Nice Es 2m FT-8 signals today

With a distance of 3134 km, the 144 MHz signals of EA8DBM reached my FT-480R transceiver today:

First FT-8 2m RX on 144.175 MHz

In order to be able to use FT-8 (and digimodes in general) on 2m, one must be able to select the USB mode. On eBay I found a nice FT-480R, capable of operating in USB.

The Yaesu FT-480R is a mobile transceiver designed around 1980. Yesterday I made the first FM QSO with this device. PI4VHW (Location Fortress Numansdorp) respondend to my FM call on 145.550 MHz.

Today I connected the rig to my PC in order to decode the first FT-8 signals (144.175 MHz):

6m propagation to OH

Today there were good propagation conditions in the direction of Finland, OH.

I made a good QSO with OH5ELO on 50.313 MHz (FT8 mode). Used 10 Watts RF from my FT450 transceiver.

Maasvlakte2

Recently I found some pre-historic material on the Maasvlakte2 beach. This area has been created from  Northsea sand. This sand contains lots of (pre) historic material.
Sea-level 100.000 years ago was 50 - 100 meter below current sealevel; there was no Northsea. The Netherlands and Brittain were connected through Doggersland.

Beach, Maasvlakte2

Piece of mamal bone. Estimated age: 65.000 years (Early Weichselin)

Fossilized oyster (Ostrea Edulis). Estimated age: 15.000 years (Holocene)

You can check your collected material here: https://www.oervondstchecker.nl/alle-vondsten

Nothing to do with radio, but not only radios are fascinating.

First geostationary amateur satellite succesful

Es'hail-2

Web SDR:

https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/

More info:

https://amsat-uk.org/2019/02/10/qatar-oscar-100-web-receiver-now-live/

Es’hail-2 was launched in 2018. This geostationary satellite (fixed at a distance of appr. 36.000 km from earth) carries two “Phase 4” radio transponders operating on radio amateur frequencies (2400 MHz uplink, 10450 MHz downlink). A linear transponder has a bandwidth of 250 kHz and is intended for conventional analogue radio communications. Another transponder has a 8 MHz bandwidth and is designed for experimental (DVB) amateur television.


First ham QSO’s have been realized.

E.g., G0MGX was able to receive the satellite’s signals with an (ordinary) satellite dish:

http://g0mgx.blogspot.com/2019/02/eshail-2-really.html

This how ON4AOL realized the SAT-link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dgVmRV9FQWA4R9NdJ3DHUNmoyOTS6Nd8/view

LM3886 amplifier

I made some progress today:

Off-topic:

Veere

Balun for long wire antenna

I would like to do some experiments with an end-fed long wire antenna (appr. 20 m. length). One needs a balun for impedance matching. For a longwire antenne a 1:9 balun is recommended.
I found a nice design on the website of PA3I: 
https://pa3i.jouwweb.nl/antenne

I have collected the components:

The ferrite core has Amidon partnumber FT157-2.
More info: http://www.amidoncorp.com/t157-2/

The box is IP55 water resistant.

Assembled it looks like this:

With 20 meter longwire attached to the balun, following first results on various frequencies (all FT-8 signals) popped up;

20 m SSTV

Good SSTV signals the last day of the year in Zuidzijde on 14.230 MHz !

Off topic:

Maasvlakte2

FT-8 40m

Impression of 40 m FT-8 stations that received my 40 m. signals today.
I used the FT-450 Yaesu trscvr on 5 Watts RF.

FT-8 experiment on 6m

This morning I made an FT8 QSO with Belgium on 6 m.
I found Noel, ON4APU, on 50.313 MHz:

Off-topic: Funghi from my garden