Getting back to my roots…with CW

Today I activated park US-2169 with the Ten Tec Scout and only used CW.

This was a pleasant change from the FT8 I have been using so much recently. I was actually planning on switching to SSB then FT8 as well and use all three modes in one sitting…but…CW was working SOOOOOO well.

I also decided to setup at the picnic table by the canyon rim so I could use a 41’ wire antenna and a tuner. This allowed me to go up to 10 meters as I checked the spot page and a bunch of people was already there. I worked on getting the antenna tuned a while, only to find that I had used it wrong. Once I figured this out, I was able to get it to tune to about 1.5:1 and this is perfectly fine for a Ten Tec.

I was blown away by what happened next.

Here is what I took with me today… all those cases have different radios in them. The orange case is the sBitx (my goto FT8 rig in the field) the green case is the Ten Tec Argonaut 5 and the tan case is the Ten Tec Scout. I was loaded for bear. Lol. I was going to use the Scout for CW and SSB and then switch to the sBitx for FT8. Then why did I bring the Argonaut 5 out? Because the keyer and paddle are in that case that I wanted to use. HaHa. I also used the tuner and some cabling out of that kit as well.

Let’s talk about the Scout for a minute. This is a unique radio in that to change bands you change these modules that plug into the front of the radio. I have the whole set of band modules for my Scout and keep them in the hard case with the radio. It is an interesting little radio that also has a unique tuning device. The radio has a PTO instead of a VFO. So the knob has a distinctive resistance when you turn it as it is a mechanical screw driving a core into an inductor. This also means it remembers the frequency you are on without the need for a memory battery.

I kept the nanoVNA on the table for tuning when switching bands and I elevated the tuner on a pair of lineman pliers to make tuning a little easier. My Scout is unmodified from original and works really well. It does have some quirks but nothing that is a deal breaker.

The station as operated today. I like this spot as it is also in the public view and can sometimes spark conversations with passerbys. I had a conversation with a man and his wife on this day and he was in the signal corps in Korea and was copying the code as they walked by. He waxed nostalgic for a few minutes and we had a wonderful conversation and then they were gone…

The below photo shows the tree where I strung my antenna up to and you can see the table in the background it went down to. I like to string up a huge 65’ wire most of the time but today I just used my 41’ random wire since it was already in the kit.

These new LiFePO3 batteries are truly amazing to me. They weigh almost nothing and I operated for two straight hours at 50 watts and the battery was still at 13.26VDC. This blows my mind. I can pick this battery up with two fingers! I also ran it through my fuse distribution block so everything was fused.

This log shows how awesome the band was on this day. I started on 10 meters CW as I was listening around and the first call I copied was England! That was when I knew it was going to be good. I didn’t get him, but shortly after I started calling CQ and 6 out of the next 10 contacts were DX!!! The first one was Chile and I am pretty sure that is the first Chilean I have ever worked.

After that I noticed the rest were from the European area of the world which is still awesome! The other domestic callsigns were still very far away and I was stoked to mess with other bands as well to see what I could hear. After these initial 10 QSOs, I found that the band was fading so I figured I had hopped on the air at just the right time and caught a wave. At this realisation, I figured I would give 17 meters a try and see what happens. It was much more difficult for some reason, not much activity at all… I guess everyone was up on 10 meters… haha.

So after that, I figured I would just test 15 meters before calling it quits for the day. Well, I must have hit a band opening on 15 meters as well. The calls started coming in and as you can see below I got South Africa! That is also a first for me!!! I normally cant hear Africa since I use less than ideal antennas. I had a blast on 15 meters and the logbook reflects that. I even worked two “regulars” that I know by name but have never met in person! KJ7DT - Paul in Idaho and K9IS (who I have written about before) - Steven in Wisconsin. Both of these men have worked me well over 50 times and I am pretty sure Paul is over 100!

It is really cool to get “Z” calls in the log though as I rarely hear this call letter on the air. I always think it is way off, and sometimes it is, like the South African station but then I get one and it next door in the Caymen Islands too…lol.

This was an awesome day and I am glad you followed along in the story with me. Until next time, I hope to work you on the air!

WK4DS - David

73

Triple mode activation at US-2169 with 2 radios!

Today was a good day for POTA as I was able to get contacts with 3 different modes in a single activation. Did I mention it rained too?

So today saw the deployment of so many hard shell cases to the park. I went ahead and staged both radios in the truck cab so if it started raining (which it did) I could have access to both radios anyway without having to get outside in the rain. Today saw me use the sBitx V3 as well as the Ten Tec Scout 555 Amateur Transceiver. I like Ten Tec radios when it comes to CW so I wanted the Scout for this mode. I forgot though that I have not outfitted this radio with an external keyer like I did the Argonaut 5. So with the Argonaut still tucked away in the bed of the truck, I just decided to send everything today by hand.

As you can see in the photo below, I ran the hamsticks so I could stay dry inside the truck if it started raining… seems today that was a good call. I only put out the 20 meter radials and the 20 meter ham stick. I thought about hopping on 15 meters for a little bit but the closer the rain clouds got the less I wanted to be handling lightening rods…. I mean, antennas in these conditions.

I checked it with the nanoVNA and the shape of the curve today was such that the CW portion was really well centered and was 1.1:1 on SWR with the chart climbing to 2:1 at the upper band edge. This was completely usable so I didnt bother to tune anything further and just got on the air…and by “tune” I mean “moving the radials around till the SWR plot moves to where I want it in the frequency spectrum”…lol. I can push and pull the SWR null on the VNA by changing the location of the radials in relation to the truck. I am assuming that I am simply tinkering with the capacitance and inductance of the radials as compared to the antenna and it allows me to correct for things…most of the time.

I first worked a few SSB stations before giving up and heading down to the CW portion of the band to see what I could find down there. Seems there was plenty to find as once I setup on frequency and called CQ a couple of times, I had a nice little pileup that lasted for about 15 minutes straight. I was able to work 15 contacts in that time as well. For me, this is “efficient” CW and really fun.

SSB seemed to be thin on stations today and the band was not really happy with this mode, I struggled to get just 5 contacts in the log today on this mode and normally it is much easier to land many more contacts here with the 50 watts that I was able to use. Maybe I bumped my mic gain and had it turned down or something, I just wasn’t getting any takers on SSB for some reason…

The Ten Tec Scout 555 is almost the perfect POTA radio in my book. It needs a nice brick wall IF crystal filter in my opinion, to be fair, as nearby stations would bleed in on the QSO with their energy sometimes. I could tighten up the IF filter width, but the stations would still numb the receiver occasionally and I think a nice 500hz 8 pole crystal filter would be pretty sweet here to solve that… I am looking at a nice audio filter but who knows…I might just try making an IF filter myself at some point. Once I had cleared the pile up I put away the Ten Tec Scout 555 and deployed the HF Signals sBitx V3 (mine is actually a V2 but I have performed the V3 update so going forward I am going to call it a V3)

The only mode I used the sBitx on today was FT8. I wanted to work a few FT8 contacts as well and had synced the time with the internet prior to leaving the house today so I knew it would be good to go. Boy did it deliver on the promise of getting me some FT8 contacts! Once again I stayed on 20 meters and just ran with it as I am also a little bit lazy at times and this was an easy win for me...haha.

I really like the layout and implementation of the sBitx. It is a really fun little radio. Although this radio is missing some stuff inside but that it what makes it so economical too. Things that some people might call “nonnegotiable” like shielding between the RF and computer sections… but I digress. It works for me even with the little rough around the edges stuff here and there.

Now, below is what the sky started looking like by the time I finished playing with CW and decided to get on with FT8. It was scary dark and ominous and then the rain started to fall. I really didn’t mind the rain as I had taped up the coax connection on the antenna and was confident it wouldn’t give me any trouble. What I didn’t factor in was the lightening…

Well, the rain fell and got more intense and more intense as I happily worked FT8 on 20 meters. After a few minutes, the waterfall on the radio exhibited a strange phenomenon. It turned yellow and red (the colors representing the strongest signals)… the whole thing was showing a 599 +30dB signal that covered the entire segment of 20 meters I was watching. This happened to be 6khz of spectrum on the waterfall and at first I thought something was wrong with the radio. Turns out, the radio is fine, this is simply what happens when the atmosphere charges up with static right before a lightening strike! I noticed after a couple of cycles that I would hear thunder off in the distance and then the waterfall would return to normal and slowly start to turn yellow and red again, till I would hear thunder and the cycle would repeat. This was fascinating to say the least, what was more intriguing though was that I continued to make contacts with that much band noise in play. FT8 is a true weak signal mode if I ever saw one.

This is what I am speculating is static charge up in the atmosphere in the photo above of the FT8 waterfall. For those that dont know, this mode does a sort of “talk and listen” thing where your radio sends a message for 15 seconds, the listens for 15 seconds for the other station. So the waterfall wont display anything while I am transmitting since the receiver is turned off. You can see that the cycle right before I sent and how the band was fine and then I send for 15 seconds and then when I go back to listen again, the band is filled with noise.

Let’s shift gears for a minute, the internet is an amazing place. I made this contact at 16:53 UTC and got this email notification just a few minutes later. That is pretty awesome to be honest about it. I remember mailing cards and it might take a month to get one back…

After I finished the activation and waited on the storm to pass, I wanted to do a simple test of the sBitx for a ham that had sent an email asking about the sBitx and how bad were the “birdies” on any given band. I dialed through the 20 meter CW portion up the the FT8 region (14.074mhz) and found what is noted below. In the above photo, you can see the strongest birdie I encountered on this band. That color means it is quite strong in signal level, so if a station was on that frequency, you would not hear it.

I noticed some were strong but they are also very localized. Literally only 200hz wide at the most. I don’t know if this is really band or not, but there were 4 distinct birdies in just the CW portion of the band. If you were worried about this before and didn’t want to have buyers remorse later, then consider me “taking one for the team” as I didn’t have this intel before. I can still recommend this radio for field expedient FT8 and POTA activations as it just works. Sometimes it will ignore a reply to your CQ on FT8 so you have to pay attention to the display on each cycle, but it mostly catches them.

Something I have learned about propagation is that the three modes I am using carry different levels of signal quality to make them effective. SSB (single side band for the newcomer) takes the award for needing the best band conditions of my three regular POTA modes. If the bands wont allow SSB to work or all the stations are “down in the noise” then I move to CW which requires much less propagation to work for me (especially with a good receiver). BUT it pales in comparison to FT8 when it comes to signal to noise ratio. I am blown away that when CW contacts are fading in and out and are in the noise floor that FT8 will be active and I can easily make contacts with it.

This is a day when SSB was “in the mud” but CW was rocking and rolling and had it been in poor shape, I would have went to FT8 for my ten before quitting and going to lunch. Lol

73 - WK4DS

POTA on the 4th of July…hold for second operator.

Today I went for a morning POTA activation at US-2169 and on my way over to the park, I gave KG4WBI (Roger) a call and invited him to join me. He agreed and after a little while of my working some CW on 15 meters, he arrived with a thermos of coffee and an eagerness to make some contacts!

Since I was ahead of him, I went ahead and setup the station complete with a full compliment of radials so I could use any band I wanted (of the 5 I have hamsticks for at this time...) and got it tuned up on 15 meters by making a slight adjustment to one of the radials. As you can see, I chose the usual spot for today’s activation. This was on purpose as I knew the lower area (which is actually where I kind of wanted to go, to be honest) was really busy with holiday traffic. This also meant that there would be more RF noise down there from inverters in the campground and such too.

This upper parking lot doesn’t see near as much traffic so I knew that it would be a much quieter RF environment. Sometimes you just have to choose between comfort (the lower area is in the shade under a bunch of old growth trees) and a quieter location so I could hear better. I chose to hear better since I knew Roger was coming. It wasn’t too bad, but it did get fairly hot towards the end of the activation to be honest about it.

With the antenna strung up and adjusted, I need to choose a radio. The radio turned out to be the Ten Tec Scout 555 because of the power output on SSB(50 watts). I knew we would be using SSB today and wanted to be able to make a bunch of contacts with it since Roger was going to be there as I am secretly addicting him to POTA a little at a time…hehehe. It worked as we operated together while he was there and I made sure he got enough contacts to get his first activation from US-2169. Now to get him an account and to upload his first log so all the hunters will get credit for his contacts too.

The Scout is a really great POTA rig as it has minimal controls on the front to the point that it has what you need and nothing else to be honest about it. It needs a couple more in my opinion and I may just get another one to build into something fun with some more front panel controls on it. But for now, this one works perfectly and I don’t want to risk killing it as I use it as my SSB POTA machine now. Before this one I had only made a handful of SSB contacts at parks and now I have dozens in the time since purchasing this radio. I really love the compact nature of the radio to be honest, I compare it to my Argonaut 5 in usability with more RF output…

Here is another insider tip…You can connect the CW key and the microphone at the same time, this doesn’t seem unusual till you find out there is no mode switch to go between these two modes. You simply start keying CW on the key and it will transmit CW, and then you can key the microphone and transmit SSB in the next moment with no other interaction with the radio other than picking up the microphone. This is really awesome, but it comes with a caveat. The radio is transmitting CW on the SSB mode. This means that you have to adjust the frequency off from the desired frequency by the amount of the side tone, which is about 700 hertz. On top of that, you also have to shift the radio opposite of the sideband direction you are using. So if your on 40 meters, then you have to be 700hz above the desired frequency and if your on 15 meters, then you have to be 700hz below the frequency. This took me a little bit to figure out too as I am used to being able to simply dial the frequency and call it good. So in the photo below, I am actually on 21.042mhz… As the radio warmed up, it shifted in frequency a little. This is why it is important to do two things, let the radio warm up before getting on the air and look at the display from time to time to confirm things have not changed.

What is nice about taking a pile of pelican style cases (none of them are actually pelican cases) is that you can have a ton of extra gear with you so if something goes awry, you have spares. Another thing that happens is you will have access to your favorite hardware like my N3ZN cw key! So I get it out of the case for the Argonaut 5, which is where I store it normally and use it for this activation. The Scout has two key inputs on the back, one if for a straight key and the other is for a paddle. Well, if I use my Picokeyer, then it goes into the straight key input. The paddle input is fed to a Curtis keyer chip and that is built into the radio. The only downside to this keyer, which works beautifully BTW, is that it does’t have memories. I like having memories for POTA as you end up sending some information A LOT and it takes some of the sending burden off of me so I can log and check the radio and such. Turning the page on the log book seems to be a good reason to use memories on the keyer too… lol. If you have the need for a dead simple CW memory keyer, I can recommend the Hamgadgets Picokeyer VERY HIGHLY, it works flawlessly and runs what seems like forever on a single coin cell battery. I am closing in on a year for this one and it is showing no signs of needing a battery yet…

No matter how many radios you take though, if you forget your log book, you will end up logging in your journal…like I did today. I luckily took my journal with me as I like to make notes about all sorts of stuff while I am out and this is another good reason to have it. This is not the first time I have defaulted to this notebook either, it has bailed me out more than once…lol. I did have plenty of pens though so that wasn’t a problem.

Since I got there before Roger, I built the radio out and hopped on 15 meters CW and started calling CW POTA and got some really interesting answers to that call! I worked a station in the UK as well as Germany! The Hamstick is not the worst antenna out there is what I have some to understand. If conditions are not too bad, I can easily work Europe and South America on 15 meters above. Today was no different. I was able to get a couple of DX stations as well as K2E special event station!

Once Roger arrived we switched over to SSB and attempted to make some contacts first on 15 meters, and then 17 meters with literally zero answers on SSB. You see, Roger is still working on his code so he prefers SSB at this time for things like this. So rather than frustrate him with having to listen to code he is struggling with, I opted to set the hook deep and get on SSB.

I think my idea worked, he was really stoked to work so many ops in such a short time. We had a blast and everyone was super nice while we bumbled around handing the mic back and fourth. It was hilarious at times, but we had fun so I am happy. It happened so fast that I had to come up with some really fast shorthand to know which calls we had given “Two Op status” to and which ones I worked by myself. Plus the notebook was also the wrong one and the calls were happening so much faster on SSB, the notebook is a mess.

I can honestly say that taking a second op along to do multi-op POTA is really fun and if you have not done it yet, consider giving it a shot sometime.

The below photo shows you what it looks like to make sure you are hydrated on these hot summer days in Georgia. I have a Nalgene bottle which I am using first since it is not insulated and then a Hydra-flask which is insulated and makes for cool water even when it is burning hot outside of the bottle. On top of that we were drinking coffee while there too, that is just silly if you think about it…

This is the messiest logbook I think I have ever created. Notes just scribbled here and there, edits run roughshod through out the 5 pages, and you can see that it means we had a great 4th of July activation. Thank you to all the hunters that came out to support us on the air and I look forward to recreating something like this again in the near future.

73

David - WK4DS