News and temp changes to HHH - http://www.sm0vpo.com

Forgot, Harry; an RX antenna may help if the noise is high only on one side of the QSO; as for the TX antenna, if you don't care about "hardcore DX", did you consider a T3FD antenna ?


https://groups.io/g/MARS-ALE-Antennas/attachment/79/0/T3FD%20-%20ver%201.1.docx

that would give you full bands coverage

Harry, the SULA is no "miracle" but may/will help, since it will be somewhat like having a beam (even if rx only) antenna, so it may help "pulling out" a signal when a (say) vertical would loose it in noise or due to a station on the same/nearby frequency

Full details about building it can be found here (yep, that's me)

https://swling.net/viewtopic.php?t=55

the antenna is pretty easy to put together and pretty forgiving (I designed it to be so) but if built "by the book" will offer some quite surprising performances (NO MIRACLES !) and, while the LoG is good up to around 10MHz, the SULA will serve you from 1 to 40MHz and then from 200 to 500MHz

Hi Andrew,
I was really interested in this antenna, mainly because it has such a low profile and can be mounted only 3m above ground level.

For the past few weeks I have not been able to communicate with my brother in England. Occasionally we hear each other but only in the background. The problem is that a decent RX antenna that can pull him out of the noise is not really of any use unless we both use something similar, otherwise it will be one-way communications.

Interestingly, there is a blooming huge hill just South of Leeds and there is another station the other side of the hill whom I can hear quire regularly with good 5/7 contacts.

I have had a lot on my plate lately, for the past 4 months, and it was only this weekend I was able to fulfill the last item in Maj-Lis's testament - disposing of her jewelry to the people she wanted to receive it.
I still have not had the "official" "dödsbouppteckning" from the tax authority, so Maj-lis is still legally a joint owner of the house !! It is really a never-ending story and they cannot get all the red-tape and paperwork sorted out after 4 1/2 months. I just hope it is sorted out in my lifetime  

I telephoned the UK pension office to cancel her pension. They asked me a personal question about my mother to confirm my identity. Fixed on the phone in about 5 minutes.
The Norwegian authority was a different "kettle of fish". They even asked me for MY employers since 1968, together with loads of forms and document. But it was eventually fixed within about 5 weeks.

Now that Winter is peeking round the corner, I will have less to do in the garden (not that I am doing much now - no DIY only GSETDIFY). Then I will do some tests with antennas. I STILL want to try the traveling wave antenna and the LOG antenna. the SULA was really interesting reading and impressive by the frequency range and SNR.

Thank you very much for the information. Sharing this sort of knowledge is what this forum is all about.

Very best regards from Harry - sm0vpo

sm0vpo wrote:Hi Ivan,
I have not been doing much radio or bench work because I want to get everything in the house sorted out.

But I removed the 60m cable from the pokey bedroom at the front of the house, outside and leading to the back garden.
Today I have a 15m low-loss cable from the back room directly to the antenna.

The ambient noise has fallen by about 20dB   I can use 7MHz now, with just a bit of increased noise. 80m is noisy but now usable (but not for DX).

I also took down the mluti-band dipole and put up a single-band dipole for 14MHz. I was suspecting that e additional elements were degrading each other. This proved not to be the case.

At the moment I have a walk-in closet in which I have put shelves and moved the WiFi router into that from the fiber terminal. This emptied more space in the old shack. Got to get all the wires and rubbish out of there, then re-decorate. Now I installing shelves for the homepage server, monitor and such, and this time there will be a 500mb/s connection to the server.

When all this is done I will sort out the radio, power outlets and get everything tidy, THEN I can take up the hobby more seriously and have the space to achieve things, instead of searching for components and trying to get a bit of work-space.

At the moment HHH at http://www.sm0vpo.com is back on the Raspberry Pi during the changes.

Like all things, changes like this take time (and money).

Have a nice day - Harry - sm0vpo

Hi there, Harry, hope you have most (if not all) things sorted out by now, if so, and since you've been on a quest for antennas, here's something you may be interested in

https://swling.com/blog/2022/08/introducing-the-amazing-sula-an-affordable-unidirectional-dx-grade-loop-antenna-that-you-can-build/

https://swling.com/blog/2022/08/small-unidirectional-loop-antenna-sula-part-2-construction-notes/

it's the result of some months of "head scratching" with me running the simulations and trying to find a way to improve the antenna and Ollie (13dka) running tests at the northern coast of Germany, the resulting small loop matches our targets, that is, it shows a UNIdirectional (cardioid) lobe from 1MHz up (and above) 30MHz with low and relatively narrow (vertical and horizontal) lobe, it's easy to build and doesn't require special parts, is small so can fit even if one has space limitations, can be easily assembled/disassembled for mobile use, can also be used on VHF/UHF (the lobe is reversed up there), so, in case you need a receive only antenna which doesn't take up a lot of room, I think that the "SULA" (Small Unidirectional Loop Antenna) may fit (and it could also be useful as an RX antenna paired with a TX one)

If you need more details, the latest evolution of the "SULA" can be found here and then, by the way, I'll be around if any further info/clarification will be needed

Best

Andrew

Hi Ivan,
I have not been doing much radio or bench work because I want to get everything in the house sorted out.

But I removed the 60m cable from the pokey bedroom at the front of the house, outside and leading to the back garden.
Today I have a 15m low-loss cable from the back room directly to the antenna.

The ambient noise has fallen by about 20dB   I can use 7MHz now, with just a bit of increased noise. 80m is noisy but now usable (but not for DX).

I also took down the mluti-band dipole and put up a single-band dipole for 14MHz. I was suspecting that e additional elements were degrading each other. This proved not to be the case.

At the moment I have a walk-in closet in which I have put shelves and moved the WiFi router into that from the fiber terminal. This emptied more space in the old shack. Got to get all the wires and rubbish out of there, then re-decorate. Now I installing shelves for the homepage server, monitor and such, and this time there will be a 500mb/s connection to the server.

When all this is done I will sort out the radio, power outlets and get everything tidy, THEN I can take up the hobby more seriously and have the space to achieve things, instead of searching for components and trying to get a bit of work-space.

At the moment HHH at http://www.sm0vpo.com is back on the Raspberry Pi during the changes.

Like all things, changes like this take time (and money).

Have a nice day - Harry - sm0vpo

Hello Harry, I haven't been much active here lately, but it sounds like you're facing quite some work; I'm chiming in since you mentioned the "on ground" antenna, and since lately I've been toying with a NEC model of another (receive only) antenna, in this case it's a small vertical loop, but with a "trick" which changes the classic "8" shaped pattern to a unidirectional one, if you or someone else on this forum wants to give it a spin, I posted the full infos here https://swling.net/viewtopic.php?p=309#p309 the link brings directly to the latest incarnation of the design; the antenna is a small (76cm each side) "diamond" shaped vertical loop placed at 3m from ground, the use of a "loading" resistor and the placement of the feedpoint turns such an antenna into a directional "beam" with pretty good horizontal and vertical apertures, low takeoff and a very good match to a 50 Ohm feedline, all this from (below) 1 MHz all the way up to (and above) 30 MHz

Now, I'm not suggesting to replace the "LoG" antenna with the above one, yet the above may offer some advantages

Also, and since I'm at it, I stumbled upon a "noise cancelling" unit which may help (along with a LoG) to further reduce interferences from various electrical devices, the schematic for the unit and a full explanation of its working can be found here http://www.ka7oei.com/syn_blank.html

Best

Andrew

Ok, now http://www.sm0vpo.com is back on the little Raspberry PI, but this time it is in a cupboard where the cleaners and cats can't touch it  

Full features - all the complete PDF collection and downloads are there, shoe-horned into the little SD card.

Unfortunately the "secret directories" are not there: no space for the software, MP3 and video collections.

Now I will get on with emptying the old workshop and building the new "Home Office". This going to take more time than I thought.

On a really good note, the new Spectrum Analyser has arrived. Even more bells and whistles than I thought there would be, but there is a limt to the YouTube films that can be published explaining the features.

Very best regards from Harry - SM0VPO sm0vpo

sm0vpo wrote:Very best regards from Harry - SM0VPO sm0vpo
Why not the uppercase? Callsigns are usually written that way!
VBR from Ivan

Hi Ivan,
This is perhaps a little joke to myself.

When I upgraded you to administrator user I also created a new user for myself. The new user is "sm0vpo" (all lower-case), which is the one I am normally using.

The admin user login is attached to the callsign SM0VPO.

On all my posts it always displayed "posted by admin" but today it ow reads "posted by sm0vpo".

I think that it is better newcomers and guests know who is posting them.

BR Harry - SM0VPO sm0vpo

sm0vpo wrote:Hi guys,
Over the past week I have been doing only that which can be called "renovating" in our my house.
The guest/library room has been stripped of all furniture, and the 350 book library. With all this space (the largest room in the house) I fastened runners to the beams behind the walls and set up a 3-tier shelving system. A couple of deep bedside tables on plinths with big wheels, supporting a 2.5m long massive pine bench, now complete the office area for ham-radio operating and computers.

Hi Harry,
I got a pain in my back just reading it!
But you are going to have a suprb shack.

sm0vpo wrote:The problem with the Raspberry-PI on the bedside table is that the two cats sometimes get interested in the little flashing lights and have been known to play with the thing. That is bad news because I do not think that they fully understand Linux

Try installing Whiskas instead of Linux, hihi.

sm0vpo wrote:Very best regards from Harry - SM0VPO sm0vpo

Why not the uppercase? Callsigns are usually written that way!

VBR from Ivan

Hi guys,
Over the past week I have been doing only that which can be called "renovating" in our my house.

The guest/library room has been stripped of all furniture, and the 350 book library. With all this space (the largest room in the house) I fastened runners to the beams behind the walls and set up a 3-tier shelving system. A couple of deep bedside tables on plinths with big wheels, supporting a 2.5m long massive pine bench, now complete the office area for ham-radio operating and computers.

At the moment I am working on the opposite wall and it will be the same. This will be the anti-static/soldering bench. I have already shifted some test gear to the shelves. I only need to find a route for the LAN cable from the modem to the new office. I probably need to route the cable from the attic in the hollow wall to an outlet in the new office.

The old "shack" (photo to follow - looks like a horror story) still has my homepage server, but tonight I have to migrate HHH back to the Raspberry-PI computer (on the table beside my bed) so that I can get all the computing gear out of the old workshop.

I also have a 50m cable poked out of the window and hanging on the side of the house. That will disappear tonight. If I have the time I will change the cable from RG58 50m to RG213U 20m, so I should be able to reduce the HF signal loss by 8dB. Since the new office is at the back of the house I can have a couple of cables and try the OtG RX antenna (this will come later), without cables hanging on the outside of the building.

The old workshop will be thoroughly decorated (the last room in the house) and become the new guest room. Small and compact, with bunk-beds, just in case the grand-daughters, or anyone else, come to visit us.

The problem with the Raspberry-PI on the bedside table is that the two cats sometimes get interested in the little flashing lights and have been known to play with the thing. That is bad news because I do not think that they fully understand Linux   Also, the last time the fortnightly cleaners went in the bedroom they tried to tidy up the table and put the Raspberry-PI in the bedside table drawer, naturally, they pulled out the power cord. I have stuck the RaPI down to the table with some double-sided sticky tape, so I will see if they now leave it alone  

The last of the paperwork is (hopefully) completed following Maj-Lis's departure, so I hope to be back on the workbench within a week. At least, that is the goal. But as my mother taught me "If you want to have the moon, then reach for the stars".

Other than that, there is not much to tell. I still have three construction projects on the board. One of them is just about ready to publish on HHH, even if it is still on the Raspberry-PI (cat's permitting). I have been working on this during my lunch breaks at work.

Over the past few weeks, I have been locked out of this forum and the "admin" user was disallowed from recovering the password by e-mail. They did send a PM to the admin user with recovery info, but I could not read the message because I was locked out. Now Ivan also has full Administrator status, and Ruud also has moderator status. Since this forum subject is somewhat dedicated, there are not many thousand members using it on a daily basis, so there is really little to administrate or moderate. So now Ivan can activate new users, and block new spammers. He ca also edit the bad-word filter and assist anyone with password recovery if I should get locked out again.

With a 71-year old brain it can happen that I may forget the odd password. I have registered myself (sm0vpo) as a new member of the forum (with admin status) so that I can also recover myself if I lock myself out again.

So there is a little news from sunny rainy Märsta. As you can understand, I have kept myself fully occupied this last 8 weeks and hopefully in the next week or so we will see some results.

Very best regards from Harry - SM0VPO sm0vpo