GW4VXE's Station Diary

I don't often get the chance to listen on 40m fairly early. All was quiet until I got around 7.025 where I could hear VK2ARZ initially working a ZL1 (didn't get the full call as a loud DL started up just above the frequency). VK5PH, who was just audible then called VK2ARZ who said it was 'time for tucker'. Tried a quick call to VK2ARZ in the hope of a quick QSO, but no luck. Nice to hear though.

Tried a few CQs and although seemed to be well heard in EU on the RBN, no callers

Nice chat with Iain M0PCB and John G8CQX on GB3CG (which was acting up, rather crackly).

Visited John G8CQX in the afternoon which is always interesting and inspiring. We went through various antenna models including a look at how to make the 10MHz part of my short vertical work a bit better. It will be interesting to try it.

Pete MM9SQL mentioned WFVIEW as a possibility for remote controlling the TS-590SG. It looks an interesting option with some nice facilities so I'll have a look at that when I get home.

Something 'odd' happened on 15m with the dipole - the rig seemed to lock up. Absolutely fine on the vertical, so I'm guessing with the high winds at home, the dipole has got snagged on a bush or similar and I'm getting some RF which is locking things up.

Here in Cheltenham, I worked Pete G4IOA on 2m CW with the Quansheng. Finished with him, came back to the remote setup and heard him working Derek G3NKS on 80m. Had a nice chat with Derek and then Ini EA6EJ on 80m from home.

Had a bit of a listen on 20m first thing. TX5EU very weak to start with but by 0800z they were a decent signal, Didn't bother to call!

Had a chat on GB3CG with John G8CQX and then later went to the Breakfast meeting at 'The Aviator' at Gloucestershire Airport. Lots of CARA and Gloucester club members there - quite a big attendance this morning. Nice to see everyone.

Quick tune around first thing working a few Russian stations in their contest on 20m, Nothing more distant heard.

Here in Cheltenham, had a quick chat on GB3CG with Mike G4NVY and Ken G3LVP.

A few days of remote operating coming up.

Had a quick tune around on 20m and worked a few stations in a contest - no idea what it was, but it was just fun to work a few people on 20m and 40m. It's surprising who hears you running 100W and who doesn't....

Looks like the A index has shot up this evening.

I’ve been playing with remote control of the station at home for CW. I’ve had FT8 capability for some years (using VNC software and before that, Teamviewer), but thought it would be fun to try CW. I started off looking at using the TS-590SG remotely as I knew Kenwood had freely available remote control software. I found that the rig control software worked well, but that the audio component was unreliable on some networks - here at home I couldn’t get the audio streaming to work IF the WiFi extender disk was on. If I switched if off, the client would work….if I switched it on the audio would vanish! Took me a while to figure that out! Fortunately, it would work if I tethered the remote PC to my iPhone - so that was what I used in Cheltenham last time I was there.

Dave VE3KG was interested in putting his ’new’ GW3AAA call on the air, so I said he’d be welcome to use my system remotely. We found that Dave couldn’t use the Kenwood audio software either. At that point, I installed DF3CB’s RemAud software (free) and that was a game changer. That just works - and it doesn’t just work for the Kenwood rig, it works for the FTDX-10 as well. So, although, the TS-590SG is better for remote operation as it has two antenna sockets which you can switch between, for LF and HF, I could use the FTDX-10 (controlled, say, by N1MM using a remote desktop session).

CW keying was an interesting challenge! In the TS-590SG remote software, you’ve got some memories and there’s also the ability to type into a buffer which it will send. Unfortunately, there’s no sidetone and you can’t see where it’s got to in the message that you’re sending. That’s usable for short QSOs, contests, even pileups, but it’s less good for rag chewing. 

To give some more flexibility and a better experience, I’ve started to look at using Winkey (K1EL) hardware/software. You can run Winkey remote software to connect two Winkeys across the Internet, so the remote PC can have a Winkey with a paddle plugged into it, which will talk to a Winkey in the shack which will key the rig. And there’s sidetone at the remote end!

The other fun aspect of the whole thing is that for ‘my’ client, ie when I’m away from home, all the client side stuff is running on a Mac (albeit running a Windows virtual machine). 

So, all in all, it’s been a great little project.

(This article was first published in the Cheltenham Amateur Radio Association newsletter, CARA News).

Had a fairly busy morning, so didn't get on the air until we went out to have sandwiches up on Dinas mountain. I took the little Quansheng UV-5K with the CW firmware installed, along with the micro paddle. A few CQs on both 144.050 and 144.300 but no luck on this occasion. It's a good take off from there, so it should have worked up and down the Welsh coast and across to Ireland. Perhaps next time!

Back home and in the late afternoon, had a bit of a tune around 10 and 15m. Had a nice chat with Suad IT9/DK6XZ who I often work in the CWT sessions. I didn't realise but Suad remotes to Sicily from Germany and he was telling me that he had some latency with his remote audio - something I see on my remote system from time to time. Also worked W1AW/0 on 15m and Rich W3RJ on 10m.

Spent a little time checking that the remote to the TS-590SG as well as the FT-847 is all working as that will be in use over the next few days. When I operate remotely, I can only use 100W as I can't switch bands on the amps remotely. Checking it all out this evening, I was pleased to work XQ6CF on 20m, using 100W. That's sometimes a tricky QSO - so I was pleased when Wlad came back straightaway.

The PC running WSJT-X for the FT-847 (2m) and FTDX-10 (HF) seemed to have got in a bit of a mess this morning and wouldn't talk to the FTDX-10. I think it was because I had a go at using WSJT-X Improved v3.1.0 the other evening to try FT2. Version 3.0.0 was confused because it didn't know about the last mode that was used, FT2. A reboot cured it (though going back into V3.1.0 and changing to FT8 might have done the trick too).

Is Super Fox and Hounds making a comeback? It does seem to be working better than when I first tried it a year or so ago. Anyway, CY0S seem to be using it and I was pleased to manage a 10MHz SFH QSO with them - satisfying as they were mostly working North America, although Dave G7RAU worked them the same time as me.

TX5EU coming through nicely on 20m CW at the same time too, but a big pileup and I can't really be bothered with all of that! Would be nice to work them on some band or mode!

Nice to find Ian G3WVG, operating as 3B8VV from Mauritius on 28MHz without too much of a pileup. Signals weren't strong although they seemed to be getting louder as it was around sunset in Mauritius.

The sked with Roger GW5NF was moved to today. Had a nice chat and then was called at the end by Roger GW3UEP in Ceredigion - another very pleasant QSO. When we finished, John GW4SRE called GW3UEP. I remembered John from Swindon days, so called in and had a quick chat. John is mostly on AM these days, with vintage gear.

Called CY0S on 20m SFH for a while but didn't get anywhere! It would have been a new band country I think. Tuned down the band and worked CO2OQ on CW running 5W and then WB0RLJ in Nebraska on a POTA trip.

Power interruption from 0930 to 1330 today, so not much radio planned until later!

Had a bit of a play in the 13z CWT as the power came back early. Conditions on the higher bands seemed poor - next to nothing on 15m. Nice to catch Jim K6AR on 20m though. Knowing Jim, that was probably long path! 15m brightened up in the late afternoon;AI5IN in Texas and Joe AI0Y in North Dakota.

Nice sunny day, so mostly outside doing mowing and strimming!

The 19z CWT was better than expected with some some west coast stations workable on 15m - curiously I seemed to be louder there than some of the US stations calling them. KH7X was around too, but in Arizona and not Hawaii! Another interesting QSO was with Adrian KO8SCA. I presume he's on the boat back from Bouvet so he'd have been remoting to his home station from the Southern Ocean.

Interesting to hear TX5EU on 15m around 2200z - they had a big US pileup, so didn't make any headway with that. Also CY0S opened up on 40m around the same time.

Propagation must be a little better this morning - the 10.101MHz RTTY was audible on the ATS-Mini.

Didn't get on to the air until I was back from Welsh in the afternoon. Conditions didn't seem great, but one or two interesting QSOs on the higher bands; FG/F5HRY on 24MHz, LB5SH/MM coming back from Bouvet to Cape Town on 28MHz.

I installed the latest WSJT-X Improved with FT2 mode added. Made a couple of QSOs, the first being J69DS. I don't really like the idea of FT2 as it throws away so much sensitivity, but the QSOs are certainly quick.

During the winter when the winds are high, I use a shorter vertical than the DX Commander Signature 9. Although the Signature 9 would probably cope - it flexes hugely and is anxiety inducing to watch in a storm. So, a couple of years ago, I decided to build an antenna which would cope with all but the worst winter storms.

I had a fibreglass pole which I could use and I decided to try running quarter wave lengths of wire up the outside of the pole, taping them on. I started off with quarter waves for 10, 15 and 17m. I used the lengths from the DX Commander User Guide on page 8 - I used the same lengths as on the Signature 9. Next, I added a wire for 20m and that too worked alright.

I wondered whether I could do something for 30m. as that's quite a useful band for working SOTA stations as well as DX! The element length for 30m was a bit long at around 7m and if I extended the pole to that length, it would start to be quite whippy in a high wind (which I didn't want as that was why I built the aerial in the first place!). So I decided to stick with the pole length of around 5m and run the 30m element back down the other side of the pole.

To my surprise this worked! The SWR is a little high at around 1.5:1 but it's quite useable. Does it radiate? It does! It's fine for semi-local QSOs around Europe and just recently I worked J51A with it. It does struggle on real DX contacts though, but it's better than nothing.

The only band I haven't mentioned is 12m. The curious thing is that one day I tried it to see what the SWR would be like and to my surprise it was ok and it's capable of working DX.

So, there are 5 lengths of wire on the pole. The pole uses plastic clips to stop the sections slipping down inside each other (DX Commander sell these). The wires are simply taped onto the pole. I crimped tags onto the ends of each element and clamp these onto to a bolt, where the feed can be attached. The pole sits on the same ground post as the DX Commander Signature 9 and uses the same set of radials.

I'm really pleased with how well this works and how it keeps me on the air in all but the worst of the winter storms.

I do want to credit Callum at DX Commander for the inspiration to build this really useful aerial. Thanks Callum!