Back home again and the 472kHz transverter

Icefield Parkway, Alberta

After nearly a couple of astounding weeks in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada my wife and I are now back home. The scenery and wildlife were just amazing, especially the bears like the one below seen just a few metres away from us.  Although I only managed about an hour of shallow sleep on the plane back from Calgary last night I decided it was better to fight the jet-lag and get on with some chores rather than crash out and wake at 2am tomorrow.

One of the 8 black bears we encountered - this one VERY closely

Once the lawns have been trimmed and the hedge cut, I've decided to crack on with the design of a new transverter for 472-479kHz as the next project. Already there is activity from Germany and there are a number of NDB beacons to allow the receiver part to be checked. Jan 1st 2013 (the likely date of release in the UK) will arrive far too soon.

I am trying to decide on the choice of IF as I want to use an unmodified FT817. 28MHz will allow 472-479kHz to appear "in-band", but at 28MHz the start-up drift as the LO settles will still be some tens of Hertz. This hasn't proved problematic with WSPR, so guess this is my choice. At least the dial will directly read the "right" frequency e.g. 28.477kHz will correspond to 477kHz.

In view of the picture above, I am not sure what power the transverter will use bear-foot (sorry, weak joke).

Knife Edge Refraction at VHF

Currently I am sitting in a log cabin (with a log fire) surrounded by snow capped mountain peaks wondering how 2m propagation would be from here. Sharp mountains often allow good propagation into screened valleys by refraction over the peaks sometimes with strong signals. Unfortunately I have no ham gear (apart from Echolink) to try it. Instead I am just enjoying the views. 10cm snow forecast tomorrow here, HI.

Canadian Rockies

For the last few days I've been in the Canadian Rockies. The scenery is truly the very best I've seen (inland) anywhere on Earth. The 300km drive today from Banff to Jasper had snow capped mountains and azure blue lakes and rivers all the way. Only seen 1 HF antenna so far and that was from the Rocky Mountaineer train from Vancouver to Banff.

Germany gets 472-479kHz

Surprisingly, news on the wires today that German amateurs have been granted early access to the new MF allocation. I wonder if OFCOM will release it early too?

"LF Today" RSGB book on special offer

This excellent introduction to LF/MF amateur radio is available from the RSGB bookshop at just £7.99 and I can recommend it. It helped me a lot when I started and still gets referred to regularly.

CW on 136kHz

Mike G3XDV reported normal speed CW activity on 136kHz with QSOs with G3KEV and DK7FC's normal speed CW beacon. Although harder work with QRP, 136kHz is an ideal band for CW contacts. A lot of people are saddened that digital weak signal modes have rather put CW on the shelf.

VE7 Repeaters

Now 23 hours without sleep having arrived in Vancouver after a long flight from the UK. Currently in the hotel room trying to work some BC locals via Echolink connected repeaters. What I really need is SLEEP though!

First country gets 472kHz allocation

Monaco is reported (by 3A2LF) to have allocated the 472-479kHz band to radio amateurs from May 18th as a secondary allocation with a maximum power of 1W EIRP. Others are likely to follow in the following 12 months, we hope.

FT817 replacement - 2 years away

The following (extract from a) post from Bryan KE6ZGP appeared on the FT817 Yahoo group in the last few days.

"Tom interviewed the Yaesu rep about their new FT-DX3000 and the FT-1D, when all was said and done he started taking questions, I went ahead and asked about a possible replacement for the FT-817. The rep then stated - due to some parts (like the LCD screen) either being no longer available or extremely hard to find, they will likely replace the FT-817 in a couple years. He wasn't sure when exactly, R&D hasn't started on anything, but the earliest we can expect to hear any solid talk is two years from now."

Now I assume this data is good and the rep from Yaesu is properly informed. If so, then any replacement to the FT817 is at least 2 years away. This gives Elecraft a clear field for a couple of years with their new KX3. The only other QRP radio on the horizon is the Ten Tec Argonaut VI which is due out towards the end of the autumn this year.

Hendricks QRP Kits

The BitX SSB transceiver on the QRP Kits website

http://www.qrpkits.com/ have some really nice kits on their pages these days. If you are new to QRP then they offer a very nice way to join in the fun. One example is the very neat version of the famous BitX 20m SSB transceiver designed in India originally. They also have plenty of CW kits and accessory kits like ATUs, attenuators and simple pieces of test gear. I've never actually built any of these kits but they look well designed with clear building instructions.