FT3D WHIZ SOFTWARE

FREE FT3D PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE

Hard to believe it, but Yaesu (at the time of writing) have no programming software for their flagship handheld transceiver - FT-3D - and have no plans to offer any!

Thankfully, someone else by the name of Brek Martin in New Zealand wrote some software and put it into the public domain. It's called FT3D WHIZ and is available here...

I strongly urge you to do the right thing and make a donation to Brek for all his hard work.

LDG Z-100PLUS ATU REVIEW

LDG's "ZERO CURRENT" ATU

When using my portable radio (ICOM IC-7300) during a Field Day Event I need an autotuner to supplement the in-built tuner which only matches antennas with an SWR of less than 3:1.  I could of course use my diminutive Z-817, but that can only handle around 20W which would be no good if one of my radio-club colleagues wanted to sit at the mic.  So the answer was to find a small, light ATU and a quick search resulted in me choosing the LDG Z100PLUS.

It's similar to my LDG Z817 and shares the same "Zero Current" technology which means that in standby-mode there is virtually zero current draw - which is why there's no ON/OFF switch. The unit is powered from internal batteries (which should last for approximately one year) but can also be powered (and controlled) by the radio if you purchase the appropriate lead.

With the control lead fitted, the unit takes its power from the radio (the IC-7300 Molex connector in my case) and also permits the radio's "TUNE" button to be used instead of the LDG's. 

The Z100PLUS can handle 125W which makes it perfect for most of today's popular rigs. It will also handle about 30W in Digital mode. It has 2000 memories for near-instant tuning of previously tuned frequencies.

The LDG Z100PLUS interfaces with the QRP ICOM IC-705 superbly, using a regular 3.5mm jack to jack stereo lead, so it's a great option for that too. Makes a nice change from having to buy expensive interface leads (are you listening Yaesu?). I think you can also program one of the 705's front-panel buttons to act as a TUNE button. For the IC-7300 you’ll need a 3.5mm to Molex interface lead available from TechnoFix…

I see Waters & Stanton posted a video on 14 Aug 2021  virtually claiming that this ATU was designed specifically for the 705 but of course it's not - the Z-100PLUS was in production way before the 705 hit the shelves.

The ATU weighs 570g. Download the manual here.

Since writing this post, I've also bought an Elecraft T1 for portable use with my IC-705. The LDG is much cheaper and performs extremely well in terms of what it will tune-up. It's a great little ATU and I recommend it highly!

Thanks for visiting - please take a minute to leave a comment below 

73, Tom, M7MCQ.

NISSEI NS-1230D PSU

THE DIGITAL SCREEN PSU

Nissei have been producing electronic goods for over 50 years and I've found them to be a reasonably good product at the price point. This NS-1230D psu is the updated version of the 1230M and now includes an attractive Digital LCD screen instead of the older analogue meter.

NISSEI  NS-1230D  30A  PSU

This Switched Mode Power Supply unit provides up to 30A (surge) at 13.8V, although a maximum constant draw of 25A would be more realistic. The unit is incredibly compact for such an output, measuring just 127mm wide! On the front panel it has the large and bright display showing the output voltage and current, a variable voltage dial (4-16V) and two banana/binding posts for quick connection.

At the rear is has two sets of powerpole sockets. Personally, I've always used 4mm banana plugs and sockets, but I'm slowly moving over to Anderson Power Poles.It seems to me that everyone favours the powerpoles but in all honesty, I don't see a great advantage other than they can be stacked.

The NS-1230D has short-circuit and output over-voltage protection, so there's little chance of accidental damage to the unit by ham-fisted users. The psu is enclosed in a smart steel case and it weighs just 1.35Kg. The fan is reasonably quiet.

I plan to use this Nissei NS1230D to power my VHF/UHF radio and let my Alinco DM-330FX power my HF radio and the rest of the shack components.

SHACK PIC

Yes, Another Shack Photo!

Changed things around so that even the portable/mobile stuff is stored in the shack instead of being in cases.

QSL CARDS & CAP

NEW QSL DESIGN

Last night I had a little time on my hands so I designed a QSL CARD and ordered some to be printed by VistaPrint here in the UK. I also ordered a baseball cap.

ICOM IC-7400

And it arrived.....

The Icom IC-7400 arrived and I must say, it is MINT+++ with not a single mark or scratch on it. Very impressed! But how does it work?

Well after faffing around connecting it to power and to the MFJ 993B ATU, I soon discovered that yes, it works fine. Nice audio from the built-in speaker and without reading a single word of the original manual, I was soon chatting away on 40M SSB. I then flicked it over to 2M and chatted to some local friends who reported good signal and audio.

I was using the supplied (original) microphone but I will probably also buy a lead to give me the option of using my Adonis AM-708E desk-mic. The radio has built-in speech compression and you can also tailor the transmitted audio, with adjustment to both treble and bass.

The screen is big and bright - love it! There's lots of button, knobs and dials and they all have a great feel to them apart from the four tiny rotaries on the bottom left of the rig - they're just a bit too small for my liking. And they're proportionally longer than they need to be which always gives me the feeling that they'll be under undue lateral load over the years. It's also quite annoying not having a readout for the power-setting; you have to key-up to see the power on the bar-meter.

Moving from band to band and mode to mode is very simple and so too is the tuning - be it fine or coarse. The menu system is pretty intuitive and like I said, I've not had to pick up the owners manual yet.

At the back, the radio provides two HF antenna connections and one for 2M (all of them being SO-239). There's connections for a linear, data, tetc, etc and one for an external tuner. Speaking of tuners, the radio has one built-in and it's good for up to 3:1 matches.

It has a bandscope (of sorts) which was probably considered very good in its day, but it seems a bit old hat now that there are so many rigs with high resolution panadapters and waterfalls. It's one of those passive things that you have to manually set sweeping and the audio cuts out while it's doing so.

The filtering on the radio is pretty impressive and you can adjust the filter shapes in SSB & CW even on 2M! The radio uses the same 32-bit IF DSP as used in the IC-756 PRO-2 and overall, I really warmed to this radio right from the get-go. I look forward to using it more and will probably set it up in the shack for winter so that I'm completely familiar with it by the time it goes out on any field days.

FIELD DAY RADIO

ICOM IC-7400

I've been thinking that it'd be great to have a radio for "Field Day" events but I didn't want to spend a fortune on it, so I looked at a few different models including the FT857 and FT-897. My friend had an 897 for sale but it had the dreaded 'vertical lines' on the LCD display. So I looked at other 897's but there's just not that many around and I'd have to buy a tuner too.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I opted for the ICOM IC-7400 and started a search on eBay and found a few over-priced options mainly from dealers, so I decided to do my usual thing and saved a search.

It didn't take long before the perfect radio appeared and because of my saved search, I was notified the moment it appeared. Boom! I clicked that BuyNow and got the perfect radio at the perfect price.

The radio is described as "Mint Condition" but there's little other information about it. When people barely write anything in their eBay descriptions it always worries me, but I'm paying through PayPal so I've got a good degree of protection and if the radio arrives with any problems, I will just ship it straight back. To ignore this potential bargain would have been foolhardy.

The IC-7400 was a superb radio in its day and in addition to the HF and 6M it has 2m. All at 100W, so that's perfect for when I eventually upgrade my licence. And it will be a handy rig to have on Field Day events for any other club members to play with when I'm taking a break.

I love and adore my FT-818 - it's perfect when I'm on my own up in the hills with a lightweight resonant wire antenna, but if I take it on a Field Event, in a less than perfect location (as I did recently on our club's POTA day), it showed up some weaknesses with its 5W on HF and 2.5W on VHF. I think having my full 10W on both bands would have made all the difference.

Apparently, early models developed a TX fault and the LCD backlight failed. Fortunately, the radio I have bought is a late model which isn't affected. The rig is very well thought of by most operators on eHam and having spoken to people on the relevant forums, I was comfortable with my choice. No radio is perfect, but for £400 I think I may have got a real good buy.

I also like the look of the rig! I know that's silly, but to me it is one of the buying parameters. For example, I love the look of the FT-897D but couldn't live with an 857 even though it does all the same things in a smaller package. The IC-7400 is a nice, chunky looking thing and I much prefer having extra height to extra width in a field-radio.

The display just couldn't be better - it's big, bold and very clear! There's lots of traditional buttons and dials and it looks like the sort of thing that you can just 'get on with' straight away. It's also got a good ATU built-in which is very handy. Obviously it won't tune a piece of wet string, but it'll certainly be good enough to fine-tune the rough ends of the resonant dipoles and EFHW's that I use.

It's not very energy efficient, so it'll need mains or a good chunky battery in the field, but that's fine. I'm not going to be chucking it into a rucksack to go playing SOTA with it - it weighs 9kg, lol.

More when it arrives!

WSJT-X & FT8

FT8 AND THE YAESU FT-DX3000
Starting out with FT8

Today I decided to have a play with FT8. I didn't even know what it was, but I kept hearing about it, so I thought I should educate myself. If I spent a couple of hours learning about it and decided it wasn't for me, then at least I could comment on it with some knowledge of how it actually worked.

The first thing was to download the WSJT-X software which (at the time of writing) is at Version 2. With that installed, I needed to connect my Yaesu FT-DX3000 to my PC with a USB-B lead (after fitting ferrites at both ends).

Before plugging the USB Lead in, I had to make sure that I downloaded and installed the USB Driver from Yaesu's website.


Once I'd got the Yaesu driver and WSJT-X software installed, I had some issues getting the radio to communicate with the WSJT-X software. It took quite a long time to figure it out and I'll write about that tomorrow, but for now, let's just skip forward. It's worth pointing out that most people drop their power significantly when transmitting data for fear of overloading their equipment. I am limited to 10W anyway (Foundation Licence) so it doesn't effect me, but I've heard that it might be a good idea - as a maximum - to use the equivalent power that your radio is comfortable with when in AM mode (which is 25W on the FT-DX3000).

Remember - this is a weak signal mode, not QRP, so use what you feel is necessary.

With the software running, I could see stations being received in the left hand window and some were calling CQ (highlighted in green). I doubled-clicked one to respond and the right-hand window confirmed that. From that point on, the QSO is automated - the software spends 15 seconds receiving and then 15 seconds transmitting. Assuming the two stations can reach one another, the software automatically sends and receives signal reports, callsigns and locations, then asks you if you wish to log the confirmed call.

Sounds easy huh? Well it is! But you do have to do some work and there's no guarantee that you will make a contact at all. You can work virtually all the bands and it's good fun chasing rare contacts that appear briefly.

The program's Signal Reports confused me at first, but then I found a dB~RST conversion chart...

MORE LATER...

Okay, so it's day-2 and the first couple of QSL Cards arrived in my eqsl inbox. There'll no doubt be a lot more when I upload the Log file from WSJT to EQSL.

While I'm here I might as well write down the Yaesu FT-DX3000 Menu Settings for FT8 operation to make it easy for owners of that rig. It's also worth mentioning that my rig has a USB port and a soundcard built-in, so setting up was a whole lot simpler than if none were present.

FT-DX3000 MENU NUMBERS

011 - Meter Type Select : Bar
037 - Cat Select : USB
038 - Cat Rate : 38,400bps
040 - Cat RTS : Enable
065 - PC Keying : DTR
075 - Data In Select : USB
076 - Data Mic Gain : 25
077 - Data Out Level : 10
078 - Data Vox Gain : 30
103 - SSB Mic Select - USB

One thing I haven't checked since playing FT8 is whether or not I need to change Menu 103 back to "FRONT" for normal SSB operation. I suspect that I will have to do that. I'll report back. Update : yes you do need to change Menu-103 to "FRONT" if you want to use your normal microphone for rag-chewng.

I'm now looking forward to trying FT8 with other antennas.

BANDS ARE DEAD?

CALL CQ!!!

Almost every day I hear operators saying the bands are dead. Most of them have panadapters and waterfalls - either built into their radios or through a third party device such as an RSP1A. These operators look at their displays and see a virtual flatline and determine visually that there's nothing going on.

The truth is, the panadapter and waterfalls can be amazing tools for finding signals (or gaps between signals) and I use one myself all the time, but on many occasions, the display doesn't always reflect what's actually going on.

In the absence of strong, outstanding signals, all you might see is a 'flat line' but down there at grass level there's often an abundance of weak signals that can be pulled out if you search for them like in the old days when there was no such thing as SDR 😃

BUT MOST OF ALL, instead of whinging about dead bands, why not bring the bands to life with a few CQ CALLS??

If you put out a few CQ calls of your own, hopefully someone will receive you and startup a QSO. And your activity may well promote even more activity. At least give it a go! And with modern radios it's soooo easy to record a CQ message (speech or morse) and re-transmit it over and over at the push of a button!

So come on guys, let's stop talking about dead bands and start doing something to breathe life into it. 70cm is the perfect example of it - so many people mock the lack of activity on 70cm but never actually call out on it or schedule a QSO on it.

Many modern radios are dual-banders and can monitor 2M and 70cm, so try calling CQ on 70 now and again and hopefully, all those dual-band operators who have 433.500 monitoring in the background will respond. And instead of telling a friend to meet up for a chat on 2M later tonight, ask them to try 70cm instead (if you're within range). And if you're not within range of each other at UHF, try using a 70cm Repeater for a change.

Use it or lose it they say.

73

GREAT VIDEO FOR EFHW & UNUN

Unravels a few mysteries

This guy makes some great videos - especially for us newbies who don't quite grasp some of the things that we read in a book. Often times, a short video can take the place of a large book. In this video, End Fed Half Wave antennas are discussed and the construction of UNUN's. It's very interesting and well put together.

Skip to 4:50 to avoid the initial rant on contesting 😃

ATU - Antenna Tuners??

Antenna Tuners Don't Tune Antennas

All the old boys know that antenna tuners don't tune antennas, but I hear a lot of the newer operators (and even some intermediates) boasting about the effectiveness of their antennas once they've installed a good antenna tuner.

Well I know that's not the case and I know that my half-size G5RV is a pretty poor antenna even though my ATU can "tune" it on almost any band and give me a 1:1 SWR reading.

The fact that my radio (and ATU) are showing me figures indicating a near perfect match, makes no real difference to the actual resonance of my antenna - the antenna remains as good or as bad as it was before the ATU was installed. My radio 'thinks' it's putting out 10W and none is reflected, but in actual fact, MOST of it might be reflected and I might only be getting 1W out.

That's why I don't expect good results using my G5RV (which also happens to be located in a terrible position and height at my QTH). I use it (and the ATU) because I have no option. I cannot erect anything better, so I have to accept the limitations of the antenna and just do the best I can with it.

Sure, I have managed to get some great QRP results when the conditions have been exceptional. And the G5RV is in all fairness not that bad on 20 & 40 but it's all a compromise and I'm not fooling myself that having a 1.0:1 SWR reading through the tuner is turning my poor antenna into a good one.

The only way to get good and effective results is to use an antenna that is already resonant on the frequency you wish to operate on. For me, that means installing a temporary resonant antenna at weekends such as the SotaBeams 20/40 linked dipole on a telescopic mast in the back garden. The results are great, but at the end of the weekend (or holidays), it has to be dropped back down to avoid objections from the neighbours and landlord and I have to go back to using the G5RV and accept the fact that although I have a 1.0:1 reading, I am in some cases barely getting out!

So, if you're one of those new operators who doesn't quite understand this, take a look at this great video which explains it further.

73

PUBS ON THE AIR

PUBS ON THE AIR - WMRC

14th SEPTEMBER 2019
I forgot to post about this event! Mind you, there was some mix-up because our club had arranged the POTA event at a local pub and upon arrival, we realised the special event was actually supposed to be Churches On The Air! 😂

Ah well, we had a good time and spent a pleasant day playing radio.

REVERSE BEACON NET

Putting It Out There

I recently found out about the "Reverse Beacon Net" whereby a number of people across the world act as "Spotters", listening out for CW transmissions across the bands and then posting a Signal Report on a website which you can then access to see how far you got.  I thought that was a pretty fine idea, so I registered and then did some transmitting.

Oops! Hold on though - I haven't learned Morse Code (apart from my callsign) so what do I do? Well first of all I borrowed a key from a friend and made crude attempts to send "CQ CQ CQ, THIS IS QRP STATION M7MCQ"

Needless to say, that didn't work out too well, so I reduced it to "CQ TEST M7MCQ" and tried that. It still sounded attrocious even to my untrained ears, so I looked in the FT-DX3000 Owners Manual and found that I could type in up to five messages and have the radio do the sending for me!!

Not only does the radio send the message out in CW but it also allows you to decide the send-speed. Excellent!! So I tried it and got some responses on the RBN webpage within seconds.

Initially, I wasn't doing too well getting noticed (10W) so I decided to jump to the frequency of the most recent spot report and then I got responses, so there's a tip for you!

Give it a go - its fun.

ALINCO DR-735E Programming

Alinco DR-735 Programing Problem Solved

I'm only writing this post to help out other DR-735 owners. When I got my DR-735, I programmed in all the local repeaters using my ERW7 USB Lead and Clone Software. Everything was ok. 

But then some months later, I went to make some changes to the stored memories and struggled to get the PC to recognise the Radio. I had got the FTDI Driver installed and the radio showed up as COM-19 in the Device Manager, but every time I tried to read or write to the radio I got an ERROR.

I tried all sorts including installing everything onto a different computer - to no avail. It then dawned on me that I might have the lead plugged into SP2 port instead of SP1. I looked and saw that the lead was plugged into SP1.

So after a bit more head-scratching, I wondered if it mattered that I had an external speaker connected to SP2 - it did!!  As soon as I disconnected the SP2 lead, the programming software began to work again. D'oh!

So, in summary, when programming the Alinco DR-735E, plug the programming lead into SP1 and make sure SP2 socket has nothing plugged in it.

PLEASE CONFIRM QSO!!

SPECIAL EVENT STATION CONFIRMATIONS

Being new to this hobby, I am perhaps a bit "over keen" on getting contacts logged and confirmed. I fully understand and accept that many operators do not choose to keep a log - that's fine - there's no licence requirement to keep a log (not in the UK anyway).

So putting the over-eagerness to one side, I don't think it's too much to expect Special Event Stations to respond. But in my experience, not only do Special Event Stations not respond, most of them don't even use QRZ's Logging system!

Now I'm not daft enough to think that every operator in the world will choose the same LogBook as me, but I do expect Special Event Stations to provide a path for QRZ-Loggers to log their QSO's alongside the 62,000,000+  QRZ records!!

I think it's fair to say that most operators turn to QRZ.com to see who they're talking to and I don't think it unfair to expect to find an SES or Club callsign to be found registered there and to provide pertinent information regarding the Special Event or Club.

But what I have found is that some SES don't even register their callsign on QRZ ahead of the event - some register, but opt out of the Logging option. A few do register and opt into the Logging but then don't respond to confirmation requests - they're probably the worst of them all.

Here's two examples of Special Events - BIWOTA 2019 and LOTA 2019...

You can see here that despite me participating in their events, only 15% responded to my request for a confirmation - and that's after me pestering via email!!   Over half of them don't even bother participating in QRZ logging so I can't even request a confirmation!

In the next event, only 1 person confirmed the contact with me. The vast majority of SES operators didn't participate in QRZ Logging, therefore denying me any chance to get a confirmed contact.

Surely if you are a Special Event Station and you register your callsign with QRZ, you should activate the Logging option too. Evein if you normally use something like LOTW, it only takes a few minutes to set up a QRZ log and have it automatically port over the adif to QRZ.

Or am I talking rubbish? I am after all, new to this.

QSL CARDS

QSL CARDS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

I wanted a single place to locate my QSL CARDS and decided to use this post to do it but then another operator (PE4BAS) pointed out to me that he posts his on a separate blog altogether which I thought was a great idea.

The QSL BLOG is >here< and each card contains the callsign below it in 'text' so that it is searchable.