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Amateur radio related diary

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Update 25/8/2024: After a few weeks of using the larger "flagship" radios I decided this morning it was time for a change, and a nostalgic one at that!

I moved one of my 2 Icom IC-756 radios into the operating position, once I had it connected it felt like meeting an old friend again! Way back from around 1998 till around 2003 these 2 IC-756's were my main contest and DX station. I was very active in contests back then so I spent a huge amount of time in front of those 2 radios. I am sure I have made more QSO's with the 2 IC-756's than with all my other radios combined.

I made a few CW and even a SSB contact with the IC-756 this morning, the DX bands were closed but maybe they will open a bit later. The IC-756 might be old now but it is still a great radio with a decent receiver and filters. I do have an extra 250kHz CW filter installed on the radio and it works really well.

The IC-756 will remain in the operating position for a while, we will see what I feel like using next, maybe I should work my way up the 75x and 76x range?

Icom IC-756, ancient but still great.

 
Update 24/8/2024: I managed to work a few DX stations yesterday on 15m so that is good news! Hopefully summer will bring some better conditions.

Today, from 4pm till 7pm local, the SARL HF CW contest was on the air. I was not really interested in competing, it is the usual SARL contest with silly rules plus I know there are not many CW operators on the air but I still decided to make a few contacts.

I ended up spending about 45 minutes in the contest. I worked 12 local stations, 11 on 40m and 1 on 20m. Most of the stations I worked replied to my CQ call but I did work a few who were calling. After that I did not hear any new stations so I QSY'ed to 10m (Only small portions of 80m, 40m and 20m were allowed for the SARL contest) so contacts on 10m could not count towards the contest.

I had a great time on 10m! I managed to work quite a few stations many of them with great signals. There was a YO contest going so lots of CW activity! I managed to work everyone I heard even running 5W. I did hear a huge pile-up for T30TT but I never heard the station, would have been a nice one to work!

Yaesu FTdx-5000MP doing duty the last few days

Hopefully the bands will keep on improving, with the SARL Field Day now less than 2 weeks away I am looking forward to camping and working some DX.

Update 19/8/2024: Band conditions are still really bad, for DX anyway, so it seems like most of my activity has been local recently. I suppose that is the way it is but I am really hoping things will improve soon. With my planned camping trip now less than 3 weeks away it would be terrible if I end up only making local contacts!

Not exactly great DX conditions!

I have now received the 120V step-down transformer so this morning I could test the Kenwood TS-950SDX to it's full capabilities. It outputs 150W on all bands so that is great, I am still getting great audio reports as well. Managed to work some CW stations with it this morning as well, the keying is smooth and the CW filters work well. The receive audio is also fantastic, great news!

220V to 120V transformer with more than the needed 700W capacity


Yaesu FT-1000MP mk5, Kenwood TS-950SDX and Yaesu FT-1000D, my station this morning

Update 18/8/2024: This morning I decided to do a bit of a comparison between the Yaesu FT-1000D and the Kenwood TS-950SDX. These two radios are from the same era, early to late 1990's. The FT-1000D is slightly older, around 2 years but back then they competed for market share.

They both have pro's and con's. They are both fantastic radios. The receiver on the TS-950SDX seems a bit quieter than the FT-1000D but it could be a difference in sensitivity as well, I would need to check with a signal generator. The filters seem better on the FT-1000D but it is close. The noise reduction on the Kenwood works really well on pulse type noise but the noise reduction on the Yaesu seems better for generic noise.

One point where I believe the Yaesu has a clear advantage is with the dual receivers. On the Yaesu you can use different modes between the main and sub RX, something that is not possible on the Kenwood. The Yaesu also has 2 antenna connectors so you can use a different antenna on the sub receiver, far better if the 2 receivers are on different bands.

I think I will compile a more detailed comparison between the 2 radios and post it as a separate article. For now I can say I am enjoying using both of them!

The Kenwood TS-950SDX above and the Yaesu FT-1000D below, both fantastic!

Update 17/8/2024: Today is my birthday, another year of amateur radio behind me and hopefully one ahead as well! Band conditions are still not great, I have only managed to make a few DX contacts the last week, mostly on 40m early morning with a few on 15m in the afternoon. At least 40m has been great the whole day locally allowing for some nice chats and catching up with a few old friends.

This weekend it was the annual "Light houses on the air" event. I believe there were 13 local lighthouses on the air, if that is the correct amount I did manage to have QSOs with all of them, mostly on 40m SSB but also a few on 40m CW. I did not hear any lighthouses on other bands.

Yesterday I decided to test my portable/field station setup in preparation for the SARL Field day in a few weeks time. I specifically wanted to test how well a dipole would work, for local QSO's, on 40m compared to the normal multi band EFHW I have been using recently. I cut and tuned a 40m dipole and put it up on my 8m Comet mast. The EFHW was up slightly higher on my 12m carbon mast. Due to the flexibility of the carbon mast I am no longer using the top, thin, sections so it was up 9-10m.

Working station on 40m and switching between the antennas quickly convinced me that even though the antennas performed similarly on strong signals the dipole had the edge on weak signals. With this in mind, and taking into account how important local QSO's will be on 40m with the current band conditions the decision was made to use both antennas for the upcoming field day. I am planning on using the dipole for 40m and the EFHW for the higher bands and DX if the bands should open.

It is more work to put up 2 masts but since it is a 26 hour, over night event I believe it is worthwhile.

I have manage to find a small 220V to 120V transformer, it was intended to work with a microscope but I decided it is large enough to at least allow me to switch on the Kenwood TS-950SDX. The good news is that the radio is working!

I did have to do quite a bit of cleaning on the radio, the controls were really dirty! The antenna tuner was also extremely noisy! I opened up the radio and cleaned plus oiled the moving parts in the tuner. Now it is extremely quite and very fast again.

The radio seems to be working well. I can only run 20-40W due to the limitation of the small transformer but all seems well. The receiver is really quiet. I have not really been able to check the sensitivity on the higher bands, hopefully we will get some opening soon.

Kenwood TS-950SDX on the air.

Update 14//8/2024: We have our local, SARL field day on 6 to 7 September. As I have stated before I am no longer actively competing in SARL contests but this could be fun! I have been looking for an excuse to go and camp somewhere in the bush and setup a field station. This could be the perfect excuse!

I think I should combine it with a POTA activation, that would add an extra layer of activity and fun!

Because it will be a field station (Single op, QRP) I can actually drive to the location so no need to keep everything extra light for a long hike. This will allow me to play with more than one antenna and maybe test/compare a few radios. I am thinking of taking a 10-80m EFHW antenna, this I can put up in the air using my 12m portable mast. I will also take my smaller Comet 8M mast and maybe put up a 40m dipole aimed more at local NVIS propagation.

I will also take my multi band 80-6m, vertical antenna. This should be more suited for working some DX stations.

I still need to decide where to go, there are a few local options, I will decide closer to the time, the weather will also be a factor in the final decision.

Update 13/8/2025: The good news is that the Kenwood TS-950SDX arrived today. The bad news is that sadly I have not been able to test it because it is a 120V/60Hz version! A little fact that the seller "forgot" to mention. Let's just say I am not impressed.

The external key-pad, that is needed to access the SSB and CW memories was also not included.

I am hoping the radio will be ok, sadly it was very poorly packed, one layer of single cardboard and a few layers of light weight bubble warp is NOT enough for a radio that weights 23KG! The box (it was a modified box so not sturdy anyway), was in pieces by the time I got it. The DSP cable connectors at the back of the radio were knocked out of the plugs.

So now I am waiting for the seller to see if he can find the key-pad and the 240-120V transformer that was supposed to come with the radio. To be quite honest I am not holding my breath, the transformer is not with him so even if it is found it would take at least a week to get to me and from the photo I have seen it looks like a home-brew unit and from the size it might not even provide the 700W minimum specified by Kenwood.

So I have gone ahead and ordered a nice 1KW unit from a local supplier, it will be here by 20 August. So it looks like I would have to wait till at least 20 August to see if the radio works. I have not had many deals with fellow hams that left me less than happy but this one did. Strangely the only other radio I ever bought that had a problem that was not mentioned was a Kenwood TS-930.

New (to me) Kenwood TS-950SDX

There is a bit of good news, I had a look at the installed filters and the radio does come with the optional 1.8kHz SSB and 500Hz CW filters installed. I would like to still add the optional 270Hz CW filter but I suppose I first need to check if everything is ok with the radio.

Optional YK-88SN-1 (1.8kHz SSB) and YK-88C-1 (500Hz CW) filters

I almost bought a Kenwood TS-870S from the same source, glad I did not! The only reason I did not buy it was that I remembered why I sold the TS-870S that I had before. The way the filters work on the 870 is that you have 2 3kHz filters in different IF stages. When you narrow down the filters they move in opposite directions and the bit where they overlap gives you your pass band.

This is great in theory but in practice there is a problem. The AGC is also derived from a IF stage BEFORE the filters. The result is that if there is a signal inside the 3kHz pass band but outside the final filter pass band this interfering signal will "pump" the AGC. The result is that you loose around 10dB of dynamic range.

This is the reason the TS-870S produced such a bad score on the Sherwood dynamic range tests. In practice the result is that especially on CW, where you can have many signals in a 3kHz pass band, the radio really suffers. I disliked it so much the TS-870S is one of the few radios I ever sold.

I almost forgot about this, glad I remembered in time!

Update 11/8/2025: Since I moved to my current QTH, almost 6 years ago, I have had no VHF/UHF activity other than a few satellite contacts. A while ago I discovered that there was one repeater, belonging to the PEARS club in Port Elizabeth, that I could receive well and even trigger with a handheld radio from home.

Sadly there seems to be little activity on the repeated but the last few days I have been leaving a radio switched on on the repeater frequency of 438.600MHz. This has so far resulted in 3 QSO's, I must admit that even though I have never been a repeater fan it is great to chat to some like minded people again!

I am even considering acquiring a VHF/UHF radio again for mobile use, it would also be useful as I am considering getting involved with motor rally communication again, we had great fun with it in the past. Time will tell if I get involved again.

My now ancient Icom IC-471E being used again, it has been at least 28 years since it was last switched on!

Update 9/8/2025: Things have been really quiet on the radio front, band conditions have been the worst I have seen during the last 5 cycles for this part of the cycle. Seems like we get regular SME's with the K index high most of the time. There has been some good periods but on average it has been rather bad.

My Raspberry Pi based Hermes project is now complete and working well. It is a fun system to use and it is really performing well. I find it amazing how little CPU/Memory resources the system is using on the Pi, it is running far better and smoother than with the same software on a top-end windows based laptop. Seems like Linux is just so efficient and light on resources compared to windows!

Other than a few local rag-chew QSO's on CW and SSB I have managed to work some CW DX but sadly nothing new. Hopefully the coming summer will produce better conditions as it usually does.

On the equipment front not much is new, I have been rotating radios in the operating position again. At the moment I am running the Yaesu FT-2000D, what a great radio! I love the full dual receive, the way Yaesu has implemented this, with 2 separate VFO knobs is so much better than the Icom way.

I have just added one radio to my collection, it is not here yet, should be here in 4 days. It is a pristine Kenwood TS-950SDX, a radio that is described by many as the best radio ever produced by Kenwood. It comes from the era (mid 1990's to early 2000's) that fits in well with the rest of my collection of "best and last of breed flagship" radios, before the SDR/digital age, by the 3 big brands. I have been looking for one in a good condition for years! At 23kg it is in the same size and weight class as the iconic Yaesu FT-1000D, another radio I love.

The TS-950SDX and the TL-922 amplifier was the combination sold by Kenwood as the "ultimate" station so I will pair one of my 2 TL-922's with the TS-950SDX for some nostalgic times.

I am really looking forward to trying it on the air! I will post some photos as soon as it is here.

Not my photo, (c)Rigpix, but this is what the Kenwood TS-950SDX looks like.

Update 19/7/2025: It is the winter leg of the SARL QRP contest today. I have not really competed in any SARL contest the last few years so I decided it was time to join in the QRP fun again!

I decided to combine it with a POTA activation. Since I did not have time for a lot of traveling I decided to activate my local POTA site, Suikerkop Hiking trail (ZA-0078) again.

After I planned everything I decided to just read the SARL rules for the QRP contest to make sure I do not make a fool of myself. Sadly I discovered that the rules specifically forbid combining the contest with any POTA/SOTA activity! Sorry, but I think that is just plain stupid! Now I remember why I do no compete in SARL contests, so many silly illogical and annoying rules....

Anyway, I decided to still go and have fun in the contest, I decided I would simply not send in the log to the SARL (as a silent protest!) and just make it a POTA activation.

I ended up having fun. Sadly no DX contacts, it was too early in the day (7:00 to 9:00 UTC) but I did manage to make quite a few local contacts on SSB and CW. Some of the contacts were made running only 1W!

Equipment consisted of my well loved Xiegu X6100 and an EFHW antenna held up with a 12m telescopic mast. Since there are no trees taller than 2m on the hiking trail I had to use a mast!

Minimalistic station.


Station and antenna, yes, that pole is VERY flexible!

I ended up running the whole 2 hours plus on the internal battery of the X6100, low power does have it's advantages. I am looking forward to spring and some warmer weather for more activations! It was only 2.5C when I started!

Update 14/7/2025: Band conditions have not been great! Because of that I have not spent much time on the air recently. I did spend quite a bit of time building my "PiHermes" SDR radio.

The radio consists of a Hermes Lite 2 SDR transceiver, a 100W linear amplifier and an automatic tuner all in a 3D printed box. Also in the box is a Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB) running PiHPSDR software. The radio has a 10.1" touch screen as well as Bluetooth connected mouse and keyboard.

The result is a fully stand-alone SDR radio that does not need an external computer, just power (12V) and an antenna! I will be doing a write-up on this soon and I might also publish the 3D STL files for the box.

The radio is really performing well, the Pi 5 has no problem handling the workload with no latency issues and has plenty CPU and memory resources spare to also run web browsers, WSJT, Winlink or any other software you might desire.

PiHermes on the air for the first time!


Running 2 receivers at the same time.

Update 29/6/2025: ARRL field day 2025! I normally do not specifically go and try to work US stations during the ARRL field day but this morning I felt like spending some time in nature. Since I have not setup a field station in a very long time I decided to change from my usual minimalistic portable setup and take a chair, table and a "full-size" radio for a change.

My setup consisted of my trusty Icom IC-7300, not the ideal radio if you have more than one radio running at the same time but since this was a single-operator single-radio setup it was fine. My antenna consisted of the EFHW and a 12m telescopic pole.

I only worked a few US stations but it was fun! I also worked some local stations and the 2.5 hour session turned out to be real fun with quite a bit of rag-chewing, both on SSB and CW.

I should do this more often!

Relaxed SSB/CW early morning session!


The view

Update 24/5/2025: Band conditions have been particularly bad recently, DX band conditions anyway. Locally the 40m band has been great, even during the middle of the day. At night 80 has also been fine for local contacts.

There was huge excitement in the DX community when Marion Island was activated as ZS8W. As expected the pileups were huge. Sadly the operator concentrated on FT8. He did work short periods of CW and apparently he also made a few SSB contacts but only to friends. His QSO rates on CW were quite low, sometimes less than one QSO per minute. I am not sure if the pileups were too large or if he had bad QRM/QRN but the result was that it was not easy to work him on CW and that lead to huge frustration on the bands. As per usual that also brought out the worst in some operators with lots of deliberate QRM and bad messages on the DX clusters. I managed to work him on 9 band-slots but only 2 of those were CW. I heard him very strong on 10m as well but only for a few minutes every time before he went QRT.

I am happy that I did manage to work him for a new entity on QRP but it could have been better.

Our local AWA (Antique Wireless Association) now runs an early Saturday morning net specifically for older radios, great fun! So far I have only used my Yaesu FT-901DM and the Icom IC-701 on the net but I am hoping to get my Kenwood TS-520S and TS-930 going again as well. I would also like to get at least one of my two Yaesu FT-200's going again as well. Something interesting to do!

The old (47 years!) FT-901DM is still perfect. Great receiver and the output is still more than 100W with the original 6146B valves in the final.

Yaesu FT-901DM on the air, 1978 vintage.

Update 3/4/2025: Sadly I have not been active so far this year. I often listen to a few stations in the morning on 40m but I only have 2 QSO's in the log so far in 2025!  Both were CW DX contacts just for fun.

With winter around the corner I hope to do a few POTA activations soon, it has simply been too hot during the summer to go hiking. I had fun last year with POTA so hoping to have some more fun soon.

The results were released for the 2024 CQ WW DX CW contest. I managed to reasonably well but, as expected, it would need a serious effort to compete with stations in Europe and North America as they are simply so much closer to lots of DXCC entities. Running QRP makes it really difficult to be heard in Europe and North America when the bands are so crowded. But it was still fun, maybe I will do it again in 2025.

Here is my certificate.

At least I managed #1 in Africa and South Africa as well as setting new country and zone records.

Hope to be posting more regularly in the near future!

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