DX RXThe Doctor of DX prescribes the |  |
DX RXThe Doctor of DX prescribes the | |
Before I begin this month’s column, please let me first tell each and every one of you how grateful I am to you for the wonderful support you gave me and my bride of 31 incredible years, Judy, during her prolonged battle against brain cancer. She was a wonderful and brave woman who fought that terrible disease with a resolve that was a wonder to behold. Her struggle is now over and she is at peace and in the arms of Our Lord. I’m sure she would be upset with me though if I didn’t carry on again. She told me repeatedly during the past 13 months that life goes on.....we pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and resume where we left off. With that said, I once more thank you for the support you so selflessly gave. I only hope that I may, in some way, repay you........I love all of you.
DX’ers TOOLS
In the last column I wrote a few months
back, I promised that I would discuss and
review a few of the tools available to
DX’ers, tools which not only enhance our
enjoyment of the hobby, but which are
invaluable in optimizing the quality of our
“on air” time, a commodity which we seem
to have so little of these days. This review is
not all-encompassing nor exhaustive in
depth, but merely a guide to assist you in
learning what tools are “out there” and how
they apply.
I believe that the most valuable tool available today to the DX’er, and general user as well, is a good logging program. There are numerous programs available, both commercially and as “freeware” or “shareware”. Each of these programs provide some interesting and unique features. My personal choice is DXbase by Scientific Solutions, Inc. of Woodstock, GA. It is extremely powerful and taps the power of your PC to make your logging chores more fun and enjoyable instead of work. It fully meets all your needs in logging and keeping you informed of your DXCC, WAZ, IOTA, WAS and other rankings. With the push of a few buttons it will provide you with full-featured reports, generate award applications, graphically illustrate your “needs” lists, provide information about the DX country in question, etc., etc. In addition, it provides an easy-to-use ASCII terminal program so that you may interface to Packet, and integrates Packet DX spotting alerts into the logging features. Because I often am not at the computer when alerts arrive, I particularly enjoy the CW announcement of needed DX. Thirdly, the package allows you to interface to your HF transceiver, the functions of which are again fully integrated with the logging features. Type in a callsign and press a couple keys, and DX spots are automatically transmitted for you, including the spotting frequency to an accuracy of 100 cycles. Instant QSYs to a “hot one” give you the edge in getting the jump on the “mob”. There are too many other features to mention here, but suffice it to say, this package is powerful. Many other fine logging programs exist and each has a host of fine features, but for my money, DXbase wins hands down.
Another extremely valuable and powerful tool is the propagation program. There are numerous programs available, and their degree of sophistication ranges from simple to extremely complex. Generally, the programs require the user to input specific daily data such as Solar Flux Index and the A Index, available by listening to WWV at 18 minutes after the hour, the frequency, the type of antenna being used and its elevation above ground, the amount of power, time of day and target locale. More sophisticated programs will also ask for data regarding the conductivity of the ground surrounding the antenna and other factors. From these various data elements, predictions are made which will display a probability factor for successfully communicating with the subject locale. They also will show MUF (Maximum Useable Frequency), LUF (Lowest Useable Frequency) and FOT (Frequency of Optimum Transmission). For those who do not have computers, QST magazine publishes a series of propagation charts each month for various locales around the country to differing parts of the world. Great circle bearing and distance charts also available which aid in aiming your beam and giving you some idea of the distance involved for a given Frequency vs. Time of Day. Many hams rely solely on their daily observations of the bands, their knowledge of the sunspot cycle, and time of day and year, as we have discussed in previous articles. Gray Line propagation charts and programs are also available for the low band DX’er to assist in forecasting that phenomenon. (Editor’s note: For those of you interested in trying your hand at running some propagation programs, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (NTIA/ITS) offers a couple of different programs, most based on the original IONCAP program. They are available free for the downloading at http://elbert.its.bldrdoc.gov/hf.html.)
There are also a wealth of antenna modeling programs, again ranging from simple to extremely sophisticated. Ed, K2TE, has been modeling his 160-Meter Inverted L using an ELNEC derivative, and the actual results compare favorably with the predicted model he used. These programs have the benefit of quickly demonstrating what performance one can expect from using a given antenna under the specified conditions at your individual site. One program that Ed and I are working on now is modeling a 3- element Inverted-Vee beam for next year’s Field Day. We hope to test a prototype over this winter.
An extremely powerful tool, and one which I will be discussing in next month’s newsletter, is the use of the DX Cluster on Packet. For those of you not familiar with the concept, a large number of individual ham stations are connected to each other via “Cluster Node Stations” and exchange or report DX spotting information in real time. The cluster here in New England is very often linked to clusters in the mid-Atlantic and South, in addition to oftentimes being linked to the Internet. Spotting information can also be fed to certain of the logging programs to provide alerts to your specific “needs list”. But more about that next month.
de NE1V