Maratona 50MHZ

ARI Firenze hams have issued a brabd new marathon competition on the six meter band.

The first edition of this spring contest, was born on idea of a couple of ham in my city that enjoyed six meters during  last springs, and during last winter have decided to setup an official, competion, sponsored and managaed by local ARI section.

Contest Manager IZ5HQB Gabriele has produced an online log and scora tracking system, that permit partecipants to follow their performances and even show an online map of their contacted squares.

Competition is opened to all hams world wide, rules are written also in english, and if you want to take part, just signup and upload your logs.

link to Maratona 50 MHz by ARI Firenze

Palstar PM2000 AM

A new Power Meter is arriving in my shack.

I was looking for an accurate and readable SWR Meter for my station, that could cover HF and six meters band, and could support 1,5 – 2 KW.

Budget limitations prohibites high level Array Solutions Power master or Bird Technologies Bird wattmeter, while limited distribution of Autek products in Italy made desist me on evaluatinv the well reviewed VM1.

The choice has been restricted to a couple of products.

The DAIWA CN-801 and the Palstar PM2000 A/M, price are similar, but generally Daiwa product is cheaper.

I choosed the Palstar for the followin features:

True PEP Reading

Average and True PEP Reading Meter in Forward and reflected, looks like the CM-801 offer only Forward and not reflected.

Accuracy

According to reviews the PM2000A offer eccellent accuracy, compared to a Bird meter, while CM-801 looks like accuracy percentage to be higher than what’s documented.

BackLight

CM-801 is missing the switch so, light is always on, and it’s really annoying. PM2000AM offer a front switch.

Extra CORD

The PM2000AM offer an extra cord, permitting to place the Meter almost everywhere in my desk, where room is always rare thing.

Now maybe you are wonderin how much I paid it and where I bought… well I looked among Amateur Radio Dealers in Europe and found a German Dealer offering the product at a very special price, the lowest in the net.

I will reveal the name of the dealer, as soon as the transaction will be completed… you never know.

I’ve taken some pictures during the antenna setup. Assembling the GAP Titan DX is not as simple as it may appear,  in particular if english is not your own language.

Technical terms are often obscure to many ham radio amateurs the usually knows ham-lingo…

I don’t hide the fact that more than once, I’ve had to use dictionary to correctly and fully understand instructions.

Of course the Italian manual version of the antenna is completing missing.  So i thought that my efforts in assembling and tuning this antenna shoudl have been concretized in a home made documentation.

• Have a look to my GAP Titan DX picture library

While on dxzone you can find more GAP Titan DX documentation and pictures

IRC International Reply Coupons

I’ve recently purchased at local central post office 30 new IRC valid thru 2013.

Price here in Italy is € 1.29, but I’ve found also some QSL managers that sale suprlus IRC and dollars online… according to someone of these, price could be even cheeper, aprox € 1,15 according to g3swh!

I’ve just published even a page dedicated to Direct QSLing from Italy, where I’ve also listed current postage rates for 20 grams letters delivered worldwide.

This week-end I’ve finally setup my new vertical antenna.

I’ve taken some snapshots during the assembling procedure and will post later on in a dedicated page.

GAP Titan DX

After evaluating HF vertical antennas I’ve finally choosen and ordered my new vertical hf antenna.

Gap Titan DX is the choosen one.

According to characteristics and price the Titan resulted the one with the best price / performance ratio.

I ordered at Wimo (german ham radio dealer) and it arrived in 3 days via UPS.

Best price and fast delivery, thanks folks at wimo.

More posts will come about antenna setup

After a long research on antenna makers websites I’ve produced a quick reference chart to compare most popular HF multiband vertical antennas.

This table will help me on choosing my next vertical antenna.

Populatrity of antennas has been decided by visiting eham reviews, qrz.com forums, and other local ham radio communities.

Price comparison has been done by quering eruopean dealers, and asking for better quotations without considering delivery costs but including VAT where needed.

Attached to this post you will find a PDF file with the full technical comparison.

Links to official web sites:

• Cushcraft R8
• Hy-Gain AV640
• Butternut HF6V
• Gap Titan
• Eco 7+

Download my  Vertical Antenna Comparison Chart

I’m evaluating these HF Multiband vertical Antennas.

- GAP Titan DX
- Cushcraft R8
- Ecomet 7+
- Butternut HF6V
- Hy-Gain AV-640

At time writing the preference is going to the GAP antenna…

I will post soon here some more reports from reviews and tech specifications as well as best prices from european dealers.

Geocities is closing on October 26 2009, and with it many ham radio related web sites will be lost.

Currently Google index has 31,300,000 pages hosted on Geocieties.com and in particular, 6000+ pages related to Amateur Radio and 4000+ pages related to the ham radio keyword.

This will mean that a large quantity of knowledge and documentation about projects, modifications, antennas and technical tips  will be lost.

Yahoo! that owns Geocities since 1999 has decided to shut down the world wide famous free hosting service born in 1995, recommending owners to move web sites elsewhere.

So if you have bookmarked any interesting sites hosted under Geocities, you have still a couple of days to cache them into your PC before they will get lost.

At 01.39 GMT of 6 April 2009 a big earthquake has destroyed many villages around L’Aquila not too far from Rome.

At time writing, over 150 deads and 1500 injured are reported by medias, along to tens thousands of people that will have to spend many night without coming back to their houses.

ham radio operators have been the firsts to announce the disaster to the world, and to support communications locally,  permitting the rescue machine system to start and coordinate Italian govern from Rome.

Italian public TV Service has recognized to “Radioamatori” a tribute with an interview on their activity and preparedness in case of similar events.

Here a short transcript of DX Cluster announcements during the first moments and hours of “Terremoto” (heartquake)

I0DJV earthquake in central Italy …..help … 0322 06 Apr
IK0BZY —> ARAC disattivate l’R1 del guadagnolo interferisce con 0320 06 Apr
K6ASK ioknq Magnitude 6.3 CENTRAL ITALY 0243 06 Apr
IV3UHL poi monitoro …. 0235 06 Apr
IV3UHL I0TER anche se non il tuo call…Forse…ma forse hai detto0228 06 Apr
IV3UHL LOOCK NEWS ON WEB ..IF DIFFICULT WILL ALERT THE TEAM 0206 06 Apr
I0KNQ x iv3uhl penso di si non ho altre info il sisma e’ stato av0204 06 Apr
IV3UHL knq ok provo contatto PC DAMMI ….CONFERMA DANNI 0202 06 Apr
K6ASK I0KNQ check http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/last_event/world_ital0201 06 Apr
I0KNQ x ik0fta sergio c 6? 0201 06 Apr
I0KNQ x iv3uhl prova a contattare qualcuno della zona 6 l’epicent0200 06 Apr
IK0FTA earthquake in central ItALY seems some damages near l’Aquil0158 06 Apr
IV3UHL KNQ se possiamo 328 2547409 + protezione civile 0157 06 Apr
IV3UHL I0KNQ..STESSO MAGNITUDO 6/05/76 IN Friuli tienici aggiornat0155 06 Apr
I0KNQ e’ dal tempo del friuli del 77 che non sentivo qua’ una cos0153 06 Apr
I0KNQ scusa iv3uhl appena so’ qualche altra notizia te la dico .0152 06 Apr
IV3UHL 6,7 mi sembra un po’ forte… 0152 06 Apr
I0KNQ to iv3uhl sry i not have other info… 0151 06 Apr
IV3UHL ik0hnq:danni??? 0150 06 Apr
I0KNQ hearth quake listen to roma vy strong! 0149 06 Apr
I0KNQ heartquake to abruzzo magnitudo 6.7 scala richter 0148 06 Apr
IV3UHL ik0fta grado??? danni? 0147 06 Apr
IK0FTA earthquake in central Italy any info? 0145 06 Apr

Currently HF frequencies used for RAE are:

40 M – 7.045 Mhz and 7.052Mhz (7.057 Mhz)
80 M – 3.640 Mhz and 3613 Mhz

Of course, clearing that frequencies, and those immediatey above, will be important.