Maintenance

Yesterday I went to the remote station for some needed maintenance. In my last visit there I had changed radios, retiring the TS-480HX and installing a new IC-7100 in its place. The main reasons for that is that I was having repeated problems with one of the DC power supplies. And I also wanted to finally be QRV in VHF - see my posts describing my attempts at Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) QSOs.
The IC-7100 was chosen because of its detachable front panel, perfect for use with my remoterig system.

The problem was, when I came back to Rio the front panel was not lighting up. I double checked everything at the control point, and all seemed in order. The problem was at the remote end.

So there I went yesterday, and when I connected the control head directly to the radio it worked fine. Next I opened the remote rig and checked the configuration jumper wires and, bingo, two jumpers were broken.

Another check I wanted to make was if the LNA at the antenna mast was working, so I tuned to VHF and switched the amplifier on and off. The S-meter was jumping from S0 to S3-5 in all antenna directions. So I have a faulty LNA or is power supply. It is powered through the coax cable by means of a built in Bias-T in my Beko 2-m linear amplifier. The voltage reading at the amplifier antenna socket was 16V, a bit high.

Back home, I reconnected the front panel of the radio to the remoterig control box and it worked fine. I am back on business on HF.

Now I have to decide what to do about the LNA up there. I think I´ll bring another Bias-Tee to the station, feed it through a different 12V power supply and see what happens.

EME - first attempts

I am finally trying 144 MHz EME. I am using a IC-1700, with a 750W amplifier into a single M2 12 element yagi. Since I don't have  elevation control, I am limited to the moonrise and moonset windows.

I have been trying for two days now. I have called CQ, and my signals have been copied all over Europe. It was really exciting to see my call appear in livecq.eu:

So far I have had little luck in receiving. I suspect there is something wrong with my LNA, because I know I had some big stations calling me. Here is a print made by my friend Norbert, OE3NFC:

This is one of the stations that was calling me, UA3PTW. I really should be copying him! My transmission seems OK, good cables, connections etc. I use the same line for tx and rx, so either the radio or the LNA have some problem.

On the second day I finally had a decode, it was  PA9RX returning to my CQ, but I did not manage do conclude the QSO.


The adventure continues, I will have another try today at my moonrise, with the LNA off. Maybe I will finally finish my very first complete EME QSO.

Restart

After a few years away I return to my blog. My remote station has evolved quite a bit since my last posts. I now have my Steppir 3e up at 12m, with an Expert 1k amp, but I still using the same TS-480 via removerig boxes.

But my main goal in this return to blogging is to document the final steps of a plan I have been developing for many years.

20 years after

In May ’91 I was still a class B licenced as PY1LJA I made my first QSO to the St. Peter and St. Paul Rocks (PY0S). I remember being very excited about it, with my old FT-757 running 100W to my trusty R-7 vertical.

Now, almost exact 20 years after, I had access to the original paper log of the DXpedition. Since I still have my own paper logbook, I had the chance to make this photo, showing both logs side by side on the page of the QSO.

This is something that would never be possible in the era of digital logbooks.

Triple Play Completed

I´ve just completed a QSO with Dwayne, WY7FD, #150 on my Triple Play Award. That means working and confirming in LOTW all the 50 US states on all 3 modes.

WY on RTTY was pretty ellusive, but Dwayne was kind enough to set up a sked tonight.

The cradits are already in the system, and the award is requested.

Dx is so good!

Remote Fun

Here is a photo taken during the last CQWW SSB. I operated remote, running Win-test. The remoting is done with a pair of Remoterig boxes, a superb solution for remote stations! On these photos you can see the control point (top) and at bottom a detail of the remote station. The CW Key does not appear. CW and SSB QSOs are perfect with this setup.

Everything worked perfectly, and I had a lot of fun. There were no delay issues, and I had to remind myself I was actually more than 100km away from the radio!


The station inludes the TS480HX (left), an LDG AT200PC antenna tuner, a remoterig unit ( on the top of the radio) and all power supplies. There is a PC at the remote site, that is being used less and less since I switched to the remoterig. I plan to replace it completly by using a serial device server to connect all serial port controlled accessories directly to the internet. I'll write about that in the future.

The whole station is built inside a computer rack:

Now the time has come to upgrade the antenna system. I am currently using an 80m dipole with the LDG tuner to get out on all bands.

Sleepless

I woke-up this night at 03 am local time. Feelink sleepless I decided to check T32C on 40m, a band I still need them. I fire my remote station, and there they are, weak but workable, but working only EU. I decide to check the other bands and work, in a row, 3D2CG and H40KJ on 25m CW and 5W1SA on 17m CW. Feeling happy I return to the T32C pileup, but still EU only. I return to bed.