The total solar eclipse came and went without incident in south Texas. Here at the QTH we experience 88.7% solar coverage. I transmitted 1W WSPR signals from 1400 UTC to 2400 UTC on 40m, 20m, 15m, and 10m submitting the spots to the HamSci Gladstone challenge. I haven’t downloaded the data myself, but a quick view found that at the 1pm local time hour 40m spots showed a significant increase and 10m spot significantly declined. I’ll try to pull this data myself over the next few days.
My Tempest weather station recorded a slight 3 degree drop in air temperature and a Significant drop in solar radiation during the eclipse:
The day was overcast so any actual viewing of the eclipse was not possible here.
A total solar eclipse is coming up on April 8th. It will be crossing mid Texas. We should experience 88.4% totality here at the QTH in South Texas. HamSci has a couple of eclipse related data collection events that are worth exploring. I will likely participate in the Gladstone Signal Spotting Challenge using WSPR. The stated objective of this event is to:
“To generate observations of propagation by WSPRNet, PSKReporter and the Reverse Beacon Network, along with participants’ event logs before, during, and after the eclipse on the amateur bands for the purpose of ionospheric sounding. “
During this event, I can run WSPR and either collecting spots or transmit a beacon signal. The spot data will be collected and analyzed to determine the effect of the eclipse on the ionosphere.
This is a simple way to contribute to some hard scientific research using amateur radio.
I’m revising several components for the 3-band hexbeam. I am opting to use wire clamps similar to the ones I designed for the Moxon antennas. I am making them a bit smaller and so that they clip onto the spreaders. I’ve ordered some hardware for the locks and will fine tune the design once I make sure everything fits. I’ll have to print 18 of them for the hexbeam. I’ve spent quite a bit of time fine tuning the mounts to the rotator. This is to eliminate the antenna leaning putting pressure on the motor shaft. Although the parts are now hopelessly over engineered it does appear to be much better at securing the antenna. I’ll be adding another mount for the PVC pipe to the mast.
I received 11mm tent poles but will hold off on replacing the ones I have now as they did work overall during the contest. I may redesign the spreader mounts to save some weight but still weighing the pros and cons.
I’ll be working with the schedule 80 feed point mast and need to print a pole tip that will fit.
I moved the hexbeam to its setup tripod (a speaker tripod) and took the flagpole mast down. What a tangled mess I made of the guy lines! I’ll need to take care of this next time. I haven’t fully debugged the rotator but I suspect the “grub screw” I’m using is slipping. I’m not going to worry to much about it because I will redesign the mounting portion to make it easier to install. The rotator does work and the motor is working fine. I did complete a handy little box I found on Thingiverse to mount the rotator control in:
I pulled out the rigexpert to check SWR and from inside the shack SWR was around 5:1 across all bands. This even after dressing the wire elements a bit. I am using three sections of coax. A short patch cable leading from my switch to the outside junction box. I then have one section going from the house to the base of the antenna. The last section goes up the length of the mast. I check SWR from the length going up the mast and the SWR was fine. I checked inside again and it was high. I checked from the second long piece going into the junction box from the antenna. It tested fine again. I went inside and now it was testing good. I tested TDR on each cable length and they tested normal. I am suspecting the coupler between the lengths of coax as it may have some oxidation. I have the antenna pointed roughly north and up about 6 ft and it still works quite well.
I have a piece of schedule 80 PVC to replace the center post and I will test 11mm tent poles to see if they are worth using to make it sturdier.
3-band Hexbeam 1.0 took about 2 months for me to realize along with a homebrew rotator. It came up in time to use during the 2024 ARRL DX contest and I was successful in increasing my score over previous attempts. Was it perfect? Hardly!
Here are some comments:
CamJam tensioners worked well overall at least initially. I noticed the long guy lines kept getting loose once the wind picked up so will need to play around with that a bit.
The s-binners worked great with the 3D printed guy rings. It allowed easy install to the mast.
SWR was less than 2:1 on all three bands with 15m being the lowest at very nearly a perfect match. This changed at some point for some unknown reason on 20m and 15m with SWR rising to around 3:1.
Antenna was clearly directional. I could tell the difference in signal strength by turning the beam as well as comparing signal strength with the vertical.
The rotator was able to handle turning the weight of the antenna. It does tend to overshoot but is somewhat controlled by reducing the speed control setting.
The antenna performed well even at 15 ft high.
I struggled a bit with the flagpole mast. The locks are dodgy and I was only able to extend to 20ft.
The center post is too flexible. It leans over way too much causing shape distortions. I’ll need to change this to something sturdier. I’ll try schedule 80 PVC pipe or possibly aluminum tubing.
The hexbeam holds it shape well without the addition of the wire elements. As soon as I start adding elements the spreaders start to deform. I managed to compensate a bit by doubling the length of the center post. I have sourced 11mm tent poles to evaluate if the stiffness is improved.
The wire clips work somewhat but I need to control the length that is clamped better. will need to rethink the wire clips.
Need to add alignment features to mount to simplify assembly to the rotator.
Need to investigate why there was motor shaft slippage causing rotator failure.
The antenna is a winner. I just need to make it a bit more robust.
Here is my summary of activity operating on the 2024 ARRL SSB DX contest this weekend. I’ll cover antenna related issues in a separate post and instead concentrate on the contest itself. I had the hexbeam up on Friday afternoon up about 15ft initially. I ran a line into the shack to be able to operate the homebrew rotator. I have to use my eyeballs to determine the proper direction, but it worked great! I couldn’t use it during the nighttime though as I could not see well enough in the dark to tell where it was pointing. I started the contest pointed roughly northeast. I started operating about 15 minutes after the contest started and over the next two hours came up with 20 QSO’s in Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. I was pleased to be making contacts on 20m basically for the first time in contesting on QRP.
I started early on Saturday and worked most of the day. I started on 40m with the vertical antenna to try and catch stations from Asia and managed one JA contact. Once the morning progressed the 3 bands using the hexbeam came alive. I move the antenna up to 20ft for the rest of the day. Propagation conditions were good and 10m especially was quite active. Overall making contacts was fairly easy. If a station could hear me, they could copy me well. Only in a few rare occasions would there be difficulties completing the QSO.
The high point of my afternoon was closing a QSO with Reunion Island on 15m and 10,600 miles from the QTH. On 5W SSB! I have to say to was quite a rush. Many thanks to the patient op who did not give up on pulling my weak call out of the ether. Once we closed the QSO the band came alive with a pile up for the location.
As the afternoon neared the end, I noticed some problems with the antenna and the rotator. I brought it down and made some adjustments and continued. The rotator quit again, and I called it a day.
Sunday morning, I started up again about 7am and closed several more contacts. My hope was to continue into the afternoon, but the antenna started giving me more problems. The rotator stopped again and SWR on 20m and 15m went high for some reason. A geomagnetic storm hit during the morning due to a CME and planetary K index went up to 5. The wind was picking up and I decided to call it a day and bring the antenna down.
My final claimed score was 164 QSO’s with 106 mults for a total score of 51,516. Without a doubt my best performance to date on DX QRP contesting. Here are some details:
This time around much better performance into Europe than previous attempts. The more notable contacts were with Reunion Island and Iceland.
I can’t be much happier with these results given the hexbeam is version 1.0. Its a winner and I need to make it more robust for the next event which will be field Day in June.
Overall, very happy with hexbeam performance during the contest. I’ll have some detailed notes on the antennas as there will definitely be a version 2.0 coming. The contest has gotten difficult now on Sunday morning. There is a geomagnetic storm in progress and the SWR on 20 and 15 meters has gone goofy. I’ll wait a bit before proceeding. More to come…
Update: I’ve called my activity early at 162 QRP DX contacts. The rotator stopped working, SWR went above 2 on the 20m and 15m bands. Planetary k index is now up to 5. I can still hear stations on 10m but nobody seems to hear me. Winds her have picked up a bit and my guy lines look dodgy. I’ve brought down the mast and will do a review of the antenna condition as time permits tomorrow.
The 3-band Hexbeam is on the air but not without some problems. First here are some views:
Some of the issues are easy to spot in the pictures. I had to increase the length of the center pole to provide more tension for the tent poles. The PVC pipe is terrible for this so I’ll need to rethink how I do that. The wire clips need some work in order to pin down the exact locations along the wire. The mast mount needs some work as the antenna has a bias in one direction. That being said the antenna does work. I have it up about 15ft and may try another 5ft before the start of the contest. SWR is below 1.5 on each band and it is clearly directional. The rotator is doing its thing but the PVC pipe mounts are dodgy. Looking forward to trying this out during the contest and just hope it stays together. I’ll start working on improvements after the contest is over.
Adventures in Amateur Radio 