Ernest

Ernest

First ATV transmission

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I’m working on a 23cm ATV transmitter. A couple of years ago I already bought some modules from PE1ACB: a baseband modulator, a 23cm ATV transmitter (output 1 watt) and a controller unit. Today I hooked up all modules, together…

Spijkerradio

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Introduction “Spijker” is a dutch word for nail, which you would normally use to hang something on the wall, or to construct wooden stuff. However, (brass) nails can also be used as as solder pad. PA0KLS used this idea to…

All antennas up again

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All antennas are in place already for the 2014 PACC contest. Meanwhile they allow me to work HF bands during the Winter season. Last year the field was in such a bad shape, that we were not able to setup…

First antennas placed

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This year Adrian PA0RDA and I hope to be back in the PACC contest. Our main goal is always to improve our own score, combined with having lots of fun on the bands and test our homebrewn antennas. This will…

J-pole antennas for HF bands

Introduction I’ve been using J-pole antennas on the 2m band from the first day I got licensed. They perform very well, are easy to construct and are cheap. Since Adrian PA0RDA and I have been experimenting with vertical antennas for…

Bad luck

Since Adrian PA0RDA was ill during the contest weekend, and we were not able to setup all antennas due to poor condition of the field, we decided to skip the PACC contest. However, on Sunday morning I could not resist…

Successful contest

The PACC 2012 contest was a great success for us, we doubled our score of last year! Our claim: 843 QSOs x 153 multipliers = 128979 points.

20m vertical repaired

The replacement tube for the 20m vertical arrived. I immediately fixed the fibreglass pole and erected the antenna again. It’s working great again. I also moved the guys to the top of the third element (instead of the second element),…

Wind, wind, wind

December was a very windy month. Most antennas did held, however the fibreglass pole of the 20m vertical broke. We contacted the supplier (DX-Wire, Germany) and luckely spare tubes were available for a few euro’s. So we ordered a replacement…

Perfect weather to erect all antennas

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November starts with 2 weeks of mild weather, with lots of sunshine and no rain. This means that the corn field is rather dry now and easy to walk on. In the first weekend I put lots of tonkin poles…

First preparations for the PACC 2012

We had some nice weather in the last weekend of October, so I went into the corn field to do some long walks: setting up the new beverages (length: 80m each) and the HEDZ. We bought some new, higher poles…

Squalo antenna for 6m

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Introduction Adri PA0RDA, a friend of me, is trying to do some DX on 6m for a while now. His antenna position is very poor: he lives in the bottom flat of a 5-floor building. He has a balcony on…

Contest after heavy winds

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The first weekend of February was really windy. The rough wind ruined the just finished HEDZ, and nearly nocked down the other antennas. And there was nothing I could do, since I was suffering from influenza. I recovered during the…

Finalizing the antennas

Thanks to a interesting article about the so called Half Extended Double Zepp (HEDZ) by W5DXP we managed to get our EDZ working om both 80m and 160m. The antenna is working fine now on 80m. I couldn’t test in…

Optimizing the EDZ

In 2009 we built an extended double zepp (EDZ) for 80m, which also performed really nice on 160m. Although the antenna performed well in the past contests, it was always a big trouble to match it. After lots of experiments…

Goodbye corn, hello antenna’s!

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Thanks to a local farmer we are allowed to use the corn field during the winter season. So during autumn it’s always a nice moment when the corn is being harvested. First we get some view to the east again,…

Preparing the antennas

To prepare for the 2011 PACC, we did quite some work on our antennas. During the fielddays of our local radio club we focussed on the extended double zepp, which was hard to tune. so we played arround with the…

Arrow antenna

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Introduction The arrow antenna is a popular antenna for using FM transponders on satellites. These satellites have a uplink on the 2m band, and a downlink on 70cm. You can operate those satellites with a simple dualband handheld radio.

TNC-X

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Introduction The Dutch Amateur Radio Emergency Service (DARES) is currently setting up a messaging system for emergency communications. Email is sent over radio using the good old AX.25 protocol. Part of this project is the TNC-X, a simple packet radio…

HEDZ antenna for 80 and 160m

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Introduction The zeppelin antenna (or simply “zepp”) is a popular end-fed wire antenna for shortwave bands and has lots of simularities with the J-pole antenna. It consists of a long wire (half wave length), connected to one of the wires…

40m Vertical

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Introduction During the PACC contest in 2009 we missed a good performing antenna for 40m. So during the preparation for this contest in 2010 I built a dedicated vertical for 40m.

DK7ZB yagi for 144MHz

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Introduction After the somewhat disapointing results of the DJ9BV antenna, I decided to try another model. This time I selected a 9 element DK7ZB for my test. I already bought some square alu bars, each 250cm tall. Since the 9…

CW keyer for foxes and beacons

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Introduction Beacons and foxes have to identify themselves. Although I could sit along all day with my morse key, transmitting my call, I wanted to have some automatic keyer. Since I recently bought a PIC development kit (Velleman K8048), I…