GW4VXE's Station Diary

Clocks went forward this morning and an early start owing to have to medicate Cedric the cockerel at 0815 meant I was in the shack early. Found FO/F6BCW on 20m CW but didn't seem to get anywhere with the pileup. T31TTT was on 20m FT8 coming through with about 6 streams. They came back about 2nd call which was very pleasing for a new country.

Bands didn't seem that exciting during the day. By the evening, there was a lot of noise on the bands (damp and the overhead power lines no doubt) but CY0S were strong enough to be heard on 17m and had a minimal pileup, so it was nice to work them on CW for a new band country.

Spent a little time playing with a nice radio control package called Wfview which talks to the TS-590SG. I'd hoped that it might work as a remote control package, but it seems their client/server setup only works for Icom radios at the moment. Looks promising for the future though.

BW QSO Party today - and Julie's birthday! So, I didn't plan too much activity as we were heading to Tenby.

Made a few QSOs in the morning and then a few on our return in the evening. particularly on 20m; VK7BO, VK2GR, TY5FR and Andy 5Z4VJ operating as 5X2VJ.

Solar flux heading up today although conditions still don't seem that great, although we're probably starting to see seasonal decline kick in! Last year I pretty much abandoned HF except for SOTA chasing between April and September. Hoping it'll be a bit more interesting this year..

15m brightened up around 1330z, with contacts to FG/F5HRY, PJ7AA and AI0Y. Even caught 10m open to W5ZR in Louisiana around 1600z although the band was fading by then. Worked XQ6CF on 10m CW around sunset. Saw a DX spot that T31TTT were on 10m FT8. I could see their US pileup, but sadly, not them....

EX0T was a nice one on 10MHz around 1900z. Bob's DU7ET as well - always in interesting places.

Wind had dropped so I put the DX Commander Signature 9 back up.

Picked up CY0S on 10MHz CW and shortly after on 14MHz FT8 (new band country). More locally, nice to work Declan EI6FR/P out on the hills in Ireland,

I've heard XX9W on CW a bit this morning but not strong enough to have a go at. Unfortunately TX5EU went QRT while I was away, so I won't be working them :-)

Got home from Haverfordwest and Justin messaged to remind me about the 80m SSB contest. Worked him and about 4 others.

CY0S coming through well on 40m CW, but a few calls didn't work, so I gave up as I'd worked the slot already!

Last morning in Cheltenham. Had a tune around on 40m remotely but no DX heard this morning. Tried a CQ and was well heard around Europe, and worked ON3DEN. The 40 and 80m dipoles seemed ok after a stormy night, which was a relief. VK2IA quite loud on 20m but he was going to have his evening meal and I needed to head up the road to see Mum. Nice to hear VK2IA talking to Steph F5NZY about remote setups.

Popped onto GB3CG and had a chat with John G8CQX.

Got back home around 1300 and had a very quick tune around in the dying moments of the 13z CWT. Conditions seemed very poor, only heard one W on 15m. Made the last few minutes of the 19z CWT and just a handful of QSOs on 20m with little DX. Did hear Tom K7QA with a nice signal but didn't have a chance to call him.

Tried CY0S for a while around 2100z on 18MHz FT8, but they were working mostly Jas. Went onto 15m and was pleased to work Dani LU1JI for a bit of a chat and CX5FK. Code practice from W1AW was pretty loud, so the band was open to the US as well.

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).