Foundations of Amateur Radio How effective is your station? We tend to spend most of our energy looking at antennas and power to evaluate how well our station works. Based on a better antenna or more power, you're likely to make more contacts is the general gist of the process. Being a QRP operator, power rarely comes into the conversation, 5 Watts is what you get, leaving antennas as the prime method of discovering how effective we can be. Recently I received an email from Layne AE1N, pointing me at an article he wrote on the Nashua Area Radio Society website titled: It's all about the decibels - factors in enhancing station effectiveness. The article, goes into great detail in looking at an alternative way of measuring how well you're doing and builds on the December 2013 QST article - How Much Punch Can You Get from Different Modes? In our hobby we measure using a thing called the decibel. I've spoken about it at great length previously. The way to use it is to compare something against something else. Using the metric used in the QST article we take as a starting point a modern transceiver, using 100 Watts, CW into a half-wave dipole at 30m. Everything we're discussing from here on in, is related to that starting point, the zero point. I should also make clear that we're talking about the ability of the receiver to decode your message, not the strength of the signal. If you were to use the same radio and instead of using CW, used AM, you'd have a station that was 27 dB worse off. That is, your signal would effectively become harder to hear by 27 decibel. On the other hand, you if were to replace the half-wave dipole with a 4 element Yagi, your station would be just under 7 dB better off, that is, it would be easier to hear you by 7 dB. Of course you can combine AM and the Yagi, adding the two measurements together, coming out at minus 20 dB, which means that compared to a 100 Watt transmission on CW into a half-wave dipole, the same 100 Watt transmission on AM into a 4 element Yagi would still be harder to hear by 20 dB. If you go from CW to SSB, you'd be 17 dB worse off, or SSB is 10 dB better than AM. Note that when I say better and worse, it's about how much your signal can be decoded at the other end, using the same receiver, antenna, etc. The whole article includes comparisons between CW and FM, CW and RTTY and so-on. RTTY is only 4 dB worse than CW, but most transceiver manufacturers recommend that you reduce power to a quarter power, that is, 25 Watt instead of 100 Watt when using RTTY or Digital modes, so you end up losing 14 dB for that, making RTTY slightly worse than SSB if you follow the manufacturer instructions to reduce power. This isn't all doom and gloom however. Even though CW is very effective, we can improve things in other ways. For example, using PSK31 gives you a 7 dB head start, switching from CW to JT65 or FT8 gives you 25 dB. Even if you take into account the reduction from the loss of full power, 14 dB, you still end up in front by 11 decibel, which is more than you can get from upping power from 100 Watt to 400 Watt which only gets you 6 dB. Adding an 11 element Yagi gives you a similar improvement as changing from CW to FT8, just over 11 dB, and using 1500 Watts is only slightly better at 12 dB. The point I'm making is that you can use this idea to figure out how to get your signal heard. More power or a bigger antenna is only part of the conversation, picking the correct mode is just as important. Of course, the 11 dB gain you get from moving from CW to FT8, even when reducing power, is one of the main reasons that it's so popular, much easier to change mode than to build a new fancy antenna. One more thing, what of the 5 Watts vs. 100 Watts we started with, 13 dB. That's significant, but if you were to use 5 Watts FT8 into a quarter-wave dipole, using 100% of the 5 Watts, you'll actually be 12 dB better off than the same station using 100 Watts CW. Check out Layne's article for a reference to QST and a whole lot more. It's a very useful way of looking at how your station can be very effective, even if you're QRP. I'm Onno VK6FLAB TL;DR This is the transcript of the weekly "Foundations of Amateur Radio" podcast.
Ill just post my digital Setup using LinBPQ Does not include what is in my Vehicles... or Handhelds. BPQ32 Node N9LYA-8 Routes Nodes Ports Links Users Stats Terminal APRS Pages Mail Mgmt WebMail Chat Mgmt SYSOP Signin Edit Config Ports Port Driver ID Beacons 1 ASYNC APRS 144.390 Icom2200H Beacons 2 ASYNC OpenNET 223.600 9.6k Backup Beacons 3 BPQAXIP AX/IP/UDP (Internet Linking) Beacons 4 SCSPACTOR Pactor/RPR P4D 746Pro Beacons 5 ASYNC OpenNET 432.250 9.6k TEKK Beacons 6 SCSTRACKER Skipnet RPR/HF 706MKIIG Beacons 7 TELNET Telnet Server 8 WINMOR Skipnet WINMOR 706MKIIG 7.101U 9 WINMOR Skipnet WINMOR 746Pro 14.111U 10 ASYNC TRACKER UHF 223.660 Beacons 11 ASYNC TRACKER VHF 145.050 Beacons 12 SCSTRACKER Tracker 10.1473 USB Beacons 13 SCSTRACKER HF_Skipnet NET105 Beacons 14 ARDOP HF_Skipnet ARDOP1 746PRO Beacons 15 ARDOP HF_Skipnet ARDOP1 706 Beacons 16 ARDOP OpenNET ARDOP 147.555 Beacons 17 VARA VARA 706 18 VARA VARA 746 19 ASYNC LOOPBACK Beacons
My station is terribly inefficient. I have spent many thousands of dollars on radio and antennas for several years, but they have not brought me a cent yet ...
You can find my original article, "It's All about the Decibels" here: https://www.n1fd.org/2017/11/07/decibels/ ---Layne AE1N
My antenna system sucks as I'm in a HOA Condo, cannot relocate. And as far as reception goes I have to contend with S8 QRN. I fight for DX contacts though.
HOA, attic antennas, adjacent metallic clutter, high QRM/N: FT8 saves the day in these tough times, although SSB Phone DX is still possible!
So...this "news" is a rehash of and plug for a just over five year old QST article. Thanks, I think...
Well, if we never said anything twice, the people that didn't hear it the first time would have missed it forever. I feel good about my little 100W station and cut wire antennas; no tuner. It's in the mics too- the whole system. I take great pride in wire antenna experiments and talk all over the world, despite the whinny Sun spot excuse.
. What's rewarding is, after transmitting a few FT8 CQ frames at 30 Watts is seeing all the 'spot' flags that show up across the US on PSKReporter ... this is on 160 meters from a small city lot ... .
Low band conditions were good last night. Worked six continents on the low bands. Brasil PY2XB on 160; ZS6BUN South Africa, EK7DX Armenia, WB6OEE California, UR8IDX Ukraine, and KH6FHI Hawaii on 80 meters! I live in the suburbs on 0.3 acres 1/2 mile from a McDonalds.
Mc Donalds adds how many decibels to your signal? After all, "It's all about the decibels." Yeah, Right !!!
I think effectivity is (un)limited by our creativity. I have to deal with a HOA and have a balcony instead of a huge garden or porch like in Texas. Over the years i still worked the globe. And now i am happy with "just" 10-meters ...
my radio: FT-450D Antenna: Hex beam at 20ft. Dipole for 6m-160m. I have confirmed 96 countries so far. I have have had tons of FUN so I am happy. I would like to invite all of you to join the Hex beam net every Saturday at 3pm Eastern 14.315 +/- QRM.
