N8YEL's Amateur Radio Pages

Introductions

Hi All! My Name is Peter Venlet, Callsign N8YEL.

I have been a licensed ham for about 12 years now. Currently living and operating from Zeeland, Michigan (EN62xu)

I hold the Extra class ticket and enjoy my Amateur radio immensely and typically "hang out" on 28.325 usb when I am on the PC or just goofing off in the shack.

I am a member in good standing with the Holland Amateur Radio Club and also the American Radio Relay League, active in many public service aspects of HAM radio including, but not limited to SkyWarn, Red Cross and ARES/RACES of Ottawa county.

What seems to be a dying aspect of amateur radio, home brewing is something I derive great pleasure from as well as experimenting with the reception and transmission of many different digital modes of communication.

If you have a 2002 ARRL handbook you will find a photo of me on page 1.1 in the lower right and corner or if you have the 5th edition of the ARRL handbook you'll see a similar picture of me on page 12-3.

In the warmer months of the year I enjoy Fly Fishing...a pastime that also cannot be beat!

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave comments on any of the articles and posts here. 73's and good DX!

Inside the Shack

Everyone likes to take a peek, a tour if you will, of ones HAM shack. Here is a quick, but incomplete, (we're always adding or upgrading to new "stuff") look around:

Radio Shack-TinyTrak-Hack

What does one do when he want to add an APRS tracker to his car and NOT have that mess of cables going from the radio to the tracker, from the tracker to the GPS receiver, another to the cigarette lighter for power, from the tracker to the mic connector not to mention another to the antenna? You do the Radio Shack Tiny Track Hack.

What this project entailed was installing the Tiny-Tracker, from Byonics, into the radio itself...tapping into one of the radios voltage regulators to supply power to the tracker and the GPS (which gets it's power from the trackers own 5 volt regulator) , tapping into the radios internal microphone pins for transmit and microphone and also tapping in to the audio out for the carrier detect and installing the DB9 connector for the GPS RXCVR. For operational status I installed 3 LED's into the radio cover...Red for TX/data transmit, Green for power/GPS lock and yellow for carrier detect/ RX busy status.

To install the tracker into the old trusty bought it at a pawn-shop $25.00 HTX-212 special I had to carefully cut a portion of the die cast radio chassis away for the DB9. One cut with a hacksaw down each side did it and the piece snapped out neatly with a little pressure and help from my trusty linesman pliers. (Take special care to blow out and remove any aluminum residue from cutting least you short something out) I drilled 2 holes into the chassis also to hold the DB9 in place. All that was left was hookup of the essential wires for Mic, TX, RX, power, audio and of course the leds. Three hookups...Power, Antenna and GPS. No other cables required and I have a tracker that is easy to use, no muss, no fuss, and portable to boot. (Not to mention giving new life to the Radio Shack HTX-212)

Photos of the completed project:

HTX-212 Tracker Cover On showing LED's and DB9

HTX-212 Cover off showing Tiny-Track installed in the chassis

Weather Events of September 29, 2006

And here I thought I was not going to find anything to do today. Turns out I was wrong.

I went out to Holland State Park, more or less on a whim, as I thought weather conditions looked right for water spout activity. Mother Nature did not disappoint. As events unfolded I ended up participating in the SkyWarn weather net.

Here are some photos that I took as events occurred. These photos were featured on WXMI Fox 17 news Friday evening. Enjoy!:

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

(Click on any of the photos to see full size images)

UPDATE: Here a link to another image caught on the Spy Glass Condos Webcam.

Brief photo descriptions:

1. Nice cloud formation, just offshore that had some cyclonic action (counter-clockwise rotation)to it.

2. Another photo of the same cloud formation, just offshore that had some cyclonic action to it.

3. Taken from North side of the Holland channel and looking south...2 water spouts...one just to the right of Hollands "Big Red" Lighthouse and in the distance...cleary on the water and the second funnel to the right ot the first. Though the second funnel does not appear to be touching the surface if you look at the surface you can see the disturbance on the water underneath it.

4. Same as above but zoomed out some.

5. Zoomed in close up of first water spout to the right of "Big Red" clearly showing the waterspout in contact with the water surface.

6. Zoomed in close up of second water spout to the right of "Big Red". Again, if you look at the waters surface underneath the funnel, you can see the disturbance (spray) from the waterspout.

10 Meter Beacon Project

A few years ago a friend of mine made a 10 meter beacon and put it up on the air for a few months. Intrigued by this I decided that this would be something i would like to attempt as well.

My first 10 meter transmitter was home built and based upon the popular 'OXO' transmitter designed by GM3OXX and is pictured below. It put out roughly 800mw to 1 watt. Installing the trimmer cap allowed me a little more latitude in frequency selection. The crystal is 28.258 mhz and with the trimmer I could go down to 28.250mhz. The final PA had a tendency to get quite warm after continuous operation so that transmitter is currently retired til I beef up the final from a 2N3866 to a 2N3553. It is fed into a 10 pole low pass filter and a 10 volt power supply and keyed with a PK-4 keyer.

Needing and wanting something a little more industrial I found information on converting an old 23 channeled crystal controlled CB into a CW beacon transmitter. I will not rehash the details of the conversion here as it is well covered by it's author Bill, WJ5O. My setup follows his conversion instructions and Bill kindly offered much advice and assistance via e-mail for which I am very grateful. My beacon is transmitting on a frequency of 28255.5 24/7 and I hope to move it to a more permanent location soon.

The rig is pictured below. Nothing fancy but it works. The PK-4 keyer sits on top which is powered from a voltage tap inside the rig. It is all powered by a small 3 amp Tripp-Lite power supply. I am considering adding a UPS computer battery backup to run it. If you have any questions about the setup feel free to ask.

UPDATE!!!: Installation is complete! A friend who lives nearby has offered me use of his farm for the transmitter installation. It's not your typical farm. He raises Cadillacs! Well, collects them any-ways, sells some for parts, sells some as complete cars. He has over 50 vintage Caddys from the 40's, 50's and 60's. Any-way, one of the old chicken coops now serves as storage and a shop. The transmitter is installed in the shop. I have upgraded from a 1/4 wave vertical to a Cushcraft Ringo AR-10 5/8 wave vertical which is mounted 12 feet above ground on the NW corner of the shop/old chicken coop. A very satisfactory arrangement indeed. I can monitor the beacon from my QTH quite handily! Here's a pic of the antenna installation:

Home Brew Weather Satellite Imagery

This is a home-brew Quadra-filar helix Wx-Sat receive antenna. It's mounted on my deck railing about 10 feet off the ground and constructed of hand bent copper tubing and is great performer! I put a 10db pre amp in line, with power fed up the coax, for enhanced reception that allows me to receive, with my Yaesu FT-50r HT, in wide FM mode, the polar orbiting NOAA Wx-Sats.

Using a software package by Christian Bock called WXSAT (available free via the internet) I am able to decode the received audio using my computer sound card to capture great quality weather images. On a typical pass from my QTH in Zeeland, Michigan I can start receiving imagry from just south of Cuba to just north of Hudsons Bay in Canada.

Here is a snippet from one received satellite image that shows my home State of Michigan and the surrounding great lakes very clearly: