Amateur Radio made in Italy

IW5EDI Simone – Ham-Radio

A new HamFest in Florence 6-7 Oct.

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After 20+ years, a new Ham Fest will take place in Florence this year.
Compendio Fiere, one of the most active hamfests managing company, has established the FIERA DELL’ELETTRONICA COMPUTER E TELEFONIA in Firenze.

This is mainly a Computer Electronics and Phone exposition, where also amateur radio will be present with six national ham radio dealers. This event will represent an interesting opportunity to promote Ham Radio to the many young people  that will surely attend the hamfest, even if with a different goals.

The location of the hamfest, is in the Florence center in a dismissed railway station named “Stazione Leopolda”. Driving direction can be found via this link, but I suggest to use the Firenze SMN Railway Station and arrive by train. Car parking in Florence is very difficult, particularly during the week-ends. I suggest to use the Fortezza da Basso or Railway Station car Parkings. Feel free to write me if you need assistance.

[tags]firenze,ham radio,hamfest,florence[/tags]

An effective 10-20m DX antenna for deed restricted lots…

Posted in Antenna, Articles 11 Comments

Original article by K7ZB

10-20 dx amtemma for deed restricted lots

The simple 15′ vertical antenna shown mounted on the railing of our second floor deck has produced almost 200 countries worked around the world… VQ9’s in Chagos and 3B8’s on Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, TX0DX on Chesterfield Reef, VK0MM on Macquarie Island in the Antarctic region, BQ9P on Pratas Island off Taiwan, ZM7ZB on Chatham Island in the South Pacific along with FO0AAA on Clipperton, 9M0OO on Spratly Island in the South China Sea, JT1CO in Mongolia and on and on. What I hear, I can usually work with this little wonder and the small size and profile make it feasible for use in deed restricted neighborhoods.

A radio amateur friend and antenna designer came up with a simple design for a 10 meter vertical, which another friend and I modified to make work for the 14, 18, 21, 24 and 28 MHz ham bands. Its performance surpised us, and I’ll share it with you, in case you too are looking for a simple, inexpensive DX antenna that really performs well.

Main Antenna Concept

The basic concept is to put up a piece of aluminum tubing with a telescopic section held by a small hose clamp to adjust the height. By attaching the center conductor of a coax feedline to the tubing, and the shield of the coax to a couple of radials from the base of the tubing you can load the vertical across quite a broad range of frequencies.

Of course, with a vertical element of approximately 15′ this is a non-resonant antenna for the 10, 12, 15, 17 and 20 meter bands. I chose this length on purpose to allow the system to be tuned to resonance with an antenna runer.

Tuning

Since the SWR in an antenna system of this type will be relatively high, an antenna tuner unit will definitely be required. You may need an external ATU if the one in your transceiver can’t handle the impedance mismatches involved. Here at K7ZB, I drive my TS570 (which has a built-in ATU) thru the amplifier, which then drives a high power ATU to the antenna. I put the SWR/Power meter between the amplifier and ATU to ensure a good match for the amp, and in cases where I run barefoot without the amp, I can still use the ATU to assist the transceiver’s ATU in ensuring a good match.

In this way, everything is matched for maximum power output: from the transceiver to the amp, and amp to the antenna. And, even though the SWR’s are high at the feedline and the antenna, it doesn’t matter because the system is matched with the ATU.

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DXTuners.com shutted down

Posted in Ham Radio 2.0 3 Comments


Today surfing the net looking for ham radio live streaming, or remote controlled radios, I’ve jumped into dxtuners.com. Sadly, I’ve been redirected to new Kelly Lindman blog, where he annouce that his dxtuners.com has been shutted down by himself due lack of interest and time.
I’ve been an estimator of Kelly’s work since 1998 when DXTuners was named JavaRadio.com. (he had to change name some years after due to a SUN explicit request, cause of Java prefix name and itìs copy rights…if I don’t get wrong).

JavaRadio has been one of the first, or maybe the first attempt to link the internet with ham radio in a different way, allowing net surfers, to remotely tune a radio and listen the output via a live audio stream.

During years Lindman (SM0NHC), who is an IT expert, developed the client / server architecture using the emerging Java technology, and established a network of remote tuners all over the world. The network included stations from almost all continents, I remember the first remote tuners from Perth Australia, or Illinois USA, Lancaster in CA USA , Edinburgh Scotland, and a couple in Sweden… to support the project costs he was asking a yearly fee to get full access to the network, and with that requirement, I lost interest on that website, since it was exciting to tune remote stations, but not enought for me to pay a fee.

According to some news I’ve found, Lindman has not been able to delegate his functions to anyone else, and in May 07 decided to close the dxtuners.com.
I’m sorry to see a cool web resource, and a so valuable work (I refer to his Java System) be lost, but it can happen when things are driven only by passion, expecially if passion run out.
BTW TNX Kelly
73.

Want to try some remote receivers online? In the mean time, someone else has arranged a remote tuner control via the web, for free… try a google query for Online Radio Receivers

[tags]dxtuners,shortwave,hamradio,dx,online receivers,remote tuners,amateur radio[/tags]

IW5EDI/P ham radio holidays

Posted in Ham Radio Events 2 Comments

ham radio holidays
Just back from holidays, from tuscany coast. I’ve been active mostly in BPSK-31 on 20 meters and RTTY. I’ve been able to operate just during the baby’s sleeping hours…
I’ve also enjoyed making a small bazooka antenna for 30 Mhz with a pieco of RG59 I saved years ago from an old 10 Mbit network lan. I’ve used a plan recovered on the net months ago, and I’ve been surprised of excellent swr … 1:1.2 on all band.
Main antenna however was the old triband dipole, while the buddiple was too high on swr due to the presence of threes in the camping.
Most of the contacts has been done in QRP, with 5 W only, and I was suprised of how efficient are bpsk modes. So finally I logged 150 digital qsos, and a few ones on ssb too.
[tags]ham radio,psk-31,antenna,mobile,portable,rtty[/tags]

Amateur Radio Map of Italy

Posted in HamRadio 9 Comments

I’m getting ready for the holidays, where I will probably will be active on digital modes. I will take my FT-857 and Buddipole antenna with me and I will try to operate from mobile station. I will be in Tuscany coast for 3 weeks this year, so hopefully I will be able to enjoy my radio and my family at the same time…. (you know … not exactly at same time).

Well in the mean time I’ve found a cool map of italy, there are not so many on the net, so here you are my latest contribution.
[tags]ham radio, italy map, italian map, ham radio map,hamradio[/tags]

A cheap J-Pole antenna for 50 Mhz

Posted in Antenna, Articles 9 Comments

Need a general purpose antenna on “6 – the magic band” ?
The J-Pole is an easy-to-build and inexpensive device that provides an omni-directional vertically polarised antenna without the need for a ground plane. In technical terms, it is an end fed vertical 1/2 wave which is fed via a 1/4 wave matching stub.
If you need more info or dimensions for other frequencies, check out the web on J-Pole antennas.

This construction will take your 1-2 hours and it will cost you about $25.
cost breakdown below is for the material actually used, longer tubing lengths may be required that inflate the apparent cost.

Materials :
1 x 6.1 metre length 19mmx1.5mm round aluminium tubing ($12.75)
1 x 1000mm length 16mmx1.2mm round aluminium tubing ($1.50)
1 x 200mm length 38x25mm rectangular aluminium tube (x 1.0mm wall) ($1.80)
4 x 12-23mm stainless steel worm-style hose clamps ($1.50 each)
2 x 16mm (tubing size) plastic chair tips ($0.70 each)
16 x aluminium pop rivets
50 ohm coax cable, eg RG58A/U, minimum length 3-4 metres
200mm x 32mm white outdoor conduit
Nylon cable ties etc…

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Sun’s next phase of activity will be mild

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According to the Indian Institute of Science, and in particular to Prof. Choudhuri, the next active phase of our sun will be rather mild.
They have based the forecast using a new theoretical calculation, pointing out that some assumptions in the previous forecast model are unjustified.
Their final forecast, is that upcoming solar cycle will be 35% lower than the current one.

These sad news, arrives unexpected, after the more optimistic December forecast of the Marshall Space Flight Center, and in the days of “0” Sunspots as stated by the recent NOAA reports.

Certainly next years solar reports will say if Indians researchers have discovered a more reliable forecast method.

reference:

[tags] ham radio,propagation,sunspots,amateur radio,dx,noaa,sun,solar[/tags]

Upcoming solar cycle will be a big one

Posted in HamRadio 2 Comments

Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 “looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco
Their forecast is based on historical records of geomagnetic storms.
According to their analysis, the next Solar Maximum should peak around 2010 with a sunspot number of 160 plus or minus 25. This would make it one of the strongest solar cycles of the past fifty years—which is to say, one of the strongest in recorded history.

* read full article
* more propagation resources

[tags]propagation,hamradio, amateur radio, solar,sunspots[/tags]

QSL.Net is up again ?

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During the last days QSL.net domain has been down. Ham radio community have been missing a large part of it’s web presence, and a valuable part of knowledge.
QSL.NET was started in the winter of 1996 by K3TKJ, and host thousands of ham radio related web sites, email redirection services and mailing lists, for free.
At the time while writing QSL.net is recovering, but I’ve not been able to find any public announce. Rumors, says a maintenance activity is ongoing, someone else reports a server outage.
This downtime should let us think about importance of QSL.net service. I would suggest all those who are using K3TKJ services to donate, or move their web sites somewhere else.
Our knowledge is too important to to be compromised by a single point of failure

Indoor antenna for 7 Mhz

Posted in Antenna, Articles, HamRadio 17 Comments


I’m looking to setup a hidden / indoor antenna, and i’ve found a couple of interesting articles on hidden / stealth antennas 

This small antenna can allow hams which lack space to install an antenna for 40 meters. This project has been originally  produced by F6CYV. I’m going to test this antenna in the coming weeks. I will try to setup this inside my balcony.

According to his experience, using it form inside the apartament, european singals are all very readable, he has worked over 150 countries.

The antenna is made of 2mm wire.

The 2 coils are constituted by 18 turns of 2 mm wire, distance of tunrs is also 2 mm.

The diametre of the coils is of 7,8 centimeters.

The Feed of the dipole is done with a 75 ohms tv coaxial cable.

A 1/1 balun would be recommand for a correct feed of the coaxial cable to the dipole.

It is not necessary  to use a coupler, it is enough to set the length of both extremities of
the dipole in order to have at 7.050 mhz a low SWR, and especially to pay attention what the lenght of the 2 sides of the dipole to be identical.
[tags]antenna,ham-radio,amateur radio,HF antenna[/tags]