Hexbeam Up again

The five-band Hexbeam up again last weekend, so far so good.

VP6T - Pitcairn Island

VP6T - Pitcairn Island

Very nice QSL card, received on today.

N3KN - President, ARRL

A very nice QSO with Kay , N3KN - President, ARRL through 24MHz RTTY.
Very good QSL card, thanks Kay.

OK DX RTTY Contest 2011

OK DX RTTY Contest 2011

ARRL International DX Contest 2011

ARRL International DX Contest 2011

10M Yagi up

The 10M three element yagi was up above the 12M yagi, performance so far so good.

In Memory of our Guardian Angel - Porsche

In Memory of our Guardian Angel - Porsche, a new QSL card is deigned and will forward to the printer.

Porsche, we Love You and we Miss You!!

Antennas

Due to some un-expected issue, the new installed Hexbeam was taken down. I can only put up one single 12M three element yagi for the time being. For 10/15/20M, using the Fritzel Vertical and dipole for 17M. I will plan for the antennas setup again, it is difficult due to limited space.

CQ WW WPX SSB 2011

CQ WW WPX SSB 2011

Our Sweetie Porsche Passed Away

Our sweetie, Porsche, passed away peacefully on Feb 2 around 12:10 noon. His ash is with us at for several weeks & will join with Dong Dong later at Peaceful Funeral Home permanently.

His braveness towards Cancer & adorable character inspired our lives & will always remembered in our prayers. Thank you for all the blessings for Porsche, lets remembered his smiling icon in our hearts.

Hexbeam

Today I put up the HEXBEAM ( from K4KIO ), it works fine.

Re-arrangement of antennas

Due to some un-expected reason, I need to dismantle all my antennas last week. At the moment, only maintain one vertical antenna for 10/15/20M. for the time being, some re-arrangement work is underway including a winch-up pole for the new five band antenna. I hope all the work can complete during Christmas holidays, if not , then early next year.





In future, my signal may not be as good as before, due to the down scale of antenna system.

ARRL RTTY Roundup 2011

ARRL RTTY Roundup 2011

ARRL 10M Contest 2010

ARRL 10M Contest 2010

World Wide RTTY WPX Contest 2011

World Wide RTTY WPX Contest 2011

Antenna Mast Bracket

I need to strength some of the antenna mounting on roof, so ordered four pcs of mounting brackets, 304 stainless steel type of material, all looks good.

BV100 Award - 中華民國建國一百年獎狀

Received three nice BV100 awards (中華民國建國一百年獎狀) issued by Amateur Radio Taipei for celebrating the centennial of Taiwan. Namely, they are:

1) VHF award
2) Tri-band award
3) Dual-mode award

Apply for the award by filling the registration form on line.

http://www.bv100.tw/EN/Award/Award.aspx

No QSL cards are required and the award is free of charge.

2010 Oceania DX Contest Certificate

As indicated from the Oceania DX Contest Committe that the certificates have been published on-line as pdf files for us to download. Today I download my certificate for reference. For sure, will participate again this year.

L-Match Antenna Tuner - Completed

Project completed. It become my daily use antenna tuner, very nice.
So far, so good.I have been able to match all my antenna up on the roof, and there is absolutely no signs of any component heating or arcing.

LY2SA - #158 on Six Meter

LY2SA worked on 25 June 2011 at 0655z. Vidas returned me a nice QSL. Now my Six Meter Score going up to #158 - all confirmed.

L-Match Antenna Tuner

I always needed a "HEAVY DUTY" antenna tuner that could take about 2KW to match with my Heathkit SB-220. I have the Ten-Tec 238B which purchased many years ago, working fine without any problem. However, like to have another one connect to my second amplifier.

Since I have the 238B (L-Match) and thinking to use other tuning method. Finally I selected the modified "L-Match" network again for the reason that it has only two adjustable parts, one inductor and one capacitor, it make the tuning more easier.

The tuning capacitor is a Jennings 500pf vacuum capacitor and the roller induction is from Jonhson 229 series (10uH), it is more than enough because I do not operate low band much.

The case is from China, very nice and heavy duty, most important is very cheap. (around US$20 including shipping) and size is 110mm*275mm*250mm (H*W*L).

With some effort over the weekend, it is almost complete except for some hardware, like the tuning knob and extender rod for the antenna switch.

Tuning is very easy and all my antennas from 10M-40M.

KN-Q10A QRP Transceiver from BA6BF

Recently I bought a very nice QRP Transceiver ( KN-Q10A) from BA6BF.
It is a four band (80/40/20/15M) 15W CW/SSB gear, very nice collectable radio.

Front End Saver with 80M Pre-amp

Further to my recent DIY project of the "Front End Saver", I make another one together with 80M pre-amp in one single PCB. It also can switch over to three radios. The box was completed yesterday and very pleased with the performance and high gain / low noise level of the 3SK88.
It is easy to add 160M in with appropriate tuning capacitor and control realy and switch. However, I don't need it at the moment.

ARRL International DX Contest 2010 - Phone

I almost forgot in 2010, again the first place in Hong Kong for single operator 20 Meters in the ARRL International DX Phone Contest.
The award certificate came in very late this time.

JH1BED/VR2RJ

Taka-san (JH1BED/VR2RJ) is now working in ShenZhen and his QTH is closed to Futain Check Point. He sent me email last week and we arranged eyeball QSO. Last Sunday (27 March), I picked him up at the Fanling Station at around 11:30 am. After lunch , went back to my QTH and he operated CQ WPX SSB contest for about 2 hours. He worked 150 stations. We look forward to have more gathering in the future time.

Front End Saver

I use a separate receive antenna for 80M, to eliminate the possibility of blowing out the radio’s front end, I made the ‘front end saver’ followed the circuit designed by KD9SV. It disconnect the receive antenna during transmit, ground the receiver input when transmitting thus keeping RF out of the radio and eliminating the chance of blowing the radio’s front end.

The box installed with a switch to select three radios, I also reserve some space inside the box for a low noise pre-amp.

FT-736 lost audio output

My FT-736R suddenly lost audio output (only the scanning beep OK).
I checked the AF unit Q06 upc2002 pin 5 have only 2V. Looks like the IC failed and shorted out the 1Ω,1/4W resistor (fuse), 13.8V at the supply side.
Then I replaced the 1Ω, the sound come back. Well, I am a little bit lucky this time, not the upc2002, otherwise need to do more soldering work.

80 Meter DX

I have set up the 80M antennas this winter and hope to make some DX QSOs on 80M. Noise is a big problem around my QTH. So I need to use the 0.75 Meter coaxial loop for receiving. The input signal level is very low, but with good S/N ratio. Transmitting using the Butternut HF2V vertical, it perform very well. Please look for me daily on 3.797 Mhz +/-

Eyeball QSO with E21EIC

Champ, E21EIC and his XYL spent four days holiday in Hong Kong recently. We went to the hotel and met him up for our second eyeball QSO. He gave me a very good present (HS0AC Six meter QSO QSL card )by hand.

Although it was a very short time for the gathering, but a lot of fun. Look forward to meet him again.

FT-920 - High SWR on 50 Mhz

Main Unit



Q1084 - burned



After replace



The FT-920 experienced with the following problem recently:

1) high SWR on 6m
2) no control / adjustment of VHF power on the internal VR pot
3) TX on SSB , no mic input and getting full pwr output - at this point pwr cannot tune down
4) the above not appear on HF
5) turn on the ATT to 12 / 18, the above problem goes away.

I sent out help in the yahoo FT-920 group, but no solid hints on this. Two weeks ago, I saw Kevin, KI4NBO post that he had the same problem. He finally found out the problem realted to Q1084 - 2SC2714.

Q1084 is part of the T/R switching at the front end. It is turned on in transmit to keep the TX signal out of the RX antenna circuits. It is in the direct line of fire if the radio gets a lightning hit, so it goes along with those other JFETs being burned. (very lucky that the JFET is working at my radio) The attenuator circuits are also connected in at this point.

I have followed his hints to repalce the same, the radio back to normal now. Many thanks to Kevin, KI4NBO for his great work.

MFJ-269 Anatenna Analyzer Repairing

Few weeks ago, when I doing the routine inspection of my antennas, make a big mistake that the MFJ-269 antenna analyzer was connected into the vertical antenna and key the radio with the yagi antenna, strong RF signal caused the analyzer damaged. The problem was that the unit connected with a dummy load the it display R=27-28 Ohm X=0, no matter in what frequency range.

Searching through the web and tried to source the circuit diagram of the unit, not success. Finally I noticed that Goran SM7DLK wrote a very good article about repairing his unit to the common problem (27.9V display) of MFJ-269. Then I sent an email to him asking for the circuit diagram. He is very kind and sent me one.

I checked into the circuit and understand it by the help of Fai, VR2ZXP that the possible ways to cause the fault by strong RF are the diodes D14, D17, D15 & D16 in the bridge. D14-D17 is the DIODE SCHOTTKY HSMS2820. It is easy to obtain from Mouser Electronics.

Then I removed the PCB out and have the first try, but the SMD components are too small, that I could not go further. For this case, I need helping eyes … Fai, VR2ZXP promised to help.

Finally, he found the D16 was leakage and it was replaced. The unit back to normal.
My thanks go to Fai, VR2ZXP for his helping eyes and skillful hands.

All Asian Dx Contest - 2009

Our Club QSL Maanger, Loagn (VR2XRW) informed me a very nice Award and Medal for the 2009 All Asian DX Contest (Phone) was received.

The contest was operated by me and VK6DXI,category Multi-op, Single TX, by using the sepecial event callsign = VR2009EAG.