meters I worked the band for about 3 hours mostly S amp P Most contacts were stateside Midwest and west coast with a sprinkling of Europeans and South Americans thrown in I also worked a ZL but though I heard Hawaii he could not hear me I adjourned for a short late afternoon nap and to barbeque a co
13. n by switching in some fixed capacitance and resetting variable capacitance and inductance I was able to find a new setting on my balanced tuner that worked OK on 80 meters with the 80 160 dipole But I still could not get the 40 10 meter extended lazy H to take power at all Well I can at least finish the contest on 80 meters I thought Signals were starting to come up on 80 by about 16 00 and I worked what I could hear S amp P By 18 00 there seemed RDXA Bulletin e January 2006 to be enough signals to make calling CQ worthwhile and I gave it a shot I had some nice runs including a quick chat with K2MP Everything else in the station held up on 80m until the end of the contest I haven t scored my effort yet as I have to do this manually The MMTTY logging facility does not appear to provide scoring capability I probably have about 200 QSOs in the log with a dozen or so DXCC entities and maybe half the states and provinces By late Sunday night I had also figured out what happened to my antennas In fact it wasn t the antennas at all it was the tuner The Palstar balanced tuner I use has two relays one for switching in additional fixed capacitance and the other for switching either the variable capacitance or inductance I forget which from one side of the circuit to the other At 1 kW RTTY the contacts in these relays are carrying more than their design current even though the tuner itself is rated for 1500 Watts
14. ng and evening Low Bands This is turning into a great year for lowband work Most of the attention is focused on 80 and 75 meters even to the extent that activity is down on 40m 40m is certainly in excellent shape its just that on 80m one can have a competitive signal with a few tall trees and wire antennas On 40m a tower and beam is more of a necessity to get the most out of the band Most of the lowband activity is in the evening and we no longer have to wait up for the EU sunrise peak which occurs after midnight 80m CW is a crowded band in Europe but much of the activity is local The louder EU stations are able to work quantities of W VE stations because we mostly run QRO here Stateside ops are mostly tuning the band looking for DX to work rather than CQing and running This is probably because most of us are alligators that can only work what we can hear The band doesn t sound crowded here except on the frequencies of DX stations where there are pileups The same is mostly true on 160m the EU stations do most RDXA Bulletin e January 2006 of the running Yes this is a good year for 160m even I can hear the louder Europeans on my noisy delta loop DXpeditions As I write this the S Georgia expedition is on This invites comparison with the Peter Island operation of a year ago The most noticeable difference is that signals are weaker and this suggests they are less well equipped with antennas and amps Mos
15. normally would Once you establish contact say your callsign and the callsign of station you are talking to This will help a lot when there are multiple stations simultaneously using the same channel 9 Avoid ragchewing Use short transmissions drag your feet between overs and give everyone a chance to use the channels Be open to other stations calling each other between gaps in your QSO 10 There are many 5MHz channels around the world now and the list is growing Among regular 5MHz operators the channels are often called by the last few digits in kilohertz such as 403 5 meaning the dial frequency 5403 5kHz FCC 5MHz Rules 97 303 s An amateur station having an operator holding a General Advanced or Amateur Extra Class license may only transmit single sideband suppressed carrier emission type 2K8J3E upper sideband on the channels 5332 kHz 5348 kHz 5368 kHz 5373 kHz and 5405 kHz Amateur operators shall ensure that their transmission occupies only the 2 8 kHz centered around each of these frequencies Transmissions shall not exceed an effective radiated power e r p of 50 W PEP For the purpose of computing e r p the transmitter PEP will be multiplied with the antenna gain relative to a dipole or the equivalent calculation in decibels A half wave dipole antenna will be presumed to have a gain of 0 dBd Licensees using other antennas must maintain in their station records either manufacturer data on the antenna
16. per Sideband USB Other emission types are also in use USA Only USB voice with 2 8kHz bandwidth is authorized in USA for all General class or higher licensees using the equivalent of 50 Watts into a dipole UK Voice Digital and CW modes within a 3kHz bandwidth at 200 Watts are authorised in UK for holders of experimental or N O V and channels are often described by the centre of channel frequency dial 1500Hz or the formal Foxtrot designators FA FB FC FE FM RDXA Bulletin e January 2006 Germany DRAS5 Experimental Beacon operated by DARC DKOWCY beacon team transmits propagation data dialt 1500Hz CW RTTY PSK31 Canada Experimental licensed operation by Marconi Radio Club VOIMRC members CW or USB on 5260 5269 5280 5290 5319 5400 and 5405 kHz with 100 watts output Some beacon testing on 5269 5 kHz and CW QSOs on 5260 kHz Finland Club stations may apply for authorization to operate the SMHz channels with maximum power of 50 Watts on USB only The USB dial frequencies for Finland are 5288 6 5298 6 5330 6 5346 6 5366 6 5371 6 5398 6 kHz Australia Wireless Institute of Australia is licenced for 2 HF land mobile 5MHz channels for emergency use by the Wireless Institute Civil Emergency Network using non amateur callsigns AXF404 and AXF405 and ACMA type approved radio equipment such as the transceivers normally used for HF outback communications in the VKS737 HF net Remote bases and Echolink
17. re cordially invited to any meeting and to join RDXA Meetings are held at 19 30 local time on the 3 Tuesday of each month September through June President Dave Wright N2CK n2ck arrl net Vice President Vic Gauvin KIPY kl py arrl net Sec Treasurer Charles Kuhfuss WB2HJV wb2hjv rochester rr com Board Of Directors Paul Meyers N2OPW n2opw qsl net Gene Fuller W2LU w2lu worldnet att net Paul Mackanos K2DB paul prohomeinspector net Rick Mintz WITY w ty arrl net Appointed Positions DX Chairman Chris Shalvoy K2CS Packet Cluster Sys Op Bob Hunter NG2P Webmaster Scott Hoag K2ZS Page 6 NG2P Packet Cluster 144 910 MHz Telnet 66 67 220 251 Port 7300 Newsletter Editor Mike Rundle N1OKL rundlem kpgraphics com Alternate email nlokl pcilearn com Dues 15 year and Correspondence to Charles Kuhfuss WB2HJV 55 Stoney Path Lane Rochester NY 14626 Professional Home Inspection Paul Mackanos K2DB 20 Sumac Way Fairport NY 14450 ww paulmackanos com 800 822 7579 585 223 4230 RDXA Bulletin e January 2006
18. t of the activity has been on 40m and 80m with no spots on 15m thus far Perhaps 15m isn t opening at all down there Signals have been good on 30 meters Most activity has been on CW where this country is especially needed 73 de Roy ADSO Hou http www ath com ad5c Twenty seven Day Space Weather Outlook Table Issued 2006 Jan 10 US of Commerce NOAA ne Index Topic of the Month 10 7cm Sado Flux SI NNN IN NI CO 0O CO CO CO JIi N na Gr Gi Gi Gil Gi ni Ca Gi Gn Gi N CO 00 OO es DXpedition Dreams In this month s Topic of the Month column RDXA members muse about being the DX as a member of a ham radio DXpedition Dave N2CK Keeping with the theme of where would you go if you could choose a DX expedition site right now I suspect I would find a warm destination even though we haven t really experienced winter I m not sure I could find a remote desolate cold climate inviting right now Perhaps this is a side effect of lack of sunlight I just sat back to ponder the question of where I would go should money and time not be an option My decision New Zealand It s in the Southern hemisphere so it s summer there now It s reasonably populated so there are some creature comforts like power and adult beverages And it s a place I haven t worked on anything but 10M and confirmed too quickly Page 3 determined via a DX4WIN query Of course I would hav
19. uple of steaks for the X YL and myself for dinner then back to the contest at about 20 00 local 20 meters was still active so I shifted my activity there again mostly S amp P but with a few nice calling runs By 22 00 local 20 was all but dead so I moved to 40 meters On 40m I came across both N2OPW and WITY working S amp P but never hooked up with either I was working my way up the band in S amp P mode when I all of a sudden didn t get an immediate response from my intended target in the Midwest Hmmm I hit the send key again and happened to glance over at the wattmeter Oops No power out and the SWR needle was jerking wildly around 5 1 and up My first thought was that my antenna had fallen out of the trees A quick look outside showed that all was well I next thought that a field mouse had somehow gotten into the enclosure that houses my ladder line lightening arrestor just outside the basement window and shorted the line we have lots of field mice here Nope no well done mouse For the next couple of hours I tried to find the solution by switching antennas changing coax jumpers etc No joy so I gave up and hit the sack thinking that the problem must be outside and that I would have a better chance tracking it down in the daylight Sunday morning arrived and with daylight I headed outside to see what I could see I spent all morning trying to find a problem with the antennas and feedlines but all was well Shortly after noo
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