V44KF

I think I am on to something and I need to share it with everyone. It will do me no good to keep it to myself. I am of the view that I will be a better person if I can help someone in some small way to see the light at the end of their tunnel, and that has nothing to do with whether or not they can help me to see the light at the end of mine. Life and living is not about ME, but about YOU, and how I can help YOU to realize your full potential and maybe your destiny. In relation to our hobby of ham radio, it did not take me 40-years to recognise that it is all about basic principles, and the application of those basic principles. Some of us try to get as far away from the basics as possible, but if the "sophistication" sought after is not rooted in proper basic principles, you are wasting your time and money. I am no big time engineer, but I have recognized that most of the ham transceivers of yesteryear were built to great specifications, and some still fetch a good price on ...

Every day in V4 land is great, but today was significantly different. I started the day off with my usual 05.30 AM bicycling exercise ride around the City, up to the Robert L Bradshaw International Airport just outside the City limits, and back home along the West Basseterre Highway, which is still under construction. A nice and easy 45 minute bicycle spin with only just enough pressure to break a mild sweat. Before leaving home at 05.30 AM I visited the 7.195 MHz frequency to see if any of the local or US ham were up this early. A few months ago there was a regular early morning wake up call on the 146.82 MHz repeater, but that net now seems to be on summer vacation. I have on a few occasions bicycled pass one of the wake-up-callers on his way to work, but I am not bicycling with a 2-meter handy, because that could be a hazard, given the early morning "highway speed-demons", et al. At 05.30 AM I did not hear anyone on 7.195, and I put it down to no propagation to certain are...

One whole week has gone by and not one single stroke of work was 'chopped' on the portable antenna construction project. It is not unusual that whenever you seem to plan something constructive all sorts of things just seem to elevate themselves to a priority status, and before you know it, you are back to square one, or maybe even outside the square. I did one thing however, and that was take up the slack in the guy ropes on the antenna ... so the antenna now looks more stately and majestic instead of slightly tipsy or drunk. Some of my V4 ham buddies also have vertical antennas under construction and I keep getting on their case to complete them, and I have even suggested that them bring them up to my lawn so we could work on them there, but they claim that the antenna is too big to transport. Well I have to run with what the man say, but I am yet to see a vertical antenna that is "too big" to relocate, but I have to abide with the response, so I have taken to droppi...

The 80 meter band was very noisy last night and no contact was established with 2E0KXD. We will be more scientific about making the next contact. Scientific because one has to ensure that everything is in place to support the contact between two stations so far apart like over the ocean. Just down the road say 500 miles it is no problem, that is only 8 degrees away, and most likely still in the same time zone. I am no big time DXer, but I suspect that most hams with a little seriousness about working DX, on another continent, would have a copy of the Sunrise Sunset book and tables. My copy is by ON4UN / AA401 - 1987, and I consult it occasionally. This puts you right on the money, but still does not guarantee that you will have a contact, but it puts you squarely in the game. Other tools like the clusters also help the bottom line. According to the SS SR table the UK SS is around 20.40 and the V4 SS is about 22.46. The UK SR is at 03.39 and the V4 SR is at 09.37. I know historically th...

At my sunset, in the next few hours, I am going to be looking for my ham buddy 2E0KXD on the other side of the Atlantic, to see whether or not we can make a contact with his GAP antenna on 80 meters. I know that in times past before the sun drops over my horizon in the West I can drop an R5S9 signal into Europe. After the sun sinks over the horizon some signal improvement to S9+20 is the norm. Most time signals are stronger on my receiver, but I find that most EU hams may be transmitting at their legal limit. I have not found any reason to go to my legal limit here as yet. I have not used my 80-meter antenna for a while and had to effect some emergency repairs to be ready for tonight. My antenna is positioned above my chain link fence. The parasitic vines running on the fence always project appendages to entangle the bottom loading wire running parallel to the fence at a height of about 1-foot above it. Above the perimeter fence seems like the most unobtrusive place to place a top and ...

A vertical antenna is the easiest of antennas to make and install. You only need one point above the ground from which to let it hang down, or one point on the ground from which to let it stick up in the air. Wire is used for the hanging vertical and self supporting aluminum tubing for the other. With any other antenna material between these two extremes, of flexible wire and hard tubing, I believe that you will be on your own. Of course, I am addressing the home brewer who is going to use 'junk yard' material to fabricate a vertical antenna that will rival the ready made product in performance. Price is not even considered here, because the cost of the shipping alone may exceed the cost of the locally found raw materials used. In an earlier blog I mentioned that antenna grade aluminun tubing is usually unavailable on the island and nobocy is making any effort to import the tubing that they need. However at the end of the day the verticals are built from materials available loc...

I have just realized that some hams have a morbid fear of embracing the new technology. I am so busy doing my own thing that I somehow missed this, not that it would have any impact on how or what I do in respect to my own embracing of the technology. Fortunately for me I was forced into this embracing and appreciating the technology as a Switching Technician / Engineer in the Telecoms industry back in 1983, when we moved from mechanical telephone switching to Digital switching. Working in and with digital technology 24/7 grows on you, and together we become like one, and practically inseparable after 20+ years. So tech is like a way of life and it is sometimes difficult to appreciate that other people may not feel it like you do. However having retired I have made a clean break and do not wish to see another switch ... but that is just idle talk, because the tech is in the bones and really pervades every cell of the body. Other hams who have not been engulfed, absorbed or involved wit...

Hurricane Season 2009 is with us, or maybe more correctly, we are with it. It is the way of Nature. "We come meet it and we will go leave it", as the old people have a way of saying. This season means something different to everyone, and I may take the liberty to say, that it may not mean the exact same thing to everyone, something like fingerprint. Some of us look forward to experiencing the high winds blowing, some the water falling and ghauts running, some the calm before and after the storm, and some to the after effect, the mitigation and restoration in the wake. I believe that most of us would prefer that the weather just stayed over the sea and went away early. There is nothing we can do about storms and hurricane, but Pray before and after. History has shown that praying can work, but it seems that we only pray for storms to come. We provide names which determine the category and intensity, and we even go so far as to suggest to Nature the quantity of storms that we w...

I do not play the Caribbean Lotto, but I feel that I may win it very soon. I am spending a little time determining how I will spend, or maybe more correctly, invest some of the winnings on improving the quality of my hobbies. Of course, being retired on a hot and sunny Caribbean island I only have to Eat, Sleep, Bicycle / Exercise, Ham Radio, Photography, Pray, Go Fishing and Blog, in addition to the natural body functions. This is really the simple LIFE, and after working in the "non hassle free" Telecoms industry for almost 40 years, I can finally appreciate and enjoy the liming lifestyle of the islands, without having to party, fete and drink coconut rum, on the beach 24/7, like some of our tourists and visitors. What they come here to enjoy in a week or two is a way of Life for most of us, without the hefty price tag. The V4 island is so large that no one can live any further than 4 miles away from the sea. I believe the widest point of the island is about 8 miles, but no...

Ham radio is alive and well in V4 land, moving forward, but maybe slower than some of us would like. All hams are not unemployed like I am. Don't for a moment assume that this means that I can sit in front of the radio 24/7, because I wish, but that never happens. The XYL has been around for the last 36 years so she know the Ham schedules and I can't use that excuse to escape any chores. Besides that she enjoys the hobby just as much as I do, and now that the license is 'no code' I expect that she will go after that ham ticket soon. Then, after all these years, I may finally be able to get a rig in the bedroom. The between blogs activity was fast and furious. I installed a 20-meter top and bottom loaded vertical dipole antenna, but have not tested it on any DX as yet. Someone left me a nine [9] foot piece of air conditioning copper tubing in my garbage bin. I hope that the person has more copper tubing to throw away and remembers the address of my garbage bin again. May...

A few nights ago about 2.00 AM AST, 06.00 UTC, I passed through my radio operating room and could not resist the temptation to turn on the TS-940SAT and tune across the 80-meter DX window. There was a solitary G station calling CQ DX for North America. He was just on S-9 and I figured that he was either not beaming to the Caribbean, or he was not one of the big power stations like Alpha Mike Norway. Most G stations seem to run 4-square or some sort of vertical beam antenna, and would usually push my S-meter well into the red. Since no one on this side of the ocean responded to the G station's repeated calls I decided to give him a short call. All of a sudden the frequency went crazy with signals and I could not hear the G station come back. A few minutes later there were 14 calls in the logbook including some Italian stations, G stations, 9A3 and 9A4, with most them trying to break off my meter. I pulled the plug on the mini-pileup and went to bed to dream about how I could work 80...

This content first published at V44KF.spaces.live.com on 30th September 2008 ******************************************* Last week I finally acknowledged the fact that 'old rigs never die' ... but they can most certainly be killed by their owners through a lack of knowledge. The resurrection of old rigs can come with a cost but it is my preferred option. From 'old rigs never die 2' posted here on 27 April 2008, I made two observations. [a] The ham rigs with the best receiver specifications were made in the USA and [b] more than half of the ham rigs with performance figures above the minimum specification for the standard ham radio receiver, were manufactured before 2004, and were no longer in production. So it is a fact that more than half of the top ham radio receivers that meet today's high quality receiver specifications are old rigs, with most of them dating past 7 years. Among the many things that hams are good at, it is telling the ham equipment manufacturers ...

This was first published at V44KF.spaces.live.com on 27th April 2008. ***************************************** The ham radio equipment makers have to market a new rig every year if they want to stay in business or be forced to follow in Kenwood's footsteps. Given today's technology some of the new high tech rigs seem very overpriced while others with apparently better receiver specifications are still priced to suit the average ham radio operator's pocket. No matter the price tag all rigs are treated equally, and usually end up on the test bench in various institutions like ARRL and Sherwood Engineering Inc, to verify the 'claimed' and published performance data, and of course to see how they stack up against each other. In light of the latest Receiver Test Data table, dated 15 February 2008, produced by Bob Sherwood of Sherwood Engineering, http://www.sherweng.com/table.html, I may have to change this blog subject because these old rigs seen to have something extr...

This content first published in V44KF.spaces.live.com on 26th December 2007 ****************************************** This is the season for rum and fun in the sun for some of my friends. However, I have an increasing number of friends who do not celebrate the Christian Christmas. This is now something new for some of us, but it is not in our place to question.our friends beliefs or point of view, but to respect them, and in this particular case to avoid any discussion on any aspect or topic tangential to that system of belief. Taking a line from the ham radio license guidelines, one should refrain from discussion of religion and politics, probably because these tend to support the most controversial subjects. Be that as it may, my friends and I converse, sometimes profoundly on various matters which sometimes touch on religion and politics, without descending to a doctrinal level and therefore we never have cause for mutual disagreement or disrespect. I am fortunate to have friends w...