F4GFT Amateur Radio Station
My first QSO
I have always been interested in amateur radio, but living in rented appartments in big cities and/or having other objectives in life to pursue, it took me more than 25 years from the first time I felt the desire to hold a ham licence to the day I actually got one. An article about stealth antennas and magnetic loops in particular got me motivated enough to pick up the excellent F6KGL/F5KFF course pdf document, and to fix an appointment with the ANFR for a class 1 test 3 months later. My initial idea was to attempt the full HAREC licence including morse, but that was overly optimistic.
I passed my class 2 licence on december 14 2009. Four days later the callsign F4GFT was assigned to me, and I had my first QSO on december 19 at 1252UTC as DL/F4GFT/p with DJ4UW, while on vacation in Germany, using a modified Bosch KF161 and a sleeve antenna ("Sperrtopf"), on 2m via the DG0XO repeater at Bergheim.
My DL/F4GFT shack
The first picture shows my shack as of december 2009, with a mobile Bosch KF161, modified by DL2ECT to operate on 2m. The X30 antenna shown to the right was added in late 2010, and is currently used with a FT-60 handheld transceiver, when I'm in Germany. I still have to do something about the feedline losses; the RG58 will be replaced by Aircell-7 cable some day.
This is my shack in 2011. The KF161 has gone, the FT-60 is my only VHF/UHF device, and a Yaesu FT-950 drives a temporarily installed 40m inverted-V (notice the PL239 socket at the window). The entire setup is temporary, in fact, as I only operate during my brief visits.
My home shack
There really is not much of a shack here. The TS-450SAT is installed right under the roof, on a 2 m2 mezzanine level, with hardly enough space to make a logbook entry on some scratch paper. The advantage is that I am very close to the antenna.
QSL
My first batch of QSL cards was printed on yellow 180g paper with my trusty old HP LaserJet II with a PostScript cartridge, using a Word template and Postscript's facility to print four pages on a single sheet of paper. The entire batch was sent to VHF contacts. The second batch, created for my first short wave contacts, used the same, slightly embellished layout printed on a commercial color copier with single page feeder. I am quite happy with the third batch, printed on glossy 200g paper, with a printed back-side. The current batch adds a background image evoking my city.
My handheld transceiver: The Yaesu FT-60
The FT-60 may not be the most advanced or the most fancy of all handhelds, but it certainly is the 2m/70cm HT with the most bang for the buck. It doesn't have a real dual band receiver (but when was the last time you really needed one?), nor does it offer Bluetooth or APRS options, but at a price tag well below $200, it packs all the essentials in a sturdy package. The menu system is a bit overwhelming at first, but then again, there's lots of options and parameters. I compare it to my Kenwood TH-79, with which I had a brief relationship in the late 90s, until it got stolen. The TH-79 is straightforward to figure out, but it doesn't do that much either.
The Ft-60 was introduced in 2004, and comes with NiMH batteries, which means you should completely discharge them before recharging. I can cope with this restriction with a 2nd battery pack, which would be a good idea even with LiIon batteries. They are cheap, even from Yaesu. Another criticism often heard is the stock rubberduck antenna. Well, yes, it doesn't exploit the FT-60 to the max, but then again, none of the stock antennas does. With a good after market replacement (Diamond SRH-771 for instance), the ft-60 shines. What I really like about the FT-60 is the robust package. I take it with me on bike trips, ski holidays, you name it. I wish there was a leather protection case, but even without, the unit handles rain, extreme temperatures and shocks very well.
There are really only two things I disklike about the ft-60. The plug of the optional speaker- mike occasionally gets loose when I use it on my bike, and might trigger the PTT in that position. A rubberband helps, but a screwable connector like the ones found on more expensive professional radios would be better. I also would like to be able to disable the 200 and 900 MHz bands; I have no need for them, and having to toggle over them when switching from VHF to UHF is just a nuisance. And while we'are at it, I'd also like to disable out of band frequencies. An "amateur only" mode would be a real plus for me.
I noticed that many handhelds get alarmingly hot when used on full power output for longer periods. Not so with the FT-60, it gets warm but temperatures stay reasonable. I attribute this to the metal frame. However, when used on 13.8V external power, it gets hot even on 0.5W. Since the FT-60 runs on a native 7.8 V battery, it has to convert the excess voltage into heat. In my stationary setup I solved this problem with a 2A 78S08 voltage regulator.
The FT-60 is often mocked for its WIRES capability. WIRES is Yaesu's proprietary Echolink-like Internet-based network protocol. Yaesu put the WIRES functionality prominently on the 0-button, which means it can easily be turned on accidentally. If done, it manifests itself by emitting a DTMF tone at the beginning of each transmission. Since WIRES appears to be used almosts exclusively in Japan, it's quite useless, and Yaesu would have better done to assign the functionality to a secondary function of a button or the menu. However, it IS possible to configure the ft-60 to "other internet connectivity systems" (menu 21), transforming the handheld into a quite capable Echolink transceiver. In this mode of operation, the FT-60 emits one out of 10 pre-programmed DTMF sequences with up to 6 digits, perfect for storing Echolink node numbers. The transmission rate is a bit too high for noisy relay connections, but otherwise works very well. I keep my favourite Echolink nodes stored in my FT-60's memory this way. My only and very minor complaint is that they cannot be text labeled.
My first base station: The Kenwood TS-450S
The Kenwood TS-4xx series of HF transceivers can be found at very reasonable rates on the used market, and are an excellent choice as starter rigs. I wanted to avoid tube based rigs, and early solid state models with mechanical VFO. This wraps up my research:
- All TS-4xx rigs have 100W RF output in SSB and CW, none of them has a built-in keyer. All cover the WARC bands.
- The TS430 lacks CAT and an integrated tuner, has no SWR meter and 10m FM only as an option. RF power adjustment requires a modification.
- The TS440 has the tuner as an option (built-in in the SAT version), and comes with RF power adjustment, 10m FM and integrated SWR meter. With a modification, it can be equipped with CAT.
- Like the 440, The TS450 comes in two versions with (SAT) and without (S) tuner. It has everything the 440 has, plus a CAT plug, lacking only a level converter.
Since I do not have much space available for my station, I wanted the SWR meter integrated, which narrowed the choice down the the 440 and the 450. I eventually got myself a TS-450SAT, simply because it was the first transceiver I found in a cosmetically pleasing state. With the matching power supply, it's a small and neat base station. The 440 is known to have key bounce problems with the numerical keypad, but since this feature is rarely used, most users seem to agree that it's not a big deal. The 450 runs the risk of backup battery leakage, but the replacement is simple.
I am quite happy with my choice. The integrated tuner works wonders with my experimental antenna setups, and I appreciate the integrated SWR and power meter. 10m FM is not popular around here, so I could live without, and I haven't yet used the CAT feature. Being able to work QRP is very important for me. The one thing I miss is an integrated keyer - most transceivers of its time come with one. The next bigger model TS-850S has one, but it was out of my price range.
My device came with two of the three possible filters, and I added the 500Hz cw filter recently.
My first contest
As ridiculous as it may sound, I participated at the SP DX contest, which takes place each year during the first weekend of april. I accidentally noticed frantic activity on the bands, listened for a while to understand the rules, cross-checked at the internet, and had three 20m contacts with my indoor Bazooka. This is how I become one of the 1305 contenders for the first price, and in fact was first french station in the single operator 20m phone category. The fact that I was the only participant helped a lot, of course.
Since then, I participate regularly in contests, coming in last most of the time.
My first DX
Late at night on April 27 (so late that technically it was April 28) I had my first DX contacts, with W2YP and AA2WC on 20m, both located in the state of New York. My short inverted V got me there, but I believe the contact was more likely due to excellent propagation conditions.
My secondary base station: The Yaesu FT-950
I was tempted by the FT-950 for quite some time, and eventually got one in spring 2011. The 950 is a beautiful rig with excellent ergonomics, and a highly informative vacuum fluorescence display (In 2011, Yaesu is the only company to use VFDs in their base stations) which I prefer over LCD or TFT any time. Yaesu left out the RF power adjustment knob, probably to distinguish it better from the FT-2000, which also comes with a second receiver and a build-in power supply, but since there is a short cut button to call any of the more than 100 menu items directly, this is not really an issue for me. I do believe the FT-950 is the best buy in its price category.
The one thing that bothers me, though, is the poor antenna tuner. Where the Kenwood TS-450SAT uses servo-driven capacitors to tune almost instantly and within a wide range, the FT-950 uses relays to activate Ls and Cs. Not only is the range surprisingly poor, but the algorithm also is rather on the slow side. The tuning process takes quite some time and makes a horrendous noise. The narrow range is the reason why I use the Ft-950 at my second QTH and keep using the TS-450SAT at my main QTH, since it allows me to work 10-40m on my inverted V dipole. The FT-950 requires a resonant antenna and can only make minor adjustments.
Another quirk about the tuner is that it only tunes on transmit, not on receive. Impossible to hear anything on 20m with a 40m dipole! Given my antenna situation, the TS-450S is more versatile.
My first PSK31 QSO
Over christmas 2011, I hooked my FT-950 up to my personal computer. I had read lots of warnings about the risk to hook up a transceiver to a sound card without isolating audio transformers, but since I had none at hand, I wanted to give it a shot anyway. The FT-950 has a dedicated Packet/RTTY 6 pin Mini DIN socket at the back, which makes this easy. The Soundcard input is straightforward, the output however requires a voltage divider to bring the 1V output down to the 50mV the FT-950 wants to see. As for the PTT, I simply used an npn transistor wired to DTR to pull down the PTT input. The entire circuit worked surprisingly well, and I even had 2 RTTY QSOs in AFSK mode. I then discovered that the FT-950 has a data vox facility and does not even need the PTT switch: After setting menu 114 TGEN to "data", the PTT circuit was obsolete. It is also noteworthy that the ft-950 comes with a complete set of menu items to adjust input and output level, allows true FSK via a dedicated pin on the Mini DIN socket, and also provides a Squelch output, which could be used by more sophisticated decoding software to distinguish an unmodulated carrier from no signal at all. It is clear for me after this experience that I will not buy a commercial interface for my FT-950.