Main features: Frequency Range HF + 50 MHz, Output power: 5W-200W , Mode: SSB, CW, FSK, PSK, FM,AM , Built-in Switching Power Supply , Built-in Antenna Tuner , Com ports: USB A/B port and LAN port.

Official Source: http://www2.jvckenwood.com/en/news/2012/20120418.html

Come see this prototype in Dayton!

Now that we’ve dreamed a little, let’s have a look at some images that appeared on the internet recently. Here’s what appears to be a higher resolution image of this knockout rig: You can click on it to enlarge.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Now let’s check the main TFT display. Have a closer look at the rig’s date. (01/APR/12). This could be just a a coincidence, maybe it’s Kenwood messing with our minds. I love it, what a nice move!

If this is indeed a hoax (The whole rig being fake I mean), the guy who doctored up this image should be hired as Kenwood’s new industrial designer because it’s a truly beautiful design. There is way too much finesse in the rig’s layout for it to be a hoax.

I did carefully look around the rig’s layout and I think there is nothing in these images that can suggest a hoax. The layout sticks to the reality of a HF radio and there is too much thought and details put into it. I trust the date portion of this image is real and is Kenwood’s way inserting an easter egg into its marketing material. Nicely done!

The important thing is that people are really curious about this new HF radio. In the past 48 hours, over five thousands visitors viewed this webpage, and this can only mean that a bunch of us are anxious to get a glance at the this new HF radio, or better yet, get one of our own. Release of the same image on QST magazine’s back cover suggests that it’s not a hoax. I think Kenwood needs to keeps the selling price under $5000.00.

I learned with time that version 1.0 of any new hardware products is most probably riddled with bugs and problems. My only advise to you would be to hold off at least 9 month before forking out the kind of money Kenwood wants for this Rig. I’m sure Kenwood wouldn’t release this flag ship product without checking, testing and re-checking everything. They wouldn’t want to make the same mistake Yeasu did by shipping the FTDX5000 with a typo of the word “Transceiver” on its front panel (Doh!).

Read the reviews, read the comments, check-out the blogs. Let the more fortunate ones test this new rig and let Kenwood iron out the bugs and problems before you invest in such a dream machine. But then again, if I find $5000 under a rock, I might just not follow my own advise and get one of these baby upon release.

Cheers & 73′s.
VE2XIP

Update: For those who had doubts, here is the TS-990 at Dayton’s Hamvention:

And a whole bunch of pictures at: (thanks to W6GPS)
http://www.cqdx.ru/ham/new-equipment/ts-990-kenwood-dayton-ohio-hamvention/ 

This massive body is composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, is 150 million kilometers from our planet, is 4.5 billion years old and is about at the half way point of the life. My point of curiosity is the Sun’s magnetic field which is the phenomenon behind every Amateur Radio fields of interests and daily discussions: dark spots, magnetic storm, radio blackouts, propagation. We’ve all heard “The propagation isn’t good today” and hopefully, this article can shine a bit of light on the reasons why.

The Sun’s magnetic field is composed like any other electromagnetic field of positive and negative poles of attraction. Imagine for a moment a magnet, with a stable un-interrupted force flowing between it’s poles. The Sun’s field is very similar to a magnet’s except that it is on a massing scale.

SOLAR MINIMUM

This scale and mass , and the fact that the equator region of the sun spins much faster than it’s pole, produces a distortion of its magnetic fields. The cycle during which these distortions occur are called solar minimum and the solar maximum.

Amateurs Radio operators often refer to this a the 11 years cycle, where it takes approximately 11 years for the Sun to start with stable fields (Solar minimum), begin slowly distorting by the Sun’s rotation and when they reach their maximum distortions (Solar maximum), the Sun reverses the polarity of its poles and we have a stable fields again (Solar minimum). While the Sun distorts its field, several phenomenon appears on its surface and around its corona. The first phenomenon are called sun spots.

SOLAR MAXIMUM

These sun spots are the results or the Sun’s surface being cooler than its surroundings The magnetic fields beneath the spot are so strong that heated plasma originating from the core is blocked and deviated from that region of the sun.

The spots aren’t actually dark, we just see them that way because the wavelength of the instruction we us to watch them which is tuned to see the frequency of certain temperature. If we change the wavelength of the instrument, the spots will become bright again. Sun spots aren’t influencing radio signal propagation back on earth, magnetic fields generating the sun spots are. The spots are often the first stage of solar maximum. The number of solar spots can dwindle down to zero during solar minimum and a few hundreds during solar maximum.

Counting >150 spots can entice some very interesting propagation conditions on HF radio. I’ve heard from experienced Amateur operators that in the early 50′s, the numerous sun spots (+250) was such that amateurs were able to establish DX contacts clear across the globe with 1 watt of power and the most basic of HF antenna. Suns spots at that time were also the biggest ever recored, reaching up to 40 times the size of our Earth.

Another phenomenon created by magnetic field line distortion are corona field storms. These are not flares yet! These are essentially magnetic fields greatly distorted and so strong that they literally poke out of the Sun surface, producing elegant arcs of plasma that can reach out hundreds of thousand of kilometres over the sun’s surface. In general, we can’t see a magnetic field, but these ones are visible because of the Sun’s plasma is being dragged along the fields and light up the corona.

These magnetic field lines indicate brewing magnetic activities within the sun that can be called the second stage of solar maximum.  This increasing activities in the Sun magnetism is directly responsible for affecting our ionosphere layers, and affect how well HF frequencies propagates. I will discuss that subject in greater details in a future review.

While the sun’s rotation distorts these magnetic field lines and they in return manage to escape the sun’s surface, a new phenomenon is taking place called magnetic sail effect, which is similar to a sailing boat’s sail flapping in the wind. Eventually, if the number of sails (Or field lines) is sufficient and they happen close to one another, that’s when the most violent events occur.

When two or more strong magnetic field lines cross, there are extremely violent explosions called solar flares, also referred to as CME (Corona Mass Ejection). The resulting explosions are strong enough to catapult portions of the field lines into space, along with it’s plasma content and generates vast quantities of XRay. When these flares happen and the CME resulting is directed at us, that’s when we have to worry as these clouds of solar material are being hurled toward us, our technology based modern society could gamble all its chips and loose.

In about 8 seconds, large quantities of X-Ray hit our ionosphere sometimes producing instant radio blackouts and this is only the prelude to what is about to happen. The CME has been ejected at anywhere between 1 million and 5 million kilometers and hours and this wave of plasma and charged particles will reach us in a few hours or a few day, depending how strong the CME explosion was. From that moment, space weather specialists have to predict if this solar flares will hit us with devastating force, or just a a mild storm. It’s exactly like predicting the weather here on earth. There is a certain degree of uncertain probability governing their predictions.

Solar weather specialist have very little time following a solar flare to determine where its going to hit and what is the polarity of the storm. In fact, they have to predict if the portion of the storm hitting us has a similar or reverse polarity with our planet’s magnetic field. If the portion of the storm that hits our north pole is positively charged, and our north pole is also positively charges, the storm will be repulsed by our planet’s magnetic field, acting as shield.

On the other hand, if the polarity are inverted, the storm and our magnetic field will be attracted to one another, the storm will penetrate our poles and discharge it’s energy in our ionosphere, producing beautiful Aurora, unfortunate radio blackouts, potential satellite and electronic failure and sometimes, power blackouts. In a nutshell, that’s how solar storms are created and how they can affect us. There are historical accounts dating back to the mid 1700′s which describe massive solar storms producing Aurora visible anywhere on the planet. If the strength of such a storm would happen today, some say it would throw our modern society back to the stone age in a hurry and could take a decade to repair the damages made to our electrical grids. If this day ever happens, be prepared to chop wood and shoot squirrels for a little while.

These Solar events have been observed for centuries. Drawings and sketches of solar events have been around for over 500 years. But just recently did we put into place instruments that will let us understand the inner-workings of our Sun. Nasa’s Solar Dynamic Observatory satellites launched in February of 2010 is our around the clock surveillance of the Sun, something we were not able to do until today.

The extreme high-resolution instruments on board the SDO satellite are so sophisticated that they greatly surpass our ability to simply observe the Sun from our Earth using solar telescopes. SDO’s instruments allow us to look at our sun with different wave length, putting into contrast all the hidden features of this star and that’s the key into understand solar mechanics and possibly predicting solar weather.

The effects of solar weather on Amateur Radio is much greater than I originally imagined. When I first started this hobby, I kept hearing about sun spots and how their numbers would positively or negatively affect this hobby. I just had to dig a little more to find out how these sun spots were created, and while doing so, I stumbled into a world of space science I can only begin to enjoy and explore.

Fortunately for us, the SDO satellite generates images with such vividness and resolutions that we are front row centre to the greatest light show imaginable. They will help solar specialists better understand solar mechanics and hopefully help us better prepare for the perfect solar storm.

The sequel to this article will discuss HF propagation mechanics on earth and how it all works.

73′s.
VE2XIP

Here is a sample of the effects of a mild solar storm on radio frequencies:
Notice the tremolo effect on the signals being received.

Fun facts about our sun:

Equatorial Radius: 695,500 km
Equatorial Circumference: 4,379,000 km
Volume: 1,142,200,000,000,000,000 km³
Mass: 1,989,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
Density: 1.409 g/cm³
Surface Area: 6,087,799,000,000 km²Surface Gravity: 28 G Equatorial or 274.0 m/s²
Rotation: pole = 35 days, equator = 25 days
Velocity Relative to Near Stars: 19.7 km/s
Escape Velocity: 2,223,720 km/h

The Sun makes up around 99.86% of the Solar System’s mass.
It’s 1,392,000 kilometres (865,000 miles) wide.
The Sun’s diameter is about 110 times wider than Earth’s.
Light from the Sun reaches Earth in around 8 minutes.
The Sun’s surface temperature is around 5500 degrees Celsius (9941 degrees Fahrenheit).
The Sun’s core is around 13,600,000 degrees Celsius.

Sky Command : This feature lets you control and operate your HF station from a Kenwood compatible mobile or portable device. I had high expectations for this feature and was somewhat disappointed by the results I observed. Here’s why: the control is sluggish, sometimes unresponsive and too slow for my tastes. The operation range is only limited by your antenna installation at both ends, but has somewhat of a understated limit to is; Think “line of sight”. Using Sky Command, I managed several DX contacts on different bands, which I admit, was a bit exciting at first. Needless to say, the practicality of this feature was a far cry from what I expected. Using Sky Command after an hour overtaxed the TS2000 as it became extreme hot and its cooling fans were revving at their limit. I would be worried about leaving unattended the transceiver in Sky Command mode and for an extended period of time. I can see some specific applications to this remote operation feature, but it’s certainly not designed for most operators. I would categorize it as a hobbyist gadget and very few Amateur Radio operations who tried Sky Command, became regular users of it. It’s simply light years away from offering the true “look and feel” of operating your TS2000 directly.

Cross band repeat: I had the opportunity to experiment with Kenwood’s TM-D710 VHF/UHF mobile prior to testing the TS2000 and what a disappointment I experienced when I tried the TS2000′s cross band capabilities. It’s somewhat sluggish to operate, limited and for some reason I can’t explain, arbitrarily unresponsive. The TM-D710 spoiled my expectations. This Kenwood mobile dual-band radio was such a charm to operate on 2 meters and 70 centimetres and offered much better cross band functionalities and operability than the TS2000. On the other hand, the TS2000 lets you operate in cross band with HF bands. The problem is that on HF, stations aren’t transmitting squelch tones, making a bit awkward to operate in half-duplex. Many tried, few kept on using it. Bottom line, it’s usable, but I would use it for monitoring purposes, nothing more.

After using the TS2000 for an extended period of time, I discovered that it did not meet my expectations at many levels. Don’t get me wrong, its not a bad transceiver, its just not at the level of usability I expected and I quickly outgrown this all mode transceiver. Let me explain. First, it’s HF options controls are inter-mixed with VHF/UHF control buttons, having multiple functions for each buttons. The numeric keypad hides most of its features and an oddly positioned function button completes this mixture. Some key HF featured are on buttons so small that I literally had to use the tip of my fingernail to operate them. You cannot jump from band to band without having to cycle thru all the bands using the main receiver’s (+ or -) buttons. Operation of the HF receiver’s features is just not quite at your finger tip nor was it designed to be. The TS2000 is an hybrid, a compromise between a HF transceiver and a VHF/UHF mobile radio and serves that purpose very well.

The TS2000 as often been referred to as a “Swiss Knife” transceiver, unfortunately, a “Swiss Knife” just isn’t the kind of tool I wan’t in my toolbox. There is something annoying about wanting to operating on HF with a TS2000 and Kenwood had to cope with delivering a little bit of everything bit not enough to satisfy a HF enthusiast. I’m quite a critic and fan of well designed user interfaces and this transceiver lacks delivering a solid user interface experience.

The principal motivation behind wanting a replacement this HF rig was its perplexing cooling system, constantly turning on and off at one of two riveting speeds (loud and louder) making the “listening” experience quite unpleasant. Looking inside the TS2000′s, I can see why it had a cool problem. Its layout is cluttered with components, blocking the flow of air, making it susceptible to overheating, therefor needing constant cooling from a single large front panel fan. I understand the level of complexity in trying to integrate so many features in such a little box, but they could of done a better job with the cooling design. Maybe they didn’t have all the technology you’ll find today, maybe this transceiver was ahead of its time, maybe Kenwood could simply redesign this rig with today’s knowledge and technology. I’m certain if they fixed all the little things they’ve missed and simply redesign it’s control panel, it would be another huge success. A significant portion of the Amateur Radio operator demographic want a “swiss knife” transceiver. Why not build a better one?

This collection of “small compromises in a box”, my growing interest in HF, my equally growing disinterest in 2 meters and 70 centimetres bands and its “awfully loud cooling fans” were all the arguments I needed to consider an alternate transceiver. Having immediately eliminated the expensive “Dream machines” from my lists, I resolved myself to acquire what appeared to be the new “trend” in terms of modern HF transceivers, the Kenwood TS590S. This fairly recent HF transceiver had been redesigned in many ways. With smaller and more modern components, efficient filters and HF oriented features, the TS590S received high scores rave reviews from many of its owners and not to be overlooked, just received high marks from Sherwood Engineering’s. If the TS590S is being compared to rigs several times its asking price, it was worth considering. I researched the internet for comments about its cooling systems and/or fan noise but found none. It’s was the next candidate.

First impression: The TS590S, out of the box, is slightly heavier than the TS2000 and approximately 10% smaller in size (width and depth). Its exterior is a bit more polished and symetric. This transceivers appeared to be a notch above the TS2000 quality wise. After opening its guts to install a voice processor and a TCXO chipset, I noticed that its interior components were slightly smaller, a bit more spaced out and its heavier frame gave it better heat sink capabilities. It also have two variable speed cooling fans which helped it be a much quieter radio. The quietness of the device alone was enough to win brownie points, lots and lots of brownie points in my book.

Turning this radio “on” immediately advertised its differences with the TS2000 . Its large front LCD display offers two colors “Green and Amber” which is nice to have when you get bored of staring at a mono colour display, its frequency counter characters are 20% larger and its backlight display is much more uniform and brighter than the TS2000. They definitely made some improvements on all visual aspects of this transceiver and improved on the quality of the parts.

First of all, using 2 meters and 70 centimetres is thing of the past with the TS590S. It only operates 160m thru 6m. Price wise, the TS590s and the TS2000 are both in the sub $2k category, but that’s where their similarity ends. Kenwood took time and efforts to design and make the very best HF transceiver for that price range and it really shows in the “look and feel” of the product. I have been using this rig for over eight months now and still haven’t found hidden compromises. Of course it lacks some features when compared to larger more expensive transceivers, but the point is that you really get the best “bang-for-your-buck” with a TS590S.

Operating this radio in HF is a breeze, its main features are at your finger tip (Not fingernail tip!). I’ve heard of Amateur Radio Operators who disliked, even got rid of their TS590S because they found it too small, not worthy of the “HF Rig” rig, event heard comments such as “It doesn’t have enough buttons” or “The buttons are too small”! That’s like judging the quality of a product by the size of the container it comes in. But who am I to judge people who want door knobs size audio potentiometers?

On the TS590S, band selection is easy, as it should, and I truly like the TS590S capability to retain in its memory your last three frequency selection on every band selector. Each buttons is well laid out, symmetrical and just the right size for a transceiver this size, unlike the TS2000 which had oddly shaped buttons to accommodate it’s somewhat “90′s modern” design. Functionality is so much more important than look.

How does the TS590S compared to the TS2000 reception wise? My first observation was a +6 dB increase in signals on the S-Meter over the TS-2000. Its probably just a question of meter calibration, I will admit, not all S-Meters are created or calibrated alike. But after performing some initial tests on weak, very weak signals, using the same coax and antennas, I had a some doubts about meter calibration being the only reason. On occasions, the TS590S revealed qualities not found on the TS2000, on near or below noise level signals. Some weak signals were simply invisible to the TS2000. This only makes me believe that in signal to noise ratio and the sheer sensitivity of the TS590S were better.

It’s not just a question of S-Meter calibration, its all about what comes out of the speaker! I often been told that the TS2000 was deaf and like many owners of TS2000, I didn’t really believe it, but here are samples which made me reconsider that statement. The first sample, signal sounds stronger and audio sharper. Never mind the S-Meter level, we’re not interested in it since calibration is debatable. The second sample speaks for it self as I listened for hours on many bands before finding a signal worthy of sampling. The third sample is in CW. Again, signal strength appears stronger and sounds sharper. Have a look, and most importantly, listen !

Comparing the TS2000 and TS590S:

Showing my video samples to a few Amateurs resulted in a wide range of reactions. I figured that since I was using somewhat inefficient antennas, maybe they were the cause of this signal result discrimination. However, there are noticeable, hearable and measurable differences between the TS590S and the TS2000 on HF, and the majority are in favour of the TS590S. Also, these differences are significant enough to fill the satisfaction void created by the TS2000.

Operating QPR or weaker stations is slowly becoming a point of interest in this hobby of mine. The range of filters found on the TS590 are complete and efficient, permitting to pull out a weak station out of the noise or simply isolate signals from nearby interfering stations, adding positively to the listening experience. The only efficient tool against nearby stations are bandpass filters (LowCut and HighCut filters) and the TS590S is very efficient when these circumstances presents themselves, and often they do. The TS590S has two selectable and adjustable passband filters as this video demonstrates :

Passband filter on the TS590S:

Equally useful, the notch filter can become a real friend when stations unwillingly or willingly tune their radio or transmit in CW a few kHz away from your frequency. Manual or automatic notch filters can dramatically or completely eliminate interference without affecting the audio quality of your signal of interest.

Next, the (NB) noise blanker and (NR) noise reducing filters. Fortunately, I have acceptable levels of noise in my surroundings and only occasionally do I need to use these filters. A neighbour’s pool filter motor, and air conditioning unit or a plasma screen might occasionally create unwanted interference, and in most case, these interference can be eliminated with the help of these filters. Power lines and their transformers (isolators) are the usual culprits and power companies can help you eliminate these problems by contacting and reporting the issues to them. I have heard accounts of TS590S owners who were infested with radio frequency parasites and claim to have cleared them more efficiently using their TS590S’ noise filter than using an external MFJ-1025 noise suppression device.

Finally but not least, the USB port found on the TS590S is probably at the top of my list in useful features. Contrary to the TS2000 which lets you control it via ancient communication ports like a DB9 serial port or one of its accessory ports, the TS590S offers a built-in USB port which lets you do everything in a very convivial way. Plug and Play is what USB technology was designed for and that’s exactly how its being delivered on the Kenwood TS590S. Using either Kenwood’s ARCP, ARHP or ARUA suite of free software, or the popular Ham Radio Deluxe suite of software, it requires little other investment, besides a USB cable and a computer, to let you remote control the gear, capture or transmit audio and event operate one of the many digital modes available. I even managed to operate this radio remotely, with VOX control, thru the internet using nothing more than a $20 USB headset on my laptop. The setup was quick, clean and efficient.

Another feature found in the TS590S that you won’t find in a TS2000, is an 18 band audio equalizer. On the TS2000, there are some selectable presets, like Bass boost or High boost, but these are not adjustable. The TS590S lets you control each audio parameters making the use of an external audio equalizer, like the W2IHY’s $350 EQplus, obsolete. With the help of the built-in equalizer, you can achieve “near” broadcast audio quality with a $14 dynamic microphone, (IE: Berhinger’s SM1800S). That’s what I use and often received flattering comments on my audio. I also used to capture audio on my TS2000 and quickly discovered that the USB-to-Serial converter generated interference on the audio signal, something I no longer have using the USB port on the TS590S. Is just shows you that there are so many little improvements here and there, and the sum of them all make the Kenwood TS590S an Amateur’s best friend.

In conclusion, the TS2000 is a great “swiss knife” transceiver and has not been challenged much by other manufacturers over more than a decade. I have a feeling Kenwood had to cut too many corners to pull this “tour-de-force” and that convinced me to consider an alternative. If you want a more serious approach to HF (DX, CW, Digital modes), are more than the occasionally hobbies and don’t want to break the bank, the TS590S should be on your consideration list. What was not spent trying to squeeze a 2 meters / 70 centimetres receiver in the box is well spent on making this product a better one. As I said before, the simple fact that the cooling fans are dramatically quieter on the TS590S compared to the TS2000, was enough for me to make the switch. Ironically, I talked to a few TS2000 owners who had the same opinion about its cooling fan, but developed a “compromising” tolerance to it. If they are happy living with compromises, I respect that decision.

I recommend you read the following Webpage, which really give an in-depth tour of the TS590S..

Hope you enjoyed my point of view.

73′s.

The primary reason which brought me to install both antennas is quite simple. I originally thought that upgrading from a G5RV to an Alpha-Delta would be the end of that. Not so. I quickly discovered after tuner the Alpha Delta to my desired resonant frequencies by shortening and lengthening its wires, that it had an annoying 80 KHz bandwidth limitation on 80 meters. The solution to this conundrum was to acquire and install a much more efficient external antenna tuner. When I decided to take on Amateur Radio, I had absolutely no desire to have my “home office” look anything like one of those hardware cluttered “Ham Shacks”; Multiple radios, each outfitted with external tuners, meters, filters, gadgets and linear amplifiers was certainly out of the question, but those are personal decisions. One radio, one antenna was my ultimate goal, therefor a much more efficient external antenna tuner was not an option.

My HF transceiver’s built-in antenna tuner being able to tune the Alpha Delta from 3.690 MHz to 3.770 MHz  and being able to tune the the G5RV from 3.500 MHZ to 4.000 MHz, putting the G5RV back online was a viable solution! A few fellow Amateur operators asked me why I did not not put up a 80 meters dipole instead, since it was my band of interest? Short answer: RealEstate! You see, the G5RV’s 102 feet fits perfectly between the tip of my roof and the furthest tree in my back yard. The 138 feet dipole would not. I’m simply 36 feet short on RealEstate. Anyway, there are ways around this, but the simplest solution, I think, are the best ones; I had to use the G5RV to fill in the areas the AlphaDelta would lack.

My decision to only have one antenna in the back yard had to be renegotiated. The G5RV is stealthy and would not impede my decision to have an antenna clutter free yard. Its 18 gauge black wire is almost invisible when travelling near vegetation.

How do both antennas compare? The Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus is a good antenna on 40,20,10 meters, also gives results on 18 meters, but has offers average results on 160,80,15 event 17 meters. It’s un-tunnable on 12 meter and forget about 6 meter. At the opposite side, the G5RV gave me very good results on 80,40 meter, more than acceptable results on 15 meters. It even appears to be resonant on 12 meter, giving me near 1:1 SWR without using an antenna tuner. One noticeable difference between the G5RV and the AlphaDelta is noise. The G5RV picks-up at least +3 dB of static background noise, which doesn’t make it a popular choice in an urban environment. Lucky, I live in on the fridge of an urban residential neighbourhood and this helped reduce the amount of RF interference and static noise exposed to my antennas. Still, when the background noise is elevated, it’s much more apparent on the G5RV.

Visually, for those who care about stealthiness like I do, the G5RV is as close to being invisible as it can get. Its thin wire, no balun design makes it quite to spot at any distance. The Alpha Delta however is challenged when it comes to stealthiness, with its 6 wires and 4 load coils, it’s harder to miss. Fortunately, I managed to hide it on the fringe of the forest at the far end of my back yard, making it quite inconspicuous. Coax runs are buried under the ground making my “stealth” approach to this hobby a complete success. You could literally walk around my yard and not notice any wire antennas. How do both antennas really compare performance wise. It’s not a contest and I would certainly not declare one antenna much better over the other one all things compared. They both delivery in different circumstances, on different frequencies, with different propagation conditions, but its certainly nice to have both at my finger tips.

The first series of tests was comparing both antennas on 80 meters, which I use mainly for <1500 kilometres local contacts. Upfront, the G5RV is the clear winner, allowing me to tune the entire 75 and 80 meters band. At plus and minus 40 KHz of the resonant point of the Alpha Delta, both antennas perform in a similarly fashion.  Outside that “tuned” bandwidth, the G5RV picks-up the ball where the Alpha Delta drops it. I installed the G5RV with operating 75 and 80 meters in mind and am using the G5RV exclusively on these bands. You don’t tune a G5RV by shortening or lengthening its wire, by design, it gives you approximately 3:1 SWR on the whole band. You use your transceiver’s built-in antenna tuner to bring it down to 1:1 SWR. Have a look at both antennas in action on 80 meters.

In all the video clips:
ANT1 = AlphaDelta
ANT2 = G5RV

Sample result for 75 meter: G5RV vs Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus:

On 10 meters, the Alpha Delta shines and the results were a little more obvious. When the band is opened, it’s a sweet pleasure to operate the Alpha Delta antenna. Since the antenna is a “Fan Dipole”, it has a dedicated pair of elements tuned for 10 meters giving it a commanding advantage. A picture is worth a thousand words, so have a look at the results for yourself.

Sample result on 10 meter: G5RV vs Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus:

Another sample result on 10 meter: G5RV vs Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus:

My next tests were on 12 & 17 meter. These are WARC bands. For those of you who aren’t familiar with WARC, its stands for (World Administrative World Conference). The WARC amateur bands are 30,17 and 12 meter. Band and frequency allocation may vary from country to country. These bands, specially 17 and 12 meter, are a delight to operate. I found the nicest Amateur Radio operators on these bands, they are not crowded and are often a great place to escape to when contesters are overwhelming other bands. This test show a convincing advantage given to the G5RV on both 12 meter and 17 meter, with the bonus of being resonant on 12 meter. See for yourself;

Sample result on 12 meter: G5RV vs Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus:

Sample result on 17 meter: G5RV vs Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus:

And finally, some test results on the most popular DX bands, 15 and 20 meters. Here, it’s a split decision. The Alpha Delta has a resonant element on 20 meters, making a clear choice to operate on. on 15 meters, the G5RV receives well, but SWR is seriously high making the worst candidate for transmission. On 15 meters, it’s a different story. The lower half of that band is tuneable with the G5RV while the upper half is tuneable with the Alpha Delta, giving me the opportunity to work the whole band. 20 meters is an interesting band. I made some of my most distant DX contacts on this band. Using either antennas, I made 15,000+ kilometres contacts, propagation conditions pending and depending if I was on the lower side or upper side of that particular band. Even an Australian club station told me they heard me long path on 15 meters, that’s a whopping 23,500 kilometres (14,600 miles) !

Sample result on 20 meter: G5RV vs Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus:

Another sample result on 20 meter: G5RV vs Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus:

Sample result on 15 meter: G5RV vs Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus:

In conclusion, I don’t really have a clear choice between both antennas. If you do decide you want to operate on all Amateur Radio bands like I would, putting up both antennas is the only advise I can give you. Having two multi-band antennas is not a bad, things, you will always have a back-up antenna if one decides to come down in the middle of winter, and the last thing on my wish list is having to go fix an antenna in the middle on a Canadian winter.

If you have a favourite band to operate on and only operate on that particular band, I would recommend using a dipole. It’s all a question of needs and compromise.  Being fairly new to this hobby, having used both antennas for some time now, I have no regrets having both type of antennas up and operational. They really compliment one another. Seriously.

Summary results; when compared.

Alpha Delta: Best on 160, 40, 20, 17 and 10 meter, will do okay on 80, 15 and 12 meter, horrible on 6 meter.

G5RV: Best on 80, 20 and 12 meter, will do okay on 40 and 15 meter, will tune portions of 6 meter, not very good on 10 meter and horrible on 160 meter.

The word that best describe the single advice I can give someone about putting up either antennas is -height-. Try to put them as high as possible and clear of any metal structure and/or objects. Twenty-five feet is the usual minimum recommended height, I would recommend even higher, 40 to 50 feet if you can manage it. These antennas will work best horizontally, but still work fine as an inverted-v, just remember to have an acute angle of at least 90 degrees and their ends at least 6 feet off the ground.

My next antenna project(s) will probably be Radiowavz’s “Saturn 5-80″,  a 5 bands cage dipole covering 80m, 40m, 20m,15m and 10m. I like multi-band dipoles. Since have limited room to deploy antennas, one that does it all is my best option. I would also like to test an 80 meter Double-Bazooka and see if its claim to fame if true. I’ll certainly write a report about it.

73′s.

A typical VHF portable radio

Ever since I started this bobby in radio communications, my field of interest has been focused more toward HF frequencies (From 0 to 30 MHz) and its ability to travel enormous distances without any other assistance than bouncing signals in the ionosphere. However, the vast majority of Amateur radio hobbyists operate on non-HF frequencies (From 50 MHz to 21 GHz). You will find an ocean of services on these frequencies. With the help of a repeater and some repeater add-ons, a skilled Amateur operator can open communication channels virtually anywhere around the world using one of many options a repeater has to offer.

Amateur radio repeaters are mostly found around urban areas but have great coverage and can be accessible is the many rural areas. In march of 2012, I received an email from one of our local Amateur Radio club asking for volunteers to to help install a new repeater in our area and that’s when I saw the opportunity to see for myself what it was all about. I’ve been using these repeaters on and off for over a year, but yet, I had to see with my own eyes how one of these repeater looked like and how it was deployed.

First, a little bit of basic about repeater frequencies. Local Amateur radio communications frequencies : These are ranges of frequencies allocated to Amateur Radio operators, often referred to as 6 meters (50-54 Mhz), 1.25 meters (220-225 Mhz), 2 meters (144-148 Mhz), 70 centimetres (430-450 Mhz), and much higher frequencies, such as 900 Mhz, 1200 Mhz, 2300 Mhz, 3300 Mhz, 5600 Mhz and 10 Ghz. The range of the frequencies will vary from country to country, but the most popular one used by Amateur radio operators are 2 meters and 70 centimetres, often referred to as VHF and UHF.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Now a bit of basics about repeaters. Wikipedia defines a radio repeater as a combination of a radio receiver and a radio transmitter that receives a weak or low-level signal and retransmits it at a higher level or higher power, so that the signal can cover longer distances without degradation. I will enhance this definition by saying that repeaters offer the ability to extended land based communication to portable or mobile radio stations. As an example, a telephone line attached to a repeater will allow you to place a phone call from area you wouldn’t fin phone lines or cell services. Tying repeaters together via the internet (IRLP) is also another way to extending their coverage and types of service offered.

Portables using a repeater

Radio to Radio communication on VHF can quickly reach limits of a few kilometres for portables, 5 to 15 Km for mobiles and 20 to 50 Km for base stations. Distance will attenuate the quality of the signal being transmitted, making communications unpleasant and inefficient. Throw in a repeater in the mix and you have a whole new experience! Repeater deployment are popular among Amateur portable and mobile devices because it will dramatically increase their range of operation and make owning such equipment even more worthwhile.

Let’s look at how a repeater operates. A repeater will generally listen on one frequency and transmit on another. Most modern portable or mobile VHF radios have the ability to operate using these split frequencies. Amateur operators will program their radio to transmit on the receiving frequency of the repeater, and listen on the transmitting frequency of the repeater. There are also several repeater protections such as tone transmission, which will transmit a low frequency tone as the operator transmits to unlock the repeat. Without this basic protection, a repeater might re-transmit all sorts of noise and interferences.

Mobiles using a repeater

Repeaters need to be positioned high to offer maximum coverage. Since VHF operates best in light of sight, a strong repeater will need to have sensitive antennas, low power loss coax, strong power output and series of cavity filters to eliminate any competing signals, nearby radio interference and to avoid creating interference to other devices. Once activated, a repeater can allow a portable station and/or a mobile to establish radio communication upwards to 100 kilometres. When linked together, repeaters can extended several times that distance and have truly impressive coverage.

Now that we’ve covered some basics, lets have a look at an actual installation. One of our local Amateur Radio club, “L’Association des Radio Amateurs Indépendants (VE2REH)”, invited its members to go in the field and help install a VHF repeater. I had an opportunity to go see on the spot what is was all about, so I packed a lunch and joined them at a rally point.

VE2REH is a local club with an impressive and sophisticated repeater network. This club is composed mostly of telecoms professionals, engineers, electricians and serious active or retired Amateur Radio hobbyists. They deployed and operate no less than 40 repeaters, on several bands, covering hundreds of thousands of square kilometres.  The repeater they are installing today was a 2 year ongoing project. To put you in context, a tall radio tower at top of the highest mountain is alway the most desirable place to put a repeater. In our case, the owner of the tower was a local FM radio station which had to be convinced of allowing the club to attach one of its antenna to its tower.

Amateur Radio clubs don’t have the necessary budgets to acquire land, build their own towers, yet alone buy brand new radio repeaters. They do it the old fashion way, begging. Beg for space, beg for parts, beg for anything that can help them build a sturdy repeater with donated parts often as old as I am. Its a hobbyists club and they use the means they have on hand to accomplish the task, and that, they do very well. On occasion, they use club’s funds, or members might chip in to buy some new hardware such as crystals or batteries, but all in all, it’s build out of scraps, all the work is performed by volunteers and they get rewarded by enjoying the fruit of their labour.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Back to our repeater. The target location is a place called Campbell’s Bay, a small town locate approximately 100 Km north-west from Canada’s nation capital, Ottawa. The objective is a 300 foot FM radio station tower which will accommodate 2 antennas, one for local communications, another to link this repeater to their vast network of repeaters scattered all over, hundreds of kilometres afar.

Arriving at the tower site, the day begins with teaming. One team for each task. Within minutes the tower team attacks climbing this 300 foot tower, another team prepares the space needed in the radio shack for the repeater equipment and the third team deploys the cabling and coax needed to link the repeater to the antennas. Not a single minute is wasted. These guys were really flying. Its as if they had done this several times before (HiHi). Holes are drilled, coax a laid out, the tower climber is busy installing backers and antennas and the team leader is doing final checks on the repeater hardware, electrical outlets and backup power.

Campbell's Bay Repeater Site

Within a couple hours, the bulk of this installation was completed. Following a quick lunch break, these operators were anxious to complete this long awaited project. An hours later, they had completed all the installations, check lists and inventory. Finishing touches were left to the club’s president expert hands.

Voilà, VE2REH had extended their Amateur radio repeater network another thousand square kilometres with expected coverage from Kanata to Chalk River, Ontario, Canada. With small portable radios, they tested the link to the main repeater grid and confirmed audio output and signal levels. Being new to this Amateur radio hobby, I would say the least that I was impressed by the efficiency these guys operated and how old recycled radio scraps can be given a second life. The day ended with a convoy of vehicles returning to the city, testing the repeater’s range along the way. One hundred and twenty Kilometres of road separates my home from this repeater and I could still hit the repeater from my mobile radio at home.

On several occasions, people have asked me the was the purpose of building an Amateur Radio repeater? The answer to this is: anything you can imagine. This is not a club’s repeater used exclusively for club activities, it’s a public service, a life line, a tool offered to the community.

An interesting aspect of the repeaters being deployed by the VE2REH radio club, is their ability to be remotely operated, allowing for each repeater to be linked or un-linked at will. This feature permits the isolation of a repeater from the rest of the network when needed for emergency simulations or real-life events, or just special events requiring a local radio repeater.

Emergency events cannot be predicted, just planned against and Amateur Radio operators understands this better than anyone. It’s the fundamental philosophy behind putting up these repeaters all over. Their repeaters are available for not just other Amateur Radio operator to use, but any events that might require radio communications during an event. Obviously, these repeaters are in some sort of competition with the commercials ones, but in most times, non lucrative organizations can’t afford commercial radio services and rely on the availability of being able to use such radio repeater services.

Cavities filter

One particularity about living in Canada is its great distance between populated communities. You can quickly drive out of range of cellular towers and find yourself without any means of communications. That’s where Amateur Radio repeaters come in handy. Radio clubs put them out in areas otherwise uncovered by commercial services, linking communities together and offering a valuable service.

In 1998, Eastern Canada, Amateur radio repeaters became the life line for a lot of people. Police and Emergency radio services were abruptly compromised following a week of ice storms that brought down many commercial services. Amateur Radio repeaters lived thru this local disaster and were readily used by many civil emergency services. We now see the importance of having such repeaters deployed and maintained by Amateur Radio operators.

In conclusion, I would like to thank our local club Amateur Radio club (VE2REH) for allowing me to tag along and take pictures of their deployment operations.

73′s from VE2XIP.

I first heard it when I was listening to an Italian Amateur Radio station working a pile-up on 40 Meters.  Similar to Stephen King’s “Langoliers”, a noise in the distance began creeping on the frequency, and this occurance happens mostly in the evenings. It came from a lower frequency and worked its way up. Within a few minutes, the Italian station ran away from this awful noise and QSY 20 kHz up the band. The strange noise is approximately 5 kHz wide and buries everything in its path. Being new to this wonderful hobby, I just told myself, that’s another mode of transmission I know nothing about and will probably learn about it when I have time to explore them.

I’ll admit that I completely forgot about this noise and never heard it again all winter long, until last week, April 21th 2012, it suddenly reappeared 2 kHz down from a daily 80 meters evening net. It was creating interference 2 to 3 kHz up and down its carrier frequency, with peak of 30-40 dBs over S9, you just couldn’t miss this wall of noise. Its was really punching a hole in the middle of the 80 meters band and wasn’t welcomed by most Amateur Radio operators.

So, what was is it? I heard all kind of speculations from other operators, from the plausible to the ridicule. No one seemed to have a definitive answer. Many of the Amateur operators passing comments on the noise had 30 to 50 years of experience as Amateurs and no one had a clear explanation as to the origin or purpose of this noise ? If you still don’t know what I’m talking about? Have a listen;

Here’s a sample of what I heard on 3.778 MHz, next to our ongoing net:

Now, does it bring back a memory? If you hang around 40 meters long enough, you will heard this noise at one time of another, mostly in the evenings. I will ask again; What is this noise and where is it coming from? I’m a little more intrigued about its purpose than who’s behind it. I began “Googling” any possible description to see if any Amateur Radio operators might of written something on some blog about this noise, or any scientific articles about this phenomenon, but found nothing worth blogging about.

The only reoccurring thread brought up the topic of something called “HAARP”, some government radio waves experiment aimed at our heavens. I bookmarked the links and moved on. Then, I decides to test if 80 meters was the only spectrum visited by this strange noise. Lo and behold, it was not. On the second harmonic of 3.778 Mhz, there is was, smack in the middle of 7.556 Mhz. Coincidence? I decided to run up and down the bands to locate more of this noise, write down the frequency I heard it on and then do the quick math to see if there was a mathematical relationship between the frequencies being used.

Here’s a sample of what I heard on 7.556 MHz: same as on 3.778 Mhz.

Scanning up and down the bands revealed dozens of frequencies that were occupied by this noise:  2.397 Mhz, 3.778 Mhz, 4.281 Mhz, 4.646 Mhz, 4.813 Mhz, 5.216 Mhz, 5.431 Mhz, 6.796 Mhz,  6.915 Mhz, 7.408 Mhz, 7.555 Mhz, 7.920 Mhz are just a few frequencies I sampled. Each with the same exact noise, each with approximately the same signal strength, each identical. Identical? Well, not quite…

A few of them appeared to be slowly, very slowly moving. I observed the signals on lower frequencies were slowly moving up the band, signals on higher frequencies were moving down the band while other remained tightly screwed to a single frequency. If you can project the image of what this represents, it’s like an inverted ripple effect. One particular signal, a stable one, had a sweep beacon at 1 second interval, maybe the reference frequency with a sync signal, coordinating all the other ones, who knows !

On 4.646 Mhz with a beacon at intervals of 1 second similar to a Radar signature:

Too strong and too sophisticated to come from any Amateur Radio operator, transmitted both in and out of Amateur bands, it can only come from a source with the means and willingness to pull this off, the Government. I can already see all you conspirators saying << Doggone, I knew it! >> . Well, hold on to your hats , there is no conspiracy here, just signals serving a purpose which is still a bit of a mystery to me, but there is definitely some research going on here. If Amateur Radio veterans don’t know what it is, it’s definitely not a phenomenon occurring naturally. I’ll eat my socks if any geologist or astrophysicist can prove to me this the sound of nature.

At this point, with the meagre facts I had, I could only roundup three theories: (1) HAARP : Urban legends defined it as a government owned system(s) which is used to influence natural phenomenons. (2) Spread Spectrum transmission: Some form of digital transmission being simultaneously broadcasted on several frequencies. (3) Jamming:  a technique used to overwhelm opponent’s radio transmissions.

The “Jamming” theory is very unlikely because there isn’t any world wars going on. All sorts of tensions maybe, but no “big” wars able to justify this. Besides, who in their right mind would jam an Amateur Radio net on 80 meters? It could just be a jamming exercise but the pattern of application is wrong. Besides, 5 kHz of jamming isn’t much of a jamming signal if you know what I mean. No, I heard what real World War II jamming signals sounds like and this wasn’t it. I must rule that one out. Could Governments be testing a new forms of jamming algorithms which could block the whole HF spectrum while leaving their own transmissions untouched, and are testing it on small portions of the bands? Yes, I could see that happening, actually, if I were them, I would certainly look into this! What ever it is, I don’t think its a deliberate jamming exercise.

The Spread Spectrum theory is plausible, SS’s transmission principles are to break a message into bits and send those bits over as many channels as possible in what appears to be a very random order but follows specific deconstruction/re-construction algorithm. Lower frequencies found on HF propagate well in the evening and they could be just testing message transmission of several bands at once. This technique of transmission is very resilient against jamming and is very efficient against eavesdroppers. But in these days and age, why would any still use this technique, the level of encryption and fibre transmission is so much more efficient. It might be possibly a simple exercise to tests these systems that might come in handy if the  modern communication networks would ever go down on day. Radio transmissions would never become this popular if that day ever came… the mother of all pile-ups and QRM. Again, the pattern is wrong. I must rule that one out too.

Thirdly but not least, the HAARP theory, which stands for: High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. Wikipedia defines HAARP as: an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Here again, I don’t think HAARP is an evil weapon aimed at creating havoc in the world. From what I’ve researched on the subject and based on my intuition, it’s simply a lab shared by several interest groups which study effects of radio signals on the ionosphere.

Maybe researchers at HAARP found an application to blasting the heavens with HF signals, maybe they found several? But what kind of application are we talking about? Without going into much elaborate analysis, I suspect it was originally built to experiment new kinds of offence and defence weaponry following Nichola Tesla’s strange theories, but research results brought them in a whole different direction, such as weather pattern experiments and possibly defence shielding against solar activities. I’m not going to elaborate much on the weather control theory other than if you heat up parts of the sky, cold dense air migrates toward heated zones, and heat will dissipate in the opposite direction, creating some kind of controlled turbulence. This could influence jet streams and weather fronts. Since propagation effectiveness varies with frequencies, you could use it to influence weather locally on lower HF bands, and at a distance on higher HF bands. That’s just my made-up theory.

The other possibility is much more appealing to me; when I was a kid, I did an essay on the Sun. Ever since, I had an interest in everything related to what is beyond our sky. Recently, along with Amateur Radio related hobby activities, I renewed my interest in our Sun, its activities and effects. That’s when I truly realized how much our Sun plays an immense role in determining when and if I can practice this hobby of mine. Sometimes frustrating, sometime rewarding,  you just need to be patient with the Sun and this wonderful hobby.

I can only conclude that what I heard was related to some research on our ionosphere layers produce by HAARP or one of its many facsimile devices scattered around the world. It could be experiments on weather, it could be experiments on earth’s geomagnetic fields, it could be some military experiment on atmospheric defence,  or it could just be a measuring stick helping them to measure the thickness of our atmosphere. In all cases, I see it as a big HF lab, shared by groups of “special interest” scientists and physicians, doing a bit of cool science, heating-up areas in the ionosphere and marking a heck of a lot of noise on HF frequencies.

What are your theories about this noise?

If you want read a good book on HAARP, you can check out ” Angels Don’t Play This HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology”.

73′s.

This story begins on a warm and sunny early spring Sunday afternoon when I decided to explore PSK 31. I heard people telling stories about using PSK31 and thought to myself I would need a lot of extra-gear to be able to use PSK31, wouldn’t I? Turns out I don’t! I already bought a recent HF transceiver, one with all the I/O goodies needed to run PSK31. The Kenwood TS-590S has a USB port and you can do virtually anything thru this port, audio IN, audio OUT, radio control.

First things first. I watched some Youtube clips about this popular transmission mode.  K7AGE posted introduction clips on Youtube and that was enough to get me started. I download and installed the “Digipan” software K7AGE recommended, launched it, select my Audio I/O ports (Remember, everything can go thru the USB port on a Kenwood TS-590S), selected a popular PSK3 frequency (14.070 MHz) and voilà, instant results. There I was, reading dozens of simultaneous conversations, trying to learn the cryptic language used by PSK31 operators. One particular thing got my attention. Several operators mentioned they were using Ham Radio Deluxe’s Digimaster 780. I quickly download that “free” software, installed it and “Wow”, this is truly a complete software!

PSK 31 is used on specific frequencies on every amateur radio bands. On a given specific frequency, many stations around the world transmit tones on that same frequency. What helps PSK 31 determine a transmission from another is that on that same frequency, one stations might transmit a 300 MHz tone while another will transmit a 600 MHz tone. The tones are by themselves bit of data containing messages, or conversations. The PSK 31 software listens to all these tones simultaneously and differentiates the messages by isolating each tones into its own channel, therefor give the possibility of multiple and simultaneous transmissions on the same frequency. Get it? Well, now quite on the exact same frequency since the signals are separated by a tiny amount of bandwidth, the center of one signals might be at 14.0702 Mhz, the next one at 14.0705 Mhz and so on. You don’t have to move your VFO to listen to different frequencies since most HF transceivers will allow you to listen up to 5KHz of bandwidth from the carrier frequency, your audio card and your PSK31 software do all the work from there, most PSK31 transmission appears to be concentrated around 1000-1500 Hz anyway.

There I was, reading PSK31 chats for about an hour when I though to myself, I wonder how “transmitting” works exactly. I wasn’t terribly familiar with the software yet, but I decided to give it a try. I selected a frequency, not in the middle where all the action is, but on at the edge. 300 Hz will do just fine. I lowered my radio power output to only 5 watts, just in case someone was listening to this “newbie’s’ attempts to learn to operate PSK31.

No more than 2 seconds following the end of my first “CQ” transmission, a Netherlands stations replied back to my CQ… “What! Really?”… But I’m transmitting with only 5 watts of power on a terrible propagation day, could this be a fluke? Nope, the Netherlands station called me a second time. This is very interesting !

Then, I realized the potential of this transmission mode. It will go much farther with very little bandwidth and thus, help make tons of HF radio contacts around the world with very little equipment. The set-up was somewhat easy, the results were immediate.Anyone with a QRP (<5 watts) station and a small antenna could establish DX contacts with little efforts. I made some PSK31 contacts on frequency I did not suspect any PSK31 being present. Often signals are at or below the frequency’s noise level. I like this transmission mode and will bring more of my experiences to this blog.

If you want to learn more, here’s a good technical document I would recommend : Click here.

Some other reference work worth a look :

http://www.mymorninglight.org/ham/psk.htm
http://joshcarter.com/ham_radio/understanding_ham_speak
http://www.ea3hoe.net/manuals-tips-tricks/starting-with-psk31
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSK31

73′s.