Sunspots and solar flux

The recent upturn in the sunspot count seems to have stalled a bit, although the rolling average does appear to point to an upturn which should result in improving conditions this autumn and winter. Solar flux levels remain below 70 still and don't seem in a hurry to rise.

However, 6m is still lively with sporadic-E and continues to liven up this magic band.

See http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/

Another SixBox QSO

This afternoon I worked G3PTQ in Bottisham, 6kms away with the 50mW Sixbox AM transceiver. Report was RS41 (weak, but 80% readable). Then Terry mentioned he was using a low horizontal dipole, so signals could easily have been some 10-20dB (2-3 S points) stronger had he had a vertical antenna. This little transceiver is definitely proving useful for local 6m contacts.

IOTA contest - 10m QRP

For a few hours today I managed some operating on 10m QRP in the IOTA contest. No great DX (best was Cyprus) but I did work a couple of stations when running just 500mW pep. They didn't appear to notice the low power and still gave me 59! For a little while I tried calling some of the stronger stations with 50mW pep, but in the limited time I had the best I got was a G3X.. QRZ? at that power. With 50mW on CW it would have been quite easy.

Interestingly I heard GD (Isle of Man) and GJ (Jersey) on 10m SSB today. Both are usually too near to work or hear. Unfortunately I didn't managed to raise them. Pity as they would have been new DXCC entities for me on the band.

SixBox (6m) and FredBox (2m) - /P tests

This evening I managed 16kms contacts with both the SixBox 6m 40mW AM transceiver and with the Fredbox 2m 10mW AM transceiver. QSOs were from Aldreth, Cambs, to Swaffham Prior.

Signals from the SixBox were copied by Andrew G6ALB when I was TXing with a 6m 1/4 wave antenna on a magmount on the car roof. On the superregen RX there was solid copy of G6ALB's 6m AM signal. Andrew uses a Diamond V2000 vertical, which recent discussions have confirmed are NOT as effective as a true 1/2 wave vertical on 6m. Clearly if Andrew had even a 2 el beam the QSO would have been a very decent one.

After finishing on 6m QRP, we moved to 2m AM to try some tests with the 2m Fredbox. A solid QSO was quickly achieved with the 10mW Fredbox using the 6m 1/4 wave antenna on the car magmount. This acts as a 3/4 wave antenna on 2m. I then tried the same antenna on the Fredbox handheld. Again, a solid 2-way QSO at 16kms distance. Switching over to a 1/4 wave whip on the handheld Fredbox resulted in a weaker, but just usable signal and QSO (same signal level as on the 6m SixBox). Finally, I tried the Fredbox handheld with a small helical antenna. Although Andrew could just detect this, no real QSO was possible.

So, with the V2000 in use at the far end of the contact, 40mW AM on 6m was not as strong as 10mW AM on 2m. Notheless, it was fun to give both rigs a portable outing and make some contacts.

The picture shows me during the Fredbox QSO using the 3/4 wave whip on the Fredbox.

Ham radio and young people?

Last night I gave my "Kitchen Table Minimalist Radio" talk at the Peterborough Radio Club. Everyone was very welcoming and, to my surprise, there was a very good number of people there to hear me. Afterwards quite a lot of the group came up to take a look at some of the homebrew gear that I had made and talked about.

One thing that struck me, again, is how few young people there were there. Having given similar talks in 3 clubs in East Anglia now, one can count on one hand the number of youngsters (boys/girls) at the meetings. OK, it could be my subject did not appeal to them, but I think this is a more general issue and one that we HAVE to address seriously or the hobby will die with us in another 20 years or so.

The RSGB (and I suspect the ARRL) have initiatives such as GB4FUN to help this shortfall of youngsters coming into the hobby. I feel that it is in the schools, youth clubs and scout groups that we have to inspire kids with the magic of radio.

Even after 50 years, radio still is magical for me. I just wish I could help to "spread the word" to today's young people. Also, industry NEEDS new radio engineers before the oldies die out!

V2000 vertical on 6m

Several recent local tests on 6m lead me to believe the V2000 triband vertical is not that good for local working. It is fine for DXing but signals around 15-25 miles away are weaker than I'd expect. Maybe the polarisation is not as truly vertical as I had believed? I can access the 6m repeater 25 miles away OK and can work stations, but at levels lower than I would have expected. Essentially the V2000 should be like a vertical halfwave on 50MHz, so this is a bit puzzling. In the past I had assumed it to be a pretty good antenna, but maybe not.

SixBox testing and "super" 6m DX

Back home in Cambridgeshire now and, sadly, was unable to find anyone within a 15-20 mile radius when in S.Devon with whom to test the SixBox QRP AM rig. This despite calling for several DAYS on the local 6m and 2m repeaters.

The Torbay 6m FM repeater was a good signal and I could access it well, but I heard not one person using it! No-one even replied to a call through it.

I had plenty of 6m DX QSOs on SSB using the magmount on the car and 5W though, and heard (but not worked) some remarkable transcontinental DX on the band from South America.

So, back to more modest aims, I shall be on the lookout for stations in East Cambs to do further range testing the SixBox. Let me know if you have 6m vertical and AM and are likely to be workable with 50mW AM from East Cambridgeshire so we can try a test. I am located in Burwell and have a reasonable takeoff to the west and north.

Peterborough Talk - Wed July 22nd

This Wednesday I am giving my "Kitchen Sink Radio" talk at the Peterborough Radio Club. I will put the presentation on my website after the event. At the moment I am hoping my wife's WinXP PC survives as it has two keys which packed up last week. I need this PC for the slideshow. Arghhh!!

6m Super DX

For the last few days I have been in South Devon on holiday. Some evenings I have been out looking for skeds with the SixBox 6m QRP AM transceiver but two tests failed even with 2W AM from the FT817 and the 1/4wave magmount, so no QSOs with the baby rig yet. However, I managed several European DX QSOs with 6m QRP SSB, all with good reports.

Last night was exceptional on 6m: YV4DDK, FM5AA and 9Y4D all coming through at good strength (at times) on 6m SSB with just a 1/4wave magmount antenna! Although I tried calling the YV4 at one point I knew it was pointless with all the super-QRO stations with big beams calling them. Still, it was good to HEAR such super-DX on 6m (8000kms) with such a simple portable station.

6m AM and noise

Two local tests with stations on 6m AM have shown just how noisy the band can be when using this mode. M1KTA was 18kms away and M1MAJ around 15kms yet both were not strong on the vertical V2000 antenna on 6m AM even when they were using FT817 rigs at 2W AM. We were going to try the SixBox but signals would have been too weak. Switching to USB made a lot of difference (better) unsurprisingly, as the noise level reduces with the bandwidth.

This goes to show how AM signals do need to be strong to overcome the band noise: when signals are a decent level AM is a fine mode, but it can be hard work when they are very marginal with lots of noise in the background.

6m QRP AM tests - Cambridge area

Anyone around near Cambridge/Newmarket/Ely with a 6m vertical antenna who can help me range-test my very simple homebrew 6m QRP AM rig in the next couple of days? SixBox details on this blog and my website. It is working OK but I want to find out how far it gets locally.

Freq: 51.125MHz (sorry only xtal I have at the moment)
Power: 50mW AM
Ant: V2000 vertical
Loc: Burwell, 10m NE of Cambridge, JO02DG

Grandson 2

Our second grandson,  is on holiday with in-laws in Australia. We've just been sent this nice picture of him. He is clearly enjoying himself.

SixBox QSO 3 - sensitivity testing

This evening I had a third QSO with G6ALB using the SixBox 6m 50mW AM transceiver. The main aim was to test the receiver sensitivity since fixing an issue last evening. Andrew first called me using his FT817 on the lowest AM power setting and he was good copy. He then switched over to a modulated AM signal generator at 7dBm level (5mW). This was easily copied on the superregen RX. Even with a 10dB pad in at my end I could still copy the signal i.e. at an equivalent of 0.5mW from Andrew 2 miles away. So, without accurate test equipment I can safely assume the RX is detecting low uV level signals. I must work out the path loss.

Having got the SixBox working pretty well it now remains to see how far it can reach. I am really pleased with this simple project. It is very satisfying to work people on AM using really simple homemade equipment built with minimal test equipment and using parts which cost very little.

The current TX frequency is 51.125MHz. I need to buy a crystal for the 6m AM working frequency (50.57MHz in the UK or 50.4MHz in the USA).

Sunspots creeping up

Noticed the sunspot numbers trend recently? Whereas a few months ago there were weeks and weeks without a spot, now there are spots on a high proportion of days and the general level of active cycle 24 spots is creeping upwards. All this bodes well for this autumn when I hope we'll see some F2 transatlantic propagation on 10m again on many days, with plenty of US and Canadian stations workable with QRP - a sure sign that the old sun is waking up.

6m Sixbox AM QSO No 2

RS59 from G6ALB this evening with the SixBox 50mW AM transceiver. In putting the transceiver in its box and adding the RX tuning I inadvertently removed the coupling cap between the RF and and detector stage so the RX was a little bit deaf. I will add this back tomorrow and expect sensitivity to be back to low uVs level. Even without it, I could hear signals of 2-3mW out from Andrew.

Next week I am in Devon on holiday, so will be looking for some 50MHz AM QSOs with the SixBox from clifftop highspots. I will set up some 6m AM skeds using the local VHF and UHF repeaters.

10m AM Net in S.London (Wednesdays)

A 10m AM net has been started in South London, UK by Gary G7IRG. It meets on 29.05MHz (AM mode) on Wednesdays at 9pm local time. Last week the net had 3 people on: G7IRG, G0KRT and M0GPG. If you live in this area, or indeed anywhere, why not see if you can hear the net and give them a call?

When 10m is wide open, as it will be in a couple of years time, the band between 29.00 and 29.1 MHz will be filled with AM stations from around the world.

6m when the band is quiet

6m is a band ripe for exploitation when there is no DX around. When there is sporadic-E or F2 DX about, people use the band in thousands and some have worked DXCC. However, when conditions are not good, it is left to a few dedicated enthusiasts to work random MS and tropo and ionospheric scatter mode QSOs using QRO with modes like JT6m. The amount of LOCAL 6m activity, at least here in the UK, is very low indeed.

We have 2MHz of band in the UK (4MHz in the USA) and it is a pity more use is not made of this fine band for local QSOs using simple QRP homebrewed equipment. It is an ideal band for QSOs up to around 20 miles or so and much quieter than 160m or 80m, which can be very noisy these days.

3 transistor SSB transceiver

http://www.intio.or.jp/jf10zl/3trssb.htm

The website of Kazuhiro Sunamura JF1OZL is magic and contains some superb ideas for QRP enthusiasts. Every time I return to this site I find something to enjoy and to inspire me. Take for instance the 3 transistor 6m transceiver he describes: it is wonderful. Kazuhiro San, if you read this THANK YOU for your great ideas.

10m or 6m QRP DSB ideas

Having finished my SixBox 6m AM transceiver, my mind is now turning to ideas for either a 10m or 6m QRP DSB transceiver. I have already breadboarded a 10m version in separate sections (RX based on the Neophyte RX, a DSB TX based on a single balanced diode mixer), but I have still to breadboard a mixer-VFO based on the NE602 which would be useful for either band. Actually a fundamental crystal x2 would give around 25-30kHz shift on 28MHz and around 50kHz on 50MHz, so this may be a simpler, and adaquate, route. However crystals "to order" are expensive these days, although the spec (temperature, cut frequency accuracy, etc) would be very low.

Today I noticed another 6m DSB schematic from a Japanese ham. There are plenty of good ideas from JA land where, despite commercial rigs, homebrewing is still in strong. See http://www6.plala.or.jp/jr8dag/micro6dsb/mi6dsb02.htm for JR8DAG's schematic. In my view, this is a rather complex schematic and I am sure it could be simplified.

SixBox 6m AM QRP rig now boxed

Today I complete this project and put the 50mW AM transceiver into a small diecast aluminium box. Using a 9V battery inside the box the rig puts out about 20mW. From an external supply it is about 50mW. The polyvaricon tuning capacitor works very well and the RX tunes from around 45MHz to 70MHz. Already it has been useful as an indicator of Band 1 activity.

Overall, I am pleased with this little transceiver. It was all done with the most basic of test equipment and is a circuit that should be easy to copy. Now to try to get some local 6m AM activity going! It would be very nice to make a PCB for this project. I'm thinking about it....

My next project is either the long intended 10m DSB rig or a DSB version of this 6m AM rig. However, to be useful this would need VXO control and a 3rd overtone xtal will not pull very far.

SixBox QRP 6m AM rig closer to completion

Today I did a full rebuild of the 6m QRP AM transceiver on a much smaller (dead bug style) board so that it will fit in a small diecast (or aluminium) box. In the course of the rebuild I tried out the RX varicap tuning idea which works, but I was unable to move the frequency more than 1-2MHz before the superregen stopped oscillating. I tried a 1N4007 and the collector-base junction of a 2N3904 as varicaps. In the end I decided to use a low cost polyvaricon tuning cap in series with 22pF and this covered 6m plus a few MHz either side. I also ran the PA stage in class C and this seems to improve the modulation. Here is a picture of the SixBox after rebuilding, but before I started the testing. Because of family commitments I shall not be able to finish this now for a few weeks but I am looking forward to some local "DXing" with this around the Cambridge area. It is funny but working local stations with this is (almost) as much fun as working real DX with a proper radio!

SixBox 6m AM QSO

A solid QSO this evening with G6ALB (2 miles away) on 6m AM using the 50mW SixBox rig with vertical antennas at each end. In the other direction, using the super-regen RX at my end, we did some sensitivity tests with Andrew putting a signal generator on and gradually dropping his AM modulated carrier. I was able to copy his signal when it was reduced to 0.5mW.

I also tried to receive a 7dBm carrier from Andy on 70.26MHz AM using the retuned super-regen RX, but was unable to hear it, although we were both using 6m antennas which were not resonant on 4m.

Currently I am putting a rebuilt SixBox in a real box. Later, I will make a breadboarded DSB version.

More details on the SixBox page of my website.

G3XBM webpages have moved

Today I switched my webspace from NTL to Google Sites. I've been having issues with FTP connection to the NTL webspace for weeks and the Virgin Media "help" has been anything but. I do so HATE having to press button 1 for this, 2 for that etc and in the end getting connected to someone who doesn't have a clue. No problem with the help centre being in India, but I would like to get help in the end. No joy.

So, I decided Google Sites would be a better bet. Google Sites is free, allows 100M of webspace and pages can be edited without HTML. There is also good feedback on site visit statistics using Google Analytics. The downside is the page formatting I can use is less complex, less fancy, but this is no big deal.

If you go to http://www.g3xbm.co.uk you will be directed to the right place.

In praise of the Asus EEE Netbook PC

For over a year I've used a little 7 inch screen Asus PC701 Netbook PC running the preloaded Linux operating system "as is" as my main PC. It has never crashed, always boots up in seconds, does 95% of what I ever need from a PC and is inexpensive. It went with me to New Zealand on holiday (allowing me to do a daily blog from hotel rooms and to video Skype our sons) and fits easily in the hand luggage. Today in the UK the version ships with 8GB of solid state memory (mine just has the 4GB) from around £151 brand new.

If you want simple, low cost and effective computing you'd be hard pressed to beat this little beauty. Of course there is now a lot of choice in netbooks with larger screens, XP etc, but for me the original Asus EEE is hard to fault.

SixBox 6m AM (improvements)

Been doing some more work on the SixBox AM transceiver and have come up with a simpler and better TX lineup. I abandoned the osc/multiplier in one stage and went instead for a 3rd overtone xtal followed by a modulated buffer and PA. The third overtone oscillator values shown ensure the crystal reliably oscillates on its 3rd overtone.

The little PA and buffer work well with just T37-6's as (untuned) chokes in the collectors of the buffer and PA followed by a low pass filter. This arrangement is very stable and simpler than before. Modulation is clean and deep. As it stands it produces 50mW of AM on 6m. A further single stage linear PA would take this to around 1W of AM, but I will leave this to others.

Lenticular (lee wave) clouds

The last few days I've been in the Yorkshire Dales area of the UK and was treated to a sight I'd not seen before - lenticular cloud formations over the tops of the higher hills in the Dales. These are sometimes called flying saucer clouds as this is just what they look like. These were all seen yesterday June 24th in the late morning. I only managed to photograph one (a poor example) as I was being driven and was unable to stop when the very best examples (really like flying saucers with nice sharp edges) were visible. A few hours later these had all disappeared. I expect these are quite common in areas like the Dales, but this was the first time I'd seen them.

For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_waves

A very basic 4m AM transceiver

In the coming days I am planning to modify my SixBox 6m AM QRP breadboard to 4m so that I can have a first 4m QSO using my own callsign. As I don't have suitable crystals I was planning to use (very temporarily) a free running oscillator at half frequency, even though I might have to re-net to 35.13MHz (half 70.26MHz) quite often. Today, someone pointed out that the 14.060 crystals sold by GQRP club multiply x5 to 70.3MHz, which would easily pull down to 70.26MHz. Although a x5 multiplier won't be efficient, it is worth a go don't you think?

If things go to plan, I should have a very basic 30-50mW AM transceiver working on 4m by the weekend. It will be a rats nest on a piece of copper clad board, but it should allow me that first 4m QSO. Whether it gets put into a neat box remains to be seen.

[See later blog post on improvements to the TX lineup]

Cambridge Radio Club is 90

Today, the Cambridge and District Amateur Radio Club held a 90th birthday picnic at the village hall in Foxton, Cambridgeshire. The weather was good and there were plenty people there. The club put up antennas for HF plus 2m and 6m with the aid of the Cam Hams group recently back from Harris in the Hebrides. I managed to get along for a couple of hours in the morning and rejoined the club. It was nice to operate on 6m with a big station (QRO and a big, high yagi) for a change. The band was open to Europe and there were plenty of stations to work. In the afternoon, at home, I worked their special call GB0CAM on 2m FM. A nice friendly day.

The CDARC website is http://www.cdarc.org.uk/
Cam Hams website is http://www.camb-hams.com/

Transatlantic 6m summer super DX - what mode?

The usual assumption for the super-DX across the Atlantic from Europe to the Caribbean and S.America is multi-hop sporadic-E. Certainly the contact to K1TOL that I made a few years ago was by this mode.

But, with the recent questioning of the mode for the Europe to JA path on 6m in summertime, I am wondering if mesospheric cloud reflection is a possiblity for other extremely long paths too? YV and other places on the north of South America is some 8000kms away from here, yet people seem to work such distances every summer on 6m.

I'd welcome your comments and views.

QRP 6m multi-hop Es SSB QSO

Just switched on the FT817 at 0820z and worked EA8CQS (Canary Is) on 6m SSB with 5W to the vertical. DX was 3010kms. He was quite weak so surprised he got me so well.

Noctilucent cloud DX - microwave mega DX mode?

There was a MOST interesting note on the ARRL propagation report tonight:

"Noctilucent Clouds Return - As reported at spaceweather.com on June 1, the first noctilucent clouds (NLC) of the 2009 season were sighted over Russia on May 27. NLCs typically appear about 20 days prior to the summer solstice, increase quickly to a high summer level, and then disappear about 50 days after the summer solstice. These clouds are mostly a high latitude phenomenon, and are believed to be composed of ice crystals. VHF radars see very strong echoes from these clouds, and since they are at mesospheric heights (80 to 90 km), they are also known as polar mesosphere summer echoes (PMSE). These clouds are hypothesized by JE1BMJ and others to be responsible for 6m propagation across high latitudes (for example,
from the East Coast of North America to Japan) during the northern hemisphere summer. This mode of propagation has been dubbed Summer Solstice Short-path Propagation (SSSP). Check out page 34 of the February 2009 issue of WorldRadio Online (available free at
www.cq-amateur-radio.com/wr_back_issues.html) for a general discussion of PMSE and SSSP and for references in the technical literature. To reiterate, SSSP is still just a theory,
but the occurrences of QSOs appear to match the occurrence pattern of PMSE."

Now, there is also evidence (from radar returns) that microwave DX might be possible using the same noctilucent clouds, possibly allowing superb DX possibilities on 10GHz possibly even with low power.

This is a whole area of future ham research just waiting to be exploited. It may be one upside of global warming as these high altitude clouds are now more common than hitherto.

For more on these mesospheric clouds see http://www.chiandh.me.uk/p/Noctilucent_cloud#Results

The SixBox - A Simple 6m AM transceiver

NB There is an updated schematic uploaded June 28th 2009.

Well, I've completed a breadboarded version of the SixBox, an ultra-simple 6m QRP AM transceiver which I've had in my mind for some time. As it stands, without a linear, it produces around 50mW AM (200mW peak) from the 2N3904 series modulated PA. It is not in a box, just a rats nest on a piece of copper clad board, but it works. The receiver is a super-regen using MPF102s with an isolating RF amplifier loosely coupled to the super-regen detector. A varicap diode (to be added) is used to tune across the band. The TX consists of a 25MHz xtal, a x2 multiplier and PA both of which are series modulated. Ubiquitous 2N3904 transistors are used throughout apart from the super-regen stages.

Click on the schematic to see what it consists of. It would readily scale for 4m although the T37-6 toroids would be a bit marginal this high. I was surprised how well they worked at 50MHz.

I should be DELIGHTED if someone wanted to develop this circuit further and maybe produce a small PCB and case.

On reflection, I think the DSB version of this would be a better bet. Much of the TX line-up can be re-used for this but I would use a DC receiver. 200mW pep of DSB (equivalent to 100mW SSB) would be quite a useful power. My next project will be to complete the DSB version, either for 6m or 10m.

6m (4m?) distraction

OK, I'm about 40 years out of date with my technology, so if I live to be 100 you may just find me getting excited by SDRs and the like when the rest of you are busy with thought and matter transfer. Who cares, it keeps me happy and doesn't cost a lot :-)

This last week I have had a spurt of creative (?) energy and have been building. Firstly I started work on the 10m DSB rig. The RX is fully working using the Neophyte as a basis. Next I tried the 14.3MHz ceramic resonator-doubler idea for the LO but was disappointed that I couldn't get it to reliably pull down to a useful part of the 10m SSB band. The plan was to look at a mixer-VFO and then put the whole breadboard together with the DSB TX. But I got distracted....

Instead, I built a simple super-regen AM RX for 6m (or 4m), which works well using T37-6 toroids. All that I need to do is arrange for the RX tuning across the chosen band with a varicap. Next I built a simple series modulator (even simpler than the Fredbox one) and now I've started on a very simple AM TX strip and small linear. The idea is to do a Heathkit Lunchbox "Sixer" AM transceiver replacement but in a very simple solid state and no-IC design. The design is likely to produce around 100mW of AM and can be completed for either 6m or 4m. I haven't decided which yet.

There is not a lot of AM on 6m, but a bit in pockets on 70.26MHz. I know 100mW is not much. But, this is a project I've just wanted to do for years and you'll have to bear with me. When this is done I'll get back to the serious stuff - the proper DSB transceiver that is!

Colpitts VFO parts value calculator

PY2OHH is a very creative ham with an excellent website full of good circuit ideas. I noticed a neat Colpitts VFO calculator there today. You put in the frequency range needed and the variable capacitor range available and out pop all the capacitor values in the tank circuit.

Since including this link the original site has removed the schematic.

10m RX using 14.3MHz ceramic resonator

Tried using a 14.3MHz ceramic resonator (in a x2 oscillator circuit selecting x2 at the collector) with the Neophyte derived 10m RX today. Applied the external oscillator to pin 6 of the NE602 and used the on-chip LO as a buffer.

With a 60pF variable capacitor I could pull the oscillator from 28.563-28.641MHz i.e. about 80kHz shift. Adding some inductance in series with the resonator allowed it to pull lower, but I could not make the circuit work reliably with too much inductance. Conclusion so far is that with a ceramic resonator at a better frequency (e.g. 14.23 or 14.24MHz) this would make a neat 10m SSB RX with the Neophyte. A small amount of series inductance would allow around 100kHz shift around the main SSB part of the band.

Next I'm going to try the mixer-VFO using a 32MHz xtal and a 3.58MHz ceramic resonator. This should cover around 28.40 - 28.46 I think.

10m Neophyte RX

Today I breadboarded a 10m version of the Neophyte direct conversion RX from a 1988 QST. The Neophyte uses an NE602 as the RF amp, LO and mixer and with the output fed differentially into an LM386 audio amp. In my version I used a single toroid 10m tuned circuit and a free running LC oscillator using the oscillator onboard the NE602. As it was a lash-up, frequency stability was a bit average, but it had good sensitivity and allowed plenty of Europeans to be copied on 10m CW and SSB. I used an 8 ohm LS and there was plenty of audio. Overall I was impressed that something this simple worked so well.

Tomorrow I want to try the same circuit but using an external VFO using a VXOed 14.3MHz ceramic resonator in an oscillator/doubler. I am hoping that the resonator will pull well over 100kHz so that it covers a useful part of the 10m SSB band. The same LO will be used for the DSB transmitter assuming it pulls OK and is sufficiently frequency stable.

Ceramic resonator VFOs

David W Searle ZL3DWS sent me a very useful link about the use of ceramic resonators in VFOs. These can be pulled more than crystals but the pulled stability is still better than a VFO. I am trying to use these in a mixer-VFO for my 10m DSB rig. See the webpage by Jack Ponton GM0RWU at the address below. I think taking the output differentially from a tuned circuit across the output pins of the NE602 would be better with a simple link winding down to 50 ohms. http://eweb.chemeng.ed.ac.uk/jack/radio/projects/resnote3.html .

A crystal set transceiver?

JF1OZL has some fascinating ideas on his inspiring website. Typical of his wacky ideas is his 20uW TX for 7MHz powered only by the human voice bellowing into a mic. I wonder if a crystal set transceiver is possible using either the rectified human voice (as per JF1OZL) or rectified received RF to power a micropower TX working alongside the crystal set RX? Even a 0.5uW TX could cover miles on VHF line of sight with a beam and generating this sort of power should be possible through rectification of MW and lower HF broadcast stations.

Japan worked from Europe on 6m

Right on schedule the path across the pole from Europe to Japan has opened up on 6m again this late spring, at least for well equipped high powered 6m operators. The distances are amazing (around 10,000kms) yet this path opens up most (every?) year at this time. Whether or not this is really multi-hop Es is very debatable. Once again it proves there is still much we do not understand about HF/VHF propagation. Amateur radio is continuing to add to scientific knowledge.

Now, wouldn't I like to work JA on 6m with my vertical and a few watts!

10m (and 15m) DSB rig ideas

The GQRP club sell xtals for 24.906MHz for £2 each. They also sell 3.58 and 3.68MHz ceramic resonators at 50p each. Now, mix 24.906 with either 3.58 o 3.68 with an NE/SE602 and you end up with a stable and simple mixer-VFO (when the ceramic resonator is pulled in a VXO) covering two very useful parts of the 10m SSB band or the 15m SSB band. All it needs is a filter on the output to select 10m or 15m injection. I have ordered the xtals and ceramic resonators and will start on the mixer-VFO when the parts come.

My idea is to use the VFO with a simple DSB TX and DC receiver. Such an arrangement will give a simple 10m (or 15m) DSB transceiver covering very useful parts of either band, but with few parts.