New statistics from the Kiwi

Some new statistics from the HF Kiwi

Now gathering SNR and spectrograph from the Kiwi into a RRD database.

This is pretty neat and can be seen live here: http://dg7lan.mooo.com:8075

Find the whole SDR setup here: SDR Setup

Changed the OpenWebRX for a KiWiSDR now! :)

 

Got my brand new KiwiSDR up and running now. 

The OpenWebRX was really cool but doesn't handle multiuser operation very well. Even with 2 HF boards attached I always had issues when more than one user connected.

Find the Kiwi here: http://dg7lan.mooo.com:8073 or on http://rx.kiwisdr.com among all the others.

For now I can tell, that thing is great. But I can't tell how it performs reception wise. 

Have fun trying yourself!

Andy

Playing with OpenWebRX / Raspberry / SDRPlay

 I haven't been that active on HF during the last month. At least not transmitting a lot. 

Another cool thing I have been playing with is OpenWebRX though.

The setup is as follows:

• Raspberry PI4 / 8GB / running @2GHz
• SDR-Play SDR receiver (had also the AirSpy and another RTL dongle connected in parallel but I use them for different things now)
• HyEndFed Antenna (5m ASL)

The OpenWebRX Software is maintained by Jakob, DD5JFK. It can run on many platforms like Intel or Raspberry. I did some slight mods to match my personal preferences

Decoding FT4 on 30m

 (Like AGC mod, default bandwidth, snap to grid tuning...).

One of the coolest things is that OWRX supports digital modes "out of the box" - It can be used to monitor FT8 transmissions, WSPR and many others. 

It can even act as a APRS gate. Since I don't have a good spot for VHF this would be a little boring here.

If you want to try it out on your Raspberry there are premade images on the website. 

...and this is PSK31

Give it a try: 

My receiver (goes QRT if I operate my transceiver since I don't have multiple antennas)

The OpenWebRX Website

Link to my GitHub (if you are looking for my modifications) 

JT9 - not dead!

In times of #stayhome and corona crisis some of us have plenty of time to play hamradio.

Today I did some JT9 and it is everything but dead!!

Current setup: Icom IC7300, 75W power into the HyEndfed 10-20-40m Antenna

Thanks for the QSOs!!

A new antenna for the home shack - HyEndFed

I still have limited space for antennas. But I needed a replacement for the magnetic loop antenna.

Using FT8 to check the Antenna

On our last portable activity we used a HyEndFed antenna with impressive results. So I decided to buy one that fits into the garden. It is the 40-20-10m band version for 200w PEP.

The antenna is now mounted 5m above ground. Of cause that's way too low but it's the only way to install it here. The installation is easy. The SWR was ok out of the box. I shortened the wire a little and thats it. You see the results down below. SWR is good enough for now. I know it could be tune better if one takes a little more time for that. I had to shorten the wire before the coil a little and keep it a little longer after the coil to get the SWR right on 40m. 

In any event, the antenna works really good for only 12m lenght. I love it. 

How do these endfed antennas work? Have a look at the following links  - They explain it really well.

https://pa3hho.wordpress.com/end-fed-antennes/multiany-band-end-fed-english/

https://buildthings.wordpress.com/ham-radio-end-fed-antenna-80m-40m-20-m-15m-10m-164-matching-network-balun/

And this is where I bought mine from. I sure would buy it again since it's nicely built and looks rock solid. https://www.hyendcompany.nl/

10m SWR - could use a little tweaking but works fine already

12m SWR - The antenna is not made for 12m but works with the internal tuner

15m - not working

17m - not working

20m - working well enough

30m - not working :(

40m - working - I cut a little too short

80m - not working

160m - tunenable but not efficient 

Portable at St Peter Ording Beach (or close to...)

Portable at St Peter Ording Beach (at least that was the plan)

Left: 12m pole with vertical
Right: 10m alloy pole with HyEndfed

DL8LBY (Martin) and DG7LAN (thats me) went portable on 10-19-2019
The plan was to go to the beach like we did the years before. But due to a really high tide level we had to find another location. We simply didn't want to get stuck with the car in salt water. 

We went to a nearby parking lot. Fantastic location. Just 40m off from the main road. Quiet little place. Since it was raining most of the day, no tourists were expected. About an hour later, we had the antennas up and tuned. The Hyendfed worked out of the box. Mounted with the feedpoint on the 10m pole and configured as a sloper to a 30m away fence. The vertical groundplane needed a little more tuning since we used it for the first time. 

first measurement: Vertical GP

inside the rats nest

After 30 minutes of operating, a woman in a small jeep showed up. She introduced herself as being from the NABU (Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union) which is one of the strongest misinterpretation of nature protection in Germany. She told us to get down the antennas and leave the place since we were actually 'disturbing the birds'. Really? Finally we left the place since she also explained that we were on private ground. So we went to a different parking lot a few km away. 30 minutes after raising the endfed antenna she showed up again. Seems like she drives around the whole day to f*ck ham radio operators. After the same discussion we decided to ignore her more or less and continued our work. The Work All Germany contest already started and we focused on getting some points into the log. No birds were killed during the whole operation!!

final setup: 10m pole with HyEndfed
sloping to the parkinglot-sign



Really interesting: The HyEndfed antenna did perform really good. In most cases much better than my 40m/30m vertical. Didn't have a chance to compare on 40m DX though. But I can really recommend it for portable operation. It was the version with 80m included, 22m long, max. 200 Watt.

Equipment used:

2 telescopic masts

2 car stands

Icom 7300

Yaesu FT991a
MINI1300 VNA

AGM battery
VW Touareg

New award on eQSL: E-Grid HF FT8

Hi guys!

There's a new award available on eQSL. It's the "E-Grid HF FT8". 
I applied immediately with 601 grids squares in FT8, made out of 3672 FT8 QSOs in total.
That was an easy one ;)