In the Shack

Worked All Continents

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Well that was a long time coming. Was excited to finally get my the last confirmed QSL needed from Pieter V51PJ in Namibia to successfully achieve working all continents. Africa and Antarctica have been (unsurprisingly) difficult to obtain a QSL from, but with Igor operating RI1ANE and exceptional propagation conditions, it had left Africa as … Read more

RD Contest 2017

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RTTY QSOs during 2017 RD Contest
RTTY QSOs during 2017 RD Contest

The 2017 RD Contest was over the weekend of August 12-13 and I was keen to participate this year, having been unable to participate last year due to my involvement in the Festival of Bright Ideas. With Tasmania winning the state vs state competition, I was keen to do my bit to defend that title.

With the waning solar cycle leading to pretty poor propagation conditions in my near NVIS antenna setup, my focus had been working local stations on VHF and higher bands. Critically, I was now in a position to take advantage of the allowed RTTY digital mode, which was worth double points on 144Mhz and 430Mhz, 4 points on the 23cm band, and a triple multiplier between 1am and 6am meaning there was up to 12 points per contact on offer!

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Power Distribution in the Shack

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WARS Powerpole Distribution Box
WARS Powerpole Distribution Box

Once you start accumulating more than a couple of pieces of radio equipment, the questions around power supply quickly comes up. Radios can quite easily draw in excess of 15 Amps @ 13.8 Volts depending on the model. My two main HF rigs have a specification of 23.8 Amps and 18 Amps respectively. This is generally more than your standard off-the-shelf supply.

For domestic consumption, linear type supplies (Transformers) are only really viable up to 25-30amps. After that the cost starts going up significantly, as does the weight of the unit. Thankfully switch-mode technology seems to have come a long way in recent years, which resulted in me purchasing a 40 Amp power supply, and no noticeable RF QRM.

With power sorted out, the next thing to deal with is how to get the power from the supply to the devices. With a 40 Amp supply, you can power a whole lot of things, but I quickly discovered the posts only allowed me to connect 2 devices after I attached lugs to the leads. Also, lugs generally are not that portable going across different power supplies – what works on my QTH setup will not work in my car, or at someone else’s house. There had to be a better way.

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QSL Cards

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“A QSL Card is the final courtesy of a QSO” – ARRL Operating Manual for Radio Amateurs In recent years online QSL services such as eQSL and the ARRL Logbook of the World would have you believe that confirming DX QSOs has moved into the electronic world and QSL cards are no longer required, however I … Read more

Testing Coax for Faults

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It’s been a while since I was regularly operating my station and much of the coax that is in use has been exposed to the outside environment for over 10 years. I know the best way of testing coax is by using specialised sweep tools, but having only basic testing equipment available I though I … Read more

Day 1

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Today is the first day of getting back on air. It’s been a pretty full on day actually as I never anticipated the amount of things I needed to do to get everything working. I guess before I continue, I should mention one of these arrived in the mail for me yesterday: The Yaesu FT-DX1200 … Read more