Huge UHF & 6m opening, 7/14/11

Wow... I hate I missed the huge band opening on 440 this morning. Was driving to work and working KD4PBS on the 442.075 repeater, and the inverted repeater pair in New England was coming into NC so strong that it was covering us up locally. I don't understand the logic behind the northeast coordinating repeaters backward from the rest of the US, but there must be a reason...I guess...

Anyway, I also noticed loads of spots on the DX Cluster for Europe being worked from the US on 6m. Oh well, works gets in the way of fun, all the time ;-)

Dave WB4IUY
www.WB4IUY.net

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.2

Reactivate Your 2m SSB Station!

I got my first taste of 2m SSB back in 1991 when Dave Wood W4EJ (then WB4KPD) demonstrated his 2m SSB station to me and I saw all the contacts he made on that band/mode. I looked around for something to fit my tight budget and get me on the air, and finally did so on June 14, 1992. My wife and I lived in an apartment in Wilson NC, and we were allowed to install a small tower there. I was using an old Heathkit SB-500 2m Transverter with my Heathkit SB-301 rx & SB-401 tx. It cranked out about 100 watts, and the receiver was fair to "so-so". The antenna I used was a Cushcraft 17B3 up about 50 feet, fed with a chunk of 9913 coax. It worked well, and I was very surprised at how many people were on that band/mode combo. I made contacts all up and down the east coast, and half-way out across the midwest. I had a blast, and was fairly active on 2m SSB until around June of 1993, when we bought a new home and moved.



Time marched on...I put up a somewhat larger tower at my new QTH, but didn't get around to putting up my 2m SSB antenna and getting back on 2m SSB until January 19th, 2008. WOW... I didn't realize how long I had been off the air, until I thought about it a bit. Once back on, I heard almost no one. I thought perhaps I had a feedline or antenna problem, or some issue with my transverter due to having been off the air so long. I did feedline loss tests, checked my gear our for rx sensitivity in the workshop, etc..but all seem OK. My antenna was now at about 117', about 67 feet higher than before. My QTH was in a much better location...now at 375' above sea level, whereas the old QTH was only about 100' asl.



I continued to listen constantly, call CQ on a regular basis, work the contests, etc. I worked stations from time to time, and worked some good ones many states away. I finally came to realize that there simply aren't as many people on the air on 2m SSB as there were in the early 90's. I've worked many people on 6m and HF, and have asked about their 2m SSB capability. Many reported things like "I took down the antennas because there weren't enough people on to talk to", "I haven't turned the rig on in years", "I never hear anyone on", etc. I've established that there are many, many hams out there with the equipment and antennas that simply don't switch them on.

What prompted me to write this? It came to me this morning, after working the only person I've heard on today, and listening to him call CQW for the last hour with no other responses. 2 points I felt were important to remember were:

1- If no one turns on their rigs, there will be no one to make contact with.

2- The band is quiet in most cases...turn your rig on, set the squelch lightly (if your rig has an all-mode squelch, mine doesn't), or turn the volume down low. You'll be able to hear when those lonesome ops are calling, and start making contacts again on 2m SSB!

Lastly, try to get on a make a few contacts in the sprints and contests. It's a great time to find activity at it's highest, and the activity is much appreciated by all ops. Get back on 2m SSB and let's QSO!!

One note... It's not expensive. I "upgraded" from my 60's vintage Heathkit transverter to a late 70's vintage Icom IC-211 & Vocom amp that gives me about 50 watts output from an all solid-state station with a good receiver. I know, it's still old stuff, but I got the entire station for $100 and I work everything I hear anyone else work...maybe not as good, maybe I have to call a few more times due to my weaker signal, but it still gets the job done (on the cheap!)

73 es cu on 2m SSB!
Dave WB4IUY
www.WB4IUY.net

6m Open on July 4th Weekend!

Wow, this has been an active weekend on 6 meters. Quite by accident, I worked into Italy from NC with my meager 100w station. So far, I've worked:

IK5MEJ JN53
W7RCS DM34
N5PT EM15
WX6ZZ CM88
K7XC DM09
KG4ZOI FM06
NN5OK EM14
KI0DG DM04
KB7Q DN45
N7TR DM09
HI3TEJ FK49
PJ6D FK87
NP4A FK68
N4QV EL96

The propogation is there...get your 6m rigs hooked up and on the air! Many of my contacts are automatically posted on my FaceBook page at facebook.com/wb4iuy. Hope to see you on the air and I hope you have a Happy Holiday Weekend!

Dave Wb4IUY
www.WB4IUY.net

Field Day until 21:00z!

Field Day isn't automatically over at 18:00z on Sun. Field Day runs until 21:00z for class A& B stations who didn't start setup untill 18:00z, and for all class C, D, E, & F stations. Keep on rolling!

Dave WB4IUY
www.WB4IUY.net

IC-756 Display fix and 60m added!

I bought my IC-756 back around '95. It has been a great radio, except that the display began to fail a few years ago and Icom would not support it. They came out with the Pro-series 756's, and had no displays for the repair of the $2500+ radio I bought in '95.




I continued to put up with the problem, and it continued to get worse and worse...to the point where I could almost not read the display and had to rely on HRD and a CI-V interface to read some functions and frequency on the computer in the shack.

In recent years, a ham Richard Rosenberger PA7FA in the Netherlands designed a replacement display for it. You can see his display kit at http://www.pa7fa.nl



I was about to send the front of my rig to him to have his new display kit installed (I couldn't possibly handle all the SMD soldering and such), when I got a message from Bob wa8ulw stating that he had an old 756 that had been struck by lightning and that it had a good display. Wow...was I ever relieved to hear this!

Bob and I worked the deal, the faceplate assembly from his 756 arrived at my doorsteps this morning, and it's already on the rig and looking good as new. While I was doing the work, I modified the 756 to add the use of the 60m ham band to it's range of transmit frequencies.

Check out the before and after pics, including the little SMD jumper I had to remove to allow transmission on the 60m band...

BEWARE...this isn't all you need to do to operate 60m on this rig. The bandpass filters don't operate correctly on 60m and will reflect a good bit of power back to the PA...could cause damage it you operate there much. I did a bit of work to fix that, see this info in my blog at: 

http://wb4iuy.blogspot.com/2014/03/updated-60m-mods-for-icom-ic-756.html


Dave WB4IUY
www.WB4IUY.net