My back wallWell, I had to do this: Take a picture of my back wall, to explain how bad my QTH is located. In this view I am looking at the back walls of my neighbours 2 or 3 houses up. The river is on the right, and the power line on my left. The red arrow is where I will be standing for my next photo. River ViewIn the next photo I walked out my back yard towards the river, I turned around, and this is what I can see.
I am standing under a 88kV line, I can see the second line in the left of this picture, and I can barely make out my DSTV dish and the silver of my 2m CP22E antenna. All my antennas are just about halfway up the trees and a third up on the towers.
I have no chance to get a signal out, especially in summer when the trees have leaves.
To add to my frustration I am at the lowest point in the area. The municipal storm water drains are next to my erf, and my altitude is around xxxx MASL. Compare that to Sandton City, about 2km away as the crow flies, which is at xxxx MASL.
Audio boardOM Doug Defty ZS1DUG from the Cape asked me what software and hardware I use to interface my Yaesu FT-857D and this is the reply I sent him:
Hello Doug, hows the Cape!
Lets tackle the software first: I started using Ham Radio Deluxe as my main package this past weekend. The main reason is the handling of the logbook. I want to start collecting some awards, and it feels like HRD is going to do it for me. However I played with many packages before making a decision: fldigi, DXLab and a few others. To be honest, I’m keeping all of them on my laptop because each one does something special that I like. What I am saying is, my contest logbook is from now on going to be on HRD. The rest is for playing. DXLab had a very easy way to monitor HF beacons, which I loved. fldigi on the other hand was great to sort out my cables with and watch the waterfall display. There are other nice programs too, you should try them all and keep the one that works for you.
The hardware followed an equally diverse route. I have two radios (FT-857D and FT-840) and thus I needed two setups. Eventually I realised it was over the top to build so many cables, but I like experimenting. Now, you need two cables per radio: 1= audio, 2=radio control.
(1) The audio to and from the radio into your PC can easily become contaminated with RF and hum loops, therefore you need to isolate the signals with small audio transformers. I bought one board from Jaco ZS6PX and it was almost identical to the one I bought from Phillip ZS6PVT, Essentially it is a matchbox-sized device with two isolation transformers and a capacitor/resistor or two. The transformers we buy from Communica for a few rands, see my picture attached. This one also has a PTT circuit onboard, but of course the Yaesu can PTT through the CAT cable and I don’t use the PTT on my radio. Total cost for an audio interface is R50 or so if you build it yourself.
(2) The radio-control cable (CAT in Yaesu language) is a little more complicated, although not terribly so. I am going to include a HRD manual for your perusal that I found on the internet and it has a few diagrams. You have to do level-shifting from 0-5volt to +/- 12volt. The hardest part is finding a board to simplify your construction. Basically there are 2 ways to interface: you either use a MAX232 chip, or you use a few transistors. I’ve tried both and they work. I even built the “tini-cat” circuit diagram that I found on the internet. Notice though the generous use of little ferrite rings everywhere to kill RF interference. The photo shows the board I purchased from Jaco ZS6PX (transistors) and Phillip ZS6PVT makes a chip one. Both work very well. Built-up they can cost you a little bit, but if you are handy with a soldering iron you can do it yourself. My first one I built for nothing, stripping an old CB radio for parts!
RS232 board
NB NOTE: Just remember, the boards you build yourself are Serial (RS232) interfaces. Modern computers don’t have serial ports any more, so you should have an additional USB-to-Serial converter cable handy. This adds around R100 to your budget if you have to buy it.
(3) While we are on the topic of expanding your radio, I want to mention that I also built an external S-Meter for my 857, the hardest part was to print the new scale to stick onto the existing dial.
(4) My final add-on is a small board that I bought from Vivian ZS6VD. You plug it into your mic cable, and you use a PC Headset as a mic-and-headset combination. Quality very good and it took me an hour to build. Now I can operate silently at night while the family is asleep..
Doug, I was ecstatic when I was first able to control my rig from my PC, and so I wish you luck with your project. Don’t hesitate to contact me for more info. I’m putting this email on my website also.
Digital TestWow what an exciting weekend! Greatly inspired by Noel Hammond (ZR6DX) during his talk at the West Rand Amateur Radio Club, I put together a few items that have been gathering dust in my junkbox. Being late in the day I didn’t expect anybody to be around, so I sneaked a quick CQ on what I thought was an empty piece on the 20m band just to see if everything was working and if there is something going out on the wires.
Well, you can imagine my excitement when ZR6AOC (David Cloete from just up the road in Weltevreden Park) replied. My hands were shaking, I didn’t have any macros loaded to assist me, and I didn’t even know how many watts or splattering I was emitting! But I couldn’t resist and I replied.
To my horror David came back! He wasn’t joking! Its working! We had a nice if short QSO, he even gave me a good 599 report. I think I forgot to breathe. The result is that I am hooked on digital. As you can see from the photo the electronics wasn’t built into a case yet, but shortly afterwards they were all neatly tucked into a box and by the end of the weekend I made 10 contacts and 6 countries. Awesome stuff!
BTW I’m setting up the Yaesu FT-840 permanently as a digital station so I don’t have to swop cables, and it is going out on a Broadgun Travelling Wave antenna (from Webb Industries, a multiband inverted Vee wire). All my contacts so far have been around 50 watts.
Don’t hesitate to give me a call sometime, I would love to make contact with you!
The ChimneyYou know, sometimes when you write a story, an inanimate object takes on a personality of its own and becomes an important part of the story. And in my story of my ham radios, the chimney is becoming an integral part of the story. It is holding up its side, pun intended.
This house was built in the 1970’s when fireplaces were commonplace. The fireplace commanded a place of prominence in the lounge previously, but it hasn’t been used for 20 years. Until I spotted that it was holding up a sturdy 5 meter 50mm thick-walled antenna pipe with an old TV and FM antenna mounted onto it. The chimney was also in the middle (more or less) of the stand, and the furthest away from all the trees. It was also not very far from the spare bedroom which was going to do double duty as my shack.
And so, with the addition of a 1m height extension (half a pool cleaning pipe) and a few pulleys, I had myself a perfect antenna tower. The ground slopes quite a lot, but at that point it is able to raise a wire antenna (inverted V) about 12 meters above ground level. It is not too hard to get to it, and the brick portion also holds my DSTV antenna and my weather station wind vane. All in all the best possible location I could wish for. I will add some diagrams and measurements later, but in the picture you can see the MFJ G5RV-Junior hanging happily from the top in inverted V format. This picture was taken from the river side looking south (and uphill), with my shack to the left of the lounge.
View from the gateI live in a slightly older suburb in Johannesburg. I bought this property because the streets and houses are surrounded by trees and we are adjacent to a river where families walk their dogs in the afternoon. When you enter my property from the street you are greeted by green lush trees and shrubs.
Oh, I forgot to mention one small unimportant detail: Being next to the river also means my property is at the lowest point in Johannesburg. No matter in which direction you start moving, the only way out, is UP. This is especially true for ham radio signals.
That little dot in the middle of the photo is not a spot on your screen. It is the balun on my new antenna, a BFTD (balanced terminated folded dipole). I read about it on the Buxcomm website and tried it out. Seems ok, but more about it later.
View from my ShackThis is what I see when I look up from my radio in my shack. This picture speaks a thousand words if you know anything about ham radio. Since the details are going to be a little unclear in this photo taken with my cellphone, can I point out something interesting?
Yes, behind that big tree (and I’m surrounded by big trees) is one of two big Eskom power line towers.
And yes, I get a full S-9 noise on 40 meters. It is a little better on 20 but not much, and by 10 meters one can hear yourself think but it is not silent by any stretch of the imagination.
The dimensions are awesomely interesting: The power lines are about 40 – 50 meters away from my shack and I’m not sure about the height but they could be 40 meters high or more. That is a full wavelength, and the lines are running East-West (the same as my antenna). There could not have been a worse situation even if I invented it!
I don’t know what to do to get rid of the noise. Watch this space though, there must be some things one can start looking at.
Welcome to the new home of ZS6ALU, Leon Uys. I haven’t been on the air for a while. An acrimonious – read expensive – divorce took its toll. Hobbies took second and third place after my little one (you can read more about her here) for a long time, maybe 20 years. During that time I packed my radios away in bubble wrap, my desires became frosted memories, and I barely survived.
The good news is that things are starting to stabilise on the home front. So, with some trepidation, I unpacked my FT-707 and cut a piece of wire for an antenna. On that same Saturday I got myself a suntan on the roof and a stretched muscle from tying cable ties. I claimed my corner of the world in the spare bedroom, next to the window, I wheeled in an old computer stand, laid down an extension cord for power, and checked for smoke. Hearing the crackle of static was euphoric.
Eventually it is all coming together. This is posted in January 2013 and I will keep you updated as I start putting it all together.
