Tag Archives: Antennas

Activities, Antennas, CW and QRP, Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, On The Air, Space

Sights From Field Day 2017

Field Day 2017 is but a memory for us now. Dave, K1DLM, our Field Day Chairman, and the entire Field Day team did a great job with putting together our Field Day operation this year.

We are still adding up our score and collecting pictures and video from everyone. I wanted to get something out quickly so that we could begin to enjoy some of the memories. So here is my quick Sights from Field Day 2017….

Field Day 2017 Telegraph Article
Our Field Day Telegraph Article

We did a fantastic job on publicity this year…

Field Day 2017 - Parking Lot Was Full
The Parking Lot Was Full

and the parking lot was full of visitors and members on Saturday and Sunday.

Field Day 2017 Public Info Tent Was A Hit
Our Public Info Tent Is A Hit

Our updated Public Information Tent was a hot spot for our many visitors (over 45 visitors signed our guest register)!

Field day 2017 Visitors - ARRL Section Leaders - Peter, K1PJS And John, K1UAF
ARRL Section Leaders – Peter, K1PJS And John, K1UAF

The ARRL “brass” came out early to congratulate Dave, K1DLM our Field Day Chairman, and to tour our site.

Field day 2017 Food Was Awesome!
The Food Was Awesome!

The food was unbelievably good – thanks, Valerie!!! And the N1FD cafe’ was a hot-spot as usual.

Field Day 2017 Site Setup On The Upper Field
Site Setup On The Upper Field

Site setup at Hollis-Brookline High School began with the 40M V-Beam.

Field Day 2017 Site Setup On The Upper Field - The 60 Ft Tower Coming Together
Site Setup On The Upper Field – The 60 Ft Tower Coming Together

The tower team began on the lower field by setting up the new 60 ft. tower.

Field Day 2017 - The V-Beam Was Back
The V-Beam Was Back

The 40M V-beam was awesome as ever and went up in record time…

Field Day 2017 - A New 60 Ft Tower
New 60 Ft Tower

and our new 60 ft. tower was a sight to behold!

Field Day 2017 - 40M SSB Station
40M SSB Station

We built lots of stations – 3 SSB, 3 CW, a RTTY/PSK Digital Station, a GOTA station, a 6M Station with a new yagi, and a computer controller Satellite Station. We also setup a 2M/70cm Go Kit for talk-in and APRS demos. All totaled, we had 10 transmitters on the air! Our exchange was 7A NH.

Field Day 2017 Solar Power Setup
Solar Power Setup

We got our Solar-Battery bonus late on Saturday.

Field Day 2017 - Brian, AB1ZO Operating SSB
Brian, AB1ZO Operating SSB

Everyone operated very hard and we made more contacts than last year!

Field Day 2017 CW Ops - Dennis, K1LGQ
CW Ops – Dennis, K1LGQ

Our CW operators were amazing again this year. Here’s Dennis banging out CW QSOs. Dave, KM3T even operated SO2R for a period – calling “CQ” and working contacts on both 20M and 40M CW at the same time! Gene, W3UA brought his CW skimmer and we set up an OCF dipole to provide on-site CW spots.

Field Day 2017 - And The Generators Played On...
And The Generators Played On…

And the new generators worked flawlessly and were much easier to service.

Field Day 2017 - Curtis, N1CMD Making Satellite Fun!
Curtis, N1CMD Making Satellite Fun!

Curtis, N1CMD ran our Satellite Station 2.0 and wowed everyone while making satellite contacts….

Field Day 2017 Satellite Station 20 In Action
Satellite Station 2.0 In Action

and our visitors got a kick out of seeing the computer controlled satellite antennas.

Team Finchum In Action
Team Finchum In Action

Team Finchum was in high gear as always – here’s Abby, AB1BY operating with her brother Connor, KC1GGX. It seemed like Abby was on every SSB station that I looked at all weekend long…

New Digital Station For Field Day 2017
New Digital Station For 2017

Our new SDR powered Digital Station worked well and we had lots of digital contacts using the antennas on the new 60 ft. tower.

Field Day 2017 SDR GOTA Was Cool!
The SDR GOTA Was Cool!

The SDR-based GOTA station worked out super well. Ira, KC1EMJ was our GOTA coach and was busy on Saturday and Sunday introducing our guests and newly licensed members to “high-tech” Amateur Radio. We had many young people try Amateur Radio for the very first time on our GOTA station.

Field Day 2017 Remote SDR System
Remote SDR System

We operated the two SDRs for the Digital and GOTA stations remotely over a coax cable data link between the upper and lower fields. Pierce, K1FOP and Dave, K1DLM put together this high-tech setup and the underpinning data networking system.

Field Day 2017 - John, W1SMN and Desmond, WK1V Operating SSB
John, W1SMN, and Desmond, WK1V Operating SSB

Did I mention that we operated hard making lots of QSOs?…

Field Day 2017 Drone Sighting
Drone Sighting

There were Drone sighting all weekend long…

and Desmond, WK1V got some amazing video from the air.

It was a lot of fun operating as N1FD, 7A NH!

Anita, AB1QB, our scoring chairman is still working on tallying up our score but it will be higher than last year.

Please take a minute and send me any photos or video that you have from Field Day 2017. We’ll be producing a video of all of the fun for the Field Day 2017 Recap at our club meeting on July 11th. Don’t miss it!

Fred, AB1OC

Hashtags: #ARRLFD #N1FD

Activities, Antennas, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

SOTA/POTA and 6 Meters

I got really excited, when Jamey, KC1ENX set our Club’s first Summits On The Air (SOTA)/Parks On The Air (POTA) activation for the same day as the June VHF Contest! Jamey choose Pack Monadnock in Miller State Park here in New Hampshire as the site for our activation. With Jamey’s help, we put together a portable 6M SOTA station in preparation for the activation.

Portable 6M SOTA Station Equipment

 

6m SOTA Station Solar Panels
Solar Panels

The idea was to use an IC-7300 to create a 100W station and use a Solar/Battery combination to power the setup. Solar/Battery made us “legal” as a SOTA activation. We combined two 90W solar panels which I had with an MPPT solar charging system and two LiPo batteries to create the power system for the activation.

6m SOTA Station Antenna Going Up
6M Antenna Going Up

The antenna system for our 6M SOTA Station was built around an M2 Antenna Systems 6M3 Yagi and an 18 ft. push up mast from Max-gain systems.

Portable 6M SOTA Station Antenna
Portable 6M Antenna

All of this gear was carried to the site and setup in about an hour. A 25 ft. section of LMR-400UF coax completed the station. The mast was guyed with rings which allowed us to turn the mast/antenna combination to point the Yagi in any direction.

6M SOTA Activation

 

6M SOTAT Station - Anita, AB1QB and Curtis, N1CMD Operating in the June VHF Contest
Anita, AB1QB, and Curtis, N1CMD Operating in the June VHF Contest

Between the SOTA/POTA activation and the June VHF contest, we made a little over 130 contacts on 6m. We did not have any real Es openings so most of our contacts were regional. Having the elevation provided by being on Pack Monadnock made us quite loud for the stations that could hear us. Several of our club members got on 6M and joined the fun. We did have a brief Es opening and managed to work a station in Alabama and one in Florida.

6M SOTA Station - Mike, AB1YK Portable 6M
Mike, AB1YK Portable 6M

Mike, AB1YK has a much more portable 6M setup and used lower power to have some fun on 6M as well.

Al, KC1FOZ and Tom, KC1GGP Operating VHF-UHF Portable
Al, KC1FOZ and Tom, KC1GGP Operating Portable

Al, KC1FOZ and Tom, KC1GGP put together a nice station and operated using battery power. Several other club members came out with a portable station or to watch and have fun as well.

Our first SOTA/POTA activation was a lot of fun and Anita and I are looking forward to the next one!

Fred, AB1OC

Digital, Featured, Field Day, General, Homebrewing, Newsletter, Station Equipment

Go Kit for Field Day and EMCOM

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We’ve been thinking about building a portable Go Kit for VHF/UHF Emergency Communications (EMCOM) and Field Day Applications for a while now. The following is a list of our requirements for a Go Kit –

  • 2m and 70cm operation with FM simplex and repeaters
  • APRS capability and tactical display for portable coordination
  • Digital messaging capability
  • Weather band monitoring capability
  • AC Power with flexible battery backup options

A plan to build our Go Kit came together during our trip to the Dayton Hamvention this year.

EMCOM Go Kit - Kenwood TM-D710GA At Dayton
Kenwood TM-D710GA At Dayton

The heart of any Go Kit is the Transceiver. We’ve been using Kenwood equipment for our APRS iGate for some time now and we have had good results with it. Kenwood’s latest 50W transceiver with APRS is the TM-D710GA. This unit provides full support for APRS tactical applications and now includes a built-in GPS receiver making it ideal for our Go Kit application.

EMCOM Go Kit - AvMap GeoSat 6 APRS Tactical Display
AvMap GeoSat 6 APRS Tactical Display

We have been using the Kenwood TM-D710 along with an AvMap GeoSat APRS display in our APRS iGate setup and the combination works very well. The AvMap display lets one see the location of portable and mobile APRS stations on a map display. This arrangement is perfect for coordinating activities in an EMCOM situation. The AvMap GeoSat 6 APRS display is no longer in production but I was able to locate a nearly new unit on eBay.

EMCOM Go Kit Packaging

 

EMCOM Go Kit - iPortable Enclosure
iPortable Enclosure

We had a chance to look at the iPortable enclosure at Dayton and decided that their Pro 2 4U deep unit would be a good choice for our Go Kit application. The iPortable enclosures are based on a portable rack mount case and include a DC power system, speaker and headphone hookups, a light, and provisions for a cooling fan.

EMCOM Go Kit Construction

 

EMCOM Go Kit - Radio Shelf
Radio Shelf

With all the components in hand, we began the construction of our Go Kit. Reliability is important in any portable system like this so we put some time into securely mounting all of the equipment and neatly arranging the cabling. First came the shelf which holds the Kenwood transceiver and a SignaLink USB sound card. A combination of drilling the shelf to secure gear with large cable ties and #8 stainless hardware was used here.

EMCOM Go Kit - Coax Connector Cables
Coax Connector Cables

Our iPortable case was equipped with both SO-239 and N-connectors on the front panel to allow for antennas and feed lines equipped for either connector type. To make the change over between the connector types easy, we installed separate PL-259 jumper cables for each connector. One simply connects the appropriate jumper to the radio.

EMCOM Go Kit - Display and Power Shelf
Display and Power Shelf

The power and AvMap display shelf were next. The AvMap display mount was dissembled and modified to accept a custom mounting bracket.

EMCOM Go Kit - PWRgate Battery Interface and Charger
PWRgate Battery Interface and Charger

The iPortable enclosure was drilled to mount a West Mountain Radio PWRgate to handle backup battery charging and management. The PWRgate supports instantaneous switching between an AC power supply and a backup battery and can accommodate a wide range of battery types and sizes.

EMCOM Go Kit Backup Battery
Backup Battery

The PWRgate was configured to properly charge our 18AH AGM backup battery. Note the use of a fuse in series with the battery for safety reasons. We used a Powerwerx SPS-30DM adjustable power supply set to 14.5Vdc to operate our Go Kit and to provide the proper charging voltage for our AGM battery.

EMCOM Go Kit Operation

 

EMCOM Go Kt - Diamond X-30 Antenna and Mast
Diamond X-30 Antenna and Mast

The last piece of the setup was the antenna. We wanted something that was portable, easy to set up and would provide good performance. We choose a Diamond X-30A 2m/70cm ground plane antenna and mounted it on a 12′ fiberglass push up mast. The feed line is made from 25′ of LMR-400UF coax. Several bungee cords are used to attach the mast to a fence post or other vertical structure.

EMCOM - Finished Go Kit In Use
Finished Go Kit In Use

The picture above shows the completed Go Kit in operation. We typically set one side of the Kenwood TM-D710GA to operate as an APRS transceiver and Digipeater and the other side to operate on a local repeater or simplex FM. The SignaLink sound card is used with a laptop computer running Fldigi and NBEMS for messaging applications. The iPortable case has a 13.8V lighter socket which connects to a power brick to power our laptop PC.

EMCOM Go Kit Packaged for Transport
Go Kit Packaged for Transport

The Go Kit is quite portable when closed. All of the equipment and cable connections are enclosed and protected by the case’s removable end caps. We’ve tested our Go Kit during our club’s weekly repeater net and it worked great. The first real use of our new Go Kit will be at Field Day this year. It will be located in our public information tent and will be used as a “talk-in” system.

Fred, AB1OC

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide