LoTW: Adiós!

I'm not your typical ham. That much I'll grant you.

I'm not motivated by radio contests and I have no interest in gathering 'DXCC' awards.

Of course, if they are on offer and awards of various kinds are granted by the way then, sure, I'll take them for all they're worth (i.e nothing beyond street-cred value).

Physical QSLing is something I used to enjoy on a fairly regular basis in the early days. Then it fell back to only returning what I was sent, or some especially 'exotic' DX. 

For the most part, the QSL cards were to interest my then young kids in the wider world. Operators, from a Swedish airline pilot to a Scottish man living on Cooke Island, were kind enough to send us cards and, quite often, little gifts. 

But postal rates increased quite a lot in the post-financial meltdown period. Money was anyway tight. Digital modes took hold such that you could have a list of 200 or more QSOs every day. QSLing them all - or even any - became increasingly burdensome and, ultimately, entirely impractical.

Logging QSOs was something I did in A4 page-to-a-day diaries. I loved doing that, especially when there was plenty of SSB going on. 

Eventually, I did start using e-QSL, QRZ.com's logbook feature and then LoTW. Over time, I opted only to use LoTW, it being the most recognisable logging scheme then on offer.

In fairness, LoTW has worked well for me over the years. It's rarely given any trouble, though the whole way it works through the T-QSL interface is now very outdated and irksome. In the past year, there was a big outage owing to a hack that the ARRL were reluctant to inform anyone about, at least until everyone had figured-out what had gone on for themselves.

This week, I went to upload about a month's worth of QSOs, which is pretty much the norm for me. T-QSL was having none of it. 

I apparently have no such overarching callsign as MW1CFN - funny, given it's worked for a decade or so thus far. No, the certificate hasn't expired, though on a second attempt at upload, it then advised me it expired in 2 days' time. Funny again, because I hadn't received any reminders as is usual with expiring calls.

GB1MUU's certificate is for DXCC 'Wales'. Yet, T-QSL has started deciding it's listed as 'England', even though a large number of QSOs over a couple of years have never generated this problem before. Even if it's a simple solution, I'm done with this LoTW rubbish.

 

Then it decided that my QSO's were being uploaded with the 'England' DXCC, even though the certificate within T-QSL itself shows 'Wales' - as it has done from the outset; why would any Welsh operator want to be associated with England, after all?

Whilst there is a LoTW help facility, the replies are often rudely terse and sound like a grumpy old man has been woken up to deal with something he'd rather not.

 

That's a lot better!

I decided this was the time to look elsewhere. I have previously registered with Club Log, but not used it much. I can't even remember why I registered! 

In any case, back to Club Log I came and the upload is as easy as pie. No two-key nuclear codes type verification, certificates and standalone uploaders and such like as with LoTW. Just upload the ADIF and it's all done. Plenty of data tools to keep the obsessives happy, too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ground Truth

I was looking around the manual for the Yaesu FTX-1 yesterday. I was very irritated to find the following text at page 16:

 

Why the irritation?  Well, it's because it doesn't take into account that there are in the world various AC grounding systems where the above instructions - or is it advice? - will result in, at best, an unlawful electrical installation.

At worst, it could lead to your innocent-looking ground stake becoming the only available path to earth for possibly several houses in the event of a PME neutral break.

True, there are regular connections to local ground at the base of every few supply poles carrying the AC along the community. But that is only a risk-reducing measure; it doesn't remove entirely the possibility of a neutral break between the last local ground connection and your property. If that happens, your equipment could catch fire and your house insurance, because you had an improperly-installed and unlawful electrical installation, quite likely invalidated.

And possibility can translate into actuality. For a brief while after moving house once, I had such a rod without a direct connection to earth at the incoming mains (the rush to get back on air!) I heard a bang in the street and the PC on which I was writing flickered a bit, the screen dimmed, but it kept working. A fuse had blown on a pole, resulting in a neutral break. My PC was able to achieve sufficient, if rather poor ground through my radio equipment and the earth rod it was connected so that it keep the circuit going. A salutary, real-world warning for you, there. If you have something like this, at the very least, pull out your plug (just switching it off may not work, depending on socket design) when you are not using your radio stuff and definitely overnight.

I wrote about all this a long time ago. I even corrected the RSGB's 'RadCom' when they published the exact-same, wrong advice in that magazine. I never saw the promised correction article they said would be published later - they struggled to find anyone - including me (because I'm not a qualified electrical engineer or electrician) - willing to write it, as I recall. They have since published this advice leaflet.

So, the only advice Yaesu should be publishing is that your grounding installation must be compliant with country and region-specific electrical regulations ('codes') and you should seek professional advice. To highlight just how novel amateur grounding situations are, even to those in the electrical supply industry, it took a regional network manager an hour of conversation and two cups of coffee at my home for the penny to truly click in his mind about the sheer risk posed by improperly-installed ground rods.

It's an interesting question as to legal liability, should someone take Yaesu's text in good faith and do what they say. If I were Yaesu, I'd change that text, pretty quick! 

Last of the Many

Last week, having reached various savings goals, I decided I'd splash-out with the now spare monthly cash on a roller-coaster antenna matching unit - or 'ATU'.

Over the years, I've acquired various large air-spaced capacitors and a nice, motorised roller inductor. But I've never really put it all together in a decent way, though it is not electrically difficult. Making a decent box, incorporating a SWR meter and so on takes time and, often, more money than you hoped would be the case!

MFJ-986. A nice unit, but that counter...

 

So, I had a look around for a MFJ 986, a unit I've looked at for years. MFJ ceased trading last year, so if I didn't grab a 986 that might be on a shop shelf somewhere soon, I'd likely never get one because, once you've bought one, even if it's not that well-built and it fails, the components inside are valuable and easily reusable, so are unlikely to find their way to the used market.

Radioworld happened to have a new 986, so I ordered it. Within minutes of its arrival, I was regretting the purchase - though my despair was a bit premature, as you'll see.

The trouble was the turns counter - a fairly cheap and not especially well-engineered unit that has a small, plastic worm drive connected to a slightly wobbly shaft to which the inductor shaft is connected via gears. As I turned the inductor, the counter kept skipping at every turn.

The upper, small gear was attached too far back along the counter shaft, as it serves to keep a plastic worm gear within the counter in place on the counter's gearing. After repositioning the gear, things got a lot better, but large changes in inductor position can sometimes lead to skipping. I added a small amount of grease to the gears, though this isn't really necessary.

 

I filed a return and refund and had even booked DHL to collect the box the following day. They never showed up. I decided I'd keep the unit because it was likely I could either fix the counter or else add something that would work better - maybe an optical encoder or the like. The warranty was largely useless in terms of a direct replacement, because it's unlikely there will be any available in up to a year's time, now MFJ is out of business.

My son and I took to opening the cabinet. All but two of the self-tappers came away easily. One came away by pulling and screwing with pliers. The other's thread had been so stripped on assembly that it needed the application of a rotary tool cutting wheel! 

Inside, the 986 is, like all MFJ products, actually quite decent in terms of quality and assembly, but it is very deep, owing to the large capacitor and inductor. It's a real shame they didn't decide to install a much higher quality turns counter and up the price a little; it has been the cause of some redesign in the past, moving from a belt system - which slipped - to the present gears. So they should have done better than just tinker with it.

Innards of the 986. It's a decent build. As for mine, the battery cable is best either removed as surplus to requirements or taped down, rather than left loose. Courtesy N8IE.

 

The counter was easily removed with two small screws and I found the worm drive off the gear-driven shaft was too far forward, because the gear itself had been screwed on too far back to retain it in place. Though this seemed to work fine after reintalling, it did skip very occasionally the following day when I turned the control fairly rapidly and across long lengths of the inductor. Another dismantle-reinstall cycle seemed to be stable and so it was time to build up the table of inductor and capacitor positions for each band.

The good news is that the amount of inductance needed to match my 30m-cut delta loop, which I use on 40-10m when the ATU is inline, requires very little of the coil at all; the 30m-upper 10m bands only needs the range counter to move from 154 to 162 and the hand control to move just a single rotation or so - meaning the opportunity for the counter to jump is very low as there are no large, rapid turns needed at all.

I'd love to put a perspex cover on the 986, as it's a work of art to behold. But stray RF above 21MHz causes hang-ups via the computer mouse cable and, at ordinary working power, may also cause the computer itself to crash. So, back on with the metal case, with only a few screws installed for any future attention to the counter that may be necessary.

Another weak point with this matching unit is the shaft coupler connecting the antenna selector switch on the front panel (itself with a set screw that easily strips the knob's housing thread) to the actual switch mechanism, which is located at the very rear of the unit. The coupler is a rigid type, even though there's a modest amount of misalignment that needs to be catered for. The rod that forms part of the switch itself is steel and has the usual flat notch for a set screw to rest into. The problem is that the rod connected to the front panel knob, which is aluminium, had no such flat notch, though the metal is soft enough for a set screw to dig in somewhat. Even so, the coupler quickly came to slip completely on use. I had to remove the aluminium rod - easily done with little more than a set of Allen keys - and file a flat bed at its end. This solved the problem and likely needs no more attention. But I did buy some clamping rod couplers as replacements if the slipping happens again.

I will certainly look to try and install a counter that's more robust in the coming weeks. But as it stands, the 986 is still a pleasure to use. It has a nice, large LED-lit SWR meter with good accuracy and tuning is very quick. The only issue of note is that the 986 is made with US power levels (up to 3kW!) in mind, so the power out meter has poor resolution below 10W, making setting 1W accurately for WSPR a bit tricky initially, until I find out where the needle should lie. But that's really nit-picking.

The 986 is big, but it does a good job.

 

Would I pay £560-odd for it again? I'm not sure. If the counter were solid, I'd definitely buy it again. But that cheap counter shouldn't be in such an expensive item and so if I reran the purchase, I'd opt for a Palstar, which get good reviews. Sadly, that would be an additional £150 or so, unless you were lucky to find a used unit somehow - there is a lot of competition and thus quite high prices when they appear on Ebay.

The other comparison I have to make is with my 941E, which has fixed, rather than continuous induction settings. There's nothing wrong with this after 16 years' daily use and matching is pretty much perfect on every band. It's also a nice, compact size for UK operators unlikely to go above 100W - unlike the huge 986! The 941 is light enough to take on /p operations - as I have. 

Really, the 986 is more a luxury, nice thing to have that makes matching just a little more civilised, allows for a somewhat, though academically-better match than the 941E, and the big meter is much easier to see. Overall, if you're careful about where your money goes, the 986 and kW-rated units like it are something to skip. The saving grace, I suppose, is that if you do buy one, it's at least only a once-in-a-lifetime purchase!

 

 

Wireless Phone Charger - More RFI!

My son brought home a wireless charger for his Apple phone the other day. A generic model from Argos, I grumbled that it probably produces a load of RFI.

Does it?

A quick hook-up this morning shows that, yes, it produces pulsed RFI on 28MHz (it's likely the same or worse on other bands). It's fairly low level when the charger base is just on and sitting there, but bringing my hand in close proximity to it produced a big increase in noise, as you would expect from the capacitive coupling. It might produce continuous RFI when a phone is lying on it and charging is underway, but I haven't checked that yet.

The good news is that, with the addition of a substantial Type 31 split ferrite with at least two, close-fitting windings of the supply cable, the RFI was removed pretty much completely.

Of course, it's a lot easier, cheaper and lower RFI simply to use a cable!

Type 31 ferrite pretty much eliminates the problem.