Monday, November 30, 2009

CQ WW CW Contest

CQ WW CW Summary for K3PG

Operating Conditions

Antenna Cushcraft R-7 Vertical
Radio FT-1000MP Mk V
Extras
N1MM logger with DM780 running in the background as CW 'helper'
WinKeyer USB from K1EL
1969 Raytrack DX2000L (2 x 3-500z's)
Dentron MT-3000A tuner when needed
Alpha Delta Sloper for 160M
Desktop computer Celeron running Vista Home Basic
Vibroplex Code Warrior for manual sending
Koss K6 Headphones (for not waking others)
MFJ-259B for helping to tune the tuner
Heath Cantenna
MFJ 1700C Antenna/Transmitter switch
Drake W-4 wattmeter
Ott Lite Mdl T48086 (small portable folding desk lamp)
Weller WLC 100 (for repairing the CAT wire when the dog gets tangled up in it during the 'test)

N1MM Summary
Band QSOs Pts Cty ZN
1.8 1 2 1 1
3.5 18 40 10 5
7 175 481 78 24
14 186 527 82 23
21 64 173 42 13
28 7 17 6 5
Total 451 1240 219 71

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Raytrack HV Diodes




Last week while testing some 3-500z's for use in the Raytrack I (by mistake) burned out 6 of the 12 HV Rectifier Diodes in the power supply. I ordered some new ones from Allied and got a heftier size 1N5408's. Here is a picture showing one of the two power supply boards (both are the same) You can see one of the old diodes laying on the board and the new larger ones installed.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Using a MFJ-259B to verify tuning on VHF Arrow Antenna




Recently I purchased a used MFJ-259B and although it seemed to be working well I could not get it to power up using an external source. The power was not getting past the DC connector to the rest of the circuit! I looked at the schematic and added a small jumper to connect the center pin of the power jack to the + on the board the same place that the battery power comes in. Yesterday I had tuned the 'Arrow' ant using a Bidirectional RF Wattmeter (old Heath IM-4190) and it seemed to be hearing better especially on UHF. This shows the VHF side with favorable SWR and I can now hear the low orbit sats on both VHF and UHF.