I joined the APRS Thursday HOTG (Hams of the Gram) net. I checked in by sending: ANSRVR CQ HOTG good Thursday morning. I guess it sent 117 messages to others, and for the 12 hours I was subscribed, I received 174 HOTG messages to my callsign from stations across the US and around the world.

I was seeing high SWR on the 80M EFHW: over 3:1+. I found counterpoise was chewed and broken, so I twisted it back together, but I saw no change. I disconnected the counterpoise completely, and that made no difference: still 3:1. I finally unscrewed and re-screwed the rusty alligator clamp and reattached it. That fixed it!

Previously, it seemed I’d sometimes see high SWR for a a moment, then it would recover. It seemed like giving it a little power would “clean up” something.

My Weeks in Radio

• got the Bluetooth TNC connection working even better between UV-PRO
  • clear the channel
  • now it automatically reconnects
• testing a new-to-me small-ish magnetic loop: alpha antenna
  • small and quick to deploy
  • park activation before this net
• repaired and re-tuned yagi
  • added a the hairpin patch to lower SWR
  • extra S-unit hearing 985
• last week, allstar node wouldn’t connect to 985 over phone network
  • connected to a parrot test node just fine
  • strange interference when the car shutoff that blocked any signal

Others

• W1RC, Mike:
  • got Allstar going with 985
• W8CRW, CR:
  • working on DTMF on Allstar
  • connecting phone to ethernet
• WA3VEE, Ron:
  • field day press release
• KC3RFG, Jim:
  • working through some RFI with a mic on HF
• W3MFB: Mike:
  • bands not great
• K3FHA, John:
  • organizing antenna switching on the desk
  • checking out some test equipment
• KC3TYX, Vic:
  • replaced fan in a power supply to be quiet
  • playing with 6m bazooka antenna for FT8
    • Connecticut, Nebraska, Minnesota, Florida, then it closed
• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • watching DXtracker, dxview and saw 6m openings
  • lots accomplished on Joe’s tower.
  • sketching next project
• KC3SCY, Luke:
  • acquired an AM radio kit to build
    • 7 transitor, superheterodyne, etc
    • soldering
  • PM/AM Net
  • listening to some CW
• WA3KFT, John:
  • mounted and using a Comet G9 right now
• N3CRE, Charlie:
• KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • having trouble using the wrong frequency
  • concrete base for a new tilt-over tower

Questions

• W3MFB, Mike:
  • On Simplex Net, he only hears a handful of people, so hard to tell when to jump in. Do others hear a bunch of people? What zone should he be?
    • WA3VEE, Ron:
      • Ron is way East, and doesn’t have a beam aiming West.
      • Rarely hears anyone but KC3OOK and W8CRW
    • KC3TYX, Vic:
      • wouldn’t hear anything for a while, but waited patiently for his section to get active.
      • notes changes in propagation and new people
    • KC3WWC, John:
      • good to note who you can contact simplex if you needed
    • KC3OOK, Bill:
      • what section? check-in with whomever you hear.
      • it’s expanded quite a bit beyond lancaster county
        • the name is actually now “central pa simplex net”
      • propagation varies quite a bit from week to week
      • nearby stations can hear very different sets of stations
      • Bill hears many of the stations now with current antenna
      • Good way to gauge antenna performance
      • just throw your callsign. maybe a relay can get it.
    • W8CRW, CR:
      • he can check-in with central or east, but propagation is very different.
• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • What’s a good depth for shelves and cabinets holding radios?
  • WA3KFT, John:
    • existing racks: 17-inches and 18-inches
    • try not to have too much protruding out the back of the chassis/rack: cables
  • W3GMS, Joe:
    • racks have no standard depth
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • ideally, you can get to the back of the equipment very easily
    • he finds 24-inches quite adequate
    • dual channel closetmaid is good for shelves/cabinets
    • give yourself as much depth as you can
  • KC3OOK, Bill:
    • looking at 18-20 inches
• KC3WWC, John:
  • Do others have trouble with allstar to 985 when tethered to a phone hotspot?
  • Differences controversy over HAMVOIP (closed source?) vs allstarlink v3 (open-source)?
  • W3GMS, Joe:
    • no complaints from anyone else
    • permission list is by node number, not network
  • KC3WWC, John:
    • I’ll need to continue to work on it myself.
• N3QNC, Joe:
  • What are people’s experience on 6M? What power?
  • W3MFB, Mike:
    • SSB, 70W
    • likes to run less power
    • FM repeater in honeybrook
  • WA3KFT, John:
    • runs 80-90W with a beam
    • SSB
    • used to use a 5W AM rig
    • antenna matters the most: height
  • N3QNC, Joe:
    • trying to do 6M for POTA, usually 5W
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • a number of nets on 6M. google or ARRL has a list: “south eastern pennsylvania”
• W3MFB, Mike:
  • Did anyone listen to shuttle missions? 120MHz, etc?
  • KC3WWC, John:
    • I’m pretty sure I used to listen to something in early 90s on scanner. Sounded like discussion of experiments, etc.
  • W3GMS, Joe:
    • Fort Mead, Maryland would rebroadcast on 75M.
    • Joe has a processor on display that was designed to process all audio from mission control.
    • He may have the only one that wasn’t used.

I activated US-9719 Susquehanna Riverlands with 2W on the new Mag Loop. It made for a very quick setup, and I tried different directions. I got 11 contacts on 40m.

I logged 11 contacts for the ARRL DIGI contest. The email from log system said I earned 41 points (based on distance). I kept it to 2W and 4W and mostly FT4 with some FT8.

YAGI Repairs

I straightened the elements, and replaced the driven elements that were loose with longer elements for sturdier mount. I trimmed the new elements to tune, and soldered a new hairpin match to further reduce SWR to 1.5:1. With this repair, I’m tickling S9 reception, again, listening to W3GMS (146.985) pointing in the their direction.

Simplex Net

I further tested by checking in to the West Control in Hellam Township with 5W and the YAGI aimed West. I didn’t hear many other people, and Central Control (W3NY) was booming.

I purchased the Alpha Antenna Alpha Loop Jr+ Mag Loop from Tom, KA3TKW. It’s built of a tuner box, loops of LMR400, and a tripod, and tunes 40m-10m.

Tuning is pretty cool with the geared box, but still pretty touchy. Tuning is very necessary: a band will be completely quiet until tuned, and then noise and signal really increases. I tried it inside, and it didn’t work so well: lots of inside RFI.

Outside, it worked much better, but the 80M EFHW is still better: higher, and broader bandwidth.

The directionality and tuning is neat I can wiggle the spacing of the inner loop to the outer loop to “adjust” induction / SWR. The high Q means efficiency, but I need to re-tune the capacitor any time I move around the band.

APRSDroid would often fail to reconnect to the UV-PRO: java.io.IOException: read failed, socket might closed or timeout, read ret: -1 The HT app would manage to reconnect OK. I would need to cycle power on the radio to get APRSDroid to reconnect. In APRSDroid, Preferences->Connection Preferences->Channel was set to 1. I blanked that channel setting, and now it may be reconnecting between stop and start of app, bluetooth, or distance.

As a side note, having the UV-PRO monitoring a frequency other than APRS may interfere with packet reception. I don’t see as many APRS packets when monitoring another repeater, probably due to interruptions from the non-APRS audio.

Morning Grind uses NetLogger to log, and it has an API I can use to scrape check-ins:

• https://www.netlogger.org/api/The%20NetLogger%20XML%20Data%20Service%20Interface%20Specification.pdf
• https://www.netlogger.org/api/GetActiveNets.php
• https://www.netlogger.org/api/GetCheckins.php?ServerName=NETLOGGER&NetName=The%20Morning%20Grind
• https://www.netlogger.org/api/GetPastNets.php
• https://www.netlogger.org/api/GetPastNetCheckins.php?ServerName=NETLOGGER&NetName=The%20Morning%20Grind&NetID=361909

The question of the day was: What games do you play? Lots of good discussion ensued. I offered Morsle, and W3EO offered free42, hp42 emulator.

DX Mentor Podcast 67 with KF8KI from QRZ.com was an excellent listen. I learned that QRZ.com has location in 2 places:

• user details from FCC
• logbook, update it for temporary location