Are ICOM and Yaesu struggling?

I am beginning to wonder if some of the large Japanese companies are getting tired of amateur radio.

When ICOM introduced the IC7300, Yaesu looked like they reacted and quickly brought out the FT991A. Yaesu seems to have "gone off the boil" in recent years. System Fusion is being pushed, but years after DSTAR. Most of us remember Betamax, VHS and Video 8. The last thing we want is a standards war.

There were no new products launched at Dayton, at least nothing was reported. I am beginning to think the Japanese have decided to introduce fewer amateur radio products. Perhaps they see a dwindling market with less profits in the coming years?

As for an FT817 successor - I think this is never happening.

Dayton Hamvention 2017

This was last weekend. It is possible I missed announcements, but nothing new appears to have been announced by the big manufacturers.

I have never been, nor am I likely to, but this is the big one. It moved venues this year. Looking at the photos, most attendees look old.

See http://hamvention.org/ .

OFCOM reviewing 410-470MHz band

OFCOM is carrying out a strategic review of the 410-470MHz band. This is a busy part of the spectrum in the UK and others want access. The 70cm amateur band is here and under pressure. At times, it seems devoid of activity. We have secondary access only. Use it or lose it, especially as OFCOM derives no revenue from the amateur service.  It would not surprise me if we end up with fewer frequencies at 70cm or we find our band shared with more users.

See http://ofcom.createsend1.com/t/\ViewEmail/i/3E3A949980CE1596/59D1BD3EA2F08127C67FD2F38AC4859C

Antenna replacement?

I'm considering replacements for a couple of my antennas.

For years, I have used a Par EF10/20/40 end fed wire on these 3 bands. It works even though very low, but I am sure I could get out better.

Also, my big-wheel on 2m has done me well for a couple of years.

In the garage I have a little used SRC X80 vertical. This is essentially a Rybakov vertical fed via a UNUN so it can be matched on most HF bands with an auto ATU. I have heard mixed results with this antenna. As a vertical it is likely to be noisy on HF and it could be worse than my horizontal Par. It is also in need of grounding as lightning protection, mainly from static. It flexes quite a bit, so might be damaged by high winds.

I could replace my big-wheel with a Homebase-10 10m halo. As an omni antenna it would give me all round coverage and I know this works. With strapped feeders, I might be able to use the coax as an antenna on other HF  bands too.

It would also be good to get a better 630m antenna up.

Sadly, I probably need help these days as I get wobbly on ladders.

ICOM's new R8600 RX

Reading the latest RadCom I was amazed to read that the likely selling price of the new ICOM R8600 receiver based on the IC7300 is £2500!!!

Is this a joke? I was expecting the price to be below £1000.

I don't doubt this is a nice radio, but the price is stupid. At this price I hope no-one buys it and the dealers learn a lesson - don't take us for a ride to make inflated profits. By all means make a profit, but I smell the nasty side of capitalism.

See http://www.icomamerica.com/en/products/amateur/receivers/r8600/default.aspx

New Yaesu and ICOM products

As yet, I have not heard about any new product announcements by the big players coming out of Dayton. I was expecting to hear news by now. I shall have to do another trawl for news.

VLF tests continue

Experiments at VLF by amateurs continue with DK7FC leading those TXing on bands from 970Hz to 8270Hz. People as far away as Italy and the UK have been trying to receive these transmissions, some successfully.

Unlike commercial stations, these are amateurs using modest powers and "back yard" antennas. At one time people said, "we'll never get over the garden wall at VLF". Instead, signals are being received over hundreds and sometimes thousands of kilometres. I think in the past I have copied 5 different amateur VLF signals from as far away as Germany and the Czech Republic.

The secret is long integration periods, very narrow bandwidths and great stability. Casual listening will not work. Amateur VLF work requires care and dedication, quite different from reception of commercial VLF stations with huge powers and antennas.

10m WSPR beacon

A few years ago I bought a 500mW (TX only) WSPR beacon from W5OLF. It has been copied in every continent including Antarctica even with my poor 10m antenna. I am not sure if these are still being sold but I was very impressed. It is small, simple and works.

Once sync'd to time (either using a BC receiver or internet time) it is totally stand alone and does not need a PC or external audio. It means I can operate on 6m WSPR or other modes (with the FT817 and PC) at the same time as using the WSPR beacon on 10m.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/w5olf

UPDATE 0820z: The 10m WSPR beacon has just been turned on.

UPDATE 0932z: No spots, as yet, of my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon.

UPDATE 1630z: With 8 different stations spotting my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon, the Es season is definitely here! Best DX today, so far, is OH2VMP (1734km).

Optical Communications

It is some years (before my stroke in 2013) that I last tried seriously with optical communications using red LEDs that I bought at low cost via eBay. These days, I expect a google will bring up lots of links. This is a fun branch of our hobby, with very low costs and lots of homebrewing. This is a branch of the hobby I'd like to try again. There is much to learn.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/optical .

Crystal set DXing

This is not as easy as it once was as there are fewer English language AM broadcast stations left on the traditional shortwave broadcast bands. Nonetheless, you may be surprised by what you hear.

My best DX on a simple crystal set is Radio Australia (broadcasting from Australia, not via a relay), All India Radio, Cuba and the VOA from Liberia years ago. You can even envelope detect amateur SSB signals although IDing these can be tricky. Remember, all the power is provided by the TX with none required at the RX end.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/crystalset

Tenbox - simple 10m AM transceiver

Years ago, before my stroke, I started work on the Tenbox, a very simple AM transceiver for 10m. As this used a super-regen receiver, this would really only work on AM and not be suitable for DX. It was to have been a "cross town" natterer. Sadly, my stroke got in the way and the rig was never completed.

I had intentions of making this in the style of the old Heathkit lunchbox rigs of old. It would make a nice club project on a simple PCB. When I left it, it needed a loudspeaker amplifier and another 10dB power on TX, maybe a simple linear amplifier.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/tenbox .

VLF Transmitter

This image has been posted before.

The link takes you to my 5W transmitter that I used a few years ago from my old QTH to cover 6km by utilities assisted earth-mode. I tried a test using this TX over a 32km radiated path without success.  A test in 2014 from the new QTH was a total failure! The TX is based on a TDA2003 audio IC. It used a keyer to produce a preprogrammed message in either CW or QRSS3.

At some point I want to do more VLF tests but my health has been against this. I need to improve my earth-electrode "antenna" before doing more tests.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vlf/8-97khz-earth-mode-transmitter

137kHz transverter

Click circuit to enlarge

It is some time since I tried 137kHz. In fact, I have not tried this band at this QTH. The last time I used this band was at the QTH we moved from in summer 2013, shortly before my stroke. I need to try this band from this QTH.

If you are starting up on the band you may want to look at my TX transverter. With my 20m spaced earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground this was regularly copied by G8HUH some 250km away on WSPR. The ERP with this "antenna" is only about 30uW.  Sadly, the FT817 is deaf at 137kHz.

As you will see, it is very similar to my 472kHz design although this is a transmit only design. It is designed to be used with the FT817 at 500mW.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/mflf/137khz_tvrtr .

WISPY WSPR beacon

Some time before my stroke in 2013, I designed a simple WSPR beacon for 10m that used low cost 14.060MHz QRP crystals doubled. These pulled up sufficiently.

This beacon was copied all across the globe. It uses a DSB transmitter, so the power goes out on two frequencies so the power in the WSPR slot is half. With the Es season approaching you may like to build it. 10m should be fun May-September in the Northern Hemisphere.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/wispytx

The PA could be replaced by paralleled 2N3904s instead of the 2N3866 to get more power for a few pence. 2N3904s are very very cheap. If you look at my Tenbox (also on my website) you will see the idea. Don't forget the emitter resistors so power is shared!

New amateur record at 970Hz

From Stefan DK7FC:

"Hi ULF friends,

Saturday night i build an active E field receiver optimised for ULF. It is using a BF862 front-end as a source follower and a LT1028 with 20 dB gain. There are 3 RC filter stages cutting off at 10 kHz. Furthermore there are two isolation transformers in series, 4:1=>1:10. In the center they are parallel resonated. This gives a further good low pass filtering and some additional gain below 3 kHz. It was a quick construction without thinking to much, soldered at night, 02 AM local time. The antenna probe is a 1m long steel rod (for welding) with 2 mm diameter. The antenna height above ground was just 2m. There were no trees in a radius of 20 m.

For transmitting i'm again using the modified 5 kV mains transformer. At 970 Hz, the antenna impedance is 342 kOhm! So i can just run 15 mA antenna current which means 3 nW ERP. The new ALC build inside SpecLab holds the 15 mA accurately and protects the transformer that way! SpecLab is a very well usable tool for transmitting on VLF/ULF, thanks to DL4YHF!!
The transmit frequency was 970.005 Hz.

I didn't expect much, thought that this distance may be to optimistic. The last signals were very weak on my tree grabber in 3.5 km distance. But that tree grabber is using loop antennas and they are not sensitive in that frequency range. So there was a certain chance to see a trace, maybe in 212 uHz???
I drove to JN49JL00EB and built up the receiver there because it is a quiet location, a nice region for a walk and, there is a good restaurant not to far!!!!!! So it was easy to spend some time there and let the Raspi (using a GPS module on the right soundcard channel, with PPS+NMEA) record for nearly 3 hours at 24 kS/s.
This is the path between TX and RX: http://no.nonsense.ee/qth/map.html?qth=JN49JL00EB&from=jn49ik00wd  A distance of 7.2 km, or 0.023 wavelengths or 14% of the distance to the far field border. So it is still a near field experiment.
It is about twice the distance i've managed in the last test.

Now i'm back in the shack, analysing the recording and to my surprise i can see a strong trace of 30 dB SNR in 424 uHz!!! See attachments in 424 uHz and 3.8 mHz.

All this makes me much more optimistic to reach farer distances. I tell you i will crack the far field border on that 309 km band! That would be a distance of 49.3 km.

There must have been some local thunderstorms not to far away, because there was QRN in the observed spectrum. So the SNR can be improved a bit by doing the next test in the late morning hours. Also the resonance of the transformers seem to be a bit to low, so maybe i can reach a bit more sensitivity when optimising that resonance. It could further help to rise the effective height of the antenna. Flat fields rather than the deep forest is the region to select now....

73, Stefan"

MUF

It certainly seems that HF conditions get better nearer the equator. http://www.hamqsl.com/solar3.html shows a diagram of MUF (maximum usable frequencies) and going closer to the equator does seem to help. I am definitely no propagation expert!

Waters and Stanton move

The shop of Waters and Stanton is moving to Portsmouth on April 1st.

472kHz WSPR webpage

My main website at www.g3xbm.co.uk  has a new page on 472kHz WSPR.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/mflf/472wspr

481THz NLOS (over the horizon)

Before my stroke in 2013 I enjoyed building and operating optical communications gear. My stroke has rather scuppered this, for now! Although I had one over 10km line-of sight speech contact with G4HJW/P, my main interest was weak signal, over the horizon, communication. I did tests at over 8km non line-of-sight using QRSS3. Although there was no evidence of the optical signal in the sky, the QRSS3 signal was clearly decoded on the PC at the receive end. Overall, I was left with the impression that much further would have been possible.

At some point I really want to continue this work. All my optical gear was home-made using material that was low cost and easily obtained. Test gear for optical work was simple and low cost too. In my view, optical work is more rewarding than microwaves and the test gear simpler.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/optical

DX via noctilucent clouds?

These high altitude clouds appear most often around the summer solstice and support radar returns. It has yet to be tried, but it means very long distance UHF, SHF and microwave paths may be possible using these clouds. Who will try?

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/noctilucent .