Well, what a weekend this was. Beautiful weather, temperature in the 70-80’s and a light breeze. I just did not put enough sun blocker on so I look like a lobster in the pot! David K1KK called and wanted to try out his new 60′ tall Spiderbeam pole and turn it into an 80 meter vertical antenna. The tapered fiberglass pole comes in 12 sections of 5′ in one tube. Once you get it then the real fun starts.You have to figure out how to cut the green 14 ga wire into the proper lengths to make up a vertical element (1/4 wavelength) that was taped to the full length of the pole and two horizontal ground wires. The ground wires were best if elevated about 1-3 feet above the ground. A 1:1 balun was used to couple the coax cable to the antenna. Initial test showed an excellent standing wave ratio was achieved by lowering the ground wires to within a foot of the ground. Theoretically I am told that the ground wires should be about 2.5% longer than the driven element at resonant frequency. (I probably got this wrong so stay tuned for corrections…) We had to wait until nightfall as there was no one on the 80M band. After dinner (home made pizza) we went out and tested to see how well we were getting out “barefoot” (100 watts, no power amplifier). Impressive results were found by the signal reports from other stations up and down the coast of USA and Europe. There was a contest going on and in 30 minutes David had 25 contacts on 80m!
Two 1″ metal poles driven into the ground, 3″ PVC pipe, velcro.
1:1 balun, Linear loading for tuning to other bands.
Happy camper!
80 lbs fishing line to stabilize in the wind. You can just see the waves coming off the antenna…
Home made pizza.
40m antenna w offset 20m wire.
Home built Elecraft K2 on 40m rag chewing with Canada & Florida.
While waiting for nightfall, we worked on the 40m vertical antenna that I had failed to get to resonance last fall. It consisted of a tapered 35′ fiberglass pole, a baby brother to David’s “BIG POLE!”, made by MFJ. Same construction but with the hitch that I had already cut up all of my 14 ga green wire so we patched together many pieces to get the lengths. Ultimately we had 6 ground wires. After some trimming, 1:1 SWR was achieved. It is amazing how much the height of the ground wires away from the ground makes a difference in the ratios. Laying the ground wires on the ground really messes up the SWR unless you have many wires (>10). As these antennas are designed to be portable, it cannot have a complex ground system like you can create for a fixed installation. The other interesting observation was that David would measure lengths of wire by using his arm lengths as the “tape measure” and come out about right most of the time. I would break out the tape measure and worry about the 1/4 inch variation. In my defense, I have to work with light and light has a very precise measurement where fractions of a millimeter makes a difference of “in or out” of focus. Radio waves are more forgiving. Another observation had to do with the use of the vector network analyzer hooked up the the computer. The software was running and showing the relationship of changing the lengths of the elements, their proximity to the ground and the resulting SWR while it swept over the bands. As you changes something, you could see the effect quickly and not guess what happened.
Screen shot of the software analyzing the antenna.
Network analyzer from Array Solutions
Calibration plugs to eliminate the coax or items interfering with measurement.
KX2 and the software looking at the antenna.
Once we were happy with both antennas, David used my IC7300 on 80m and made many contacts, I set up another station on my work bench consisting of my Elecraft K2. I immediately made a contact on 40m with Joel KE4YZ (retired lawyer in Miami) and had a long rag chew. “59’s” were passed around with sincerity. Then a breaker came in from Prince Edward’s Island in Canada asking for a signal report as Jim VY2JC had just finished his home-brew Yagi on 40m and needed a report. The three of us went on for close to an hour before we were tired and called it quits.
We got together by 11am on Sunday and calibrated the vector analyser and took another look at the 40m antenna with an eye towards adding another wire for 20m and 10m. A trip to Lowes supplied us with small PVC pipe and Tee’s. We cut the Tee’s in half then glued the small tube into the tees. We taped the tees to the pole at strategic positions to hole the 20m wire 6″ away from the 40m wire (taped onto the pole). First you trim the 40m wire and ground wires. Once that is good then trim the 20m wires and ground wires. Finally you try the 10m wire and OOPS, ran out of green wire!!! Ahhh, a project for another day.
By Sunday afternoon, we were tired and took it all down with hatching a plan to get together in 2 weeks to set up a “Vertical 80m YAGI” for the contest coming up on May 29th. David is going to get a second 60′ pole and more green wire! The more we do this, the better and quicker we can set it up.
WARNING; County hunting is addictive, it is the act of finding and making a contact in every county in the USA (3077). Many of the county hunters have been at it for many years. There are now many web sites with information to help with the journey.
The Mobile Amateur Radio Awards Club (MARAC) is at <http://www.marac.org/> They have over 50 possible awards that can be earned. Just because one has worked all 3077 counties once, there are many other awards so it really a never ending process. There are awards for SSB, CW, Digital and many activities. The rules for the awards are at <http://www.marac.org/Award-rules.pdf>. Some club members have written a special logging program, Logger, makes it easy to track your awards and a simple way to apply for the awards. The program costs $20 and you get free updates very often as long as you are a member of MARAC. Dues are $10 per year. MARAC uses the honor system for confirmation so cards or eQSL is not required
Former BARC member, Hollis, KC3X, Snow Hill, has 63 awards listed on the MARC database. <http://marac.org/database/default.asp> He only needs one more county to finish working them all for the 12th time, any mode. Someone is going to South Dakota in May to get it for him. He only needs 2 counties to finish working all for the 5th time on CW and received CW County Hunter of the Year award for 2020 voted on by the members. He has put out 449 last counties for others to name a few of his awards. He has been at it for a few years! As you can see, there are more counties to work after the CQ Magazine award.
Hollis, KC3X, 2020 CW County Hunter of the Year.
SPOTTING
There is a web page just for spotting active mobiles when they are in a county. Sometimes fixed stations may be spotted in rare counties. Many State QSO party mobiles and fixed stations are spotted. The main county spotting web site is at <https://ch.w6rk.com/>. The nets are no longer active so check this page to see which mobiles are running a county. They mostly run on the old net frequencies.
The Special Needs page at <http://www.countyhunterweb.org/DisplayNeeds.php> is where county hunters list their needed counties for many awards. A mobile will look over this page and plan their county hunting trip to help as many a possible to get the needed counties. Many times, a county hunter will see that a trip can be made to help someone to get that last county in a state or for the WBOW, #3077 to finish an award. That’s Whole Ball Of Wax! The mobile may receive a plaque from the one they helped for their effort. The first time I put out a last county, I saw on the Special Needs page that a station in Canada needed Beaufort County, NC for the WBOW. Heard him on the air a couple of days later and got it for him,
The Edit Your Needs page <http://www.countyhunterweb.org/EditNeeds.php> is where you can list your needed counties for the different awards. You will have to get a password from the webmaster, K3IMC, to enter your needs. Also, the same password works to add comments in the Forum. The other pages are open to view.
The Trips page, <http://www.countyhunterweb.org/DisplayTrips.php> is where the mobiles list the counties they plan to run. Also many mobiles that run State QSO parties list the counties they plan to run. It’s a great source to find counties you may need.
COUNTY HUNTER DOT COM
Another great source for county hunters is County Hunter Dot Com. <http://www.countyhunter.com/> by Dennis Hall, KK7X. It is another excellent site with great info and links. For those that like to chase National and State parks, he has a link with the KFF number and the counties the parks are in. It is listed by KFF number. It’s a great source even if you are just doing parks. It’s at <http://countyhunter.com/Toplist/KFF-County.htm>.
WY7LL VIDEO
A very entertaining 20 minute video by Leo, WY7LL (SK), from Wyoming, is at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcR1i9hj2ho>. It shows visually some the web pages that I have listed above. Some of the links in the 2010 video are not correct because they have been changed. The correct ones are in this discussion. Also, CQ Magazine does not have the USACA records book now. It’s easier to keep records on a computer with logging programs. Some of the screen shots shown have changed also. At the 1 minute 40 second mark, he displays the large 14×20 certificate for 25 seconds belonging to W4YDY. It was a surprised to see it come up the first time. He said, “I’ll bet it was a surprise to you” the next time we talked. Sadly, Leo passed away in 2013 during the MARAC National Convention at Deadwood, SD, where he and his wife, WY7ML, were convention chairpersons.
County hunters have fun! Leo, WY7LL (SK) was the editor of the introduction video. He is missed.
Bob Voss, N4CD, Plano, TX, writes a monthly newsletter, County Hunter Newsletter, that covers county hunting and parks. He is the only Amateur Radio operator to travel to and transmit from all 3077 counties TWO times. Seventeen others have done it once. He is the top Activator for KFF parks in the USA. Bob’s newsletters are from about 70 pages to a little over 100 pages long. He reports on his travels to counties and parks and some other reports that are sent to him by other mobile stations. He writes about other subjects such as his experience at hamfests and band conditions. County hunting is his main topic. Just email Bob at telegraphy@verizon.net and he will be happy to add you to his list. Also the newsletters are archived at <http://chnewsonline.com/> going back to January 2006. He has many contributors from county hunters, park activators, State party mobiles and fixed stations.
eQSL
Recently some have received the USACA award from CQ Magazine using eQSL for the confirmations. It’s not very hard now to get the award with 500 counties using digital modes along with SSB and CW. FT8 has become the most active mode recently and eQSL is a great source because of the high rate of confirmations on eQSL and the fact that CQ Magazine accepts them. In my case, I have about 3900 eQSL confirmations that include USA and DX. My log shows I have 916 counties confirmed on FT8 on eQSL and eQSL shows 1162 confirmed using all modes, SSB, CW and digital. Don’t need them since I already have the award. I don’t expect anyone will be able to use eQSL for all 3077 counties. Several counties don’t have anyone that use eQSL or many hams. Checked one county in South Dakota and there were 3 hams listed. Two had expired license and the one left was a Technician! Some county hunter mobiles use digital but none use eQSL since it it a big chore to upload them the way the system is set up now. At present, an upload would be required for each county and it would be very time consuming to load 3077 files to each eQSL and LoTW. I did it but I didn’t run many counties, less the 15, at a session.
COUNTY HUNTER AWARD #1
The first Amateur Radio operator to work all counties and receive #1 in 1965 was Cliff Corne, Jr., K9EAB, (SK) from Peoria, IL. He did it from an iron lung. I contacted him on May 23, 1960 in a round table that lasted 50 minutes with 5 of us located in NE, MS, MI, IL and NC on 20 meters. I was living in Raleigh at that time. So I guess Cliff used my QSL card for Wake County. I still have his card in my collection.
MOBILE OPERATION WITH GPS
If you want to put out counties on a trip through several counties with your HF mobile station, you will probably want to use a GPS. But I haven’t seen a GPS with county lines from the companies. I have a Garmin Nuvi. I found a web site that had add-ons for the Nuvi that included county lines. It was complicated to set up and I messed around off and on for several weeks trying to make it work. Finally I hit it and made a file that is less than 2 KB. Unzip it to a card and insert it in the Nuvi and the county lines appear. I put the info on my web site at <https://www.qsl.net/w4ydy/hamlinks.html#County>. Many county hunters have downloaded it and told me that it has saved them a lot of time. N4CD has put the link in his newsletter many times. Several county hunters have told me that it has saved them finding county lines many times. Many back roads don’t have a county line sign.
WORKING THE MOBILES
When a mobile announces his county or it is spotted, you may hear many stations calling. Many times you can wait a little and call and have more luck if you are having trouble. It’s hard for the mobile to pick out a station from the pileups. On SSB, it’s easier for the mobile to pick out call signs if you only use your call sign without phonetics. It’s also faster. Phonetics take up air time and cause more QRM. If the mobile has trouble with your call, he will ask for phonetics. Also, only put out your call sign one time on CW or SSB each time the mobile stands by for calls.
SOME ADVANTAGES OF WORKING COUNTIES
The biggest advantage of County Hunting is the hundreds of friends made over the years not only in the USA but in several countries. It’s always a pleasure to help others get that needed county if you are mobile or a relay station.
Fixed stations can help with announcing and relaying for the weak mobile stations. When relaying, the helper gets the fixed station to send a signal report and if the mobile hears him, the mobile will send a report. If both hear the correct report, then it is a good contact. If a net starts up, a fixed station can be net control.
Kent, KL1V, Valdez, AK, was met in Pitt County by W4YDY. Kent was passing through in 2009 on his quest to transmit from all 3077 counties. He received the Ran All USA Award #11 in 2010.
Present: Doug Ferris K4ROK, Beth González KN4FZB, Byron Highland K4BMH, Bernard Nobles WA4MOK, Mark Raysin KG4GVJ, Judy Taber W3JUU, Peter Van Houten N4PVH
Notes:
Byron will contact Randy Gentry (EC for Pitt Co.). At this point, we want to find out: 1. What equipment and training the county would like us to have, and 2. How to get into the shelter sites to check operating positions and equipment.
We need to consider new/back up coax for the shelter sites.
Bernard will try to get us an EmComm field trip to the East Branch EOC site in Kinston and is gathering info from the Columbia repeater group.
We need to talk with Matt Mcmahon about operating requirements for this area, digital, voice, equipment, modes, etc. Matt is especially knowledgeable in Winlink.
Still considering a repeater for the ARES trailer, but will postpone any purchases until we have more information regarding the county’s needs.
All group members are encouraged to complete the ICS 100, 200, 700, and 800 classes. Additionally, please create an account at https://terms.ncem.org/TRS/home.do and register your certifications.
It is suggested that members go to https://winlink.org , initiate your account, and begin familiarizing yourself with the email function.
Let’s learn, train, and be as pro-active as we can.
This is what happens when your XL goes to Sam’s Club and she says “look, I found a 18 x 10‘ tent is available for an incredible price. Even has LED lights inside.” So I get in the car go down there and check it out and sure enough we’re going home with one. I decided today to test it out and see how fast can I put it up and take it down. You can watch the sped up video and realize that it was 29 minutes unpacking it and trying to figure out what goes where without instructions (they were on the inside of the bag). I did it all by myself to see how long would it take. Now that I know what the pieces are and what they look like, it would be a lot quicker. Probably be up in 15 minutes. Here is the 90 second compressed video:
A 12 person tent put up by one and a dog (dog approved)
I then decided to take it down and see if I could do better (20 min). My dog seemed to say “where is that nice dog house you just put up? Why did you put it away?” Here is the 60 second video:
My dog thinks I have gone mad…
The tent is light weight and easy to put up or take down by one person. Inside there are 5 screened windows and two “doors” as well as a LED dome light built in and a curtain divider between the two rooms. The central height is 6’8″ coming down to 6′ at the walls. The entire ceiling is a screen that then has a “fly” covering it for rain protection but allows great circulation. Everything comes in the bag that weighs about 50 lbs with everything in it including the floor.
For Amateur Radio “Field Day”, it would be great as it keeps the bugs out, the rain off of your head and equipment. You could have two full stations in there or one sleeping area and one operating station. Great stuff for camping also.
On April 13th, 2021, 7:00pm BARC had a presentation on Zoom by Elixander Valladares W7HU AKA Alex. Alex talked about growing up in Cuba and involving himself in the hobby from his teens. He decided that he wanted to explore the opportunities that were available in the USA, but for this, he had to sneak out of Cuba on a homemade raft. Eventually, on his second attempt he did make his way successfully to the US, although not without quite a few stops along the way. Being a member of the ham radio world provided a certain amount of protection on his journey and helped him to get settled in the US.
It shows what ingenuity, determination and taking chances will get you. What he learned from Amateur Radio gave him the skills to survive. His ability to make contacts and use the radio technology saved the members on his raft. The 2 meter and HF rigs did get help when they were stranded for 18 days in the ocean and had run out of food and water 4 days previously. He survived storms in the Gulf of Mexico on a home made raft. Once he reached Mexico and was in holding cells for months, his amateur radio contacts were invaluable to get him out of that situation. His experience in a communist country like Cuba and his new found taste of freedom in the USA have a profound message to all of us that take our freedoms for granted. Have a listen:
Presentation byElixander Valladares W7HU AKA Alex. He will be our April Guest.. Alex will discuss growing up in Cuba and involving himself in the hobby from his teens. He decided that he wanted to explore the opportunities that were available in the USA, but for this, he had to sneak out of Cuba on a homemade raft. Eventually, on his second attempt he did make his way successfully to the US, although not without quite a few stops along the way. Being a member of the ham radio world provided a certain amount of protection on his journey and helped him to get settled in the US.
Now the talk is past but a great talk and you see a reason why USA is one of the best countries to be in. Why so many people want to come here as freedom is precious!
Here are issues and items for the membership to read. These are a collection of small notices and items to try and keep everyone informed.
New deep cycle batter installed 4/8/2021.
ARES trailer Maintenance: 4/8/21 The IC7300 radios were all upgraded to v1.40 of the firmware that allows easier switching modes like FT8/CW/SSB modes and other improvements. See Icom web site for details. — New deep cycle battery purchased from “Batteries and Bulbs” and installed in the trailer to get ready for hurricane season (starts June 1st). Over 100 Amp Hrs of power should allow the radios to run for hours before needing the generator to run. Also it seems that the solar panels and charger are working to maintain the charge state. TO BE DONE: Test the generator for the amount of noise production and if it cannot be suppressed then sell it and get a new one. Test the antennas and program the 2M/70CM radios for all the repeaters in the east. Test and set up the computers for logging with N1MM. Setting up and testing WSJT-X and other software. Consider adding a mobile repeater. Consider adding Viper radio. Other issues? Let us know…
Work in Progress
Meeting Room: Byron is working on getting us back into the ECU meeting site. Presentations: Byron is working on more speakers for July – December. Any ideas are welcome. Let us know… Net Control sign up sheet: Please sign up by letting Richard know when you are available to run the 2M net on Monday night at 8PM. Here is the schedule.
More to come so please keep checking this blog for updates. 73 N4PVH
I have decided to try QRP or low power mode. I got myself a used KX2 Elecraft radio that produces about 5 watts of power. I designed a random wire antenna that has a 2 oz lead weight on one end of the wire, I swing it around and throw it up into a tree. The other end goes to a 9:1 Ballun and then to the radio. I tried this out in the backyard and it was working quite well making contacts up and down the east coast. Obviously at the end of the weekend, I had to go home and tried to pull the antenna out of the tree. Unfortunately the lead weight wrapped itself around the limb and it would not let go. So I tied the other end to a garden chair and I hoped that that would be good enough to hold it. I could come back another day and see if I could get it out of the tree. When I came back I found this, watch the video closely.
A natural Calder Mobile?
The winds and the snow has managed to untie the end tied to the chair and flip it up into the tree again. It wrapped itself around another limb and created a loop. During another storm, a limb broke off and got caught in the loop. I now have a Calder mobile that is floating in free space. The weirdest kind of feeling when you see this broken limb that looks like a tree without any roots floating in mid air. Are we back to Avatar? Or has this Charlie Brown tree caught a kite, and antenna and what else is it going to catch?
“Life: what happens to you while you are making plans…” 73 Peter.
A new test of a Polling function has been done to see how we could as a group give our input about issues that are coming up.There are only two questions present but I would like to see hw this functions and does it give thee board a good way of getting the membership opinions.
If you know of someone that did not get this notice about the Ham Chatter, please let me know and I will add them to the list.
Thanks for your interest, 73 Peter N4PVH
Click on the poll block above to edit it directly in this post. Add a question, and multiple answers and even change the styling of the block using the sidebar controls. Add new poll blocks by searching for “poll” or type “/poll” in a new block.
You must be logged in to post a comment.