M
Squared
2M12
23CM35
440-18
aimed 144 true, monitoring the K6QPV/B DM12mq beacon, 207 km.
Barely Works Technology is
my main avocational, amateur radio research effort named for the two
facts: 1) my main interest is in technologies that "Barely Work"
(like earth-moon-earth, meteor scatter, or, professionally,
getting data back from Saturn) and that things I build myself,
typically, "Barely Work."
The effort is currently in transition from an "every chip, every bit"
detailed construction and architecture development activity centered on
the DSP-10
software defined .144 GHz IF radio, to something more matched with my
avocational capacities (hours and dollars) and more focused on
end-interests focus, under re-evaluation.
A transitional activity, summer 2013 through summer
2014, is to prepare for a full bore but portable (not roving) camp out
for the 2014 ARRL June VHF
Contest, the preparatory events and developments that lead to that,
participate with SBMS in
10 GHz work and the re-establishment of the JPL Amateur Radio Club, and do some
HF contesting.
Courtney's
Three Rules of Antennas
- Must radiate into free space efficiently.
- Must be in a portion of free space that is worth radiating into.
- Desirable to be impedance matched somehow. Gap DX-IV on
left
Homebrew 15-17-20 dipoles in center
Homebrew 10-6 dipolles nearly on roofline
Discone in tree on left (can see mast, not antenna)
These were great antennas and had to be taken down in order to remove
both trees, August 2009.
Gap down to repair capacity hat and change loading
cap from 1810 KHz to 1960 KHz.
A little trouble switching back to 1810. 2008 Feb 2
Cat (Sassy) as Radio (2009)
(Sassy became SK 6/23/13, RIP.)
Katy working on antennas (1999). (The trees for these are long
gone (2009).)
AMSAT Papers Filings
with the FCC Ballooning Operating W6VIO, set the HF telemetry reception
distance record for an amateur radio balloon flight, 2437 miles.
( See records.) If you like trig, check out my derivation
of the altitude versus line-of-site range rule-of-thumb:
range (miles) = 1.23 * sqrt( height (feet) ) APRS (Automatic
Position Reporting System)
This is one of the best summaries of contemporary amateur radio that I
have seen in at least a decade. No undue hype or heroism, neither
handwringing nor naysaying, just the facts about what is going on, and
a lot of it looks attractive, even now.
The measurement was unchanged throughout so most of
the uncertainty is in how well I did WWV which I estimate at 0.1 Hz,
but there was .66 Hz drift in the TS-680 over the whole hour and I'm
not trying to interpolate that out, so maybe my entry will be around
.50 Hz good.
