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ER/IK1HGE. QRT for 2019. Send your QSL cards now.

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Written by: ik1hge

Category: Moldova ER/IK1HGE

Published: September 02, 2019

Last Updated: September 02, 2019

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• Moldova
• ER/IK1HGE
• QSL

On Aug. 29^th, 2019 I made my last QSO from Moldova for this year. QRT! It is time to send your direct QSL cards with Self-Addressed Envelope (SAE) and reimbursement for the post stamps (green stamps). You'll find my postal address in the usual places of the net.

The cost of post stamps are:

- Europe and Mediterranean sea area: 1,15 Euros (2 USD)

- Asia, America, Africa: 2,40 Euros (3 USD)  (Japan and USA, this is your case!)

- Oceania: free (I don't have so many QSOs)

By the way, the logbook is made of paper, no LotW, no Clublog, no eqsl, no OQRS, etc. I only reply to true QSL cards.

QSL cards via bureau are also ok but take into account that I can reply only once a year and that, after two years, I haven't yet received any QSL card via bureau for the 2017 activity. Therefore, I suppose that it'll take no less than 5 years for you to get my QSL card via bureau.

Have a great DX season!

Roberto

ER/IK1HGE

Moldova: Activity 2019 ER/IK1HGE

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Written by: ik1hge

Category: Moldova ER/IK1HGE

Published: June 17, 2019

Last Updated: August 21, 2019

Hits: 1461

• Moldova
• ER/IK1HGE
• dxpedition
• yo dx contest

I'm going to be active as ER/IK1HGE from Republic of Moldova in August 2019 (not yet ssure about dates), on all HF amateur radio bands from 80 m to 10 m, CW and SSB with 100 W, a G5RV antenna and/or dipoles homebrewed on the field in case of need.

QSL via IK1HGE, via bureau  or direct to my italian address. Keep in mind that I can send out the QSLs via bureau only once a year, normally in October.

Be informed also that, starting this year, I'm no more immediately sending out all the QSL cards upon my return home, as I did in the past years, rather I'll just reply to your QSLs. Furthermore, I will not send back the contributions for the postage, but will use them to buy the post stamps, as well as SASEs (from Italy) and SAEs. Actually, it never happened that an italian thought to send a self stamped envelope to me, and never happened that a german thought not to send me a new IRC or 2 USDs (that I have just sent back, up to now). It must just be casuality...

IF the SASE is missing or the postage contribution is not enough to buy the post stamp, I just reply via bureau.

Since I have no PC in Moldova, my station logbook is made of paper. So, only if I have time to copy it into an electronic format, I also upload the QSOs to ClubLog, else I won't.

No LotW, no eqsl, no OQRS, no whatever other form of either real or virtual QSL service.

I plan to be active during the YO DX HF contest, presumibly sop CW. Look for me and spot my frequency, please!

Stay tuned for possible further news...

Roberto

HF choke balun homebrewing (1:1 current mode balun)

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Written by: ik1hge

Category: Electronics and radiofrequency

Published: May 06, 2019

Last Updated: December 17, 2021

Hits: 9217

• antennas
• HF
• balun

Almost all of us know that "BAL-UN" is the acronym for "BALanced-UNbalanced", thus we grasp the role of the device that bears the name of "balun" - allow to connect a generator having an unbalanced output (asymmetrical in respect to a reference), as a radiofrequency transmitter with a coaxial transmission line, to a balanced load (symmetrical in respect to the reference), as a dipole antenna or a lot of other kind of antennas, but not a Ground Plane one. The use of a balun let us avoid some drawbacks that would arise if we connected the unbalanced output directly to the balanced input. Actually, a balun is normally bi-directional, i.e. it allows to connect a balanced generator (the same antenna, but now used to receive) to the unbalanced load (the coax connected to the input stage of the receiver), though this function is generally much less promoted in amateur radio literature.

Well, let's come to the point. I've just built a choke bal-un, or current balun (with 1:1 impedance transformation ratio, i.e. it's just a balun, not an impedance adapter). I just want to share the pictures that document my work, I hope that they might be useful to someone else and, why not, that someone  will send me his comments and suggestions trough the "Contacts" module of this web site. Honestly speaking, there is nothing new in this article, it just talks about one of the several (thousands? Millions?) realizations of a HF choke. However, I'm sure that nobody would come to this unknown web site by chance, and that most of you are here because you are looking for instructions and pictures to be used as a starting point to homebrew your balun. So, read my article and also some of the other articles that you'll find around on the internet and in the literature. I spent a lot of effort in order to make a tutorial that suits to individuals who don't have specific technical skills, commenting and showing all the mounting operations, including the trivial ones...

Let's build a wide band choke balun for HF, with a good hope that it'll work on 50 MHz band too. We'll realize it with 11 turns of RG-142 coax cable wound on two overlapped toroids, brand Amidon model FT240-43. Why exactly 11 turns? The choice is based on experimental data published by G3TXQ (SK), who gave the figures for 9 turns; in order to compensate a part of the leakage flux due to the much higher stiffness of the RG-142, when compared to the RG-58 used by G3TXQ, which results in less tight turns around the core, I've decided for 11 turns instead of 9. This balun should withstand a power of few kW, but I would not know how to verify that, I can run only 100W.

 Needed material and equipment:

• A piece of RG-142 coax, let's say about 1,3 meters. The price is between 7 and 11 Euros/m in a shop (I paid it 5 Euros/m at a fair)
• Two Amidon toroids FT240-43; price about 9-10 Euros each

• One panel mounting female UHF connector (or, if you prefer, panel mounting N type female connector); price starting from 2 Euros

  Read more: HF choke balun homebrewing (1:1 current mode balun)

Sunspots number forecast and hf propagation prediction

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Written by: ik1hge

Category: News

Published: March 07, 2019

Last Updated: March 07, 2019

Hits: 4344

To state it simple, more or less we have understood that the propagation on amateur radio bands, especially those in the HF range, depends on the quantity of sun spots (Sn, Sunspots number): more the sunspots (higher Sn) means better propagation of electromagnetic waves and higher maximum usable frequency (MUF). The wise Old Men tell us that this sunspots number or, better, its daily and monthly mean, in the long term has a cyclic trend, that is it reaches a peak in a relatively short time, and then it has a long decay, which lasts several years, with a low sunspots number resulting in mediocre propagation.  Such a trend, is recurring roughly every eleven years as we observe in the following chart showing the monthly mean susnspots number in the latest five cycles.

Poor us, we are now living the long low sunspots tail of the 24^th solar cycle - few sunspots, low propagation…  What we all wonder is: when the sunspots number is going to grow again? In other words: When is the new solar cycle going to begin? And, even more interesting: When is the propagation going to improve so that we could finally have DXing from our normal QTHs, with affordable power and antennas? To answer those questions, we get some help from the predictions published by prestigious research institutes.

Here following, I report two graphs, made available by the Royal Observatory of Belgium - Brussels - that show:

Above: predictions dated 2019 January 8; below predictions udatrd monthly. Credit: SILSO data/image, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels.