This is the third post on the YRARC Field Day 2015. The first talked about the melted coffee pot award, while the second was mostly about the weather.
This time I'll cover the 40m SSB station, which is not coincidentally the one for which I served as band captain. This was a departure from my last two fields days where I captained the digital station (PSK31 and in 2014 RTTY). The decision to move was partly to do something different, and partly to give the opportunity for Brian, VE3IBW, to lead the charge this year (we can always use more band captains!).
As usual, my preparation was full of optimism and ambition. Fortunately Bob VE3WY had agreed to help out with the antennas, and in return I set up the rest of the 40m station, serve as monkey for antenna setup, and supply N1MM Logger Plus on my spare laptop for 6m and 160m.
Speaking of N1MM, there were two firsts this year. With the exception of 40m CW and the satellite station, all stations in YRARC Field Day were networked together. Setting up N1MM was the easy part, with the heavy lifting done by David VA3DCY who handled the wireless network infrastructure. Networking provided a running total of what was going on at all stations, a way of using contacts on other bands to check the exchange information, and replication of the log providing an automatic backup.
The second innovation, only used on 40m SSB, was a prerecorded CQ call. Not only does the prerecorded call pack more audio punch, thanks to preprocessing of the signal, it saves the vocal cords for long sessions. I don't know about other people, but after half a dozen or so calls with no answer, I'm usually ready to give up. With N1MM automatically repeating the call every few seconds, it was easy to keep going for an hour at a time. The problem of course is holding a frequency against all the kilowatt operations out there.
For some reason, which I now forget, we started a couple of minutes after 2pm, and the band was full of stations calling CQ. So spending time on search & pounce operation was in order. It went pretty well although I was getting a bit of noise from the Digital station. Unlike the last two years, where the digital station ran my Elecraft K3, this year's transceiver didn't seem to be as QRM-friendly (although maybe being on the receiving end this time coloured my perception). Fortunately the dipole, with partial cross-polarization (it was a sloping dipole), provided a bit of relief. The noise on the vertical was about 2 S-units higher most of the time.
I finally found a frequency about 10KHz from the top of the band, and had moderate success calling CQ there. Unfortunately at no time during the 24 hours did I have more than 4 or 5 stations answer in a row. I can only dream of commanding a frequency for long runs.
The rain did not relent until the 24 hours was almost up, and in the late evening the winds really picked up and made our leaking tent even less hospitable, but it wasn't until we saw lightning at about 1:30 AM that we shut everything down and disconnected for the night, despite having modestly good band conditions. It was a small storm and I probably could have waited an hour and resumed operations but to be honest I was a bit fed up with the conditions and longed for a warm bed.
The tent was still standing when I returned and we finished the morning with a bunch more contacts. The power to the station from the generator kept getting interrupted which was a minor inconvenience because I had a battery backup for the rig and a good battery in the laptop, although it would take out the second screen and the desk lamp. The problem was traced to panel of electrical outlets attached to the generator. They were all GFCI outlets and they kept tripping, no doubt due to the wet conditions. This was solved by plugging the extension cord into a different generator without GFCI protection.
Ending up in the neighbourhood of 250 contacts was lower than I would have wanted, but the upside is that it will be an easier score to beat next year. I hope the weather will be more cooperative but at least we had the chance to prove our deployment capabilities under less than ideal conditions, furthering the emergency preparedness objectives of the day.
Showing posts with label PSK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PSK. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
6 metre net on 30m this week
For the next several months the 6 metre net will frequency and mode hop. Once the Sporadic E season is closing in, we'll revert to to 6m operation. Meanwhile, each week we will choose a new frequency and mode to meet up on.
On Monday, January 12, 2015, 0100Z (8pm Eastern Standard Time) we will convene on 10.141 MHz or the nearest unoccupied frequency. With PSK31 being very narrow band, we will not stray far. The suggested frequencies for PSK31 on the 30m band are 10.138 to 10.142.
I will start calling at exactly 8pm. Anyone is welcome to check in. If you're unfamiliar with PSK31 operation now's your chance to try it out in a forgiving environment.
Suggestions of new frequencies and modes to try are encouraged. I only ask that it be in a band from 6m to 80m, be simplex, and of course legal in Canada.
73,
Chris
P.S. If having a 6m net on 30m doesn't make sense to you, we can call it the "YRARC Experimental Net" instead.
On Monday, January 12, 2015, 0100Z (8pm Eastern Standard Time) we will convene on 10.141 MHz or the nearest unoccupied frequency. With PSK31 being very narrow band, we will not stray far. The suggested frequencies for PSK31 on the 30m band are 10.138 to 10.142.
I will start calling at exactly 8pm. Anyone is welcome to check in. If you're unfamiliar with PSK31 operation now's your chance to try it out in a forgiving environment.
Suggestions of new frequencies and modes to try are encouraged. I only ask that it be in a band from 6m to 80m, be simplex, and of course legal in Canada.
73,
Chris
P.S. If having a 6m net on 30m doesn't make sense to you, we can call it the "YRARC Experimental Net" instead.
Tuesday, 5 August 2014
My Field Day 2014 - Digital Station
As band captain of the digital station once again, I had two important goals for 2014. The first was to beat last year's score (and targeted 500 contacts compared to 243 last year). The second and far more important goal was to lose the competition for the coffee pot award, which I won handily last year due to antenna and software problems. Fortunately this year things went better and there was more competition so I lost by a mile.
The antenna setup was much easier using the club's radial-free Cushcraft R8 instead of my 30 year-old Butternut HF6V. By Friday evening we had it up, tested and made a couple of DX contacts on 15 metres. We also strung up a home made 40m dipole which I'd built and tuned as an inverted V during my diving trip to Florida in April. True to theory, in the dipole configuration the antenna tuned a bit higher in the band but with about 2:1 VSWR on the digital subband of 40m and 3:1 on 15m it was well within the capabilities of my tuner. The club tri-bander was also available but we soon decided that it would need some repair work before it could be used again, so we set it aside for the event.
Another advantage over FD 2013 was a year's experience with my transceiver. My first contact on that transceiver was on Field Day 2013 and since that time it has logged another 5000 or so, probably about 1/2 of those in one digital mode or another.
Start-up was not without challenges, though. Digital operation requires an audio interface, rig control, PTT, etc. etc and the software didn't work quite right at the beginning causing a few minutes delay that was quickly resolved. I'd brought my docking station to provide extra USB ports and used every single one of them. The worst of the problems was that input monitor switch on the audio interface became set by accident and caused a sharp feedback sound on transmit that took a few minutes to locate, but we were shortly up and running RTTY on 15 metres.
Unfortunately Brian VE3IBW and I didn't get the QSO rate we were looking for, partly because of band conditions and partly because there was less RTTY activity than expected, so by about 6pm we were well short of the QSO rate we needed to be to hit our target. We had started on 15m but had trouble finding new RTTY stations to work so we went to 20m to work some more. After a while 20m became unproductive so I went over to the 40m CW station and talked to John VA3JI who was the operator at the time to let him know that I was going to try 40m and to let me know if he was getting any QRM. Fortunately there was no QRM even though we were operating at the maximum power for our class and the next 12 hours or so was entirely on 40 and the QSO rate started to pick up.
As night fell the tent filled up with mosquitoes and other annoying insects so Publius VE3XS commandeered the bug zapper from the (now closed) kitchen which made short work of them, and surprisingly didn't cause any QRM. On my list for next year is to bring my own zapper.
By 3AM however, the doldrums set in once again so in desperation I took a break to configure FLDIGI (software for digital modes) with N1MM. Having access to the Internet via my cell phone really helped get it up and running. Once configured, we went to PSK and spent most of the remaining time in that mode. There were many more PSK operators and we really started to make hay, even though the sunshine was still hours away. By the time Brian returned at 6:30 AM I was able to turn the station over to him with just 25 contacts to go to beat the previous years' high water mark.
The other change we made this year was to use a home-made dipole and an additional antenna. On 40m it seemed to work better than the Cushcraft so we turned the R8 over the GOTA station and ran the dipole for most of the remainder of the contest.
I went home to get a few hours of sleep and when I got back to the site at around 1PM I found that Brian had had an outstanding morning on PSK and we were closing in on 300 contacts. By the end we'd reached 309 QSOs using two modes on 3 bands, a new high water mark to beat in Field Day 2015. Next year we are thinking about using a second receiver for spotting unworked stations and maybe setting up for 80 metres as well. The multi-band capability of the digital station really helped rack up the points. In the picture below, you'll see the Coffee Pot Award being presented to someone other than me.
With the great weather, great food (Thanks Peter!), great organization (Thanks Steve!) and great company (Thanks everyone!) it was all in all an excellent weekend.
The antenna setup was much easier using the club's radial-free Cushcraft R8 instead of my 30 year-old Butternut HF6V. By Friday evening we had it up, tested and made a couple of DX contacts on 15 metres. We also strung up a home made 40m dipole which I'd built and tuned as an inverted V during my diving trip to Florida in April. True to theory, in the dipole configuration the antenna tuned a bit higher in the band but with about 2:1 VSWR on the digital subband of 40m and 3:1 on 15m it was well within the capabilities of my tuner. The club tri-bander was also available but we soon decided that it would need some repair work before it could be used again, so we set it aside for the event.
Another advantage over FD 2013 was a year's experience with my transceiver. My first contact on that transceiver was on Field Day 2013 and since that time it has logged another 5000 or so, probably about 1/2 of those in one digital mode or another.
Start-up was not without challenges, though. Digital operation requires an audio interface, rig control, PTT, etc. etc and the software didn't work quite right at the beginning causing a few minutes delay that was quickly resolved. I'd brought my docking station to provide extra USB ports and used every single one of them. The worst of the problems was that input monitor switch on the audio interface became set by accident and caused a sharp feedback sound on transmit that took a few minutes to locate, but we were shortly up and running RTTY on 15 metres.
Unfortunately Brian VE3IBW and I didn't get the QSO rate we were looking for, partly because of band conditions and partly because there was less RTTY activity than expected, so by about 6pm we were well short of the QSO rate we needed to be to hit our target. We had started on 15m but had trouble finding new RTTY stations to work so we went to 20m to work some more. After a while 20m became unproductive so I went over to the 40m CW station and talked to John VA3JI who was the operator at the time to let him know that I was going to try 40m and to let me know if he was getting any QRM. Fortunately there was no QRM even though we were operating at the maximum power for our class and the next 12 hours or so was entirely on 40 and the QSO rate started to pick up.
As night fell the tent filled up with mosquitoes and other annoying insects so Publius VE3XS commandeered the bug zapper from the (now closed) kitchen which made short work of them, and surprisingly didn't cause any QRM. On my list for next year is to bring my own zapper.
By 3AM however, the doldrums set in once again so in desperation I took a break to configure FLDIGI (software for digital modes) with N1MM. Having access to the Internet via my cell phone really helped get it up and running. Once configured, we went to PSK and spent most of the remaining time in that mode. There were many more PSK operators and we really started to make hay, even though the sunshine was still hours away. By the time Brian returned at 6:30 AM I was able to turn the station over to him with just 25 contacts to go to beat the previous years' high water mark.
The other change we made this year was to use a home-made dipole and an additional antenna. On 40m it seemed to work better than the Cushcraft so we turned the R8 over the GOTA station and ran the dipole for most of the remainder of the contest.
I went home to get a few hours of sleep and when I got back to the site at around 1PM I found that Brian had had an outstanding morning on PSK and we were closing in on 300 contacts. By the end we'd reached 309 QSOs using two modes on 3 bands, a new high water mark to beat in Field Day 2015. Next year we are thinking about using a second receiver for spotting unworked stations and maybe setting up for 80 metres as well. The multi-band capability of the digital station really helped rack up the points. In the picture below, you'll see the Coffee Pot Award being presented to someone other than me.
With the great weather, great food (Thanks Peter!), great organization (Thanks Steve!) and great company (Thanks everyone!) it was all in all an excellent weekend.
Sunday, 26 January 2014
6 Metre Net - January 20th
For this week's net we had Charlie VE3SYK, Bob VE3WY, Brian VE3IBW and Chris VE3NRT. Everyone transmitting could hear everyone else this time. Steve, VE3EZ, also heard Chris but not the others (likely before Charlie checked in). Steve VA3SRV could see us on the SDR waterfall and reported by email that he could hear both the USB conversation and Nick on 50.140 FM. This may be an anomaly in Steve's SDR setup as we wouldn't expect to see an FM signal in that part of the band. It appeared to be a repeater input which makes the frequency even less likely. The strong FM is apparent in the image below, along with a much weaker and thinner looking upper sideband signal on 50.175.
Bob is 39km away from Chris which was the longest path of the night, and there are few obstructions between the two locations. Power at both ends was about 100W. Brian increased power from 10 to 50W which improved his signal, and Charlie complained of a higher noise due to a neighbour's activities. City dwellers would be ecstatic to have noise levels as low as Charlie's, mind you.
Frequencies on each radio varied somewhat although all were within about 200Hz, which is a mere 4 parts per million spread. Everyone reported having to tune above net controller Chris VE3NRT,
Paulo VE3RAO reported hearing voices buried in the noise from Richmond Hill, and Steve VE3EZ heard VE3NRT from Uxbridge. Like Steve, VA3SRV, neither had antennas that would allow them to transmit on 6m.
One topic of the night was to try out the FreeDV software for digital voice communications. As not everyone is going to have that set up we plan to test it on a different schedule sometime soon and perhaps put it in play a bit later. It would also be fun to try JT9 to see if the distances can be improved, and PSK, and RTTY, and perhaps some CW.
Six metres is a challenging band, which is why we're giving this net a try, to experiment and test 6m capabilities at our own stations. All amateurs are welcome to participate.
Bob is 39km away from Chris which was the longest path of the night, and there are few obstructions between the two locations. Power at both ends was about 100W. Brian increased power from 10 to 50W which improved his signal, and Charlie complained of a higher noise due to a neighbour's activities. City dwellers would be ecstatic to have noise levels as low as Charlie's, mind you.
Frequencies on each radio varied somewhat although all were within about 200Hz, which is a mere 4 parts per million spread. Everyone reported having to tune above net controller Chris VE3NRT,
Paulo VE3RAO reported hearing voices buried in the noise from Richmond Hill, and Steve VE3EZ heard VE3NRT from Uxbridge. Like Steve, VA3SRV, neither had antennas that would allow them to transmit on 6m.
One topic of the night was to try out the FreeDV software for digital voice communications. As not everyone is going to have that set up we plan to test it on a different schedule sometime soon and perhaps put it in play a bit later. It would also be fun to try JT9 to see if the distances can be improved, and PSK, and RTTY, and perhaps some CW.
Six metres is a challenging band, which is why we're giving this net a try, to experiment and test 6m capabilities at our own stations. All amateurs are welcome to participate.
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