PA0O ham radio

Not m uch going on  made some recordings with recall 30-11-2012  v ery weak  7p8d _ 80 .mp3 VK4PN  579 8 0W Z epp 3519kHz   strong VK4PN 80m  new band 4S7NE UA0CW 80m    28-11-2012 new one 5T0SP_160.mp3 JH2FXK 160m Friday much weaker Thursday  16 0 nice open to JA but typical 160 m very deep and fast QSB       20121129 2112   1810.4 CW   PA0O         569  JH2FXK          599                20121129 2119   1813.3 CW   PA0O         559  JH2RMU          559 Aki                20121129 2131   1813.3 CW   P...

The big C QWW   already >5 3 00 logs  received by organisation Hunting  zones and multipliers   worked 39. The missing one  34 not seen  very few Africans active. The difficult zones 39 19  This time I choose   for SO high power Dipole and verticals and receive loop K 9AY.   Low bands   very poor the evening before the CQWWCW ( and the weeks before not better) 10M ha d been very good last days until Friday     500mW to ZL3PX  -16dB   3 days in a row ZL's decoded  then CME  and propa gat ion dropped. Saturday early found 10m almost closed   very weak VK6DU  no change to work him  Ja ik heb het wel een beetje bont gemaakt dit weekeinde in de CQWWCW   w eer veel tijd voor de radio alle klussen weer ui tgesteld.. Kon gelijk eens goed testen of N1MM met de US232 contestproof is   en de US232 is idd beter dan de Prolific chip types  ge...

output V over 50Ohm  ~72W Rf   at input  76W (25Vx 3A)   N=96% ! ? V drain puls had to modify the total capacity  of C2+C3 to 10+6.8+6.8 nF and the output C4 6n8 + 6n8  to archive maximum output. But at 25V still could not produce 100W out I did change R4 to 1k  because of latching problems I had earlier that cost me a few IRF's  Drive level increase  does not change the output in this class D  type switching mode. The Flex1500 XVTR/C port  0dBm at level 30% is sufficient. Also the K3 XVTR out level was perfect to drive the QTX.  Class D is perfect for CW WSPR modes. The Drain pulse form seems correct. Optimising L3 for maximum output did not bring  more output. Po drops as soon as a ferrite bar is approaching L3. I would expect that L3 could be increased when dropping the frequency from 500 to 475 kHz After re-arranging  C2 C3 C4 The output increased to 75...

http://www.qsl.net/pa0oos/recall/pt0s_160.mp3 160 easy just few calls on this band The other bands is a different story  in addition to the fact that  it is an easy path from EU. T he problem is the crazy pileups and wide uplinks. To get the 599tu you have to stand in line  and undergo the "EU treatment"   of anti HAM spirit. Finding the actual QSX frequency is not easy when every one just keeps calling no matter if the DX is allready in QSO or calling specific someone. In other words  no intelligence can be found in the pile most of the time .     If they just would join the LZ D X  a " QSO" would be a matter of minutes? So I did not real ly try to get trough the barricades.     20121115 2334   1825.4 CW   PA0O         599  PT0S            599         ...

In the end it was simply an error in the  N1MMlogger.ini But before I came to that I walked some by ways.. My new FTDI  US232  USB to serial failed to work with my Radio / N1MM logger Notebook . U sing COM2  with this US232  ( 12345.. all tried as well) It will not send CW using DTR =CW  as used to with the   HQ U SB-rs232  Prolific chip type. Since N1MM was generating more and more time out  / overflow errors/ popups with the CAT connection I decided to change to the FTDI type  as this was advised by the N1MM community. The US232 was installed quick no driver disk was needed and the CAT  connection with N1MM worked instantly. But to my surprise I could not send CW Pressing F1 =CQ  RTS  asserts  high, TX is on but DTR stays low . RTS w ould not return low until ESC was pressed.  Changing to  TR4W logger using the same USB-serial com2  all is okay! DTR keys CW , RTS switches T/R...

Wintertime is no advantage for greyline DX-in W-E U   Times are not favourable when having  a full-time job       T here is s ome light on the horizon for low-band propagation since again tonite  VK7DIK was decoded  at   80m greyline peak. Aft er last solar flar e and aur ora  10m is almost complete closed here and in W-EU   no VK decodes seen since.

Have been busy  this afternoon went shopping got a FTDI US232  USB-RS232 (39€) interface hopefully to solve the communication problem with N1MM. It did run immediate the driver was found in the system already. But... DTR/CW is not driven on my Notebook on my other Laptop it works normal Latest FTDI driver. DTR is only short active at init of the port. Seems a software problem. So still not a solution hardware and software is resisting to cooperate .  Same time purchased some extra high grade capacitors  WIMA FKP1 to tune the QTX 501kHz  down to 474.2kHz  I was testing my M.W. QTX again at 474.2 kHz.  our new M.W. allocation in 2013. Before even thinking of building a bigger MW PA  I should at least be capable to get this small PA working stable. Now at reduced power  20V  5A limited  to keep the IRF540 save. Also used the IRL540  designed for logic level that one worked in the 500kHz version 2010 okay but could not...

again a page full continuous decodes of WE6XGR  Sunday morning. only 1 time decoded   partly  WE2XGR/2  in FN31LS weak signals  -17dB  as best only  Overall propagation weak.  In the WAERTTY  low activity 0148 -25  1.8   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50 0154 -27  2.4   0.499450  0 <...> FN31LS 47 0204 -25  1.8   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50 testing my QTX  500kHz  I have used that one before at 502.4 kHz in 2010 The first power on the 6.3A fuse was blown. Already lost 2 IRF540 while testing the output on a dummy load trying to tune down to 475 kHz  gave high currents and lost the IRF540 at 500 it seems  to work okay. If  I can believe my power meter the output is well over 100W at 6A 24V input  never had that much output from this simple but genius design. But the IRF540 can not handle this level and breaks down after 10seconds ...

W2ZM announced to be on air again last night The Flex1500 +  K9AY loop rx antenna tuned to USB dial 498kHz After having all settings VAC and VsP done I did not see a trace yet left WSPR in receive and went to bed. Above expectation next day a saw a screen filled with decodes   100% TX duty cycle it started way after midnight here strongest was -13  0454UTC   first decode 01:48  2012-11-06 01:48   WE6XGR   0.499500   -28   0   FN12   10   PA0O   JO33hg   5988   47 0446 -17 -0.1   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 40 0448 -18  0.0   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 40 0450 -15 -0.2   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 40 0452 -15  0.0   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 40 0454 -13  0.0   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 40 0456 -16  0.0   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 40 0458 -24 -0.2...

In order to fi nd some solution to the logging problems I plugged a faster i 7   W7 Lapto p to the w ireless keyboard and the 22" TFT above my radio operating position. 1 7 CW QSO's in the Ukraini an contest went fine. N1MM was fast responding   no delays  in T/R confirm messages. While just having entered   W9EWZ . QSO nr. 18 The frequency display/band ruler went cra zy again and whiped out W 9 EWZ from the input field.. the msgbox  s tops the polling  click on retry starts it agai n. Why not just continue polling and showing an Offline sign without the need of manual resetting ? arrgg This time even the reset interface di d not recover the CAT connection I am having a rs232 break out monitor to watch the data over the CAT connection  still the K3 was sending data strings to the PC  in response to the N1MM polling   the K3 does not send data without being asked for by a command. But the data to N1 MM seem s...