3.4 Ghz QSO party

this coming Sunday 21st February, (from 10am to 12noon AEDST) is the inaugural  3.4 GHz QSO party,  an idea from the Geelong ARC to promote activity on the 3.4 GHz (9cm) band, based on the recent source of ex-commercial  surplused panels which have been modified to 3.4 GHz.

There will be a group in Geelong area, some more in VK5 and a group in Sydney basin to try and make as many contacts as possible.   In Sydney we have VK2JDS coming down from Bathurst to operate from Kurrajong Heights, matt VK2DAG and Gary VK2KYP up Central Coast,  Nick VK2FS, Geoff VK2AVR operating from Terrey Hills  and I to operate from North Head.

Not sure if the Brisbane microwave guys have got their  panels converted and operational yet.

For those interested in gettng onto 3.4GHz the Geelong ARC now have some more panels for sale, see
Geelong ARC 3.4 GHz Project

4th October, 2015 - my first 3.4Ghz contact, 0110 to 0115 UTC, worked VK2JDS and VK2AVR/p , distance 500 metres at QF46, we finished modifications and tested our transverter units that came from Geelong ARC, .75w o/p FM, 60/9 signals at each end, ready to do some serious 3.4 GHz terrestrial activity. Now have 1296Mhz, 3.4GHz and 10Ghz transverters ready to go.

http://vk3atl.org/3400.php

23cm EME portable activity - 2nd October 2015

VK2KFJ/p long weekend 23cm EME activity, all on JT65C, using 5 metre dish and 120w from QF46

2nd Oct 2015, 2205 utc, PA3CQE, Frans, JO21 Nederlands, -11dB 1296.064, Az 303deg, El 14deg, Doppler -770Hz

2nd Oct 2015, 2211 utc, VK5FA, Andy, QF95mm, -26dB, 1296.070, Az 301deg El 12.5deg, Doppler -3kHz

2nd Oct 2015, 2225 utc, UA9YLU,Victor, MO92hx, -13dB 1296.070, Az 300deg, El 10.6deg, Doppler -1.8khz

some new beacons

VK1RSB   Canberra

144.410     On-air, temporary vertical antenna  (FSK)

432.410     constructed , awaiting installation   (FSK)

1296.410   constructed , awaiting installation   (direct CW)

Dual "big wheels" horizontal antennas planned will be used for all 3 x bands.

 

VK2RSF   Nimmitabel

144.414    On-air

432.414    On-air

1296.414  planned 

of most interest to me is the  23cm beacons, these will be good for test references from Sydney.

Linux updates and WSJT

I updated my Linux boxes, Debian 7.3 to 7.4, Fedora 18 to 20, Ubuntu 13.10 to 14.04 LTS and Centos in 6.5 final. 

Cant go to Centos 7 as they only releasing a 64bit version, will get a 64bit box when the 32 bit server dies. 

Wondering what new adventures lay ahead trying to get WSJT and WSPR compiled and running on these latest Linux releases ...... mmmmmm

I did download the latest offering of WSJT from John Nagotch, to suit Ubuntu 14.05 "Trusty",
WSJT 9.7 r3639,  John kindly compiles different versions of WSJT and WSJTX for various releases of Ubuntu, which makes for a quick download and install for those not in a position to compile WSJT/WSJTX for Ubuntu,  you can obtain them from  this URL       https://launchpad.net/~jnogatch/+ppa-packages

 It installed fine, runs fine, but the audio interfaces that were compiled into this binary dont work with my Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook,  so its back to downloading from berlios repository and try again to compile it myself, although, I will try the qmake-qt4 as this seemed to be the new path for doing a make, using the development suite from     http://qt-project.org/  as mentioned in the WSJT Development forum discussions.

1296 Mhz and 10 GHz transverters

I started documenting the building of some transverter kits for 1296 Mhz (23cm) and 10 GHz (3cm) to inspire others to try (what I consider is) this new frontier of amateur radio.

I say "a new frontier", as the proliferation of kits and surplus of microwave gear, opens the opportunities of experimenting on microwave bands to more people.

If you have never looked, then go look at VK5EME Minikits  and VK3XDK websites.

anyway, here is my microwave page:

http://www.qsl.net/vk2kfj/microwave.html

SDR update

if you had played with,  or attempted to play with those little USB TV dongles,  e.g. the black dongle that Andrew VK3BQ sent as link for on ebay end of last year.  The black rtl2838 based dongle is more sensitive and less prone to image signals than the white rtl2832 based dongle we had used in the past.

I can advise that the  SDR#  (sdrSharp) website have greatly  improved their download and install package and install procedures, it's now a much easier task. And the rtlsdr.org site have also improved their install procedures instructions, for those using RTL based dongles.

The latest Zadig USB driver installer is much improved too. Note: two versions of Zadig, one for XP and another version  for Vista,Win7 & Win8.

begin here at the SDR# downloads area:

http://sdrsharp.com/index.php/downloads

which includes links to install procedures on rtlsdr.org for MS Windows and Linux

i.e.

http://rtlsdr.org/softwarewindows

Somehow I broke my SDR# installation on my notebook last year whilst trying to update it and could not get it running properly, but I did the download and reinstall yesterday and now it all works great, I can even swap between dongles to compare them, both dongles work fine. Really pleased with it now.

recent VHF/UHF/SHF DX

last week was pretty good for propagation from Sydney, with the High pressure cells sitting over the Tasman sea for days, we were presented with consistent tropo ducting up and down the coast of NSW and across the pond to ZL as well as trops across the Great Australian Bight which provided paths from vk6 to vk5, vk3.

As far as paths from Sydney, we had openings to Tamworth to both their 146.750 and 439.950 repeaters,  paths to Buladelah 147.100 regularly, good paths to south coast such as 146.825 near Bega, 146.625 Goulburn  was strong on quite a few occassions, in fact one day it was 60/9, with Mt Ginini 146.950, and the local Canberra repeaters 146.725 and 147.175 heard on occassions. One one night I found 147.025 from Mt Canobolis (Orange) accessible, I called someone to come up on it, but that repeater faded into the noise before we could make a contact.

monday night this week, heard activity on 146.700 near Nowra.

Last week several VK2 and VK4's made it across the pond to ZL1 on 2m,70cm and 23cm SSB, even ZL1TPH/p was receiving the Dural VK2RWI 1296.420 beacon on more than one day, that's pretty impressive, but makes me optimistic that more regular 23cm contacts across to ZL are probable. It provides me with more incentive to get 23cm SSB gear active and a dish up and aimed at ZL next summer.

I did note that the tropo just does not extend inland and with enough intensity for contacts on 2/70/23 to ZL, I think the inland inversion ducting is the much more common propagation mode, which of course occurs mainly at night.

Kenwood TR9130 and TR9500 modifications

I finally got a round to documenting some mods I did to my Kenwood TR-9130 2metre All-Mode trasceiver and TR-9500 70cm All-mode transceiver.  Basically I replaced the incandescant lamp with green LEDs to provide a better backlit Signal meter, plus some other improvements.


see the modifications here on my website:

http://www.qsl.net/vk2kfj/tr9130_tr9500.html

23cm repeater testing

went to Long Reef on the coast, to see if I could key up the Newcastle 23cm repeater, yes, it works, s0, not as strong as I thought it would, comparing to Somersby VK2RAG it was about s4.
It was enough to provide proof of concept of the path.
Could not key Chatswood or Dural 23cm repeaters.
Next will try from North Head.