Author Archives: Lee

Spraypainting Homebuilt Radio Equipment

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Building homebrew equipment is no easy feat. The “Look and Feel” and the cabinet housings are the problem. I manufacture mine out of aluminium sheet and then spray paint them myself. It’s not difficult to get a professional finish. Here is the steps you must take.

The problem with aluminium sheet is that when it is rolled in the mill it has an oily substance over a smooth surface finish. Basically, paint will not adhere to the surface. I first use a small orbital 1/3 sheet woodworking sander to roughen up the surface. Use 220 grit “wet and dry” auto sandpaper and use it dry. It will take the gloss off the alloy and render the surface with tiny “swirls’ patterns. Then wipe the surface with mineral turpentine to clean it ready to spray. The swirls will disappear when the paint goes on.

Your local auto supply store will have a great selection of spray paint. I prefer Nissan hammertone charcoal grey touchup spray paint. It matches my Yaesu gear and is about $12.00 a can. Pick up a can of etch primer at the same time.

Procedure:
Place the panels or cabinet to be painted in your kitchen oven and bake for about 20 minutes at 40C and use a clean cloth to remove from the oven. Spray on the etch primer. It will hit the aluminium surface and dry in seconds. Put it back in the oven and turn the oven off to bake the primer on and cool down.

While it’s still warm about 35C and the surface is dry to touch, remove the item and spray lightly but evenly with the colour spray. Do not attempt to cover everything the first coat. Wait till it dries and cools and then spray the second or top coat on. You may want to place it back in the oven at 30C for 20 minutes again, turn the oven off and let it cool down. Remove from the oven and leave the item for a few days until the surface is cured and hardened and then you can step back and admire a perfect homebrew paint job. This is an example of what can be done with a spray can and a little ingenuity and your wife’s oven. Note the “reflection” on the top panel

Homebuilt Antenna Tuner

One of the problems with homebrew gear is the lettering. I use “Dekaset” rub on lettering in white to stand out from the black background. It is also available in black for light coloured front panels. If you spray a cabinet, the front panel will have to be a lighter shade of grey to make the letters stand out. After the letters are placed in position, a single coat of polyurethane varnish put on with a tiny artist’s brush will insure that they don’t rub off with use. The finished product will look professional and will enhance the look of your radio shack

73, Lee ZL2AL

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Vacuum Variable HF Tuner

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Vacuum Variable Antenna Coupler – by Lee Jennings ZL2AL

Dean Straw K6BV provided the inspiration for this antenna tuner in the 21st edition of the ARRL Antenna Book. I have always liked building antenna tuners and must have built 30 over the past 60 years. They are simple electronically and mechanically elegant devices. Dean’s tuner design took no prisoners.

His design placed the balun on the input side so to prevent heat stress and loss rather the one on the output side. Dean’s reasoning was sound and I decided to build one. Large antenna tuners with traditional wide spaced capacitors can build up very high voltages and the minimum capacity becomes an issue on the higher bands. It was constructed very slowly over 18 months with 12 months on the shelf while I thought about solutions to the problems

Antenna tuners of this capacity made by several manufacturers cost well over $1000 and some of their designs and construction are quite minimal. I made the decision to use vacuum variable capacitors and high quality components throughout.

Main Componenets

Alan of MaxGain Systems was offering 500 pF Jennings “seconds” vacuum capacitors at half price as they wouldn’t meet the 12 Kv spec but would stand 6Kv easily. The EF Johnson rotary inductor, large switches and standoff insulators were found at radio flea markets. A friend donated the large turns counter dial. MaxGain Systems was the source for the two matching turns counter dials and I found the Russian fixed capacitors on eBay. Total cost was around $500 USD. Compared with commercial tuners the cost was substantially less and the performance and ratings was much more.

Front Panel Design

Design plays an extremely important role in how we see objects and how they operate ergonomically. We all see some wonderful examples of bad design in the flea markets. We see boxes with different sizes and shaped control knobs placed in bizarre positions on faded and corroded raw aluminum front panels with little or no lettering to identify what the knobs actually do. Little thought has actually gone into the panel layout by the constructor. Perhaps the unit wouldn’t have ended up in the flea markets if he had thought about it before he built it.

Some considered thinking along with a full size paper sketch or drawing layout working out the problems is easier that hacking away at aluminum and hoping it will work. It usually doesn’t. There are two principles in the design and layout of any homebrew equipment.

1) Balance.This simply means that you strive for placement of a matched set of control knobs equidistant from the edges of the panel in a sort of grid pattern. For example; if the design requires 5 or 7 control knobs then one of the knobs must be in the centre of the horizontal line and the others spaced equally away from the centre one. The same applies for odd numbers. The centre is a space and each knob is spaced from the centre. You can play around on paper until you find the right balance or “look” The idea is simple but vital.

2) Finish. What we see is what stirs us and motivates us to purchase. It is why commercial radio equipment is so successfully marketed.  Multi millions of dollars are spent in the design of radios. Finish, colours and the positioning of controls and buttons is vital when it comes to the overall look and feel of the finished unit. The manufacturer has paid attention to the very small details of his design. An amateur home constructor may not be able to duplicate commercial equipment, however, with a little effort you can turn out a nice looking and well functioning unit.

Internal Layout

Once you have determined where your components are situated on a plan view then it is a simple matter to determine how their controls will project from the front panel and at what level. Dean Straw’s design had a sub chassis spaced  above the floor of the cabinet which meant that the vacuum variables had to be positioned as close as possible to the sub chassis plate and equally spaced from the side edges. The original main roller inductor’s mounting plates were much too high so new brackets were made to bring the inductor height down. The space between the inductor and either capacitor was small but placing the switches at the height of the turns counter dial plates made the controls look “balanced”

Wiring

Internal Wiring to Componenets

I didn’t worry about the wiring inside the tuner. Simple RF wiring practices were followed. Extremely high RF voltages exist but the rule was to maintain a 12mm spacing between any component and anything else. RG213 coaxial cable is good for a few kilowatts inside it’s copper sheath braid. I removed the braid and used the inside conductors to connect the components. When an antenna tuner is in operation at a KW there is a lot of RF floating around in the cabinet so maintaining shield integrity became complicated and didn’t seem worth the effort. To date a flashover has never been experienced even with 1.5 Kw into the unit. I did some primitive testing with odd loads by attempting resonate a 30M loop with 7.1 Mhz and 3.5 Mhz RF. My MFJ RF Analyzer showed some rather very high and very low impedances at those frequencies but the antenna coupler took care of the match nicely. The true test of its abilities is attempting to resonate a 40M dipole on 1.8 Mhz. It did the match OK but I would sure the efficiency would be very poor. The antenna tuner passed its “real world” testing without any component failures.

The original design had a separate inductor for 10m. The reason was that the original air spaced capacitors had a high minimum capacitance which resulted in very few turns on the roller inductor at resonance. I was prepared to add one in if necessary but the 5 Pfd minimum capacitance of the capacitor resulted in resonance on 24 and 28 Mhz with several turns left on the inductor. The SWR measurements into a dummy load showed 1 to 1 SWR on those bands.

Construction

Lower and Upper Cabinet Shells

To construct a metal cabinet is not all that difficult. You do need some metal working tools. A small cheap drill press, cheap 4” angle grinder with 1.0mm thin disc and a good quality cordless drill is invaluable. Hand tools include metal set square, scriber,  2 foot S/S rule, a pair of small “C” clamps and a set of good quality sharp HSS drill bits. If you want to use the counter sunk screws, a counter sink bit, 3mm tap and 4mm tap is required.

Once you have determined the size of cabinet for your project, it would be worthwhile to have the top and bottom shells (3mm thick aluminium) cut to size and folded in a sheet metal shop. The cost is minimal, it will be perfectly cut and folded square. The rest is fairly easy. The top and bottom shells are secured on their sides with 30 x 3mm flat. I simply clamped one on the lower shell. Drill and tapped the holes, put in the screws and then added the top shell and repeated the same operation. Everthing lines up perfectly.

If you choose not to tap the inside plates and angle, you can use nuts and lockwashers to secure them. The uprights are 20 x 20 x 3mm alloy angle as are the top and bottom angles to secure the front panels. Once the basic shell is made, you can measure the exact size of the front and rear panels and have your local sheet metal shop cut them with a metal shear from 3mm sheet aluminum. Drill and tap the front and back panels and the cabinet is complete.

One good source of commercial surplus cabinets are the HP line of test equipment manufactured in the 1960s. They all had that same look and feel with the brushed alloy handles on each side and may still be found on the surplus markets or in flea markets for next to nothing. The cabinets however, when stripped of components are excellent for Linear amplifiers, power supplies and large antenna tuners. It is well worth while hunting down the right cabinet for your project and rebuilding with a new front panel.

Back Panel Layout

The back panel was laid out to match the switches and wiring from the front panel.  Placement of  the SO-239 sockets and feed through insulators are not critical. Although my back panel is not balanced, the sockets are placed in a horizontal line that your eye sees first. The two outside coax sockets are equidistant from the edge of the sides. The feed through insulators and the 25mm standoff insulators that support the sub chassis were all picked up from a flea market for a few cents each. And yes, I washed them in detergent and cleaned them of 70 years grime before installation!

Winding the Toroid

Toroid Details

The ferrite toroid is about 65 or 70 mm in diameter and 25 mm thick. The exact dimensions are not all that critical as long as the mix is acceptable for 1.5 to 30 Mhz. Amidon will have one. There seems to be a lot of mystique about winding a toroid. Before any winding on the form takes place you should wrap the form in two layers of fiberglass tape to prevent the edges of the toroid digging into the wire insulation.

In practice the winding is fairly basic with two parallel windings of 14 turns of #12 gauge Formvar insulated copper wire. After estimating that each of the two lengths of wire would be about 1.3 metre, I put two nails in each end of a long board close together. I wound the ends on the nails which gave me two tensioned wires touching the length of the board. A hot melt glue gun was used to bond the wires together every 50 or 60 mm. I then cut the ends of the wires off the nails, passed the wire pair through the toroid to the centre of the wires and then wound each pair end on 7 turns and adjusted for even spacing around the toroid. An old white nylon kitchen cutting board which I cut up and use for antenna insulators was used for the toroid end disks. I used a 50mm hole saw and cut two disks, one for each side of the toroid assembly. The hole saw leaves a neat 6mm hole in the centre of each disk. Both disks and the toroid assembly are secured with a 6mm bolt, lockwasher and nut to hold it in place on the inside back panel. The four ends of the toroid wires were cleaned and tinned before mounting so that it was easy to solder on the connecting wires.

Finish

The recessed smooth look of the countersunk Unbrako screws – front panel 3mm screws not installed showing the countersinking

Much depends on what we see in front of us and what the final use is. The surface of the panels are prepared with 400 grit wet and dry sandpaper, then cleaned with a solvent and finally sprayed with an aerosol can of your favorite colour on top of an undercoat spray. A good idea is to heat to panels in a kitchen oven to around 35C. Then the aerosol spray will adhere and dry perfectly very quickly. After spray, place the panels back in the oven and turn the oven off and leave it to cool down for a hour or so. The baked on finish will look very good indeed.  Frankly, I find it easier to choose the perfect colour  from the vast array of colours from the automotive industry and take it to my local car painter who will spray it professionally at a minimal cost. Finishing homebrew equipment involves the building and testing to your satisfaction and then completely disassembling the unit and masking before spraying. It is tedious but worth the effort.

Finish also means paying attention to the very small details. Assorted mismatched screws from your junk box really won’t do you any favors with the look of your project. A matched set of screws, either pan head or countersunk Unbracko, Philips or Posidrive will give your cabinet that professionally finished look.

The one final detail is the lettering of the control functions. The first choice is preparing the labels on a computer and printing them on transparent sticky labels. This approach only works if the panel is finished in a light colour so that dark or black lettering will be readable. Unfortunately inkjet printers cannot print labels in white to contrast with black or dark gray panel finishes.

Lettering Finishes the Project Professionally

My choice was to use “Letraset” rub on lettering transfers as I wanted a very dark gray cabinet and front panel. Although difficult to place in position correctly, they do a great job. The letters will rub off again with use unless sealed. Many have tried sealing with a clear plastic spray. Unfortunately the letters will dissolve and your hard work will be ruined. The answer is a very fine artist’s brush and a thin coat of polyurethane varnish which doesn’t react with the lettering. The finished result will add to the project functionality and look.

Summary

The finished design has turned out very well. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I would have increased the width of cabinet by another 40mm. The reason is purely aesthetic as that would give me another 20mm spacing between each of the turns counter dials so that the switch knobs would look more prominent. The Letraset that I used was 4mm in height. Perhaps I would have used 3mm letters if they were available in white. They are minor changes but would have improved the final design appearance. Paying attention to detail is what home construction is all about.

Thanks to Dean Straw, K6BV for the electrical elegance of his circuitry. This antenna tuner works beautifully and looks great in my shack.

73, Lee, ZL2AL

Flying

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When I was a kid I was always mad keen on anything that flew. My Dad owned a bicycle and sporting goods shop near Yorkville in Toronto and sold model aircraft kits and supplies. model aircraft were alsways under construction in my workshop room in the basement of the shop. We lived in the flat behind the shop. Free flight and control line were the two methods of controlling model aircraft at that time. Both were unsatisfactory until radio control came along in the late 1950s. The equipment was expensive, mostly home built and unreliable. By that time I was about to realize my dream of actually flying a real aircraft.

The Aeronca 7ECA Champion
I learned to fly in one of these old tail draggers. It was a great way to learn “seat of the pants” flying. There was a flying school at Markham Airport just outside of Toronto with 3 Aeronca Champs. Learning to fly was easy in 1961 as the cost was $8.00 per hour dual and $5.00 per hour solo instruction. The Chief flying instructor was a huge Polish WW11 flying ace who flew as one of the Polish squadron in England during the Battle of Britain. Janas was an intimidating man over 6 feet tall. One day I saw him walking out to take a young lady for her first flying lesson. He obviously didn’t think much of her when he said in a loud voice with a thick Polish accent “Woman are meant to stay home and have babies – not fly! She was reduced to tears and ran back to the flight office and never returned.

Jan was a highly skilled pilot and a stickler for safety and was constantly making me scan for suitable landing spots if anything went wrong. I went solo after 9 hours. There is nothing as exciting as having your instructor get out of the aircraft at the end of the runway unexpectedly and say “You go solo now. One circuit only and land” The adrenalin was flowing but what an exhilarating feeling sitting on the end of a 3000 foot runway and opening the throttle! I built up my time over the next few months until I sat my final exam and did the flight test. I was finally a pilot. You never realize how inexperienced you are with only 35 hours though!


My Piper J3 Cub CF-NGX
It wasn’t long before I had a chance to buy my own aircraft when a Piper J3 two place tandem aircraft came up for sale. A farmer at Lake Simcoe about 60 miles north of Toronto advertised one for sale for $2,400.00 on a piece of paper on the wall in the flight office. I rang him and agreed to buy it and would have someone drive me to his farm. The plan was to fly it home the following Saturday. The weather was OK when we left Toronto but by the time we got there, had a test flight and was ready to depart, the rain and a line squall with high winds was between me and the airport back at Toronto. I made the foolish decision to go hoping somehow I would fly through the rain and find Markham airfield. I took off and scared the living daylights out of myself on that flight. Visibility was poor and the southerlies were slowing my 80 knots to about 40 knots ground speed. My dead reckoning IFR (I follow railways) got me so lost that I was heading far to the east of Markham. When you are young you are bulletproof and that was the best lesson ever for the hundreds of flying hours that followed. I never wanted to go through that again!

The J3 was a joy to fly. Mine was first registered in the USA with a 65 HP engine by the US Border Patrol until it was crashed sometime in the early 1940s. It went through a number of owners and rebuilds until I bought it with a 75 HP engine installed. It would get off the ground in about 300 feet and land in not much more. One of the joys of flying a Cub is that it has no flaps whatsoever and you have to learn to “sideslip” on to the runway to bleed of speed. Left rudder combined with right ailerons and the aircraft crabs to the left on its way down with a lot of drag. Of course you straighten up the aircraft just before you stall it out onto the runway. Another joy is the side clamshell door. The top half clipped up to the wing and the bottom half folded down vertically so that the whole side was open as you flew around souther Ontario skies in the balmy summer evenings.. It really was grass roots flying at it’s best. It came with a pair of skis for operating from snow covered fields. Thet changed the whole nature of the aircraft as the skis added weight and drag. That, combined with the drag of snow resulted in take-off runs of 1000 feet to get airborne and a slow climbout. Nevertheless, flying during the winter was interesting and a lot of fun. It was also extremely cold as there was no heater!


My Piper J4
I had a great offer for the J3 about a year later and saw a Piper J4 for sale. The only difference was that it was two place side by side and I decided to buy it after a test flight. Bad decision! It had the 65HP engine and because the body was wider, had more drag. In fact it was a pig and I have regretted selling the J3 to this day. I managed to quit the J4 within a few months at the same price. Around this time I discovered the Champion Citabria and aerobatics.

The thrill of throwing an aircraft around the sky along with “What the hell just happened then?” moments are what aerobatics are all about. I was OK with the basic stuff like loops, barrel rolls, snap rolls and Immelman turns but all too often I would fall out of the sky at the top of a loop. Still, looking up at the ground and down at the sky from the top of a loop is great fun and the rest of the world fades away. I love the way the professionals do it. Have a look at this short video clip below: Woo-Hoo! from TimnEvan on Vimeo ……..

Woo-Hoo! from TimnEvan on Vimeo.


Flying the Citabria (Aerobatic spelled backwards)
The Citabria was whole different world of flying. I was OK with loops and ponderous rolls in the J3 Cub which was exhilarating but the Citabria was actually designed for aerobatics. It had a 150HP engine and a shorter wing span along with being able to withstand both positive and negative G-force. Consequently, you could do snap rolls which would almost take your head off as the roll rate was brilliant. Nothing like a Pitts Special but nevertheless a world away from a J3. I just loved the Citabria. Going up for an hour of throwing the aircraft around in the evening southern Ontario skies really put the day to day worries of everything in your life out of your mind. Up at 5,000 feet you really couldn’t get into trouble as letting go of the controls would let the aircraft recover on it’s own and the that’s a good thing as stalling out on the top of a loop resulting in an inverted spin is frightening the first time you do it without an instructor.


Flying the Chipmunk
The Chipmunk was designed by the Canadian de Havilland company for use as a primary trainer in both Canada and the United Kingdom. Slightly over 200 machines were produced in Canada, but over 1,000 were manufactured in Britain. A further 60 Chipmunks were produced in the late 1950s under license in Portugal. Few of these airplanes have made their way into the United States, but of those that have, most have been extensively modified for acrobatic and airshow work.

The Canadian versions had a beautiful sliding bubble canopy. The 145 hp Gipsy Major four-cylinder engine turns a metal Fairey-Reed prop. The fuselage and wings are of all metal construction, but the ailerons, elevators, and rudder are fabric covered. The Canadian government decided to sell their fleet of 28 in tender by 1963. The Oshawa Aero Club just east of Toronto bought two along with a few private individuals in the Toronto Area. They were stripped of paint and finished in polished silver. The club hired them out by the hour and I decided to get a checkout certification and do some serious aerobatics.

The Chipmunk was a lovely aircraft to fly but had a couple of vices. The Gypsy major engine rotated the prop counter clockwise and when you spun the aircraft to the right it would recover easily. Spinning to the left was a bit hair raising as the spin carried on for another complete two to two and half turns before recovery. The main problem was lack of rudder size which resulted in another problem if you opened the throttle too quickly on take-off. The aircraft became uncontrollable and headed of the runway to the left as I found out to my horror one day. The Chipmunk is a great aircraft for aerobatics though.

Over the few years that I flew I was checked out in Cessna 140, 150, 172 Skylane and the 180. I also flew the Cherokee series of aircraft up to the 180. In New Zealand I checked out in the Bolkow 240 in Palmerston North when I was a member of the Middle Districts Aero Club.

The most interesting aircraft I ever flew was a Piper Comanche PA-28 400. What an amazing performance aircraft it was. A mate of mine at the Buttonville Airport in Toronto was the CFI and allowed me to fly it on a delivery flight to Goderich. It had a 400 HP engine driving a three bladed prop and would climb at 1600 FPM like a fighter aircraft. Cruising speed was just under 190 knots and would get you to point B very quickly indeed. The ultimate in flying of course is actually flying without an aircraft. New windsuit technology now allows you to do just that. Enjoy the breathtaking and amazing short video below…….

Exploring the Sky: Wingsuit Flying from Richard Schneider on Vimeo.

I flew again in 1978 when Peter Kidd at Bridge Pa Aerodrome checked me out in a Tomahawk. There were a lot of things going on in my life at that time what with restoring an old house that I decided to give up flying. The main reason was that it started to become very expensive and just going up for an hour every few months to maintain my licence didn’t really appeal. I did fly again in 2002 and again in 2003 when, with the assistance of an instructor in the right hand seat, I took each of our two sons for a flight out over Hawke’s Bay and Napier in a Cherokee.

Flying over Hawk's Bay on a sunny afternoon. Nirvana found!

Flying over Hawk’s Bay on a sunny afternoon. Nirvana found!

It was great fun and a wakeup that I am not as young as I used to be. The flights went well. I suppose it was a bit like riding a bicycle. You never really forget. You just become a bit rusty!

Photography

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Over the past month I have become interested in photography again and ended up purchasing the camera, a 10 – 22mm wide angle lens, an 85mm portrait lens and a 70-300 Telephoto lens along with a Tenby flash camera bag; all used equipment on TradeMe.

The new gear is light years away from my old Nikon F2 that I used for B & W street photography in the early 70s. The technology is mind boggling and all I have acquired is a few items used by amateur photographers. I will add further to this in the Photography section as time goes on.

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The Avro Arrow

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Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. After leaving college in Toronto I went to work for IBM Canada as an engineer. At first it was servicing the old punched card accounting machines that generated the money for IBM. It was the dawn of the computer era and after 6 months of training during 1958 I was assigned to the new IBM 704 scientific computer based at the A V Roe plant on the outskirts of Toronto along with 2 other technicians. The 704 was only one of 15 ever made and had some massive computing power which included 2 x 512 k magnetic core memory stacks, 6 high speed tape readers, punched card input reader and the huge mechanical line form printer on the right of the photo.

IBM 704 LJ at Console

Me at the console of the 704. The 2 giant magnetic core memory stacks are on the left with the mainframe just to the left of where i am sitting. the 5 727 Tape drives on the right with the 407 line printer on the far right. just behind my back is the 80 column IBM high speed card reader which is how info was entered into the computer

The mainframe had 8000 valves, 117 miles of wiring and a fantastic clock speed of 8 MHz. It was programmed in Fortran language and had a 32 bit binary word as it’s data on the wire buses. The room required tons of air-conditioning to keep it cool. You can see all the parts of the machine in the photo. And yes… that’s me at the console. I was 23 at the time.

The A.V. Roe Aircraft Company of Canada was building the Avro Arrow and the 704 was to be used for design work. The aircraft was a revolutionary jet interceptor, designed and built by Canadians. The delta winged Arrow was a plane of firsts: fly by wire, computer control, and integral missile system and capable of MACH 2+. The COLD WAR with the Soviet block was raging. The 704 Computer was of course cutting edge technology and it was my job to bring up power every morning and run round robin tests before handing it over to the customer. It took three of us to keep it working 16 hours a day and all hell broke loose if it went down for more than an hour.

Avro was also working on some other top secret stuff for the US Air Force but the Avro Arrow was the project of the day being built for the Canadian Government. The company was working on a short time frame as the Americans didn’t have anything close to it. Mach 2+ was unheard of in those days in an aircraft that would fill a bomber/fighter role and the Canadians wanted to sell it to the world. You can see the history of the Arrow if you type “Avro Arrow” into Google. You will see dozens of wonderful sites.

This was the RL-201; the first Avro Arrow to ever fly sitting on the tarmac at Malton Airport as the engineers readied it for a test flight.

Period: Postwar
Uses: Interceptor
First Flight: 1958
Manufacturer: A.V. Roe Canada Ltd.
Wing Span: 50 ft (15.2 m)
Length: 85 ft 6 in (26.1 m)
Height: 21 ft 3 in (6.5 m)
Weight Empty: 43,960 lb (19,935 kg)
Weight Gross: 62,431 lb (28,319 kg)
Cruising Speed: 701 mph (1,128 km/h)
Max Speed: 1,524 mph (2,453 km/h)
Rate Climb: 50,000 ft (15,240 m)/4 min 24 sec
Service Ceiling: 58,500 ft (17,830 m)
Range: 264 mi (425 km)
Power: two Orenda Iroquois axial flow turbojet engines, 26,000 lb (11,791 kg) static thrust, with afterburner

The Americans felt that the future was in unmanned guided missiles and specifically didn’t want Canada to develop the aircraft. In spite of that The RL201, one of 3 that actually flew (RL102 and RL103 were the others) flew and amazed all by its performance. At this point it didn’t have the more powerful Orenda engines in it which were scheduled for the RL206 so it could get past Mach 2. Regular test flights were made over southern Ontario above mach 1.5

Avro Arrow RL201 The Arrow was poised to become the fastest aircraft on the planet, but some critics were asking if it mattered anymore. The Soviets and Americans were racing into the age of missile defence. The U.S.-built Bomarc missile was now front and centre in North American defence strategy. The Arrow, built to chase bombers was on shaky ground.

In a day that would soon become known as “Black Friday.” at 11:00 a.m. on Feb. 20, 1959, Prime Minister Diefenbaker stood before the House of Commons and made the unexpected announcement to a stunned Parliament that the Arrow and Iroquois engine programs are terminated immediately. 14,750 workers were laid off that day and the nation was gob smacked. I watched them leave the plant, many in tears. Rumour had it the President of the USA and the Canadian Prime Minister went fishing and the deal was nutted out that the government would buy the useless Bomark missiles which they did within a year.

The six Arrow aircraft sat in the hangers with all the jigs and equipment for 3 months and one day the scrap metal teams moved in and cut them with gas axes over a week and they were gone. My fellow IBMers and I were witness to all of the above as IBM still had the contract for another 9 months after Black Friday and Avro had to pay for the 704. We used to hand the computer over to the non-existent customer and then teach ourselves programming and write simple games programs during the day when we had nothing to do. The plant was sad and empty place but we had the opportunity to see the Arrow up close. There was a group of US Air force guys and a small team of engineers working in a hanger over on the other side of the tarmac about 500 yards away. We often heard the screaming of jet engines but the area was highly restricted for us. I didn’t have enough coloured dots on my ID tag to go there. Rumour was it was a revolutionary vehicle called the AvroCar – a real Flying Saucer!

There is an article about the Avrocar with photos on another page in this blog. The IBM contract with Avro terminated nine months later and we took the machine to the Toronto Data Centre at Eglington and Bayview streets in north Toronto where it was re-assembled and IBM was renting it at $32,000 per hour of computing time to the University of Toronto, various insurance and oil companies and were recovering their investment that way.

I was a ham those days. My call was VE3OE and each day I left for the A. V. Roe Company from the East side of Toronto and travelled 30 miles to Malton and their manufacturing plant plant. It was all 75M mobile in those times and the first 2M repeater in Toronto, VE3RPT was just being built by my club. You can access it now, 45 years later through IRLP! I had an Elmac AF67 and a Gonset 3-30 converter in my new 1958 Volkswagen Beatle with a huge centre loaded 75M whip mounted on the back. It was all 6 Volt stuff in those days and hard going in the Toronto winter.

They were interesting times. It was only a few years later that the Americans got themselves involved in the Cuban Missile crisis. AVRO was fully shut down by then. The only piece of the Arrow left is in the Aviation Museum in Ottawa Ontario. The huge nose cone and cockpit shows what it was like and what it promised to deliver. Most of the Canadians who worked with the leading edge technology of the day went South and were hired by NASA. The Canadians like to think that their technical expertise was responsible for putting a man on the moon. And indeed they were part of it. The Avro plant is still in the same place although the runways are now filled with houses. I had the pleasure of seeing the place in 1997. It was all a bit sad really!

Some lessons can be learned from the saga.
1. Always expect a government and politicians to do the unexpected because they have the power to do so. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was hated man after that and was dumped from office the next election.
2. There is a “Window of Opportunity” for every enterprise. If it’s not completed during the time the window is open the project will fail.
3. Never go to bed with an Elephant. If he unexpectedly rolls over during the night, he will crush you to death.
New Zealand was isolated from the rest of the world in the 1950s and 1960s and many of you have never heard of this wonderful, trend setting aircraft that was brilliantly designed by the Canadians and killed by a cruel unthinking stupid government.

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Motorcycling

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My Motorcycling Addiction

Over the years I have had many bikes both here in New Zealand and in Canada. I suppose that I have always liked anything mechanical (except lawnmowers; I hate them!) My Dad ran a bicycle and sporting goods shop in Toronto and in the early 1950s acquired an agency for the “Whizzer”  It was an add on engine for any bike that sat just above the crankshaft and drove the bike with a chain. The engine kits were bought by individuals and bike dealers and mounted on the balloon tire bikes of the day. The Whizzer was not intended to make a motorcycle out of a bicycle, nor was it a kid’s toy. It was intended to make bicycling easier, particularly for those people who used a bicycle for transportation.The Model “J” engine, which had a chrome-plated exhaust pipe and fittings, a new, more-reliable Carter carburettor  and motorcycle-type twist-grip controls sold for $195. CDN and they sold about 50,000 of them.

Whizzer Motor mounted on a standard balloon tyre bike of the day

My Dad used to weld a second bar at the top of the frame between the saddle and the steering post to strengthen the bike and then fit the motor to the bike for around $350. He did a roaring trade for a few years and then smaller motorcycles like the BSA Bantam and the CZ came on the market and killed the Whizzer. The Whizzer than came out with a complete bike and Dad decided to quit the franchise. I always wanted a Whizzer but was only 12 or 13 years old and he forbid it sadly. In retrospect, a good move which kept me alive for so long..

The BSA Bantam D1 painted in Mist Green standard colour

The D1 BSA Bantam was a phenomenally successful small motorcycle. The engine was bored out to 125 cc giving the machine a top speed of just over 40 mph. Most of them were painted in a distinctive Mist Green  Mine was a 1954 I bought in slightly used condition from the BSA dealer in downtown Toronto. It was a great bike to ride even though it had a fairly rigid frame. Very easy on fuel though. The D1 only stayed in production for a couple of years until they brought out the D3 with a 150 CC engine. I think I paid around $300 CDN for it and only had it a year before I sold it again. They are on eBay for around $1,000 to $1,200 NZD in restored condition.

During the 1960s I was far more interested in flying and never had a bike. In 1968 just before I left Canada I was a technical teacher and lived about 10 Km from the school. One day I wandered into a bike shop and there was a nearly new Honda CB350 and it just followed me home. It was the first Japanese bike I ever owned. The 350 was great to ride. Very docile and no vices along with being very reliable. I had it for a little over a year before I left Canada. The Japanese manufacturers with amazing quality control were producing machines that the British just couldn’t match and the British were losing the plot while their sales were going down hill.

1953 Matchless 350 restored

When I first came to New Zealand I lived in a little town in the middle of the Kaiangaroa forest near the Bay of Plenty. I was teaching metalwork and technical drawing at the local high school and was offered an old Matchless 350 single banger in absolutely appalling condition but the parts were all there for a restoration. I spent a year rebuilding it and then was offered a Triumph 650 Thunderbird twin with a blown motor for $50.00 so I ended up two projects on the go. One of the locals had fitted some high compression pistons and used it for trail riding. Needless to say, it didn’t last long before one of the conrods pulled out of the seized piston and flailed around the lower crankcase. As a result the lower crank case was in many pieces with big holes where no pieces were left. One of the engineers in the local Kaiangaroa logging Company workshops took on the project and actually welded all the pieces back together so the crankcase was like new again.

The Thunderbird was the 6T “unit construction” model which placed the engine, primary and transmission in one common housing. It was stronger, lighter, cleaner & cheaper to build for Triumph. After pulling the whole bike apart and restoring it, I ended up with two road bikes that were a joy to ride through the forest’s private roads every early sunny Sunday morning.

Just before I left the Bay of Plenty and took up a teaching position in Palmerston North in 1973, I decided to sell my two restored bikes and buy a 650 Yamaha XS-2  Yamaha were building very good bikes and this was their effort to try and take sales from the Triumph twins. The bike was beautifully built and unlike all English bikes didn’t leak oil but it did have some idiosyncrasies, the worst of which was a decided speed/handlebar wobble while going through about 80 Mph to 85 Mph. I took it back to the dealer but they were unable to find the cause. It never ever was right and I found out later, it was a design fault. I sold the bike after having it a year. Goodbye Yamaha and Hello Honda.

I was living in Palmerston North in 1974/75 and wandered into the local bike shop which is fatal for me! There sat a 1972 Honda 750/4 and of course it followed me home. The 750/4 was one of the first Japanese “Superbikes” A 4 cylinder crosswise motor that ran like a clock was revolutionary in those days and the handling was brilliant. I rode it for just over a year and then sold it along with a Leyland Mini to get together enough money for a house purchase as I was about to get married. I didn’t buy another bike again until the late 1970s when I bought a Honda 50 scooter to get to school on cheaply. Sherril and I were in Hastings at that point starting a family and renovating a very large and very old house.

The scooter went and a Honda XL 350 trail bike came on the scene. I just hated that XL 350 , probably because I enjoy road bikes so much. I rode it for a few months before deciding  that I would never ride another trail bike. Great decision and I started looking around for another road bike.

Sold the trail bike and bought a Kawasaki 400 twin. It was a mundane sort of solid bike but by the 1990s I was becoming a bit more financial and bought a nearly new Yamaha 750 Virago Vee twin. It wasn’t a Harley, but it started me on the trail to buying a Harley.

About this time I joined the Ulysses Club.  The Ulysses Club of NZ is actually a motorcycle club for “olds” You may become a fully fledged member when you are 55 and the club is all about safe riding, fun and fellowship. I enjoyed riding with the guys, mostly on day trips and the odd overnighter around the east coast. During 1992, I ended up in hospital with a blown appendix and developed peritonitis. Intensive care gave me a bit of time to think that if I didn’t do it then it would end up just being a dream so a brand new 1992 Harley Davidson 1340 CC FXR was ordered.

Riding "OO HOG" with Ulysses Club. We are all at a lunch stop at Te Aroha up on the East Coast of the North Island

Riding “OO HOG” with Ulysses Club. We are all at a lunch stop at Te Aroha up on the East Coast of the North Island

The Harley was a joy of a bike to look with all the bling but the handling was poor. Harleys are designed as American road bikes for freeways and turnpikes, not the winding twisty roads in New Zealand. I rode it for a few years and by 1997 I thought it was time to give up riding for good. I have led a charmed life with bikes having “canned off” a few times and ending up with only a few cuts and bruises. I was 60 and one’s reaction time is nothing like it was when you are in your 20’s. Time to give it away for good! I sold the bike and have never ridden since. I do have some regrets but being alive to make 75 is better than the alternative.

There is nothing like the feeling of cruising down a long, smooth gently winding road with the sun on your back and the smells of countryside permeating your helmet. Nothing at all.  Sigh!!

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Audio Dynamic Range

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Audio Dynamic Range – by Mike Higgins K6AER

What is you audio dynamic range? This mostly applies to SSB transmissions but could also apply to FM and AM as well. Simply put it is the difference between no modulation during key down and your modulation peak in dB.

Your dynamic range listed below will give you an idea on how your audio is perceived by the other contact.

  • 10 dB, which is very harsh and tiring to listen too. Much background noise including fans, road noise, air-conditioning, dogs barking and in general background clutter noise. Your contact will ask for repeats a lot and in general your QSOs will be short.
  • 20 dB, decent audio range with a little audio background noise. QSO’s will last longer. Very little repeats. Most stations fall into this category.
  • 30 dB, your contacts will complement you on you audio, tonal quality aside; you will find folks will like to listen to your transmissions. Communications in weak conditions will be generally more successful.
  • 40 dB, you are now into broadcast quality transmissions. This is not easy to obtain but with proper microphone techniques and mic gain settings most any transceiver can obtain this level.
  • 50 dB, this is where you need to be if you plan on running a Linear Amplifier. With a +30 dB over S9 signal to your contact, your un-modulated signal will still be an S6 on their receiver. Poor dynamic range is the reason people ask if you are running a linear amplifier.

For FM you will need a deviation meter but with a good oscilloscope you could use the same method as you would use for AM. For AM you will need an oscilloscope to look at voltage level from no modulation and modulation peaks. For both FM and AM, this can be derived from a monitor receiver speaker output. SSB is much easier. Look at the peak signal as monitored from a nearby station. The difference in the peak reading to your modulating signal to the level received while not modulating is the dynamic range. If you have a lab grade watt meter you can look at the power output from the radio or amplifier. The formula is:

Log (power max/power min) x10 =DynamicRangein dB.

An example of a 1500 watt signal with a non modulation level of 100 mW is shown below:

Log (1500/.100) x10 = 31.76 dB

As you can see, 100 millawatts can transmit quite a lot of signal or noise. Some of this noise could be generated in the transmitter but generally it is from the microphone environment. To check you audio level, transmit into a dummy load and watch the output with no modulation. If you see a level indicated, turn you microphone gain down to zero. If the level drops to zero your microphone level is the problem with your low dynamic range and your audio environment.

Several things can be done to improve you dynamic range.

  • Try to pick a quiet place for your station.
  • Close the door to your shack.
  • Use the microphone between 3 and 6 inches from your lips.
  • Your ALC should read 10 dB or less.
  • Avoid excessive compression. It is mostly microphone gain with a little filtering.
  • Speak directly into the microphone, not on the side.
  • Use a wind-screen (foam rubber) over the microphone.
  • Be aware of cooling fan noise. Placement of fan related gear (amplifiers) is important.
  • Use a suspended microphone. They pick up less desk noise and vibration.
  • Avoid a room that has no rugs or drapes. Echoes don’t help and can make communication quality very poor.
  • Make sure the TV and stereo cannot be heard.

These are the most prevalent items I hear being done in QSOs. If you’re mobile, roll up your window. Some FM mobiles have so much vehicle and wind noise their transmissions are unintelligible.

These are just a few suggestions on making your home station and mobile environment much more pleasant to listen to. Work with other hams for a critical ear. Now have fun.

Mike Higgins – K6AER 

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Amateur Radio DXing

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DXing is extremely addictive!

Probably the greatest lure in amateur radio is to contact someone else just a little further away. When you first start out into the world of DXing, DX may be 100 km but later you will work into every corner of the planet. With some it becomes an absolute obsession and they will go to any length to contact that country they haven’t worked yet. For others, it is a pleasure to rag chew with an amateur in a foreign country to learn more about that country and its culture. DXers often end up meeting other DXers when they travel. Many lifelong friendships are made this way.

DXing is a competitive sport. You will find out the moment that you hear some rare DX that a thousand other hams heard that same station and are also calling at the same instant. The problem is that many of your competitors are outstanding operators with high power, excellent antenna systems and vast experience. Most of your competitors are average operators with average stations and antennas and they are easy to compete with. You just have to be a bit more cunning with your skills but eventually you can work up to competing with the top group. That rare DXpedition will usually work the big guns first and then you can easily make the contact at the end of their stay at the rare location.

Currently there are 340 DXCC “Entities” eligible for the ARRL DXCC award program. An entity can be as large as Australia or as small as St. Peter and Paul Rocks out in the South Atlantic Ocean. There are rules that govern what constitutes an Entity” and they may be found on the ARRL Website You can find the rules for the various awards and where you can download the applications forms. CQ Magazine in the USA that run the Worked All Zones awards program and also sponsor major contests throughout the year have the rules on their website also. Usually you start off with trying to work the first one hundred countries or entities and that will be a milestone for you. It will teach you how to get involved with a pileup and how to be a bit cunning when you do. It will teach you that other DXers in other countries may not have the same sense of fair play as you do. The second 100 countries are a little more difficult to work. Achieving 300 countries is very difficult and will usually take many years. For a variety of reasons including sunspot cycles, rarity of the country and how often the government in charge of it will allow amateurs to operate there. The last 40 entities are extremely difficult and very few ZL amateurs have managed to do it. But the challenge is always there and it becomes a passion to achieve it.

Strategies for Successful DXing
There are some proven strategies that work. Listen to the operator and find out where he is listening and if he is working split frequencies. Working “split” is not difficult, just different. It’s a new skill for you to learn. Find out where the thousands of other operators are transmitting and avoid the pack. Position yourself just off the edge of the pack. Refine your timing so that you will be heard in a “gap” rather than in with the pack. Placement and timing is everything. Your signal should be slightly out of the pack so you will be noticed and your call should be slightly out of sync with the pack… just delayed a bit so that he will hear you start your call but not delayed long enough that you are calling on top of the guy the DX station has already decided to work and is answering. Successful experienced DXers are extremely skilful with their timing and consequently work the DX. You may not be heard on your first call; you’re second or even after a few hours of calling. Be patient! Sometimes it’s an exercise in pure frustration but persistence usually wins and it’s an absolute joy when you snag that new country. Top level DXing is not easy but you will learn that amateur radio is more than inhabiting your local 2 metre repeater. You will also be rewarded with friendships around the world and an understanding of other cultures.

Is CW Worth the Effort?
It really is true that it’s easier to work DX on CW than on phone because there are fewer stations clamouring for the attention of a DX station on CW. CW will still be around for the foreseeable future in spite of recent changes in amateur licence regulations around the world.
Weak CW signals are more readable than weak phone signals. Hone your CW skills. DX stations often run 20 wpm or more and while most of them are courteous and will come back to a station calling at 12 or 15 wpm, it’s very satisfying to be able to work them at the speed they’re calling CQ. Life is much easier with an electronic keyer as it takes the work out of sending your call over and over. There is nothing worse than operating with a pair of uncomfortable, ill fitting, harsh sounding headphones. Invest in a good set of headphones to help you dig out the weak ones and avoid fatigue. A better idea is to buy a quality boom microphone headset with a good sounding microphone cartridge.

Work the contests.
Contests can be intimidating, but your best chance for working new countries is often during the DX contests. Contest groups often will activate multi-multi stations in rare countries and they are easy to work. I recall working CN2R in Morocco on 80M a few years ago. He was S9+ and begging for 80M contacts and very easy to work. You don’t have to work the entire contest, nor do you have to send in the logs for scoring. Figure out what information they’re expecting you to exchange with them, either by listening to several contest QSOs or by reading the contest rules on www.contesting.com, then just jump in and start working stations.

What Bands to Operate
The seven popular amateur radio bands offer the DXer propagation to most parts of the world most of the time. When the sunspot count is low between the eleven year peaks, the higher bands like 10, 12, 15 and 17 metres are poor and opportunities are limited. 20, 30 and 40 metres present excellent DXing providing you have good antennas. DXing is more difficult on 80 and 160 metres because the ambient noise levels are often intolerable in urban areas. When the propagation is right and the bands are open at sunrise and sunset, 80 and 160 metres can be extremely rewarding with worldwide contacts. We are fortunate here in the Asia/Pacific region as many rare DXpeditions take place and are easy to work on the lower bands.

When the sunspots reach maximum every eleven years the higher bands are magic. 10, 12 and 15 metres are often open 24 hours a day and it is relatively easy to work 100 countries during a weekend contest. Having a ZL call is a wonderful asset. ZLs are reasonably rare in other parts of the world and there are not that many ZL DXers to compete with. ZLs are often the first “real” DX station that Europeans work. ZL DXers are respected around the world and we have some world class Kiwi DXers amongst us. It is not uncommon to call a CQ on 20 metres and generate a pileup of Europeans or North Americans that may go on for hours.

Operating aids
The DXer has far more tools at his disposal than he had 30 or 40 years ago. Then, you heard a rumour, read monthly DX magazines or received a phone call from a trusted friend. You listened daily, you waited and finally you would hear that weak rare station and attempt to work him with primitive valve equipment. Today’s modern DXers have computers with the Internet based newsgroups, real time packet clusters, propagation prediction programs and information not dreamt of by old timers in the game. Today one knows where and when the rare DX will operate. With a few mouse clicks the modern well equipped station will change the radio to that frequency and mode, track the amplifier to the right band, select the correct antenna system, turn the beam to the heading and set his call up in the logging program in a few seconds. Sounds easy! The reality is that you still have to use your skills to get your call in his electronic logbook. And it doesn’t get any easier as thousands of other hams have the same technology. Below are some web links to programs and services that will help you work DX.

Websites to Help your DXing
AC6V The definitive reference site for ham radio – Over 6000 links
DX Atlas – A program for DXCC, WAZ, IOTA info plus Grayline and path headings.
DX4Win – Excellent Logging program
N1MM – An excellent contest Logging program
Logger32 – Excellent logging program and Free
W6EL – Propagation prediction (and it’s free!)
NZART – Home of NZART The New Zealand Amateur Radio Transmitters
CQWW DX Contests – The CQ Magazine awards and contest website
ARRL – American Radio Relay League – the largest national ham radio association
DXCC – The ARRL DXCC awards and contest website.
DX Summit – Live DX Cluster spots 24 hours a day
KA9FOX: Ham Radio Contest / DX Library. A very worthwhile and informative multi site

Packet Cluster Networks
Packet clusters have been a phenomenon of the DXing world over the past 10 or 15 years. Basically it works like this. A local ham in a city in Europe somewhere “spots” or works a rare station he types into his cluster software the details in the following format:
DX 14015 ZD9BV Calling CQ.
The last comment is optional. The message or “spot” immediately appears on the screens of all connected to that cluster. Most clusters are now linked to the internet and there are more than 1000 of them around the world in every populated area. As soon as that spot hits the internet it spreads to all the cluster nodes and you will see it on your screen in your shack. In fact you will see a continuous stream of DX stations, Announcements and WWV information on your screen 24 hours a day. DX packet clusters are a wonderful tool for chasing DX

Minimum – Maximum Station gear
There are some facts to consider when you are thinking about investing in equipment for your station.

1. The operator on the other end can’t tell whether you have the latest all singing, all dancing multi featured transceiver costing in excess of $8K or a 30 year old valve radio you picked up at a junk sale for $300. 100W is 100W. Both are equal. The only difference is that the older radio may not have all the latest modern features.

2. The stations with the 30 metre towers and stacked 5el monobanders driven by very large amplifiers will often beat you in a pileup. These are the guys that work the rare DX first and they love doing it. After they have done it… they go away and let the rest of us work the station. As long as you are aware of the big guns, it’s not a problem because time will be kind to you.

3. The stations that have the “best” sounding audio will always win in a pileup. It is human nature that the DX station will always take the path of least resistance and work the station he can understand and clearly hear the easiest. Best means clean, punchy and standing out from the rest. Commercial broadcast announcers are picked because of their mellow authoritative voices. Be aware of your own limitations and strive for the best audio you can generate. An authoritative voice helps!

4. With CW – You will need an electronic keyer and clean keying set a bit below the pack’s general speed. This is better than trying to impress the DX station that your electronic keyer can do 45wpm with ease. He can’t! – Well, actually some DX ops can but they are rare.

5. At the end of the day everything helps, but don’t get hung up on particular antennas or brands of radio equipment. They are only part of the picture. A good antenna is the second best investment you will ever make. The first is taking the time to learn the techniques and skills of how a rare DX station thinks and operates. A cunning operator will outwit a big antenna every time!

The Process of QSL’ing
If a newcomer to DX’ing starts out by working DX stations during contests he will quickly learn that he will work key countries multiple times. I would make the bureau one of my first choices The QSL Buro Service here in New Zealand is excellent and it will save you postage costs. My best advice is to save your postage dollars and greenstamps for your rare station direct QSL requests. Confirming DXCC takes time anyway, and by the time one gets close to 100 different confirmed countries, several months or years will pass. As one begins to find QSL cards in the mailbox, it is good to be prepared. There are several systems of filing, and the one that is probably the most common is to keep QSL’s in order by DXCC entity. Shoeboxes help and they are inexpensive. There are some neat boxes sold buy the big chain stores here in NZ to file photographs in and they are excellent for QSLs. Keeping QSL’s in DXCC entity order is the first step in being able to find and sort cards for awards later down the line. Believe me, it is not an easy task to sort a couple of thousand QSL’s from scratch. Be smart and start sorting at the very beginning.

Computer Logging
Computer logging programs are almost essential for those who have a large number of QSO’s. Over time they become one of the best tools around for keeping things in order. Don’t start out with a cheap Shareware Logging program. A key factor in a logging program is to be able to display various award details in DXCC entity order as one has them worked or confirmed. The main prestige awards are DXCC, WAZ, DXCC Challenge, WAS, WAC, IOTA There are thousands of others.When one wants to see how their goals are being met, they can look at their statistics right on the computer screen. Computer logging programs are a great time saver because most of them generate labels that will save hours and hours of handwriting. They can keep track of QSL’s sent and received with just a click. A really good computer logging program will do all of the above and control your radio, send CW, display your local packet cluster DX spots and print the QSO information directly onto your QSL cards with no labels involved.

Awards and Rewards


There are over 3200 awards available to wallpaper your shack. Only a handful really measure how well you compete with other DXers around the rest of the world. They are the prestigious ARRL DXCC awards, the CQ DXCC and WAZ awards, the RSGB IOTA and Dxing awards and the European WAE (Worked all Europe) awards. In fact the list of awards that can be earned for working certain collections of DX stations is almost endless.
http://www.ac6v.com/ will give you a link to the universal awards page.
The picture shows No.1 Honour Roll plaque for working all 340 DXCC entities. Only a few ZLs have achieved this prestigious award. We have some world class operators here in NZ

DXpeditions
If DXing is an obsession, then DXpeditioners comprise the lunatic fringe of the DX world. At any given time there are hundreds of amateurs operating from rare locations around the world. You can be assured that there are thousands of others actively planning a DXpedition somewhere and hundreds of thousands of “armchair DXpeditioners” who would love to go. Planning a major Dxpedition is almost as complicated as a NASA mission. Large scale modern DXpeditions can chew through $100,000 or more in no time so it isn’t a project that any group of enthusiasts will take on lightly. New Zealand just happens to have ten or more of some the rarest DXCC entities islands within its territory. ZL7 – Chatham Island, ZL8 – Raoul Island and ZL9 – Campbell and Auckland Islands are usually in the top 25 most wanted entities.

There have been major DXpeditions by New Zealanders to all these locations during the past ten years but the demand continues unabated. Opportunity abounds for ZLs to organize more trips to these desired locations. I can assure you there is nothing as sobering as a huge pileup of thousands of unruly Europeans on 20 metres calling you to make that elusive contact. It is frightening but is also the experience of a lifetime to participate as an operator on a DXpedition. The camaraderie and experience gained is incomparable. DXpeditions to ZL7 are easily organized and are tremendous fun and are to be recommended for gaining experience.

When you consider all these factors, it is no wonder that DXing is so popular Even though we are only a couple of years past the fabulous conditions during the peak portion of sunspot cycle 22 & 23 there is always rare DX around to be worked. The next few years will be good for HF DX. On the other hand DXing on 80 and 40 metres will be a bit more difficult. The current sunspot cycle number 24 will peak in 2013 and again provide fabulous world-wide propagation. I am trying to provide tips and information in this section to help you succeed in DXing, whether you are a newcomer to DX or a DXing veteran. If you would like to find out more about DXing, contact me ZL2AL  and I will be happy to put you in touch with DXers in your area.

73, Lee ZL2AL

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Propagation Primer 101

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Propagation Primer 101

For those of you who seem hopelessly lost with all this solar and propagation stuff, I will attempt a quick primer that will help you understand what happens to your radio signals.

Quiet Sun at Sunspot Minimums

We all know the sun goes through a solar cycle about every 11 years. During the minimum, or QUIET SUN, there are few sunspots, the solar flux is very low (SFI is less than 100), which means the sun’s ionizing radiation is quite low. As a result, our upper atmosphere, where the E and F layers reside, are not well ionized. This means the E and F layers do not reflect HF radio waves very well … and most of your signals will pass right on through to space to be picked up by Jodie Foster in the sequel to “Contact.” One measure of how well ionized our E and F layers are is the MUF, or Maximum Usable Frequency. During the quiet sun, the MUF is often below 15 to 18MHz. This is why 15M and 10M are “dead” during the quiet sun, except for local (line-of-sight) communications.

High Sunspot Activity

However, during the solar maximum or ACTIVE SUN, there are many sunspots, the solar flux is high, and this highly ionizes our ionosphere. This in turn means our E and F layers become very reflective to HF signals. Virtually all the power hitting the E and F layers will be reflected back to Earth and little ends up in space. This high reflectivity causes the MUF to rise, often to above 30MHz. And when this occurs, 10M will be open all day long to support global communications by using “skip propagation” … in that your signals are skipping (or being reflected) off the ionosphere back to earth.

OK … now a couple of definitions:

Sunspot Cycles Since the 1940s

Current Cycle

SOLAR FLUX INDEX (SFI) is a number that attempts to describe the total power output of the sun at radio wavelengths, which in turn helps describe the total ionizing power delivered to our ionosphere. The higher the SF, the more ionization, and the more reflective our ionosphere is to HF.

An SFI of less than 100 is fairly poor propagation with the MUF less than 15MHz An SFI greater than 150 is fairly good propagation and the MUF will be over 25MHz

A general rule of the thumb is 10M is open when the solar flux is greater than 150.

IONIZATION. The solar radiation reaching the Earth contains IONIZING radiation. This means the incoming solar radiation can rip electrons away from the oxygen molecules high in our atmosphere. So now you have all these “free electrons” roaming around that makes the upper atmosphere (or ionosphere) more dense. Now the mass or weight doesn’t change, it’s just denser. Think of a bunch of popcorn balls on a floor, and shooting a marble through the open spaces without hitting a popcorn ball. Likely, not hard to do. The marble represents your radio signal passing through to space.

Now go out there and stomp those popcorn balls so a bunch of individual popcorn kernels are scattered all over the floor. The mass of the popcorn has not changed, but it is distributed to make the field more dense. Now try to shoot that marble across the floor without touching a piece of popcorn. Going to be very hard to do. The marble, or your RF signal, does NOT pass on to space. In the real case, your RF signal strikes all these free electrons, and that is what reflects them back to earth … DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS when ionization occurs.

A really amazing thing happens to our ionosphere when the ionizing radiation from the sun goes away (night time), The free electrons rejoin or recombine with their host molecules, making intact oxygen molecules again. In our example, this would be like watching all the popcorn kernels on the floor magically turning back into popcorn balls again. Of course, this means RF signals will again pass through on to space and will not be reflected.

Interestingly, when electrons are stripped away from oxygen, it turns the oxygen molecules into helium. Another way of measuring the extent of ionization is to measure the amount of helium in our upper atmosphere. This is usually done through optical spectral line equipment or launching high altitude instrument balloons. However, this is seldom done today since other means and satellite surveillance is far more superior for measuring the extent of ionization.

This is why the higher bands, such as 15M and 10M, are open with signals being reflected back to earth during the DAYLIGHT HOURS. These same bands go dead (no reflective propagation) nearly as soon as the sun sets – because the sun’s ionizing radiation goes away.

This is also why these same bands tend to be completely dead during the quiet sun, because there is insufficient ionizing radiation to cause ionization for reflection. This is a phenomenon of the active sun, the period we are well into right now. And, during a quiet sun, the ionization can be so low, that the MUF drops below 14MHz at night, which is why even 20M can go dead at night. During an active sun, the MUF almost always remains above 15MHz even at night, which is why 20M often becomes a ’round-the-clock band during the active sun.

So what about 40M and 80M? The solar cycle has virtually no effect on 40M or below. Propagation on 40M, 80M and 160M remains pretty much the same during the active sun as it does the quiet sun, because the MUF seldom drops below 10MHz. This is why 40M is the main night time band, year in and year out. Even with low ionization, the very long wavelengths of the lower frequencies will be reflected by the ionosphere. This would be like rolling a basketball through the popcorn balls … while the high frequency RF (the marbles) pass through pretty easy, certainly the low frequencies (basketball) would not. Quiet sun or active sun.

The active sun DOES effect 40M in that absorption to RF can be very good to very bad, or very high noise levels from geomagnetic storms … both due to solar flare activity that occurs only during an active sun. A large solar flare sends an extra dose of ionizing radiation to the Earth. This can raise the MUF to very high frequencies (greater than 100 MHz), but this radiation can also penetrate far into our atmosphere to ionize the lower D-layer. RF signals must pass through the D-layer on their way to the upper E and F layers, where the reflection occurs. The more ionized the D-layer is, the more collisions that will take place with your RF signal, absorbing or attenuating some of its power. Thus, high absorption to HF signals can occur during and after a solar flare. This would be like rolling that marble across the popcorn covered floor, which encounters so many collisions with the popcorn that the marble comes to a halt. Now that is total attenuation or absorption. Your poor little QRP signals just vanish on their way to the E and F layers!

80M signals are almost always highly or fully attenuated by the D-layer, and what “propagation” that occurs on 80M is actually by the signals traveling across the Earth’s surface, or “ground wave” propagation. The wave front is confined between the Earth’s surface and the D-layer, which causes attenuation to the power as it travels along the ground, skims the D-layer, and propagates through the dense atmosphere near the surface. This is why QRP on 80M is challenging at best since the absorption rates are fairly high – day and night, quiet sun or active.

The other major effect to HF propagation during the active sun is geomagnetic storms. Very briefly, this is caused by a shock wave from a solar flare hitting the Earth’s magnetic field, causing it to compress and wiggle for awhile. And while it’s wiggling, it’s generating huge electrical currents, which in turn creates gobs of noise on HF. I’ll present geomagnetic storms in another lesson.

SUMMARY:

    BAND         THE QUIET SUN                    THE ACTIVE SUN
….80M…. Seldom has skip propagation…..Seldom has skip propagation
….40M…. Open around the clock……………..Open around the clock
….30M…. Open daylight hours………………….Open around the clock
….20M…. Open daylight hours………………….Open around the clock (usually)
….15M…. Dead – no skip propagation……….Open – daylight hours only
….10M…. Dead – no skip propagation……….Open – daylight hours only
——————————————————————–

73, Lee ZL2AL

LoTW Information

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Logbook of The World Introduction

Logbook of The World – LoTW  – is an exciting way for Radio Amateurs to confirm two-way contacts they have made and use the confirmations as credit toward various awards.

The ARRL introduced LoTW a few years ago and the system has grown at a phenomenal rate. The cost of QSL cards and DXCC Fees was becoming prohibitive and are now reduced considerably. LoTW makes the process of verification simple. Have a look at the Tutorial video link at the end of this page and then download the software to get started. The software is free and you simply have to send a copy of your licence to the ARRL and they will provide a digital file “Key” which allows you to sign your log and submit it to find matches in LoTW. To give you an idea of how popular it is some statistics are below as of September 20, 2012:

444,303,164 QSO records have been entered into the system.
59,915,031 QSL records have resulted.
52,723 Users are registered in the system
79,233 Certificates are active
3,517,020 User files have been processed

Because Logbook of The World uses double blind comparison, users cannot see what other users have uploaded unless there is a matched QSO. All files uploaded to LoTW are electronically signed by verified users. Logbook of The World maintains the integrity of the QSO verification process that has long been the hallmark of ARRL awards.

How does it work?
Logbook of The World is a very powerful system capable of collecting and matching QSO data from users all over the world.  When properly configured, LoTW can accommodate a variety of operating situations, such as DXpeditions, previously held call signs and QSL managers.

By using digitally signed certificates with QSO date ranges and station locations for geographic information, Logbook of The World is able to accommodate clubs, QSL managers, Dxpeditions, mobile and rover operators just as easily as it handles the individual user with one call sign and one location.

The Nuts and Bolts