Topband: 7O6T Part III
TODAY's HEADLINES (REDUX) This morning I noted the Sanaa bombing yesterday. Truth be told - on the way OUT of 7O6T, we all flew (except JT1CO) from Socotra to Yemen at the same time. Arriving in Sanaa about 6PM, Karina had a bus waiting and we all went together across the parking lot to pack our stuff into the bus. She said (since some flights were at 0430AM the next morning - mine was 1010AM) - that we all should go to a hotel, have a meal together, then get some rest in a hotel room - for the long flights home. Her driver would make several early AM runs back to the airport, and we all thought this was a good idea. We drove and drove and drove - finally entering the OLD CITY of Sanaa with super narrow streets, winding turns, and some really shady looking types peering into the bus windows as we went at 3MPH down some of the narrowest streets imaginable. (One guy - I forget who it was - muttered "OK, here we go BLACK HAWK DOWN!" We all laughed but it was a NERVOUS LAUGH to be sure!) K3LP asked if we were driving to CAIRO - and I agreed as it was at least an hour from the airport and I had no idea where the HELL where we were or what our final destination was going to be. We FINALLY stopped in front of what was a hotel that looked like a house- and in fact it was a 600 year old hotel replete with oriental rugs, wood floors - a tower restaurant and we all took something like an hour to check in. Karina then said - "OK guys we will get back on the bus and go to dinner..." Inwardly I said, NO FRIGGIN WAY - Miriam told me NOT TO TAKE STUPID RISKS and I really am NOT going to do this one - no way! I politely said NO, I preferred not to go - and DIMA RA9USU came over and said "So ZM, you are a scared rabbit - yes?" I said "Dima - just tell me where you want me to send the flowers when I hear on the news that all you guys were blown up in about an hour!" Dima found this all very amusing but I noticed that K3LP and WD5COV also declined to go back out into those narrow streets again after dark (that bus was a perfect target - and I wanted NONE of that - it just was not worth it...I wasn't that hungry) So I checked into my room and called Dave and he and WD5COV and I all went up to the tower restaurant overlooking the city and we had a great, relaxed and SAFE meal. Around 11PM the guys did come back unharmed and I was glad to see them back safe again - but I still did not regret for a second the choice I had made. Especially when I read that NY Times headline this morning. A FEW WORDS AS TO HOW THINGS WORKED AT 7O6T Dima was the master scheduler - each day he made up a matrix showing CALL, LOCATION and OPERATING ASSIGNMENT. (Now remember, I arrived TOTALLY EXHAUSTED in Socotra at 5:30PM after two full days on the road - took a shower, got a shave and a bowl of soup and then went out to the ocean to do a 14 hour shift on 160M with RL3FT. After 3 hours in the sack the next morning, I was on the air again before 4PM and shifts were usually 8 hours ON with 4 hours off - but sometimes it was 12 hours ON with 4 hours off. Thus we were TOTALLY BRAIN DEAD most of the time we were there - and the TEAM MEMBERS usually only had 10 minutes together each day - 5 at breakfast, and 5 at dinner time - there was NO LUNCH. Thus I really had little quality time to get to know anyone else really - except for DIMA who was reminding me all the time that I was late for my next shift! I did know JT1CO from PIRIN FIELD last summer in LZ - and he is one neat guy - all he wanted to know every time I saw him was whether I had worked K4ZW and JA1BK on Topband yet??? He was delighted the time I told him I had worked both of them on 160M. Yuri RL3FT and I spent the most time together - and he is a young talented operator - with a good command of English. One guy I had only read about on ON4KST was David WD5COV from far western New Mexico. I found his company great fun and he asked me if I had really written DX'ing on the Edge - as he was a died in the wool Topband Dx'er with something like 238 from New Mexico - uising a full sized 4 square array. I hardly got to know the Russians (and never met RA3AUU/UA3AB/R7LV and N6PSE) - as they departed on the plane that we arrived in - so we were their relief - the 3 other UA guys who were there usually hung out together at meals and we chatted only now and then - but what they most wanted to know was why I chose to live in a place like Franz Josef Land???! I explained and they all just laughed - but if they had heard the VE1ZZ signal on Topband, well, perhaps that might have made it all clear for them - RM2M asked me the same thing as we left - and I gave him a different answer - I said "Because EY8MM is 599, UA9MA is 599, EX2M is 599 and you can hear GM3POI all the time in January on 160M." In the end, I think there was a still a lack of real understanding - chalk that one up to cultural differences I supp
Topband: Top Band Dinner Web Cam guy - Tom KB4HQA - in Dayton Hospital ICU
This was posted on contesting.com by K3LR. KB4HQA provided the webcam broadcasts and video recordings at the Top Band Dinner and Contest University in Dayton last weekend. If you attended Dayton, watched his webcasts, or plan to view his videos please take a few minutes to send an email or card to Tom. kb4hqa at hqaradio.com or his snail mail address on qrz.com 73 Frank W3LPL Many of you saw and or met Tom, KB4HQA, this weekend in Dayton at the CrownePlaza. He is an awesome guy, a great friend and is a behind the scenes superstar for contesting. He was the brain power and hardware supplier for the contest webcam from the Crowne Plaza that many watched who could not attend Dayton. On the way to the airport Sunday morning Tom was in a terrible car crash. He is now in ICU with a broken neck and a broken shoulder. His blood pressure was critically low yesterday after surgery - so that is why they are keeping him in ICU. There is no nerve damage. After a long hospital stay and a ton of rehab - he should be OK. I talked to Tom today (he is in tremendous pain) and all he wanted to tell me was that he is sorry for the delays in getting the video recordings from the weekend posted for guys to watch. Tom is always thinking of others. Please keep Tom in your prayers. Cards (to the KB4HQA address on qrz.com) and email well wishes encouraged. kb4hqa at hqaradio.com Tim K3LR ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Topband: 7O6T - 160m story - Part II
GM again I awoke this morning and one of the headlines in the NY Times said that a suicide bomber in Sanaa, Yemen had killed something like 300 people yesterday not far from the government house - if I recall reading it correctly. Since I was there not 4 days ago, there but the "GRACE OF GOD GO I".fortunately, our team all made it out of there safely as far as I know and I doubt I would return anytime soon.even though the Yemeni people I met were all friendly, hard-working people who treated us very very well! LET'S TALK ABOUT 160M STRATEGY As we all know, 160M is still the GENTLEMAN'S BAND - but, whenever something like a 7O6T shows up, we all (myself included) sometimes forget ourselves and fall into the very bad habit of: 1) Calling even when we cannot really hear 2) Calling on QSB peaks when we think we might hear 3) Calling even when it was not our callsign that the station is responding to ETC ETC ETC I heard all of this and MORE in the bedlam that was the 160M NA pileup in the days leading up to my departure to 7O. W3UR even remarked on ON4KST that when R7LV was answering me and had me as K1Z? K1Z? K1Z? - that every letter of the alphabet was in there on TOP OF ME as I was trying to get the last letter across - and I believe he was probably correct as the calling qrg surely was not clear when I checked it now and then. Now why am I mentioning this? Well not because it is poor operating procedure (which it truly is and we should all try to be better than that) - but for a far more IMPORTANT reason. What sounds here in NA as a cacauphony of MASSIVE NOISE that is S9+ 40DB is far worse over at 7O6T. Picking out stations who are 339 in that kind of hysterical calling takes forever and when openings are really short, what it does is actually drive the RATE DOWN and fewer qso's are actually made in the time that is available - and that hurts everyone. For example: On 11 May when I worked 134 NA in 85 minutes, I was listening DOWN 4 I think it was and, once the band really opened to the East Coast around 0045z, there was a MASSIVE CORE PILEUP centered on 1821 or so - and truth be told, there was some SERIOUS NA RF in there calling. However, and this is the main point I wish to make here - even though I am a pretty decent op on Topband, even I cannot deal efficiently with that kind of MESS in my headphones. I quickly realized that I had two choices: 1) Grapple with the HUGE MESS - and pick out a call or a partial call every 2-3 minutes or so - a process which could easily have WASTED PRECIOUS TIME in what were VERY SHORT openings OR 2) Tune off to the side up or down a bit and listen for stations who were calling in relatively clear space - please note that even a far weaker signal than the MAIN ROARING PILE has a distinct advantage over those in the MAIN PILE - and truly seasoned 160m ops like W9ZR/K8MFO/W8UVZ/K8GG/N4JJ/NA0Y/WB9Z and others are well plugged-in to this fact. They made it into my LOG because they knew what to do in order to be heard - they all realized their signals would never be as BIG over in 7O as stations in Maine or New England and they changed their calling behaviour as a result and it worked!. The reason I worked as many truly DISADVANTAGED stations in the "hole" as I did was because they did it right and LET ME FIND THEM. When I spoke to Jerry WB9Z, he told me he had almost given up - but just as the signals were going into "STAR WARS" mode, I found him and I only heard his call once - with all kinds of doppler and echo on it - BUT HE WAS IN THE CLEAR. He was easy copy even though his true RST was something like 339. So there is some strategy to be applied here the next time folks: 1) If you think the operator is doing some TUNING on the other side of the pile - spread out and get into a clear spot and LET THE OP FIND YOU. 2) Unless you are a W8JI or a VE1ZZ or even a W8LRL - or unless you happen to own an ocean front location, calling into the MAIN PILE is like suicide. I did not do too much listening to the main pile - except when I could pick out a caller who peaked for a few seconds - but it was far more effective to tune off to the side and work the weaker guys who elected to call outside the maddening, hungry crowd. Guys - there is a real lesson here.I hope it works for you the next time if you realize the operator on the other side is not focusing on the main pile exclusively 7O6T FREQUENCY SELECTION When I visited with AA1K and W3UR, I told them I probably would listen for the USA below 1810 kHz in an attempt to keep the European guys out of my hair when directing CQ's to NA only. I usually like 1801-1804 if it is clear. This time, I found for the MOST PART, the EU stations honored my CQ NA attempts and only a few times did I have to ask for them to give me a clear shot at NA. THANK YOU TO EUROPE for that kindness - we worked a bazillion Eu stations on Topband - and you guys had
Topband: 2 Parallel Beverages
For various reasons I am considering two single, parallel but 180deg opposing direction beverages on the same supports rather than a single switchable bidirectional beverage. The bevs would be separated by 12 to 18 inches or so. I've read that parallel bevs present performance degradation issues but has anyone had any experience with this type of setup versus the traditional bidirectional beverage? Thanks for reading this and for any thoughts you could offer. Mike W2LO ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question
On 5/22/2012 12:47 PM, Mike Waters wrote: > I don't think the length is the reason that you're not hearing any signals > or noise in the reverse direction. How well does it work on 40 in the > forward direction? > > I works extremely well on 40 meters in the forward direction in fact I was using it to work 706T on 40 SSB and it completely nulled out all the rouges and KC cops on the mainland that would have otherwise made copy impossible. So I beleive in using a 900 foot reverse Beverage on 40 but wish I could get it to work in the reverse direction as well. For the reverse direction I have constructed a 600 foot single wire Beverage about 50 feet away and it works fine. Herb, KV4FZ ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question
-Original Message- From: ZR Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 4:28 PM To: g3...@onetel.com ; TopBand List Subject: Re: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question > > > I recently measured Gary's 2-way boxes and they are good (virtually flat > freq response) to over 21 MHz.. > Unfortunately my 200m 2-way is down on 3.5MHz in reverse direction, and > also > deaf on 7MHz probably because total transmission line losses are over 20dB > on that band. Plus earth and transformer losses another few dB. > (I was thinking of trying a remote preamp). > 73 > John G3PQA > > How was that measured John? On the bench can miss a lot and flat to me outside usually means excessive loss. Im using WD-1A, WF-16/U, and 2 wire rural telephone cable which is copperweld. Listening on 40 a few minutes ago shows no particular loss but very sharp directivity. The directivity really knocks local crud right into the noise floor and the band sounds dead but signals are loud with fantastic SNR.. RG-6 up to about 150' feeds the switching box and then 750' of 1/2" CATV hardline back to the house. A preamp is available but hasnt been needed since the rebuild started 2 years ago. >Transformer cores are all BN73-202 with primaries and secondaries isolated >in individual Teflon tubing for minimal C coupling. >Carl >KM1H Carl, Thanks. The 75 ohm feeder loss measured with a home-made dBm meter. I should have said, I use 75 ohm twin for the beverage, and I measured the loss of a spare drum in the shack on a VNA as just under 4dB per 100m. on 7MHz. Adding, say 3 dB loss, for plugs, transformers and small mismatch, plus 2 dB for earth loss, the total loss in reverse direction comes to approximately 23dB, perhaps not surprising it does not work. As my system is 75 ohms, I use home made transformers , feed type 43 binoc, refl BN73-202. I will re-measure over the summer to double check all this, your results are encouraging. Unfortunately it would be a huge job over other property (some of it stealth work!) to replace, so the preamp route may be the best in my case. 73's John ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question
I don't think the length is the reason that you're not hearing any signals or noise in the reverse direction. How well does it work on 40 in the forward direction? I don't know all the details of what you have there (and what you've tried). But the first thing that came to mind is that the reflection transformer (and/or other transformers) may not be the correct impedance ratio, and so the antenna has standing waves (it should be flat and non-resonant.) What is the ratio of the reflection transformer? For 145 ohm line 10' high, it should be ~3.3:1. 73, Mike http://www.w0btu.com/Beverage_antennas.html On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 7:39 AM, Herb Schoenbohm wrote: > ... A possible reason why the two WD1-A does not work in the reverse > direction on 40 meters, but works well on 160 and 80 could be that it is to > long for 40. > ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question
Hi Herb, Niko: > could be that it is too long for 40. This is just a >gut reaction as I have not come up with any reason. Of course it is too long. Beverage said that when it is too long there are so many lobes (and therefore nulls) that it is 50-50 that a given direction will not be covered; that velocity factor may antiphase a given frequency at the transformer; that the extra lobes pick up more QRM/QRN; that "for amateur purposes" (not point-to-point) one wavelength or so is optimum; if you don't know the exact direction the signal will come from then with more wavelengths of wire you are in the lap of the gods and Murphy, so sometimes it will serve your purpose and sometimes it will not. Bob VE7BS ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question
> > > I recently measured Gary's 2-way boxes and they are good (virtually flat > freq response) to over 21 MHz.. > Unfortunately my 200m 2-way is down on 3.5MHz in reverse direction, and > also > deaf on 7MHz probably because total transmission line losses are over 20dB > on that band. Plus earth and transformer losses another few dB. > (I was thinking of trying a remote preamp). > 73 > John G3PQA > How was that measured John? On the bench can miss a lot and flat to me outside usually means excessive loss. Im using WD-1A, WF-16/U, and 2 wire rural telephone cable which is copperweld. Listening on 40 a few minutes ago shows no particular loss but very sharp directivity. The directivity really knocks local crud right into the noise floor and the band sounds dead but signals are loud with fantastic SNR.. RG-6 up to about 150' feeds the switching box and then 750' of 1/2" CATV hardline back to the house. A preamp is available but hasnt been needed since the rebuild started 2 years ago. Transformer cores are all BN73-202 with primaries and secondaries isolated in individual Teflon tubing for minimal C coupling. Carl KM1H ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question
> -Original Message- > From: Herb Schoenbohm Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 1:39 PM To: Niko Safaric ; TopBand List Subject: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question >Thhanks Niko for sharing your experience with me. I did not find a reason why this takes place so I ran a separate 600 foot Beverage about 50 feet away and parallel to the two wire. The single wire works fine on 40 meters to the direction of the termination. A possible reason why the two WD1-A does not work in the reverse direction on 40 meters, but works well on 160 and 80 could be that it is to long for 40. This is just a gut reaction as I have not come up with any reason. I hope someone of the topband list group here has an answer. > Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ > On 5/22/2012 5:02 AM, Niko Safaric wrote: > > Dear Herb, > > On topband contesting Ihavefound your question about strange manner of > your beverage I recently measured Gary's 2-way boxes and they are good (virtually flat freq response) to over 21 MHz.. Unfortunately my 200m 2-way is down on 3.5MHz in reverse direction, and also deaf on 7MHz probably because total transmission line losses are over 20dB on that band. Plus earth and transformer losses another few dB. (I was thinking of trying a remote preamp). 73 John G3PQA ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 9:28 AM, ZR wrote: > It could be possible that the commercial transformers are providing a "suck > out" . Try tuning well on both sides of 40M and see if this is a gradual or > sudden thing. > Beat me to the punch. Too long together with transformer particulars can easily produce an unfortunate resonance effect that only appears in one direction in this configuration. Devil in the details. I'm sure that there are lesser occurrences of this that go unnoticed because the overall system is adjusted to deal with significant loss in the first place, and it simply doesn't matter. 73, Guy. ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question
My 2 wire Beverages are in the 500-900' range in the air and as BOG's and are used regularly on 30 and 40M with no meaningful degradation. However I wound all my transformers based upon the high RF ground resistance here and subtracted that from the theoretical book values for the antenna. It could be possible that the commercial transformers are providing a "suck out" . Try tuning well on both sides of 40M and see if this is a gradual or sudden thing. Carl KM1H - Original Message - From: "Herb Schoenbohm" To: "Niko Safaric" ; "TopBand List" Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 8:39 AM Subject: Topband: Two wire Beverage Question Thhanks Niko for sharing your experience with me. I did not find a reason why this takes place so I ran a separate 600 foot Beverage about 50 feet away and parallel to the two wire. The single wire works fine on 40 meters to the direction of the termination. A possible reason why the two WD1-A does not work in the reverse direction on 40 meters, but works well on 160 and 80 could be that it is to long for 40. This is just a gut reaction as I have not come up with any reason. I hope someone of the topband list group here has an answer. Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ On 5/22/2012 5:02 AM, Niko Safaric wrote: > > Dear Herb, > > On topband contesting Ihavefound your question about strange manner of > your beverage > > »I have a 900 foot WD1-A two wire Beverage that runs east and west > and > > works well and has a great FB ratio on 160 and 80 meters. It is > fed with > > a KD9SV box and reflection transformer for WD1-A telephone wire. I > have > > swept the antenna with an analyzer and the antenna is relatively flat > > beyond 10 Mhz. However I notice that when I try to RX with it on > 7Mhz > > the reception (noise level) drops to the floor and signals are not > there > > in the West direction (Reverse Direction) but OK in the East. The > noise > > floor drops a good 30 db and the receiver appears dead on 40 to > the west > > but works well to the East. I have an identical WD1-A two wire > Beverage > > running NNE and SSW which works fine on 40 meters in both > directions. I > > have absolutely no idea why this should be the case except that the > > cable feeding the Beverage box is RG-6U and could have some water > > encroachment which increase the losses at 7MHz greatly. Before I > do a > > new cable run I plan to just swap the two RG-6 cables and see if the > > problem reverses now to the East rather than the West. I post > this to > > ask if anyone has had a similar experience with a well functioning > > Beverage that appears completely dead on 7 Mhz and above.« > > I have exactly the same problemas you hadexceptmy beverageis not > completedeadin one directionon40mand higherbands.F/B ratio > isalsostrange.With switching directions W/EI cangetup > to30dBF/B,butonly for signals coming from East.On another > directionF/Bratio issignificantjust for some signals coming from W, > but not for allof them. > > I havealreadyreplacedtransformers, made a good ground with radials on > both side, replacecoax RG59 with RG213...butnodifference. > > I am interested, how did you solve your problem? > > Best regards, > Niko, S53a, 9J3a > > > > ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1424 / Virus Database: 2425/5014 - Release Date: 05/21/12 ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Topband: Two wire Beverage Question
Thhanks Niko for sharing your experience with me. I did not find a reason why this takes place so I ran a separate 600 foot Beverage about 50 feet away and parallel to the two wire. The single wire works fine on 40 meters to the direction of the termination. A possible reason why the two WD1-A does not work in the reverse direction on 40 meters, but works well on 160 and 80 could be that it is to long for 40. This is just a gut reaction as I have not come up with any reason. I hope someone of the topband list group here has an answer. Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ On 5/22/2012 5:02 AM, Niko Safaric wrote: > > Dear Herb, > > On topband contesting Ihavefound your question about strange manner of > your beverage > > »I have a 900 foot WD1-A two wire Beverage that runs east and west > and > > works well and has a great FB ratio on 160 and 80 meters. It is > fed with > > a KD9SV box and reflection transformer for WD1-A telephone wire. I > have > > swept the antenna with an analyzer and the antenna is relatively flat > > beyond 10 Mhz. However I notice that when I try to RX with it on > 7Mhz > > the reception (noise level) drops to the floor and signals are not > there > > in the West direction (Reverse Direction) but OK in the East. The > noise > > floor drops a good 30 db and the receiver appears dead on 40 to > the west > > but works well to the East. I have an identical WD1-A two wire > Beverage > > running NNE and SSW which works fine on 40 meters in both > directions. I > > have absolutely no idea why this should be the case except that the > > cable feeding the Beverage box is RG-6U and could have some water > > encroachment which increase the losses at 7MHz greatly. Before I > do a > > new cable run I plan to just swap the two RG-6 cables and see if the > > problem reverses now to the East rather than the West. I post > this to > > ask if anyone has had a similar experience with a well functioning > > Beverage that appears completely dead on 7 Mhz and above.« > > I have exactly the same problemas you hadexceptmy beverageis not > completedeadin one directionon40mand higherbands.F/B ratio > isalsostrange.With switching directions W/EI cangetup > to30dBF/B,butonly for signals coming from East.On another > directionF/Bratio issignificantjust for some signals coming from W, > but not for allof them. > > I havealreadyreplacedtransformers, made a good ground with radials on > both side, replacecoax RG59 with RG213...butnodifference. > > I am interested, how did you solve your problem? > > Best regards, > Niko, S53a, 9J3a > > > > ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
