small end fed wire tuner for the FT817nd.

This is my small atu /end fed wire tuner i built to use with the FT817nd. I wanted something nice and small to take with the FT817nd when out portable and i didn’t want something to big. The design is taken from Steve AA5TB’s web site. He ahs lots of interesting information on using the half wave end fed tuner.

This is a good choice for portable operating as no counterpoise wire or ground is needed with a half wave wire. It’s light and fits in the rucksack easily. If there are plenty of trees where you operate then just get the far end up as high as you can. If like me you find yourself on top of a hill/mountain with no trees handy then i use a 5mtr telescopic fishing pole. This is quite light and just straps to the back of my pack or you could use it as a walking pole !!

here is the link to Steve’s interesting web site.

http://www.aa5tb.com/

FT817ND

I now have an FT817ND in the shack, just finding my feet with it at the moment. Lots to remember with the menu driven kittle rig.

First impressions are it is awesome for it’s size, I have just bought some nimh 2300mah batteries to put into the alkaline battery tray that was in it. I did hot get the nicad pack so bought these much better nimh type. As the FT817 battery tray comes with it if you put nicads or nimh types in it they will not charge. I found the mod on the internet that instructs to snip the green wire on the battery tray connector, did this and now the batteries charge up. see the mod at this link. http://www.pd7bz.com/radioprogs/FT817/FT817.htm#1940

Lots of other mods can be found at this link http://www.pd7bz.com/radioprogs/FT817/FT817.htm

FT817ND on top of the old Sommerkamp ts280fm.

Also had a nice QSO on 80mtrs with the FT817 using and old Himound BK-100 bug key, the bug key is bigger than the FT817 :-)

Baby Zilla is about to take it’s place in it’s new home

Baby Zilla will be taking it’s place in it’s new home over the next week.

It will be up in my roofspace and ready to be cut loose on the HF bands. I have added a new feed loop made from RG213 coax in place of the wire loop you see in the photo above. It just needs some final tweaking and then it’s ready to go.

I can’t wait to try it out using my latest additions to the shack ! a couple of Heathkits, the old but favourite of mine HW-7 and the last model they sold the HW-9. I picked these up a couple of weeks ago, the HW-7 is working OK, it has a modified reciever and RIT, The HW-9 needs some attention but i have had some QSO’s with it on 80 mtrs. 10 mtrs is not working and it does need some other jobs doing before it is fully operational.

The box on top of the HW-9 is my home made BLT tuner, it is a great little ATU.

Octopus Tester.

This circuit dates back to at least 1935 and is a simple cheap adapter that converts just about any oscilloscope into a component tester. It causes a component's current vs. voltage characteristics to be displayed on an oscilloscope's screen. The name "Octopus" is attributed to a Marine Corporal who reinvented it in 1968 while working working on Tactical Navigation Systems at NAS Newriver, NC. He called it "The Octopus" "...because the first one was so messy with wires sticking out all over the place,..."

I made mine using an old 6v heater transformer, I was surprised just how  well it works. I can see it being one of the most useful bits of test gear in my shack.

Here are some photos of the traces on the scope.

this one shows a 4.7uf capacitor which gives an oval shape, depending on the size of the cap it could be a circle, the one here shows a 1uf cap .  This line shows a 1k resistor

and this one a 10k resistor.

A vertical line shows a dead short, there are other shapes for diodes, zenors and it is a great transistor checker. Also makes it easy to ckeck FET’s and Mosfets.

160 meter rock loop

I just finished making a 160 meter rockloop. It is made with 2 inch wide copper foil that is pinned/hot glued to the shack wall !

It is tuned by a 3 gang variable capacitor culled from an old broadcast receiver. Overall capacitance is around 1600pf. The feed is via a toroid matching tr ansformer with 40 turns and a 5 turn link connected to the loop.

The swr on 160 meters is 1.1:1 and running 10 watts I have worked over a 1000 miles, best DX so far being HA5JI.

Using wspr at 3 watts signals have been heard all over western Europe and the UK.

Baby Zilla completed and operational.

I have now finished building Baby Zilla, the magnetic loop is working just fine.  The feed loop is a simple wire loop instead of the half faraday loop I have used in the past. Much easier to set up and results seem the same.

The loop is approx 1/5th the size of the main loop and the shape can be altered to get the required SWR. The finished loop has an SWR of 1:1 on 20,17 and 15mtrs, on 12 and 10mtrs it is a little higher but still less than1.4:1.

 here it is in the radio club shack hanging from one of the wooden roof beams. This weekend I will be installing the magnetic loop in my roofspace at home. It will replace the old Capco magloop that i re-built last year. That will probably be sold to the highest bidder :-)

All credit for the construction of Baby Zilla  must go to Gary 2E0TIG who made the loop and cut out all the bits for the butterfly capacitor, I had the easy job of just assembling it.

SO THANKS GARY

There are lots more photo’s of Baby Zilla’s construction on my web site, click on this link to go and look at them.

Baby Zilla at G4KKI

Magnetic Loop 1st proper QSO

I had the first proper QSO using “Baby Zilla” this evening. I took it to the radio club I go to and Ian G0PLX helped me to set up and get the feed loop adjusted properly. We hung it from a large wooden beam inside the club which is an old barn. The SWR on 20,17, 15 mtrs was 1:1 but on 12 and 10mtr it was over 2:1. So I adjusted the shape of the feed loop and got the SWR down to 1.7:1 on 10mtrs, checked 12mtrs and it was 1.3:1. We then re-checked 20,17 and 15mtrs and they were still 1:1.

The white wire you see in the photo on the right is the power feed to the capacitor motor. Moving this has no effect on the SWR.

Tuned to 14.060 and heard IK8SCR calling CQ so gave him a call and he came straight back to me. 579 report both ways, he was using an FT817 at 5 watts and I also had to FT840 at 5 watts. His antenna was a Vertical.

Close up of the butterfly capacitor

The butterfly capacitor is now assembled and covers 17pf-180pf this covers 20 –10mtrs very nicely with “Baby Zilla”

The feedloop used is now a simple wire loop 1/5th the size of the main loop and the SWR is fine across all bands covered.

New Magnetic loop "Baby Zilla"

I have now added a 6:1 slow motion drive and a motor to the magloop, also Gary 2E0TIG sent me a wire coupling loop that he has used with his loop. I got the SWR down to 1:1 on 14,18, 21 mhz but on 24 and 28 can’t get it below 2. So more experimenting to do yet. On 20 and 17m it is working great and I had a couple of QSO’s into Russia with it sat on the bench.

Gary 2E0TIG made me this fantastic 900mm loop from 75mm aluminium. He made a bigger one sometime ago which got nicknamed Loop Zilla, this one he has named Baby Zilla. It should perform great on 20-10mtr.
So watch this space as it takes shape, it will be used with a butterfly capacitor, also made by Gary, he sent me the parts which I assembled.well actually my granddaughter Charlotte put most of it together for me. That was the easy part, Thanks Gary.
Took "baby Zilla" to the club tonight and drilled the mounting holes for the variable cap, that will be fitted tomorrow and a photo posted to the blog. I have the motor also ready for mounting but first I will get the swr set correctly and then finally fit the motor.
The variable cap is now fitted and I made a makeshift coupling loop. It tunes nicely from 18 - 30 mhz just shy of 14mhz so I need to add more plates to the capacitor. I got an SWR of less than 1.3:1 across 18-30mhz. Tuned it up on 18.082.3 and sent CQ TEST a couple of time followed by de G4KKI K and was most surprized and pleased when Alex UU5JL came back to me. 579 both ways. Here are a couple more pics of it as is. Will be a better finished job when all sorted.

20 mtr EH antenna

I decided to take another look at my 20 mtr EH antenna and so I got it out of the cupboard I had put it in. The coax was just soldered to the source/feed loop and hanging down from inside the

EH tube. I took that off and added a BNC socket to finish the job off.

It looks much better and is easier to take anywhere with the coax now being carried seperately.

I thought it might have upset the SWR but when I plugged in the coax and connected it to the rig

the SWR was still 1:1 at 14.040, rising to 1.8:1 at plus or minus 30khz.

I will admit that the little EH antenna is not the most efficient antenna going but it does work and if you can't put up an outside antenna and the misses objects to anything big then the EH will still get you some QSO's .

Poldhu. Cornwall, Marconi centre

Well I'm back from my holiday in Cornwall, had a great time and it was made special by my
visit to Poldhu. I set my portable qrp station up in the remains of the Marconi transmitter/engine room. Bands were not so good but I had 4 QSO's al qrp - qrp on 14.060. I then visited the Marconi centre and operated as GB2GM from one of the radio rooms. I'll post a full report with many more photo's as sson as I get the chance.
I have now added a slideshow of my day at Poldhu, view it here
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/g4kki.william/newquay%202009/newquay%202009.html

Magloop controller finished

I finished the control box off this afternoon/evening. I added a front panel that I made using Photodraw from M/soft office. Printed it out on photo glossy paper and covered it with clear plastic film. Using doublesided tape I stuck it to the front of the control box.
It works as good as it now looks !!

Pulsed power supply for magnetic loop.

I have been re-building my magnetic loop control box to make it more user friendly.
I am putting it in a larger box with led's to indicate the magloop in use, 80-30 or 20-10 mtrs
also to indicate high or low tuning.
The circuit is a couple of 555 ic's built on veroboard. The motor will go from dead stop to full speed without stalling. The control of the capacitor on both magloops is exellent, you have rapid tune to get to the part of the band you want and then slow tune to get min SWR.
I'll post more pictures when it is completed. The circuit will run from 3 to 15 volts so is ideal for a good range of motors. The one's used in my magloops are both 12 volt ones from Comodrills in Kent. They are also available from Maplins at a higher cost !!!

CW-Code-Warriors · *The Official Code Warrior Site*


This site, The Real, The Official *Code Warrior,and MAG LOOP Site*, is dedicated to the preservation of CW,QRP,Building antennas of all types and helping those who are antenna restricted get on the air.
We do a lot of testing and pass it on to you.
We strongly support the PRESERVATION of CW and teaching others that low power can work world wide even when band conditions are down.
Besides what you read below,
The list will also serve as a meeting place,or aslo known as the watering hole, so we can post who we worked.
So why not check us out and join.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CW-Code-Warriors/

===============================================
This small list is for a few hard core CW QRP DX hunters.
If you need help with antennas and you ham gear please,I think Bill and I tried it all so don't hesitate to ask.

Code Warrior certificates are issued by me.

BILL (William) STEVENSON G4KKI, Official holder of copyrighted LOGOs and words related to the Code Warriors
COPY RIGHT 1998,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,207,2008,2009
All Righte Reserved,Logos.Name and certificates,Badges,!!!>

SoderSmoke a global adventure in radio electronics

I bought Bill Meara's book last week, "Soldersmoke A Global Adventure in Radio Electronics" I have read the first 3 chapters and it is one of those book you don't want to put down. It is written in a nice easy to read style and so far it has told of how he became a radio ham when he was 13 years old. It is one of those books I just know I am going to read over and over again.

Take a look at the soldersmoke podcast page

Weds 15th

Just been to the radio Club I go to, only 4 or 5 of there.
spent the evening palying around with linux live cd.
Think I'll stick with windows.

I have been working on a PAC-12 antenna for portable working.
I plan to use it from Poldhu in Cornwall when on my holiday there.
I will be operating on 20 meters CW and maybe do a little ssb as well using
the MFJ-9420.
I'll post details on the pac-12 when I get round to it.