Welcome in the WPX Honor Roll

WPX-MixedI noticed that I’ve reached 600 different call prefixes so far. While 400 is enough to get your WPX-certificate in the Mixed category (I don’t have one, DXCC is much cooler), with 600 different prefixes you’ll enter the WPX Honor Roll.

And that’s a nice signal to receive: get listed with the other ‘top’ stations in the world. Not that I am one with my limited antenna set-up (Magnetic loop for 6,5-30 MHz.) but still…

Now let’s work towards the WPX Award of Excellence and get 1000 prefixes. Oh no, can’t. I dont have an antenna for the topbands 80 and 160 meters 🙂

And thats DXCC 125 confirmed

AndorraDirect QSL today. C31CT confirmed his 3 QSO’s on 3 bands in 2 modes. That makes the 125th confirmed DXCC. Tough I’d rather see a LoTW confirmation it’s nice to see the numbers rising. Now let’s work towards 150. The QSO’s are already  made, but 26 DXCC is still unconfirmed.

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Build your own Hytera cable

Hytera_MD785GWhen you own a Hytera DMR transceiver you need an optional cable costing 35 euro to program your transceiver and/or to upgrade the firmware.  In my opinion, programming cables should never be an option. You can spend the 35 euro to buy one, or spend about 5 euro to make one yourself.

The self-build version had one big advantage above the commercial one: it fits in the back of the transceiver so no need to change the microphone every time you want to program an extra channel.

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Hytera X1p: First impressions

Hytera-X1PI’m currently testing the Hytera X1p portable DMR-transceiver. The first thing you’ll notice is the size. The transceiver is small, just like an iPhone 5. With the standard battery the portable is only 21mm thick. Still, the set has a full keypad and nicely coloured display to show the status, channel, battery level, etc.

On the top you will find a rotary dial to change the 16 frequencies within one programmed zone and a volume control dial. The last one works great als is ‘fluid’, compared to my MD785G mobile transceiver which works with steps, where the first step is too loud for me and there are no options in between. This is a big plus for me, since I can adjust the volume level just the way I want.

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De PLC het zwijgen opleggen

PLC-PLT-HomeplugThis article is in Dutch and shows how to silence your neighbours’ PLT and lose the irritating noise on HF.

PLC’s, een vervelend verschijnsel dat tot behoorlijke irritatie leidt bij zendamateurs die hun HF-spectrum vervuild zien raken met carriers gemoduleerd met CAM-modulatie hetgeen vervelende ratels tot gevolg heeft in een groot deel van ons HF-spectrum.

Helaas gaat de discussie over deze PLC’s de verkeerde kant op wanneer deze door zendamateurs gevoerd wordt.

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Adjusting Cavity filter

Rigol-DSA815-TGToday I’ve been working on the Cavity duplex filter for the new DMR-repeater. The exact frequency is yet unknown but I assume it will be 438.3125 MHz for the output and 430.7125 MHz for the input, which makes a -7.6 MHz shift.

I’m the lucky owner of a Rigol DSA815 Spectrum Analyzer (9 kHz – 1,5 GHz) with tracking generator onboard so the mandatory tools are available.

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Preparing DMR-repeater

HYTERA_DMR_RD985I’m busy preparing a new DMR-repeater. The exact location is unknown but having a look at white spots in the coverage maps from the current repeaters most-likely it will be somewhere in the Northern part of the Netherlands.

The repeater is the Hytera RD985 so it will join the HYT-network. Currently there are 3 options for locations that are being investigated:

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New QTH, new shack

HooglandToday Lucas (PD0LVS) and Ron (PA4RVS) drove to Hoogland to view my new house and helped me out to put the loop back on the tripod in the garden. The hours before I was busy unpacking my equipment to build a new shack. All the basics are there and the big question was: How was the man-made noise around the house?

Though I do hear some PLT noise, it’s nothing compared to the S9+10dB I got for free on the 40-meter band in my old QTH. All bands seem to be quite clean with almost no noise. Hooray!

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Going digital with DMR

Hytera_MD785GAfter D-star there is DMR. Not that I’ve used D-star much but just want to give new techniques a try. Yesterday I’ve ordered a Hytera MD785G. This is a mobile UHF-transceiver for both analogue FM and DMR. Ideal as a second set for the local repeaters since the 2nd VFO of my Icom IC-9100 is RX-only.

The MD785G has 25 Watts of output which should be more than enough to work repeaters in a 20 mile radius. The nearest (temporarily) repeater is only 500 meters from my home, the first production repeater about 15 miles.

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Shack cleaned

We will move over to a new house next month, so time to clean up the shack. New QTH will be Hoogland (Amersfoort) as of half October. All antennas are indoor for the next two weeks, including HF via the loop.

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Got loop?

After weeks (months) I finally found some time to test the Wimo / I3VHF / Ciro Mazzoni loop-antenna for the 40 till 10-meter bands. First QSO was with UA9MMC in JT65 on 20-meters, resulting in -13dB reports.

loop

2nd place during Dutch CW-contest

Veron_HF-dag_2013_02-534x450Oldie, but still nice. I’ve earned the 2nd place during the Dutch ‘PA-beker’ contest end of 2012 in the category ‘Novice CW’. Only two people send their log but still, 2nd place sounds quite okay 🙂

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Just passed my HAREC license

It’s more than 15 years back since I did exam for the Novice license. Today I took the shot to go for the Full/HAREC exam. Totally unprepared I passed the exam with 11 wrong answers, where 15 is allowed. So I passed. Finally access to WARC and the 6 meter band.

Let’s go SHF

Marcus, the owner of Hamshop.nl, offered a used Icom UX-9100 module for 23cm which I bought yesterday and arrived today. Now my Icom IC-9100 has all the (internal) options available. Let’s go SHF.

Icom_UX9100

PG13IOTA QRT

The RSGB IOTA contest for 2013 is over. This year we activated the island of Texel (EU-038) as PG13IOTA. It’s very nice to operate in an environment without man-made noise. In particular on the 40-meters band, where the average noise level from my home is S9+, which makes local QSO’s even hard to follow.

Nice thing about this years’ activation was the help we had from SWL’s Lucas, Roald and Ron. Two of them are going to do there ham-radio exam in September this year. They should be very motivated after the weekend where they helped operating our station.

QSO MAP

QSO MAP

PG13IOTA-antenna