Start of limited Island Operations

In the last few trips to Washington Island I’ve had the chance to starting making QSOs from the new QTH on a limited basis.

I’ve also operated a bit from George W9EVT’s shack, with both my gear and his.

Put the trustworthy SteppIR CrankIR into the antenna slot while a new base for my tower is fabricated.  Running from Indian Point has been a Swan 350 and now my Flex-6300.  From Greegate Farm, Goerge W9EVT’s QTH I’ve used my Collins KWM-2A and George’s Icom IC-7800.

Contacts have been SSB and PSK

The strong winds had the CrankIR tipped over twice, and I caught a third push over, so something has to be sorted out there.  I’d used the speaker stand base, and need to sort out a better situation.  At Indian Point there is an old dish from satellite internet (these folk wanted $100/month to do basically dialup with buffer burst!) which has a suitable pole concreted in.  Next visit I will clear the old dish and set the CrankIR on the bare pole.  Unfortunately the buried coax is actually Twinax 72 Ohm stuff, and while the install was first rate and attractive, a protective sleeve was used rather than a conduit, so no pulling new in the same sleeve.

i will  bring up the TDR and Megaohmer to see if perhaps I can still use the cables, though I doubt they are QRO rated.  Even if they can be used for control wiring that is better than throwing them away.

Doing a lot of thinking about how I want to set up this QTH.  Should the operating station be in the main house or a separate workshop?  What does the LAN Remote of Maestro mean to the design for those operations?  Am I better to put the station gear in the house now, rather than wait for an unbuilt workshop?  Or should I buy a trailer to use as the workshop until it is built?

I am leaning towards putting whole station in the house, and consider the eventual outside workshop a more rough and ready workshop rather than a ham shack sort of place.  The cost savings of keeping everything in the house are significant, that is if I want water and heat, not to mention a toilet near the work station, as these services would need to be brought to a new workshop.  That is a lot of rock to hammer out to put in services Is I go the second building with heat and plumbing route.

Rather I am thinking to keep the house shack area and the former woodworking workshop clean enough to do electronics, the ham shack and some musical instrument repair, relegating the heavy/dirty workshop tasks to the outside building.

Lots to think about!

73

Steve K9ZW

K9ZW Northern Station – The Tower and the Antennas

K9ZW Northern Station – The Tower and the Antennas

The Tri-EX/Tashjian TM-370HD Skyneedle is here at a friend’s trailer yard, where we will do some light refurbishment (scrape and paint some light tin parts that are showing surface rust) and fit the Alfa-SPID RAK Rotor, while we wait for the new base and a few added accessories to arrive.

Here are a few pictures of the tower being removed from storage and transported to my friend’s trucking yard:

Crane lift of the TM-370HD

A bit about the TM-370HD – this is a motorized 70 foot tubular tower that has some pretty impressive numbers.

I have a full set of engineering calculations and the wind loading they cite is roughly five times what my array will be, and perhaps 35 times the weight load is available.

Not certain if the numbers they provided are after application of the designer’s safety factor (would presume so, as they were done for code compliance rather than product engineering) so the ultimate wind loading and weight bearing is truly impressive.

Initially going up is a SP7IDX Hexbeam HD Mark II antenna currently in production, and a W9INN Half-Sloper which I had on the ready.

The Hexbeam will cover 6m to 20m and the Half-Sloper will carry onwards 20m to 160m.

I thought I had another Tennadyne T-8 antenna locally sourced, but the present owner decided he didn’t want to sell it even though he’d just advertised it. I’d been interested in having both the LPDA and Hexbeam up to do some A/B comparisons.

Karl and Norman at Tashjian Towers Corporation have been super as usual.

They have in production a new base for me, and I am adding the work platform (tower already has the ladder) which will allow me to do 98% of service work without a lift.

That the work platform will make an awesome birdwatching and other outdoor pursuit platform hasn’t escaped me either! It is quite likely that it will also open up a way for my getting very high speed internet to this QTH, as aDSL isn’t going to quite cut it for remoting a full Flex-6000 based station.

There are a lot of logistics to go – I have verbals from the professional help to get the base in and the tower up, and I have access to a DitchWitch to bury the conduits needed. ( want to run the power separately from the coax feeds and other control wiring.)

I even have some nice touches to add features, like a set of industrial/maritime intercom units so one will be at the tower and the other in the shack.

73

Steve
K9ZW

A Northern Station for K9ZW

Having secured a long term QTH on Washington Island, Wisconsin (US Island WI-001L), I’ve started putting together a station.

Here is what is planned:

• Transceiver – Main – FlexRadio Systems Flex-6300 w/ATU
• Transceiver – Back-Up Unit – TenTec Paragon II
• Transceiver – Vintage Net – Collins KWM-2A
• Amplifier – Expert 1Kw Solid State
• Tuner – Palstar AT-Auto fully upgraded by Kessler Engineering
• Radio Computer – Custom Built Win7 “blade” (or possibly a Neal Campbell PC)
• Audio Gear – full set W2IHY gear
• Frequency Reference – Homebrew Rb-Source
• Tower – Tasjian TM370HD SkyNeedle
• Main Antenna – 20m through 6m – SP7IDX Hexbeam II HD
• Main Antenna – 160m through 20m – W9INN Half-Sloper
• Vertical Antenna – 80m through 10m – Gap Titan DX
• Rotor & Control – Alfa-SPID RAK with Prog1 Controller
• Antenna Switch – 4O3A Signature/Sky Sat 1A2R Switcher with PTT Router (TBD – under review)

I’ll use my usual BuryFlex Coax as supplied by DavisRF with N-Connectors as usual where possible.

The only items to acquire are the Antenna Switch, a Watt/SWR Meter, possibly a station microphone for the Flex-6300 and possibly a Neal Campbell FlexReady PC if I decide not to use the customer server style one I have.

The SkyNeedle, the HexBeam, the Collins Transceiver (with all the extra bits) and a second Palstar AT-Auto tuner were acquired for the new station; everything else came from my back up unit collection. The Expert Amp is coming out of my main shack as I will finally put in the Alpha-9500 that has been sitting in the box for a while.

I have power supplies and lightening arrestors to match my home QTH gear.

Down the road I will most likely add a 4O3A Signature Station Genius SSC-XL and replace the Flex-6300 with another Flex-6700 GPSDO/ATU transceiver to make the Northern QTH and Home QTH closer in design.

Eventually I would hope to share SmartSDR Radio “Slices” between the two QTH’s, with a long term goal of being able to remote one or both stations.

Now to get the Island QTH on the air while everything is put together, my SteppIR CrankIR Antenna with Flex-6300 setup, as used at Rocky Ridge Farm last year, will be pressed into action.

73

Steve
K9ZW

May 2015 Operation from Washington Island WI-001L – Trying for DXCC in one session

For a good part of last week I was on Washington Island, Wisconsin – US Island WI-001L – operating from my friend George W9EVT’s shack.

I had informally set myself a DXCC in a visit goal.  Despite poor weather I didn’t come too far short.

The first 16 QSOs I used George W9EVT’s Icom IC-7800 and then for the remaining 174 QSOs moved over to the Hilberling PT-8000A Transceiver.

Here is the country list for the visit:

1. Aruba
2. Andorra
3. Austria
4. Azores
5. Argentina
6. Algeria
7. Balearic Islands
8. Bahamas
9. Bahrain
10. Bonaire
11. Brazil
12. Belarus
13. Belgium
14. Bulgaria
15. Bosnia-Herzegovina
16. Croatia
17. Chile
18. Cuba
19. Canada
20. Canary Islands
21. Cayman Islands
22. Crete
23. Denmark
24. England
25. Estonia
26. Falkland Islands
27. France
28. Georgia
29. Greece
30. Germany
31. Guinea
32. Guayana
33. Grenada
34. Hawaii
35. Hungary
36. India
37. Iceland
38. Israel
39. Ireland
40. Italy
41. Kyrgyzstan
42. Kuwait
43. Kenya
44. Latvia
45. Liberia
46. Lithuania
47. Lebanon
48. Luxembourg
49. Macedonia
50. Malta
51. Netherlands
52. New Zealand
53. Norway
54. Northern Ireland
55. Oman
56. Portugal
57. Panama
58. Paraguay
59. Philippines
60. Poland
61. Qatar
62. Romania
63. Russia – Asiatic
64. Russia – European
65. Sardinia
66. Saudi Arabia
67. Spain
68. South Cook Islands
69. St. Martin
70. St. Barthelemy
71. St. Lucia
72. San Marino
73. Slovenia
74. Slovak Republic
75. Switzerland
76. Svalbard
77. Scotland
78. Sweden
79. Turkey
80. United Arab Emirates
81. Uruguay
82. Ukraine
83. USA
84. Wales

I’m rather sure that without the storms and lightening, that 100 DXCC entities wouldn’t have been much more work.

In addition to the DX, I also worked a “Clean Sweep” on the Ham Nation special event and a handful of special event stations that caught my interest.

I did fudge and organize one sked – I had called and arranged to work my good friend Paul AE5JU as my final QSO for the visit.  Nothing finer to “close the logs” with working a good friend about 1000 miles away!

While I only added two DXCC entities to my all time list, the exercise was a lot of fun for both myself and George W9EVT.

73

Steve
K9ZW

More Washington Island portable operations

This weekend is my 4th working the CrankIR and the Flex-6300 from Rocky Ridge Farm on Washington Island, and my first running some digital mode from the farm.

I also brought two laptops , though I think one good one with dual screens would have been more effective.

Did a basic Ham Radio Deluxe setup and with DM780 worked a handful of PSK31 contacts.

Here is the two machines:

And here is closer look at the Toshiba running PSK31 via DM780:

I was able to work our local club president Scott W9JSB on 40m and again had some nice 12m contacts.

PSK31 operations were easy once I figured out the HRD/DM780 set up with SmartCAT and DAX. I will add in DDUTIL later.

My QSO count was down this weekend as I first arrived Saturday morning after catching the musical “Always.. Patsy Cline” at the Peninsula Players Theater in Fish Creek Friday evening (the XYL came to the mainland by private boat to make our theater date). Also I needed to be on my way noon Sunday, with a dinner out at The Sailor’s Pub and a morning coffee at The Red Cup Cafe .. and an a la fresco lunch at Fragrant Isle Lavender Farm’s bistro all squeezed into the 30 hours on Island.

It will be a couple weekends before I get back to Island operations and then end of October our lease at Rocky Ridge Farm ends.

73

Steve
K9ZW

Rocky Ridge Farm on Washington Island, WI – Third Radio Activation

This weekend is my third working the CrankIR and the Flex-6300 from Rocky Ridge Farm on Washington Island.

Getting past the  learning curve.

Was too chilly to comfortably operate outside, so set up the radio inside one the kitchen table.

K9ZW at Rocky Ridge

 

Easy DX this time and I’ve figured out the band change process pretty well.  Worked on 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m, 20m, and 40m.

Great fun!

 

73

Steve
K9ZW