N1NQC
07-27-2011, 06:34 PM
Hey All,
I figured I'd check in and give a quick run down of what I've been up to lately radio wise.
7/24/11 Gloucester, MA: Worked my buddy over a 33 mi salt water path.He used ONE mW on 146.565 Mhz FM simplex (around "4" mW if you include his "Station Master" antenna's gain).I wk'ed a number of simplex stations w/ just 4 watts ( "8" watts if you include the gain of my 5/8th wave mobile antenna).
7/25/11 Gloucester, MA : 2 M band conditions MUCH worse,but still fun. Made contact (but much tougher) to the same simplex stations as on 7/27. Also took the 2 X 3 ft home brew AM broadcast band loop and my AM Dx radio down to the beach for some listening. Copied Cubans (especially big on 640 Kc) and a number of Dx stations from the E. 1/2 of U.S., inc. WWL 870 New Orleans. VERY quiet QTH re noise.Only heard dx lightning crashes out at sea ( I actually "monitored" the "intensity" /crashes per minute rate of these storms on 515 Kc for around 10 minutes. They were STILL rockin',even that late at night.. Earlier they had caused damage here in MA).
My home QTH is bad re noise, so it was REALLY nice to copy free of powerline noise for a while.
7/26/11 Weymouth ,MA.902 Mhz .Made a 15 mi land path 927.5 Mhz FM simplex contact ( using a Moto Spectra). There were some hills in the path that I barely scraped over, but fair copy QSO in QSB.I also got into a NUMBER of repeaters, some as far as 55 mi out. I had a GREAT long QSO w/ the control OP of a repeater about 35 mi away.I have met him a few times.
I've also been doing a "listeners" Dx contest on the N2DS/ Schmarder Radio Board website. I used a WN6Q single MPF 102 FET Regen design form the Crystal Radio Resources website..The tank is 660 conductor # 48 "litz" wire on a 4" dia thin styrene cylinder drill out into "Swiss cheese" ( for form loss reduction) and a single gang silver ceramic 500 pf var cap w/ 2 tandem 6: 1 ball drives.I made up a TEN inch ceramic shaft insulator to eliminate hand cap issues.
The tickler was a paint roller form Swiss cheese 660/48 litz and the earphones were Hi Z "piezos" in series. A 10 K linear pot across the phones acts a "secondary" regen control.
On the AM b'cast band the results were fantastic. Around 45 stations id'ed, about 45 stations un 'ided and hetero dyne beats on nearly all other channels. So "something" heard on nearly EVERY channel.Not bad for summer.Regen control was VERY forgiving and little to no readjustment was need once the "sweet" settings were found.Even when tuning up from 530 Kc all the way to 1600 Kc ! Tuning was ULTRA, ULTRA sharp. As a wild guess "by ear" maybe only 250 Hz or less off of dead center for fully clean audio on long dx. The tandem ball drives REALLY helped, Even a THIRD one wouldn't be overkill .Locals played wider and SUPER EARSPLITTING loud.I had to put in a earphone cut out switch to tune by the locals .
This set also nicely re radiated, so I could tune using the digital readout from my Icom R-71a using a 1 ft ant off of it's SO 239 center pin.
On shortwave she was MUCH more difficult. The regen point was ultra critical. But I did grab some loud SW b'casts and also some 40 M ham (CW was much better but did copy SSB too).No regen action above 10 Mhz.In general I think a solid tickler would work better.
Also been messing with a straight up SW crystal set.Its a 2 gang ceramic var cap run in a wiper less configuration. Coil is an home made air dux, dets are an unknown diode and also a 1n34.Phones Hi earphones w/ bleed pot.Stronger b'casts easily copied -R .Marti, R. Havana ,China Radio Intl (HUGE), etc.Some weaker stuff in QSB.Results generally "OK" but not fantastic.
So overall I having fun and am busy. Today I will start a small RF amp circuit on a perfboard.
de N1NQC Boston ,MA
I figured I'd check in and give a quick run down of what I've been up to lately radio wise.
7/24/11 Gloucester, MA: Worked my buddy over a 33 mi salt water path.He used ONE mW on 146.565 Mhz FM simplex (around "4" mW if you include his "Station Master" antenna's gain).I wk'ed a number of simplex stations w/ just 4 watts ( "8" watts if you include the gain of my 5/8th wave mobile antenna).
7/25/11 Gloucester, MA : 2 M band conditions MUCH worse,but still fun. Made contact (but much tougher) to the same simplex stations as on 7/27. Also took the 2 X 3 ft home brew AM broadcast band loop and my AM Dx radio down to the beach for some listening. Copied Cubans (especially big on 640 Kc) and a number of Dx stations from the E. 1/2 of U.S., inc. WWL 870 New Orleans. VERY quiet QTH re noise.Only heard dx lightning crashes out at sea ( I actually "monitored" the "intensity" /crashes per minute rate of these storms on 515 Kc for around 10 minutes. They were STILL rockin',even that late at night.. Earlier they had caused damage here in MA).
My home QTH is bad re noise, so it was REALLY nice to copy free of powerline noise for a while.
7/26/11 Weymouth ,MA.902 Mhz .Made a 15 mi land path 927.5 Mhz FM simplex contact ( using a Moto Spectra). There were some hills in the path that I barely scraped over, but fair copy QSO in QSB.I also got into a NUMBER of repeaters, some as far as 55 mi out. I had a GREAT long QSO w/ the control OP of a repeater about 35 mi away.I have met him a few times.
I've also been doing a "listeners" Dx contest on the N2DS/ Schmarder Radio Board website. I used a WN6Q single MPF 102 FET Regen design form the Crystal Radio Resources website..The tank is 660 conductor # 48 "litz" wire on a 4" dia thin styrene cylinder drill out into "Swiss cheese" ( for form loss reduction) and a single gang silver ceramic 500 pf var cap w/ 2 tandem 6: 1 ball drives.I made up a TEN inch ceramic shaft insulator to eliminate hand cap issues.
The tickler was a paint roller form Swiss cheese 660/48 litz and the earphones were Hi Z "piezos" in series. A 10 K linear pot across the phones acts a "secondary" regen control.
On the AM b'cast band the results were fantastic. Around 45 stations id'ed, about 45 stations un 'ided and hetero dyne beats on nearly all other channels. So "something" heard on nearly EVERY channel.Not bad for summer.Regen control was VERY forgiving and little to no readjustment was need once the "sweet" settings were found.Even when tuning up from 530 Kc all the way to 1600 Kc ! Tuning was ULTRA, ULTRA sharp. As a wild guess "by ear" maybe only 250 Hz or less off of dead center for fully clean audio on long dx. The tandem ball drives REALLY helped, Even a THIRD one wouldn't be overkill .Locals played wider and SUPER EARSPLITTING loud.I had to put in a earphone cut out switch to tune by the locals .
This set also nicely re radiated, so I could tune using the digital readout from my Icom R-71a using a 1 ft ant off of it's SO 239 center pin.
On shortwave she was MUCH more difficult. The regen point was ultra critical. But I did grab some loud SW b'casts and also some 40 M ham (CW was much better but did copy SSB too).No regen action above 10 Mhz.In general I think a solid tickler would work better.
Also been messing with a straight up SW crystal set.Its a 2 gang ceramic var cap run in a wiper less configuration. Coil is an home made air dux, dets are an unknown diode and also a 1n34.Phones Hi earphones w/ bleed pot.Stronger b'casts easily copied -R .Marti, R. Havana ,China Radio Intl (HUGE), etc.Some weaker stuff in QSB.Results generally "OK" but not fantastic.
So overall I having fun and am busy. Today I will start a small RF amp circuit on a perfboard.
de N1NQC Boston ,MA
