QSL!

I finally dove into the task of updating eqsl.cc and qsl.com with all of my contacts. I finished qsl.com and started on eqsl.cc. Hopefully, I will get some time to bring all of that up to date. Please send an e-mail if you have any questions about your qsl.

We counted up 47 countries contacted so far. Most of these contacts are on BPSK-31 on 10 and 15, but a few on 20 m in the morning 3 - 7 GMT. I learned that one should start off the log carefully on the very first day as some of my contacts were only scribbles as we set up the antenna. In addition, it would have been nice to have an automatic logging program up and running when making BPSK contacts. I will learn!

I also noticed that at the upper end of the 10 m PSK band were some strange signals. I surfed around and found they were BPSK-63 signals and tried a couple of those. Don't really know if that code is better or not but it is interesting to see that other digital modes are oozing into the band.

1000 what generator?

Touring the market area today in Iringa, I encountered some really interesting generators. The power is interrupted often here (as in right now the power in our part of the city is out and I am typing this by dork light -- LED headlight). I found these very interesting generators. I just wonder what sort of power they provide.

Found that 20 m is open from about 0200Z to about 0500Z. Most of my contacts are to Europe and Asia with the majority of them in Russia and surrounding areas. About 0400Z 20 m opens a little to North and South America. Got Canada, VE3MPG, this morning at 0358 so if you want to talk on 14.070 Mhz try about that time.

10 and 15 are very quiet until about 0500Z and then they open to Europe. Right now (0600Z) I hear Germany, Russia, Bulgaria and Kazakstan on 15 and 10 M. When I get back this afternoon will try 10 and 15 M to see what opens up in the rest of the world.

One problem I am having is that when I send out a CQ there is an incredible pileup on BPSK. Since the decoder cannot filter out one signal and signals fade and return I can get very few callsigns out of that mess. I have resorted to just answering CQ's where ever I can find them.

Daily Schedule

Found that 20 m is open from about 0200Z to about 0500Z. Most of my contacts are to Europe and Asia with the majority of them in Russia and surrounding areas. About 0400Z 20 m opens a little to North and South America. Got Canada, VE3MPG, this morning at 0358 so if you want to talk on 14.070 Mhz try about that time.

10 and 15 are very quiet until about 0500Z and then they open to Europe. Right now (0600Z) I hear Germany, Russia, Bulgaria and Kazakstan on 15 and 10 M. When I get back this afternoon will try 10 and 15 M to see what opens up in the rest of the world.

One problem I am having is that when I send out a CQ there is an incredible pileup on BPSK. Since the decoder cannot filter out one signal and signals fade and return I can get very few callsigns out of that mess. I have resorted to just answering CQ's where ever I can find them.

Jamboree on the Air

A number of Tanzanian hams are getting together to operate for the annual Jamboree on the Air. This is a day when Boy Scouts (and others) are invited into ham shacks to learn ham radio and some of the science of radio communication.

Scout JOTA Web Site There are a number of designated frequencies for the event:

Band Phone CW
80 m 3.690 & 3.940 Mhz 3.570 Mhz
40 m 7.090 & 7.190 Mhz 7.030 Mhz
20 m 14.290 Mhz 14.060 Mhz
17 m 18.140 Mhz 18.060 Mhz
15 m 21.360 Mhz 21.140 Mhz
12 m 24.960 Mhz 24.910 Mhz
10 m 28.390 Mhz 28.180 Mhz
6 m 50.160 Mhz 50.160 Mhz

Unfortunately I have no privileges on 6 m and our band limits for 40 m are 7.000 Mhz to 7.100 Mhz. I will have to operate split if I operate SSB on 40 M because most hams' voice band is 7.125 Mhz to 7.300 Mhz and cannot use SSB on any of my allowed frequencies. I have been on 10 M BPSK at 28.120 Mhz for the past few days. Hopefully, there will be other scout groups there. With my 100 watts, SSB is not very successful. As an aside, I hear SSB 10 m from stateside every evening (from about 15 Z to 21 Z). I have had once successful contact with New Hampshire, but not much else. U.S. hams should be aware that if they would give it a try, the rest of the world can hear you pretty well at night. It is just that there are so many other high power stations out there that when the U.S. station calls CQ, little 5H3NP gets drowned out!

A cheap 12 VDC supply

We headed off this morning to find a 20 or 25 amp power supply for my FT-897D. I have this little battery booster/air compressor but its battery dies after about 1/2 hour of PSK time. I thought of buying a battery but that would be too heavy and I am sure the apartment owners don't need a big battery.

I found a battery quick charger for $135 but decided to keep looking. Then, after many shaking heads, I looked up on the shelf of a computer store and there was a 450 Watt power supply rated at 18 Amps at 12 Volts. That will work fine for my 50 watt BPSK signal from the Yaesu. I snapped it up for $28 and headed down the street.

Once back at the apartment, I had to figure out how the power control system of the computer supply works. Turns out you have to ground pin 8 (green) on the motherboard connector for the rest of the power supply and fan to turn on. Once I did that and merged all of the black (ground) and yellow (+12 VDC) cables I have a fine power supply for little cash.

I plugged it in and things lit up. Then immediately the power in the apartment went out. Turns out you have to go to the power company with a VIP card that comes with your power meter and bring cash. They give you a secret code to enter into the meter's keypad and you get some more kilowatt-hours.. Now if I can just figure out how many kw-hrs I have left so the power doesn't go out again.

Made a few contacts but a pizza dinner called and we are Skyping tonight back home. Will be on the air by 15 Z on Sunday. 73

Radio Furaha -- off the air!

Walking along the street behind our apartment we passed by the Synod Office of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania, Iringa Diocese. We had no idea it was that close to where we were living. In that office complex is the studio for Radio Furaha FM 96.7 Mhz. This is a station that the Diocese office started a couple of years ago for education and evangelism in the Iringa area. See: http://www.radiofuraha.org.

When we stopped in the assistant manager, Amos, said that the manager was up at the transmitter site trying to determine why the transmitter was off the air. The site is a short drive up a rocky hill to a hilltop with many microwave (the way the country is linked together) and FM transmitter sites.

We found the Crown Transmitter system overheating and the power amp reducing to 130 watts (instead of its normal 2 kw). None of the fans were running. Not on the Crown PS2000 switching power supply nor on the Crown PA2000 FM amp...

After removing the tops of the power supply and amp, we found no obvious fault: all the fans worked on 24 VDC, all the fuses were good. It appeared that the fans ran thru a DB-9 connector from the power supply to the amp. Of course, we didn't have the manual, so trouble shooting was trace and guess. The technician guessed that a 5 pin regulator had something to do with the failure and unsoldered it. It of course had no markings so we packed the powers supply and amp down the hill to "Iringa Electronics"

Here is Protus, the Radio Furaha manger looking over the suspected circuit with the local satellite TV tech, who was a great help.

There the tech put the 5 terminal regulator back in the circuit and attempted to determine where its power came from. Eventually, they were able to trace the fault and as of 7 PM the transmitter was back on the air. With no back-up transmitter, this little radio station depends on this Crown unit. I don't know what I contributed to the effort, other than suggesting that since all of the fans were not running, it must be in the control of the fans and neither the fans, nor the power to the fans (which indicated just fine since the switching supply powered the amp for a few minutes until it overheated every time we turned it on).

A very interesting day which went nothing like expected, but I got to learn quite a bit about Crown amps and Radio Furaha. All of this done without ever refering to the Crown manual or giving them a call. Amazing!

15 meters BPSK31

Found that the best band here in the afternoon (13-20Z) is 15 meters on 21.070 Mhz BPSK. Listen for me there. I am using a battery from one of these little battery booster/air compressor/botox injector portable systems (just kidding about the air compressor). Its battery is not that good and I can only be on for about 30 minutes before it dies. I am going out in the morning to track down a 12 V power supply. Found a 10 amp supply at the computer store, but will look around for more amps if I can find them.

As an aside, I looked over the power strips and wiring here. They had one East African power strip and one European power strip connected together. The European one had no ground pin on the plug and it is wired with the Line (hot) wire on the opposite side of the plug from the E. African plug. Everything on the office desk was hot and you could feel it thru the case of the PC and printers. They have drawers full of adapters that even make the problem worse. I rewired the European power strip so that the Neutral and Line match the E. African configuration and put a 3 pronged plug on it so it really has a ground. I am surprised someone hasn't fried something with this. The only problem is that now the Neutral on the power strip has the overload protection so switching off the power strip still leaves the Line hot. It is much nicer to work on the office desk now!

The standard 3 prong plug here comes with an internal fuse like our christmas lights do in the U. S. There system is 240 VAC and the generic plugs come with 13 amp fuses. The little bedside lights with 15 watt CFLs have a 13 amp fuse. Really! I am going out in the morning to find 1 or 2 amp fuses. I am also rewiring the decorative lamps with real lamp cord because the stuff they use is about 28 gauge and easily broken by furniture--leaving a live 240 VAC wire sitting there.

My setup

Here is the G5RV strung between two apartment buildings.

I have a little table set up inside the master bedroom for the radio and MJF tuner.

On the Air--Finally

Finally, our guests from Minnesota have left for their trip back. We had a couple of hours this afternoon to scope things out, so we started to explore the possibility of putting up an antenna for my ham radio. I was also able to find a door in the bedroom with a large enough gap to get the coax through the closed and locked door. This is very important, because we need to keep the mosquitoes out. One side of the apartment is all screened windows and the screens are integral to the window frames. Short of drilling a hole in the window frame, there was no way to get out that side of the apartment. The other side had greater promise: two balconies with screen doors leading to the balconies and just enough gap at the side of the door to let coax through. Additionally all of the windows have heavy bars across them so we can use the bars to anchor one end of the antenna.I paced off the distance between our balcony and the next building and it was just about right to put up a wire antenna across the gap. We had to get a ladder and open a 100 lb hatch door on the adjacent building but got one end of the wire up on a vent pipe. The other end attaches to the balcony railing on our bedroom. We got all that up and what should pop up in the middle is a 20' tree. (Who put that there?) After much pulling from the ground and the balcony, Dale, Caleb and I got the antenna over the top of the tree. The mini-G5RV fits exactly between the two apartment buildings with 2 feet of clothesline at each end. I had to set up in the master bedroom but it doesn't really interfere with the rest of the room since there is already a chair and table at that end. I will put up pictures in a couple of days.

Now I needed a 12 volt power supply to power the radio. Low and behold, there in pantry was a combination car battery booster/air compressor. It has a small 12 battery that is trickle charged from 110 Volts. I clipped my power cables to the booster and voila we have a complete radio system using things we found in the pantry: 20 meters of clothes line and a battery booster. I made one voice contact with VU3WIJ in India and turned things off to charge the battery.