All posts by Fred Kemmerer

ARRL New England Dvision Director. I enjoy station building, contesting and helping new folks to join and have fun with our hobby.
DX, Featured, General, On The Air

A 6m DX Opening to Europe

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Every now and then we get a really good 6m DX opening to Europe on the 6m Band from here in New England. This past Friday, June 4, 2021 presented us with just such an opening. This particular one may…

Source: A 6m DX Opening to Remember

PSKReporter Snapshot of 6m DX Opening to Europe
PSKReporter Snapshot of 6m DX Opening to Europe

There were so many strong signals on 6m FT8 from DX stations in Europe, it was difficult to decide which station to call next! I was able to work the opening for most of the day on Friday and was rewarded with over 130 DX contacts into Europe. In addition, I was able to Work 3 new DXCCs and over 40 new Grids (over 30 of these Grids have confirmed on LoTW already)!

You can read more about last Friday’s 6m opening to Europe via the link above. Let’s hope we get some more good 6m openings for Field Day so we can make good use of our 6m Field Day Station!

Fred, AB1OC

Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, Space

Satellite Passes for Field Day 2021

We are planning to have a Portable Computer-Controlled Satellite Station at Field Day 2021 this year. The station will use an IC-9700 Transceiver controlled by a Mac Computer to enable us to make Satellite Contacts during Field Day.

Preparing to wire the antenna array
Portable Satellite Antennas for Field Day

Field Day Rules limit Field Days stations to a single contact on FM “EasySats” such as SO-50, AO-91, and the ISS. The addition of a computer enables us to make contacts using satellites that have Linear Transponders which use SSB. We can make as many contacts on these satellites as we wish.

Field Day 2021 Satellite Passes
Field Day 2021 Satellite Passes

We used the MacDoppler Satellite Tracking program to run predictions for the satellite passes that will take place during the Field Day 2021 operating period which is from 2 pm EDT on Saturday, June 26th through 2 pm EDT Sunday, June 27th. The summary above only includes those passes with elevations that exceed 20 degrees. As you can see, there are a lot of great Linear Satellite passes that we can work on Field Day!

Members will be able to sign up to operate our Field Day station in the near future. Watch the Field Day forum here in n1fd.org for sign-up details.

Satellite Station Training at Field Day
Satellite Station Training at Field Day

We will be offering hands-on Training on our Satellite Station at 12:30 pm EDT on Saturday, June 26th just before Field Day operations begin so come on out and learn about Satellite operations!

Fred, AB1OC

Digital, Featured, General, Newsletter, Station Equipment

Reducing RFI From Our QTH

Many Hams (including this one) have problems with RF Interference (RFI) at their stations. Many RFI sources typically come from inside our own homes. One test we did was to shut down much of the ethernet network and associated devices here at our QTH. To our surprise, this lowered our noise floor on 2m some 6 dB, and eliminated many birdies in the EME section of the 2m Band! We decided to upgrade our network to fiber optics to eliminate the RFI and noise from…

Source: Reducing RFI From Our QTH

We recently built an improved EME station for the 2m Band. We noticed a higher than ideal noise floor when operating 2m EME during initial testing of the new station. We decided to do some additional testing to see if we could isolate the source of the noise levels. One test we did was to shut down much of the ethernet network and associated devices here at our QTH.

Reducing RFI - Fiber Optic Wall Outlet
Fiber Optic Wall Outlet

We decided to upgrade the network at our QTH to use Fiber Optics and add a Management System to enable us to shut down some of the more problematic noise sources at our QTH. The resulting improvements were pretty dramatic – reducing RFI-related noise by some 6 dB on the 2m Band!

You can read all about our Fiber Optic Network Project via the link above.

Fred, AB1OC

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide