A 6m Loop Antenna

A Communicator Reprise: July 2010

For the original article:  http://tinyurl.com/SARC10-07

This weekend project is inexpensive,  yields  good  SWR  and works well with an auto tuner. Tune it  for  50.125  and  enjoy  some  DX Fun.

Six metres has some interesting openings.  Sunday evening I worked W7RN in Virginia City Nevada with a crystal clear 59+  signal on USB… was my first DM09 grid square on six metres.  My antenna, a simple horizontally polarized ½λ dipole made with ½” aluminum tubing mounted low on the side of my roof.  I was delighted to say the least.  AND my 6 metre J-pole turns out to work wonderfully on the 10 metre band and I was able to take a New Caledonia QSO this weekend as well.  Ham heaven for those of us not running a lot of power or fancy multi-element antennas on 70 foot towers.  All my antennas barely clear the peak of the roof, and I am amazed every time I make a DX contact.

So,  if you wanted to get on 6m and don’t have  room for, or the permission to install, a  large multi element antenna, here is one that will – when conditions are right – allow you to get on 6 and experience the “magic band.”

The  antenna  is  not  hard  to  build  [assuming  basic  metalworking  tools]  and  takes  basically  one  piece  of aluminum plate and one aluminum ‘strap’ which you can find at Metal Supermarket, ABC Traders or MetalMart, and one 1” dia. piece of ABS or PVC tubing with caps, a SO-239 and 17” of #12 solid copper wire.  The strap is slotted  to  allow  major  tuning  for what 500 KHz of bandwidth you want to work.  It’s a loop, so its hi-Q and thus narrow band. But it’s small(ish) and works horizontally or vertically.

If these are too small, open the original http://tinyurl.com/SARC10-07

The first 'nation in space' has officially left Earth!

Asgardia, a self-declared nation, is now floating above us, drifting toward the International Space Station... and perhaps destiny.

Eric Mack - CNet News

An odd but intriguing experiment in technology, diplomacy, governance and space exploration, among other things, has officially begun its journey.

After being delayed one day, an Orbital ATK Antares rocket carrying a cubesat named Asgardia-1 launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia early Sunday. The milk carton-sized satellite makes up the entirety of territory of the self-proclaimed "Space Kingdom" of Asgardia.

"Asgardia space kingdom has now established its sovereign territory in space," read an online statement.

Over 300,000 people signed up online to become "citizens" of the nation over the last year. The main privilege of citizenship so far involves the right to upload data to Asgardia-1 for safekeeping in orbit, seemingly far away from the pesky governments and laws of Earth-bound countries.

But if you really dig down into Asgardia's terms and conditions, you'll find that those privileges are still subject to earthly copyright laws -- they're set up under the laws of Austria.

As of now, Asgardia's statehood isn't acknowledged by any other actual countries or the United Nations, and it doesn't really even fit the definition of a nation since it's not possible for a human to physically live in Asgardia.

For now, though, Asgardia is a tiny satellite inside a Cygnus spacecraft set to dock with the International Space Station Tuesday morning. There, Asgardia-1 will patiently wait while Orbital ATK completes its primary mission to resupply the ISS.

After about a month, the Cygnus will detach and climb to a higher altitude where the nation-in-a-box will be deployed into orbit.

We'll see if the activation of Asgardia-1 heralds the beginning of a new era of extra-planetary citizenship, or if it slowly fades into obscurity with each trip around our planet and its nearly 200 more conventional nations.

DKARS Magazine

Some English Content... Excellent Articles


The Dutch Kingdom Amateur Radio Society (DKARS) is a foundation to defend the interests of Radio amateurs within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They publish an excellent monthly magazine which is mostly in Dutch, but with a few English articles. Many of the articles are technical. It is not difficult to cut text from the .PDF file and paste it into a translator like Microsoft or Google so anyone can read it.

The Editor writes:

DKARS does not copyright and you may freely send this link to as many radio-friends as possible. DKARS Magazine normally appears every month and we appreciate any contributions that are radio amateur related.

On behalf of the Dutch Kingdom Amateur Radio Society I wish you a lot of reading pleasure after you click on the link below:

Link to the December issue.

Would you rather download a PDF to browse the Magazine on-line? If so, go to this link:

https://issuu.com/pj4nx/docs/dkars_20magazine_2020171173

on behalf of the DKARS

Peter Dan
PJ4NX and PA3CNX
Secretary DKARS

CQ WW [SSB] Contest (2)

Canada 150 and VE7RAC Made It Special

As mentioned in a previous post, a number of Surrey Amateurs worked the CQ WW [SSB] contest a few weeks ago. I was fortunate enough to be one of the operators at VE7IO's excellent station. We were using the call VE7RAC as part of the RAC Canada 150 celebration.

Here is a brief recap video

The Science of World War I: Communications

Amateur Radio Matured That Decade

The rapid expansion and even "mania" for amateur radio, with many thousands of transmitters set up by 1910, led to a wide spread problem of inadvertent and even malicious radio interference with commercial and military radio systems. Some of the problem came from amateurs using crude spark-transmitters that spread signals across a wide part of the radio spectrum. In 1912 after the RMS Titanic sank, the United States Congress passed the Radio Act of 1912, which restricted private stations to wavelengths of 200 meters or shorter (1500 kHz or higher). These "short wave" frequencies were generally considered useless at the time, and the number of radio hobbyists in the U.S. is estimated to have dropped by as much as 88%. Other countries followed suit and by 1913 the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea was convened and produced a treaty requiring shipboard radio stations to be manned 24 hours a day. The Radio Act of 1912 also marked the beginning of U.S. federal licensing of amateur radio operators and stations. The origin of the term "ham", as a synonym for an amateur radio operator, was a taunt by professional operators. But the restrictions of the Radio Act of 1912 spurred Amateur Radio forward and Hams experimented, developing new technology to use the restricted frequencies that were first believed to be useless. These innovations passed into the commercial sector and radio use made significant strides in the years that followed.

World War I is frequently referred to as "the first modern war," since a number of technological inventions made their debut during the war, which lasted from 1914 to 1918. Nowhere was this more true than in the realm of communications — the recent introduction of electricity- and radio-based communications revolutionized the art of war, joining other advances such as military airplanes, tanks, machine guns and chemical weapons.

Despite these new technologies, many military leaders were slow to take advantage of them and continued to wage war as if it were a cavalry-based affair. Their reluctance (or inability) to adapt to new methods of warfare has been cited as one reason World War I was such a bloody affair, resulting in more than 17 million civilian and military deaths. 

A portable radio transmitting station in Germany, 1919

World War I had put a stop to amateur radio. In the United States, Congress ordered all amateur radio operators to cease operation and even dismantle their equipment. These restrictions were lifted after World War I ended, and the amateur radio service restarted on October 1, 1919. Many Amateur Radio operators are veterans, some got their start in radio communications while serving. 

Please take a moment tomorrow, November 11th, to remember the many who sacrificed for our freedom in military operations.

To read the entire story above, click:
https://www.livescience.com/45641-science-of-world-war-i-communications.html

The November 2017 Communicator

Here is the latest Communicator. In this edition you will find:

• The Rest Of The Story—Lee De Forest 
• What’s Happening This Month In Ham? 
• News You Can Lose
• Back To Basics
• Club News—SARC
• Radio-Active
• Club News—SEPAR Report
• Emergency Comms—NVIS Antennas
• JOTA—Scouts On The Air
• Club News—North Shore ARC
• Club News—Richmond ARC
• Tech Topics—Hamstick Dipole Follow-up
• SARC Course Update
• and more... 

Two Enthusiastic JOTA Participants

You can read or download this edition here

My deadline for the December edition is November 20th. If you have news from your Vancouver area club, events or other items of interest please email them to me at communicator@ve7sar.net

Ham License Plate Woes

Our Provincial Insurance Provider Fails To Provide

Two recent emails revealed a possible problem with registration and renewal of 5 character (also known as 2-letter call sign) BC Amateur Radio vehicle licence plates. The first Amateur spent time last week attempting to renew his car insurance and registration with his VA7-- Amateur Radio plates. It became apparent that there was a problem with the new Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) computer system accepting five-letter/number registrations.

The option presented to him on Saturday, the last day of his insurance coverage, was to
relinquish his VA7-- plate and accept a new plate and sticker that had been prepared.
Unwilling to relinquish the VA7-- plate, his broker agreed to issue a three-day temporary permit to give more time to resolve the issue, on the condition that he remove the VA7-- plates from his car and display the temporary permit in its place. Inquiries during the weekend indicated that he was not alone in this issue. Some brokers had found a solution, but regrettably some BC Amateurs had given up their "call sign" plate and accepted a regular plate in return.

The following Monday he spent a significant amount of time waiting on hold to contact an
ICBC agent at their head office. This was a specialized problem, and by the time he found the department responsible, the staff had gone home for the day. The following day he was able to contact someone in the Personalized Plate department (604 661 2267) and they reassured the Amateur that there was a temporary work around. ICBC had an outstanding trouble ticket to resolve the issue with their IT staff, but it was not yet actioned. ICBC asked him to contact his broker, and have them contact ICBC directly to reissue the VA7-- plate. Meanwhile his broker called him, prior to their office opening. The broker had also taken the time and trouble to find a solution. His VA7-- plate is now valid again with a new sticker for 2017/18 but unfortunately the ICBC system went down during the renewal process and the broker was unable to print any paperwork.

He commented that it was surprising how many people were completely unaware of
the significance of an Amateur Radio vehicle license plate.

The second incident involved a long-time Amateur with a similar experience. He has had a ham plate since about 1965 with never a problem. In October 2016, he bought a new used car and wanted to trade in his weathered plates for new. When the Insurance agent called ICBC, he was advised that new plates could not be issued for at least 18 to 24 months. As his insurance was expiring, he had no option but to surrender his plates. Upset by this action, he went online to ICBC, found a Complaints page and asked why was he not able to register his callsign plate, or receive new ones for years.

Not expecting an answer, he received a phone call from ICBC within three days was advised to go back to his Insurance agent in about five days, where he could pick up his
new plates! Which he did… go figure. This year, October 2017, renewal was again due so he went to his Insurance Agent on a Friday. Crisis! ICBC could not proceed with the renewal as the ICBC system would not accept the 5 digit plate number, VA7…, expiring the following Monday. Weekends are not work days for ICBC, but he was advised it would be resolved by Monday. The problem not having been rectified, he went home, and took the car off the road. He borrowed his wife’s car on Tuesday and visited his broker. Fortunately the Agent was very good and worked with ICBC right then, while he was there, and was able to complete the renewal.

Hopefully, this note will encourage other BC Amateurs to persevere with their broker to
retain their five-letter/digit call sign vehicle plate while the problem with ICBC's computer exists.

I Wonder what will happen in October 2018? 

ICBC Plate Information Page