I am attaching a couple of photos from the recent major Aurora opening:

1. What AU CW signals look like on an Icom IC-7300 with a Ukrainian 144 MHz transverter, using a small 144 MHz beam aimed NorthWest. The hissy raspy AU CW signals look fuzzy and fat compared to normal CW signals.

2. The visible Aurora in FN43eu.

73, Chris WB2VVV

Class: 1D, Single Op / Unassisted / Low Power / Analog
ARRL Section: RI
Club: CTRI Contest Group

Bands – QSOs
80m – 15
40m – 25
20m – 40
15m – 25
10m – 8
6m – 2

115 QSOs X 2 + 50 = 280 points
Cabillo Log submitted Sunday with web form (in lieu of dupe sheet).

73, Chris WB2VVV

CQ WPX SSB Contest

Had not planned to operate, but heard the high activity and decided to operate Friday evening and then some of Saturday – S&P only. Went skiing on Sunday.

Excellent band conditions with big pileups! By accident I worked the Sable Island crew CY0S that traveled there to be QRV for this contest on 40m.

START-OF-LOG: 3.0
LOCATION: RI
CALLSIGN: WB2VVV
CLUB: CTRI Contest Group
CONTEST: CQ-WPX-SSB
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-ASSISTED: NON-ASSISTED
CATEGORY-BAND: ALL
CATEGORY-MODE: SSB
CATEGORY-POWER: LOW
CATEGORY-STATION: FIXED
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
CATEGORY-OVERLAY: TB-WIRES
CLAIMED-SCORE: 74606
OPERATORS: WB2VVV

Band QSOs
7 MHz 50
14 MHz 60
21 MHz 28
28 MHz 43
Total 181

WB2VVV enjoyed very nice 10m band conditions this weekend. We are clearly seeing the upward climb in sunspots during Solar Cycle 25, with many European and even Australia contacts logged. I even logged a nice contact with W1XX

Contest: ARRL-10
Call Sign: WB2VVV
Category: Single Operator, Phone Only, High Power
Operator: SINGLE-OP
Assisted: NON-ASSISTED
Mode: SSB
Power: HIGH
Band: 10M
Location: RI
Club: CTRI Contest Group
QSOs in Log: 386
Raw Score: 772 Qpts x 104 Mults = 80,288
Operation: mostly Search & Pounce, plus some Running

Highlight: when the station I was working in Hawaii stopped running and asked me what kind of antenna I was using, because I was being received at 30 dB over S9 on his end, all the way from Rhode Island. I told him my antenna was a 3 Element SteppIR beam at 65′, driven by a homebrew LDMOS 1kW amplifier.

I certainly kept my post and beam shack’s little wood-stove roaring much of the weekend…73, Chris WB2VVV

Field Day – #4 in US and Canada for Category 2A
10,568 points with 9 members participating

June VHF Contest – #5 Affiliated Local Club in US and Canada
65,850 points with 4 member’s scores

All per the December QST (which arrived today)

I liked this one so sharing…

I was setting up to operate the ARRL VHF Contest this past weekend and had the idea of also using my recently purchased IC-7300 as a Panadapter/Band-Scope to monitor the Receive IF Outputs of my VHF/UHF transverters. I don’t have much experience using Band-Scopes and figured it might be helpful, and that it should work since a VHF band is converted to a 28 MHz IF, and the IC-7300 could be set up to show 200 KHz of that 28 MHz IF output on its Band-Scope screen.

While I was cabling it to my transverter control box I thought to myself it could be very bad if I should accidentally find a way to transmit on the IC-7300 up into my transverters’ RX outputs and also into my main JRC IF transceiver’s receiver. It only took a half hour to make up the Receiver Protector in the picture, and it turned out that I was actually glad I did. At several points due to inactivity on the IC-7300 controls its screen timed out and went blank with the power button flashing, so I tapped the power button for the display to come back to life. About the third time I did that, I accidentally also hit the “Transmit” button which is immediately below the power button and the IC-7300 went into transmit. Within a couple of seconds I hit that button again to stop it from transmitting, and thankfully no harm was done. Funny that I had forgotten all about the front panel transmit button when I was removing my microphone and hand key connections. Maybe it didn’t actually transmit much as its mode was set to SSB with no microphone connected and the power turned down, or possibly there was a small spike and the Receiver Protector actually did what it was supposed to do.

My conclusion was that having a Band-Scope was in fact helpful, and the under $1K brand new deal I got on my IC-7300 from DX Engineering was now even sweeter in that it added a Band-Scope to my existing VHF/UHF setup. The Contest was however as lackluster as January VHF contests typically are, with the highlights being some microwave enhancement/scatter during the heaviest part of the snowfall, and working a Rover on 50/144/222/432 MHz with “no gain” horizontal omni loops on his vehicle up on Hogback Mountain in FN32.

This type of receiver protector could be helpful with separate receive antennas for the low bands, and also to protect an SDR dongle being used as a Band-Scope with a PC. The “Antenna” jack in my case was the end connected to the potential RF source, my IC-7300. The “To Receiver” end went to my IF connection to protect the transverters’ IF outputs and the IF transceiver’s receiver input. It’s a very simple circuit which in testing both in the line, and out of the line, showed no receive loss while receiving a weak VHF beacon on the IC-7300 via the transverter, visually looking at the CW characters formed on its waterfall display as well as just listening to the beacon on the IC-7300. The beacon was the same strength with and without the Receiver Protector.

Best 73, Chris WB2VVV

My 40m rotary dipole had twisted on the mast from the recent winds we have had and today I went up to re-align it. The wind had settled to under 20 mph by late afternoon, but by the time I got up there a snow squall started – really more like ice pellets. All in it was less than a 2 hour simple job, but I thought I would share a picture of the now re-aligned booms (which mitigate interaction between the antennas). My XYL took the picture of me up there. I would also have liked to have included front and back pictures of me in my full body harness with fall arrest, lanyards, and my add-on Kangaroo Pouch for tools, but was unable to select more than one image to add tp the post. That would have made a good follow-up to the recent tower safety presentation we had! Best 73, and Happy New Year, Chris WB2VVV

This antenna is basically one half of a full wave loop held up by a single support, over a counterpoise wire laying on the ground with ground rods at each end to complete the loop by mirror image, and fed at the close end for vertical polarization with a 4:1 balun for an easy match for the tuner. A pdf doc can be emailed to anyone requesting it.

Back in the 1990s when I lived in NNJ on a small lot in dense suburbs I had a pretty compact antenna system for 160m and started operating the ARRL 160m contest. I made antenna improvements and tracked them with contest results. Before long I was also given the opportunity to guest op at several stations with larger and more elaborate 160m antennas than mine. In reference to the experience gained operating a number of different antennas on 160m my conclusions for this particular simple antenna are as follows:
1. Very Quiet Antenna – Hears better than most other stations hear.
2. Only requires a single support 35 to 40 feet high.
3. Requires 2 ground rods (8 feet long), one at each end, and a counterpoise wire laying on the ground between them.
4. Antenna is Grounded from Lightning.
5. Requires a 4:1 Balun for feeding at the closest end, to match to inexpensive RG-6 coax feedline running to the shack, and is an easy match for a tuner.
6. Handles 1 KW power – if the balun is up to the task (mine seems to be).
7. Can work both DX and local with this antenna. Works to Europe, California, Texas, Florida, as well as in between. It really doesn’t seem very directional.
8. This single transceiving antenna performs at least as well as many typically installed separate transmit and receive antennas – by eliminating noise coupling from the noisy transmit antenna situated too close to the quiet receive antenna(s).
9. This antenna outperforms an inverted vee that would fit in exactly the same space, and also a much larger horizontal loop 540 feet around.
10. This simple antenna can be outperformed by more elaborate antenna systems including a good vertical or inverted L with many radials for transmitting, spaced over 500 feet from an array of switched directional receive-only antennas with a preamplifier and incorporating receiver protection during transmit.
73, Chris WB2VVV

This weekend during the annual 160 meter International Contest I experienced heavy interference on 1.840 MHz, up to 18 dB above my noise floor from 1.835 – 1.845 MHz, and knocking out some ten (10) lanes of potential CW operation during a once per year international operating event.

I also regularly encounter this same type of interference on 40 meter CW at 7.045 – 7.060 MHz where SKCC members and others operate slower conversational CW with straight hand keys/bugs and often antique radios. This is a small area of the band where CW skill building is commonly taking place – until you plop a 10 KHz wide noisemaker there.

In all cases this digital interference sounds like what I hear on 50.3 MHz – which is why I think it is the new modern digital modulation which some misinformed folks say causes no interference to other operators. I do agree that up on 50.3 MHz this causes no interference to the Beacons, CW, and SSB operation.

I have already written Bob W1YRC about this growing interference problem, and asked for escalation.

I was able to operate the ARRL 160 meter contest this past weekend with the same antenna I had just put up a couple of years ago to make 50 or so QRP QSOs – because I was afraid back then of scorching the home-brew 4:1 balun I had “temporarily” installed. This is an interesting antenna that has only one single central support that is only 35-40 feet high, and receives very well, so it is a single transceiving antenna. Running QRP I wasn’t terribly convinced that it transmitted very well since it was pretty obvious that a lot of stations weren’t hearing me – though having previously operated QRP on other bands at other times I knew this is quite normal when running QRP.

Naturally as with other good antennas it fell down between then and now – the central support rope became abraded and broke. With it back up, and with the same questionable home-brew balun I decided to try operating this year’s contest QRO and started the contest running only 300 Watts and as the hours passed by and I gained more confidence in my still “temporary” balun. I slowly worked my way up to 1 KW and the balun held up fine with my intermittent Search & Pounce operating style. The log says I made 175 QSOs including 7 DX QSOs, and stateside I was able to work out to California, Texas, and Florida. Operating QRO was so much easier with less repeats, though I again concluded I could hear better than 90% of the stations I worked. OTOH, without a wall of stations between us some of the overseas stations were hearing me very well and I was able to work them on the first call on pretty clear frequencies with no repeats – as I think very few folks were even hearing them at all. I ended up with 20,034 points for the club, Single Op – No Assistance – High Power.

If anyone has further interest in my 160 meter transceiving antenna I would be happy to provide more details.

WB2VVV was QRV from home in FN41CR (Foster), and submitted the following score:

Band/Grids/QSOs
50/11/28
144/15/39
222/9/18
432/10/20
903/2/3
1296/3/5

Total # Grids worked: 50
Total # QSOs: 113
Total Score: 8350

Single Op – Low Power Category

There was no E-Skip on 6 meters. Sunday morning did have decent Tropo down the coast as far as FM08, which was worked on 144 and 432 MHz as those were the only bands available to work at W4IY in FM08.

One interesting station worked was W3BFC who was operating remotely from his home in a retirement community with his remoted IC-7100 2 meter transmitter in FM28 putting out 50 Watts on SSB at the base of a 500′ tower with a small omnidirectional horizontal polarization antenna at the top of the tower, fed with some 500 feet of 7/8 inch Heliax, so only 25 Watts getting to the antenna. He had a pile-up going as FM28 is a rare and needed multiplier. He will be running a net on Saturday nights at 9:30 PM for those interested in checking into FM28.

I uploaded an image of my small rooftop antenna array used for VHF/UHF Contests. It’s all on one mast to aim at the station I’m working on as many bands as possible.
73, Chris, WB2VVV

WB2VVV was QRV for the June ARRL VHF Contest in the Single Op Unassisted Low Power Category.

Log as submitted:

MHZ   Grids   QSOs
___________________
50       81    174
144      14     30
222       8     12
432       7      9
903       4      4
1296      3      3
___________________
Total   118    233
Score: 31,239

Thanks to those members whose QSOs made it into my log! It was certainly nice to see 6 meters open to the West and South on Sunday with varying Sporadic E Skip. I was also pleased to be able able to hear 2 stations clearly on 2304 MHz but just didn’t have enough transmitter to be heard with only 5 Watts of the allowed 50 Watts.

73, Chris WB2VVV

I was up my tower today in the nice wx to realign some antennas that were twisted on the mast and saw the remains of a massive Hornets Nest under my top plate. Wow, that would have been an unpleasant climb with a quick descent had I gone up there before the big windstorm blew their nest off the tower. I also fixed my 160m antenna and made 60 QRP Qs this weekend to check it out – and to make sure our big guns XX and AN had the RI multiplier in their logs. Purely S&P with such low power and interesting which stations can hear and which can’t. Worked as far West as MO. I will send in my paper log later on for what the puny score is worth. 73, Chris