The King has risen.
With the help of a 25 ton crawler excavator equipped with a hydraulic rock breaker, a 2.5 m deep hole was broken into the solid rock. The 27 metre long pole weighing 3 tonnes was then inserted into the hole and secured with rocks around the base and temporary guy wires.
New guy anchors will be inserted into the rock and the King will support a 160M transmit vertical antenna before winter.
The photos were taken by Finnbjörn Bjarnason using my camera.
One operating position is fully functional. The shack has 4 operating positions and each position can choose any available transmit antenna through a 100 kW Strip Line Matrix Switch remotely controlled.
The remaining tasks are to install panels at each operating position to plug in bandpass filters, install wiring for remote antenna switches and power combiners, install computers at positions C and D, wire up PTT control to the Strip Line Matrix switch (to prevent the possibility of hot-switching) and build an indicator panel for the switch.
I will now concentrate on the farm work until autumn before continuing with the project.
I have finished the Beverage antenna project for the time being.
I built 4 bi-directional Beverage antennas ranging from 170m to 380m long.
The antennas are connected into the radio shack via 5000 feet of RG-6 CATV cable entering via a patch panel and fed into a K9AY RAS8x2 matrix antenna switch which then feeds the 8 directions available into two transceivers.
The picture shows the center lines of the main lobe of each antenna direction. The lobes are quite broad especially on the lower frequencies, so I believe I have relatively good coverage.
One operating position is ready – position B which has the control unit for all antennas. Some work remains, dressing cables, installing computers and building brackets for Bandpass Filters etc.
I recently acquired a full instruction manual for the Harris RF-350K transceivers.
An ADDENDUM inside the front cover of the manual drew my attention and closer examination revealed instructions on how to program the transceiver for half-duplex operation.
Harris RF-350K
The inability to work stations in SPLIT mode during a pile up, has been one of the greatest drawbacks to using these fine radios on a regular basis, so it was with some excitement that I rushed to test one of my radios to see if this addendum applied to them – yes it works perfectly!
The procedure is as follows:
Programming is exactly as presently described in your manual for simplex operation. For half-duplex channels, install the receive frequency and other instructions exactly as described for simplex programming, but before pressing 2ND and LOAD (to store), continue by pressing 2ND and FREQ. This action will cause the XMIT indicator to blink and the FREQ indicator to illuminate. Enter the desired frequency and then push 2ND and LOAD to store channel data. Continue for channels 00 through 99.
To monitor the transmit frequency of a half-duplex programmed channel before transmitting, press 2ND and FREQ while in normal receive mode. The display will change to indicate the transmit frequency, and the receiver will simultanously switch over to operate on the transmit frequency. Press 2ND and FREQ to “toggle” back to normal operation. The XMIT indicator will stop flashing and the receiver will again operate on the receive frequency.
There are at least two versions of the EPROM program for the radio’s Control Board microprocessor. The version may be determined by examining the labels on the three EPROM chips after lowering the front panel. The EPROMs are 28 pin DIPs located in the upper right corner.
Note that this feature does not work with version 601F EPROMs, but works well with version 604M EPROMs.
Harris Radio
Ken, KO6NO makes remote adapter boards for the RF-350K which work very well. Ken can also provide version 604M EPROMs.
K7RDG has Harris manuals and remote control software for the RF-350K on his website.
Harris RF-350K radios
Harris 1KW transceiver awaiting installation
Conditions on 160M have been great lately. I have worked dozens of stations in Japan, VK6VZ and NL7Z are in the log as well.
Today, 25th November it all ended. The Aurora is back and has covered the polar regions.
I worked JW5NM in Svalbard – you may listen to the QSO below. Notice the auroral sound of his transmissions.
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It rained today so I spent the day on the radio instead of outside doing antenna work.
BV1EK was heard with good signals most of the day, but did not hear my calls.
JA7OEM had an amazingly strong and steady signal for hours. We had a short QSO
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I recorded his CQ call for about 45 minutes.
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Later this evening I called CQ and logged the following DX stations :
RW0LT, JA7EVP, JA9RRH, JL2ONQ and JH2SON.
Thanks to EU stations who stood by while I worked the DX.
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The soundfile may be downloaded in .wma format here .
Spectacular conditions continued on 160M with the following DX stations going into the log.
JA7OEM, JH1GNU, UA9BA, JA1BK, RU9MX, JR2KDN, JH5FXP, JA7FUJ, JE6IGP, JA3EMU, JA4LKB, JH4AAG, JA9KRO, JA3CJO, JA7EVP, JA2CXF, JH4CES, 7J4AAL, JR7VHZ, JE2OVG and UA9MA.
It was a great pleasure to QSO my good friends Kan, JA1BK and Yuichi, JR2KDN (second QSO !), who have both visited my station, first in Dili, East Timor when I held 4W6MM and 4W3DX and again in this QTH in Iceland.
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Another fantastic opening to Japan occurred last night. I worked the following 19 stations from JA.
JH0ZHQ, JQ2VVH, JJ2LPV, JE7RJS, JA7FUJ, JA4FUJ, JA4CUU, JA1ANR, JR2KDN, JF1FSR, JI1FXS, JA2FBY, 7K4DHB, JA1HSF, JI1NJC, JA3CSZ, JA1GV, JA2TBS, JH7NTJ and JH7PFD.
It was a special pleasure to work my friends Yuichi, JR2KDN and Yasu, JI1NJC who visited me here in Otradalur.
1948 UTC to 2047 UTC
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2047 UTC to 2115 UTC
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You may download the event in .wma format 1948Z-2047Z and 2047Z-2115Z
On the afternoon of 28. October around 1700 UTC I heard ZL3IX on Top Band.
This is the first time in history that a station from New Zealand is heard in Iceland on 160 meters.
I called him a couple of times and it seems that he was alerted to my presence and he called a few times QRZ TF but did not hear me and then he disappeared.
This was incredibly exciting and raises hopes that a contact may be possible in the future.
I recorded the event:
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