I needed a  “winkey”  to work with ” Starlog” the program that we use as part of the GB7HQ team for IARU, as  existing serial keying that I use with our normal Wintest is not supported in Starlog .

I ordered two units from America some time ago now and they arrived yesterday. Too late! but luckily Simon donated a Microham keyer with a built in winkey to the station which I used for IARU.

Anyway after paying the £20. 00 vat due on collection at the post office (no import duty) I had 2 very well packed K1EL Winkeyer USB kits.

Each kit was supplied complete with all parts, documentation consisted of a mini cd with USB drivers and comprehensive instruction manuals that were concise and easy to understand.

The build took about 2 hrs each and the only parts not supplied was some hook up wire for the speed control pot, (I used a single core out of an intruder alarm cable) and some solder.

The only tools needed are a fine tipped iron, small philips screwdriver, a pair of side cutters and a small adjustable spanner to nip the nut up on the speed control pot. If you have an adjustable temperature control iron this is ideal as there are some very fine, but also heavier joints to be made.

If you follow the instructions they take you through a logical step by step build that starts with mounting the resistors to finally inserting the IC’s in their holders to final testing.

The unit can be powered by the usb port or the internal battery pack which can automatically switch between the two for stand alone operation.

I’ve hooked it up to Wintest and its neat to be able to adjust it’s cw keying speed with the Winkey front mounted pot.

The quality of the product is first class, the hardware fits together nicely giving a professional finish.

K1EL has obviously put alot of thought into this kit and I thank him for that as the build was enjoyable and worked first time.

73 Paul G6PZ

Another good contest; we are quite pleased with the 8.8mil points score from mainland EU-005 and by far our best IOTA result to date. Icom UK visited us to see the contest group in action and both the IC-7800 and one of the IC-7700s worked flawlessly.

Some interesting propagation, including transatlantic EU<>NA propagation on 10m working quite a few east coast US soon after midnight.

A recording of 2E0CVN operating on 40m SSB as G6PZ during the contest was recorded by one of the G6PZ team, M0BJL, after arriving home on Saturday late afternoon. Please see this blog post for more.

G6PZ on 40m recorded by M0BJL

This was a fantastic event, the station worked well, we all had a great time and the WX was fantastic. On top of that Ian from Icom spent the weekend with us and made it even better.

Ian took alot away with him about our IOTA efforts and contesting in general and we look forward to seeing him again soon.

I’ve included a sound clip, Shaun had to leave us for work but took the opportunity to record Simon 2E0CVN operating the IC 7700 on 40m when he arrived home.

73 Paul G6PZ

73 Paul G6PZ

This weekend G6PZ morphs into GB7HQ. We are part of the RSGB HQ Team and will be QRV on 15m CW. We will also be providing 40m ssb support. Please go to this web site for further details

http://www.gb7hq.com/

W look forward to meeting you !

73 Paul G6PZ

In my last post I was talking about the broken PST-61 rotator. The 61 is a strong rotator but not strong enough for the MonstIR. The SteppIR’s are quite rotator hungry, by this I mean that you need a rotator that is rated above that of what you would expect compared to a conventional yagi of similar size.

The flexing or whipping of the SteppIR’s elements cause extra loading at the rotator when it starts and stops and also huge loadings under storm conditions. All this adds up and eventually breaks the gears causing the aerial to windmill.

The only thing to do was to change it out and replace it with the PST 71. This rotator is seriously heavy duty and is designed to turn towers and large 40/80m yagi aerials. The good thing is that the swap is relatively straight-forward.

When using the DC 48V motor on the 61 the plugs at the rotator and controller are physically and electrically the same as the 71. I used the new controller supplied with the 71 but the 61 controller has the same part number so I guess that is the same too.

The 71 is of course larger and heavier than the 61 but the stub mast clamps and rotator fixings are the same. The main difference is the fixing plate height, it is not possible to simply slide the 71 into position and mate up with the existing stub clamp as it is higher.

This is not a problem if you have a bottle jack! Simply put the jack between the cage fixing plate and the stub clamp then loosen off the mast head bearing bolts and jack the aerial up enough to slide the 71 in. The rest is easy as all the fixing bolts align as with the 61. The cage has to be large enough to house the 71 but in my case this was not an issue as there was plenty of room.

All that was left to do was align the aerial and rotator up together and that was it!

So there we have it, the MonstIR is back !!

73 Paul G6PZ

For some time now the MonstIR has been without a rotator, the PST-61 that was fitted stripped its gears during a big storm in January allowing the aerial to windmill causing the MonstIR control and coaxial lines to be severed. These were repaired but the rotatator was Fubar and was removed.

The MonstIR has been fixed on EU since then and using the reverse mode it has allowed East / West operations but it has been difficult at times to JA and other paths especially with the weaker signals.

The Prosistel 71 arrived today, it’s a big mother! Hopefully it will be a straight swap with the 61 as the bolt holes seem to be the same. The problem might be with its size and fitting into the rotator cage. I will try and install it over the weekend but will have to build the scaffold tower up first to gain access to the MonstIR as you don’t want to take it off the tower unless you really have to!

The damaged PST 61 was shipped to Prosistel in Italy for repair but although the rotators were very well packed the PST 61 retuned home damaged. The area around one of the bolt holes has been broken away, I expect it was dropped by the carrier so I can see a battle over that now (joy). It would have been worse if it was the 71!

So the next job is to fit it to the tower, hopefully it won’t be too onerous, I will post how I get on.

73 Paul G6PZ

Call: G6PZ
Operator(s): M0DXR
Station: G6PZ

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: somerset
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
Band  QSOs  Mults
——————-
80:  363    60
40:  387    49
20:  349    48
15:    1     1
10:    1     1
——————-
Total: 1101   159  Total Score = 633,774

Please see the final results table below, well done to Mark on a fine result.

http://www.uba.be/hf_contests/results/2008/uba_2008_ssb_dx_chp.pdf

73 Paul G6PZ

After the shack refit the existing “tower” computers with all their associated wiring made the set up look messy so I decided to replace them with laptops. This not only saves space and tidies things up but also the on board battery acts as a mini UPS.

Three Compaq C300 wireless laptops were acquired and networked through a Belkin 54g 2.4 GHz wireless access point in the shack and logged on to the encumberant home Wi-Fi network. The ADSL router is a Netgear “Mimo” located in the G6PZ house about 70ft away. Another “Mimo” is located in the attic in bridge mode to improve coverage. The Belkin can see both “Mimo” routers but is logged in to the attic unit as this is a slightly stronger connection. All devices are firewalled for security. The phone line is connected to the router via a dedicated filter in the BT socket, and this kills any 80m internet drop out!

As the three operating positions are served with wireless laptops it made sense not to stop there!

The keyboards and mice are also 2.4 GHz units linked into the laptop via a USB dongle. The mouse is a laser type that neatly works on the glass tables without a mouse mat.

The radios CAT and CW keying is via RS-232 USB serial converters plugged into the laptops USB port.

All computers are running the latest Win-Test logging soft and are easily networked. This set up gives us more flexibility and the ability to add more to the shack network if required, it also makes it look neat and tidy and a useful upgrade to the IT set up.

73 Paul G6PZ

Although we have two 7700s, for this outing we wanted to compare our IC-7800 and the new IC-7700 alongside each other in contest conditions. It’s all well and good reading up on stats and what radio has the best performance numbers but at the end of the day this means little if you can’t use the thing in the heat of battle. Ergonomics and reliability are just as important. It’s no good having the best IMD figures at this and that point so many KHz up or down when the rig next door fires up and crashes it!

WPX CW was our first outing with the 7700. We ran it constantly for 48hrs without any problems and the op’s liked the layout and feel of the radio. Comments like “a proper radio” and “isn’t it big with nice knobs” were among some expressed by the op’s. The clear frequency and filter read out was much appreciated. The very high build quality was also noticed and if comparisons have to be made then the rig it replaced (Orion) it is very clear that Icom are streets ahead with this one.

The performance was certainly up to the IC-7800 if not slightly better but difficult to say for sure at this time. I have not tried it on SSB yet so looking forward to that!

So to sum it up, the IC-7700 is a very competent performer, the op’s liked it and found it easy to use.

It did not lock up, crash or have any operational issues at all so seems to be a stable platform in a high RF contest enviorment.

I will put it through its paces for sure, but even at this early stage in our relationship we like it a lot.

73 Paul G6PZ