Tag Archives: HF

CW and QRP, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

October Contest Notes

It Begins!

October marks the unofficial beginning of the radio contesting season. In the next few months, we’ll have CQ WW SSB, CQ WW CW, ARRL Sweepstakes CW, ARRL Sweepstakes SSB, ARRL 160m, ARRL 10m, and a whole bunch of little but fun contests like ARRL School Club Roundup. There are still QSO parties to chase on a random weekend, too, including CA, NV, AZ, PA, SD, NY and, IL.  If you’ve been having trouble making time to get on the air (as I have!) then there are a lot of excuses to put yourself in the saddle and make some Qs!

October Contest Highlights

CQ Worldwide SSB [0000Z, Oct 26 to 2359Z, Oct 27]

Exchange: RS + CQ Zone (5905 for New England)

This was the first contest I ever entered. It was 2002 and the bands were hopping. I had just hung a stealth antenna and was curious about what I could hear. It was amazing. The bands were full, all the other guy wanted was “5905”, and he was off to work the next one. No microphone jitters here—there wasn’t time! If you’re new to contesting give this a try. Do search-and-pounce (S&P), listen, listen, listen, then work them. By the end of the weekend, you might have DXCC!

California QSO Party [1600Z, Oct 5 to 2200Z, Oct 6]

Exchange: CA: Serial No. + County; non-CA: Serial No. + (state/VE area/DX)

Nevada QSO Party [0300Z, Oct 12 to 2100Z, Oct 13]

Exchange: NV: RS(T) + “NV” + county; non-NV: RS(T) + (state/province/”DX”)

Arizona QSO Party [1600Z, Oct 12 to 0600Z, Oct 13 and 1400Z to 2400Z, Oct 13]

Exchange: AZ: RS(T) + county; non-AZ: RS(T) + (state/province/country)

Pennsylvania QSO Party [1600Z, Oct 12 to 0500Z, Oct 13 and 1300Z-2200Z, Oct 13]

Exchange: PA: Serial No. + County; non-PA: Serial No. + ARRL/RAC Section

South Dakota QSO Party [1800Z, Oct 12 to 1800Z, Oct 13

Exchange: SD: RS(T) + county; non-SD: RS(T) + (state/province/country)

New York QSO Party [1400Z, Oct 19 to 0200Z, Oct 20]

Exchange: NY: RS(T) + county; non-NY: RS(T) + (state/province/”DX”)

Tip: Sometimes those close-in states like VT, NY, ME, and MA are hard to get on the higher bands. They tend to be in the skip-zones a lot of the time. Take advantage of these QSO parties to fill in the close-in states on the high bands.

Illinois QSO Party [1700Z, Oct 20 to 0100Z, Oct 21]

Exchange: IL: RS(T) + County; non-IL: RS(T) + (state/province/country)

Wrapping up

These contests give you your last big change to test and repair station equipment and antennas before the weather gets uncomfortable. (My poor SteppIR has died of neglect, for example!) So, don’t be like me! Get on and tune up your station for the long winter ahead.

Pumpkins image courtesy of
Aaron Burden

Scott, NE1RD

Antennas, Featured, General, Newsletter

Buddipole 15m 2-element Yagi with 8-foot boom

There was a query after the September newsletter was published regarding the antenna pictured in my 100 Pound DXpedition article. Here are the details.

15m 2-Element Buddipole Yagi

The standard Buddipole Deluxe kit can be augmented to produce a very effective two-element 15 meter Yagi. This antenna was used on St. Thomas, USVI, during the 2010 CQ WPX Phone contest by NE1RD to generate nearly 800 QSOs using only 5 watts (QRP). This note provides assembly instructions for this antenna.

Necessary Components

The components necessary to construct this antenna are:

  • 1x ~ Buddipole Yagi converter kit
  • 8x ~ 22” Antenna accessory arms
    • 2x arms for the driven element
    • 2x arms for the reflector element
    • 4x arms for the antenna boom
  • 2x ~ 11” Antenna accessory arms
  • 4x ~ 9.5 fool long Buddipole whips
  • Buddipole Deluxe System
    • Rotating arm kit (RAK) knobs with nylon washers
      • One knob holds the reflector to the end of the boom
      • The other knob holds the center IT adapter to the mast
    • Buddipole VersaTee
    • Coax feed-line with banana plugs
    • Velcro strap (and additional strapping to secure the feed line to the boom)
    • 8-foot mast
    • Tripod
    • Guying system or very heavy weight on the bottom of the tripod to prevent tipping

Antenna Design

The basic design of the antenna is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Buddipole 15m 2-el Yagi

Construction Details

  1. Begin by constructing the boom. Locate one of the IT adapters that came with the Buddipole Yagi kit. Screw a 22” arm into each side of the IT adapter. Add a second 22” arm to each side to produce a boom nearly 8-feet in length.
  2. Construct the reflector by locating the second IT adapter. Screw a 22” inch arm into each side of the IT adapter. Attach an 11” arm to each side of this assembly. There should be approximately 34” of arms on each side of the IT adapter. Locate two 9.5’ Buddipole long whips and, with the whips collapsed, attach a whip to each side of the reflector assembly.
  3. Construct the driven element by locating the threaded 3/8” x 24 threaded rod. Screw this rod into the top of the VersaTee. Attach the Yagi collar to one end of the boom. Attach the VersaTee to the boom and mate with the Yagi collar. Be sure to have the VersaTee in the same plane as the boom’s IT adapter so that the elements will be horizontal with respect to the ground when the antenna is mounted. Attach 22” arms to each side of the VersaTee. Locate two 9.5’ Buddipole whips and, with the whips collapsed, attach the whips to the ends of those arms.
  4. Attach the reflector to the boom by first fixing the second Yagi collar on to the other end of the boom. Then attach the reflector, ensuring it is properly aligned with respect to the boom’s IT adapter, using one of the large RAK knobs.
  5. Attach the feed line to the VersaTee with black and red wires going to the corresponding colored banana plug mounts on the VersaTee. Secure with Velcro straps. (Additional straps, or other means of routing the feed line back to the center IT adapter may be necessary).
  6. Set up the tripod and mast as you would for a standard Buddipole deployment. Guy as necessary, or weigh down the tripod with a heavy rock or other weight.
  7. Locate the mast collar from the Buddipole Yagi kit and attach it to the top of the mast. Use the second RAK knob to secure the antenna to the mast.

Tuning The Antenna

The lengths of the elements are such that the antenna can be tuned easily. Extend each whip to full length, then retract the outer-most section 6 or 7 inches. Make small adjustments to the reflector to tune. The author found that even guesses (no rulers) for the element lengths were good enough for creating a good match.

SWR and 2:1 Bandwidth

A properly tuned antenna will provide a good match across the band. The two plots below are from the author’s installation on St. Thomas in March of 2010 (Figures 2 and 3).

Figure 2. 15m Yagi SWR plot

Figure 3. 15m Yagi Smith Chart plot

The small green line along the real axis between 50 and 75 Ohms is the plot for the antenna. Pure resistive load, no reactance, resonant.

Results From KP2/NE1RD Deployment

The author made 977 contacts on this antenna including 808 in the CQ WPX SSB contest (794  unique stations after duplicates were removed). He worked 48 states (missing ND and WY), and 58 DXCC entities in 17 zones in just a few days of operation. All contest contacts were made QRP (5 watts)!

Scott, NE1RD

Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

September Contest Notes

On the Doorstep

CQ WW SSB, the biggest phone contest of the year, is a little under two months away. Solar conditions have not been kind to us this year, and there’s little chance for a big improvement in the next few weeks, but there’s still DX to be found. Now is a good time to familiarize yourself with websites that can help you gauge propagation during the nadir of the cycle. 

spaceweather.com provides current solar conditions and forecasts, especially for geomagnetic storms. One interesting thing on this site is the “Spotless Days” tally. As of this writing, we’ve had 23 days without a sunspot. As we all know, no sunspots, no big fun on the high bands! But there might be _some_ fun, maybe a little, so always check 10m and 15m when you operate. You might be rewarded. And when not in a contest always give 17m a look. Often when 20m is open you’ll find 17m has some activity, too.

Maybe your logging program already has an interface to the DX spotting network (mine, MacLoggerDX does, for example) but several websites also offer views and it is worth giving these resources a look. DXHeat.com claims to have 43 million DX spots in their database. They’ve been at it a while, so it sounds plausible. Check out the “Band Activity” display by selecting “N. America” as your continent. The display aggregates the DX spots into a by-band, by-continent intensity display. 

DXHeat band activity map

Click the DX Cluster button and then play with the filters. You can select one or many bands, one or more modes, even which continents you are interested in hearing from and which continent posted the spot. To cut down on all the chatter click the NA button under De to see only North American spots of DX.

There are a number of online DX spotting network websites, all of which offer something unique. I suggest looking at one band and one mode at a time at different times during the day. This will give you a very good idea of what is possible during your next on-air adventure.

September Highlights

Tennessee QSO Party [1800Z Sep 1 to 0300Z Sep 2]

Exchange: TN stations give RS(T) + county, others RS(T) + state/province/country

For those of us in New England, Tennessee is in that sweet spot that’s not too close, and not too far away. If you put some effort into this contest you could probably do a clean sweep of all 95 counties. That would put you well on your way to a County Hunters award.

All Asian DX Contest [0000Z Sep 7 to 2400Z Sep 8]

Exchange: RS + 2-digit age

I know my log is a little light when it comes to Asia, so this would be a good chance for me to put more callsigns and prefixes into my log. It is also a great way to see how propagation to Asia might be during CQ WW. It is worth a look.

National Contest Journal Sprints

CW [0000Z-0400Z Sep 8]

RTTY [0000Z-0400Z Sep 15]

Exchange: [other station’s call] + [your call] + [serial no.] + [your name] + [your state/province/country]

Sprints are fun, especially if you’re a little nervous calling CQ. You work somebody calling CQ, then they clear off and it is your frequency to call CQ and make a QSO. Everybody takes turns.

As always, check out www.contesting.com and the linked calendar for a complete list of on-air contest.

New Hampshire QSO Party [1600Z Sep 21 to 0400Z Sep 22 and 1600Z-2200Z Sep 22]

Exchange:

NH: RS(T) + county

others RS(T) + state/province

DX: RST(T) + “DX”

This is our time to shine! It is fun to be the one sought after. And, this is a great way to warm-up to the big contesting season.

The End of Summer

Get those last-minute antenna projects done, check out all your equipment, maybe even make that last-minute run to Ham Radio Outlet! Summer might be ending but contesting season is in the wings. Get ready!

Scott, NE1RD

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide