Winter Field Day 2019

Greg WI4T

Winter Field Day 2019 was a TREMENDOUS success. There are some details listed below along with photos and video from the event. A special thanks to Tyler KBØPQP for hosting the WFD event this year. The antennas were great, indoor shack was warm and we had lot's of operators and visitors. Greg even gave us some bonus points by making a satellite contact with WA6RLR in California on SAT AO91 (see video below). What a great field day!

Thank you for these members and guests operating, logging, helping with antenna setup and shack wiring and for stopping by!! Great job by these hams, Tyler KBØPQP, Matt KØVLL, Jeff KAØEGE, Willis KØSMK, Ron WØSEJ, Ron KBØNRG, Phil KØPR, Milton KEØCZR, Leon N3LRH, Steve NØSLT, Greg WI4T, Cecil NØEHP and Bob AEØAQ visiting from Parsons. If I missed anyone please let me know!

Total Contacts = 813
Total Points = 4,878

 Operating Period: 2019/01/26 19:05 - 2019/01/27 19:00

 Total op time (breaks > 30 min deducted): -25:-58:-04
 Total op time (breaks > 60 min deducted): -24:-34:-10

 Avg Qs/Hr (breaks > 30 min deducted): -31.3

 Total Contacts by Band and Mode:
 Band       CW   Phone     Dig   Total       %
 ----       --   -----     ---   -----     ---
   80           0       34            0      34           4
   40           0     316            0     316        39
   20           0     459            0     459        56
    2            0         2            0       2            0
   70           0         1            0       1            0
  SAT         0         1            0       1            0
            --          -----          ---    -----         ---
 Total         0     813            0     813       100


 Total Contacts by Country:
 Country                      Total     %
 -------                           -----    ---
 USA                             767      94
 Canada                          38        5
 Alaska                            2          0
 Bahamas                        1          0
 Guantanamo Bay           1          0
 Netherlands                    1          0
 Portugal                          1          0
 Puerto Rico                     1          0
 Wales                              1          0

 Total = 9

What Are Software Defined Radios?

I thought this topic may be of interest to many of you and certainly one that we will discuss on the 30th. What are software defined radios also referred to as SDR? Here is a link and a clip from the article. I am learning still and I am sure this does not cover the topic nearly as well as it should, but perhaps it might spark some interest?

What Are Software Defined Ham Radio Receivers (SDR)?

Photo and Link from http://casimiro.hubpages.com/

Software-Defined Radio, henceforth abbreviated SDR, is a fairly new development for radio receivers that started in the late 1980s. Its greatest strengths are flexibility and design simplification as compared to conventional ham radio receivers. SDR utilizes Digital Signal Processing (DSP) techniques to achieve signal clarity, which is difficult and expensive to do with conventional receivers. 

SDRs receive the frequencies of an entire radio band segment at one time. Non-SDR receivers have tuned circuits that can only "look" at narrow slices of frequencies at a time, typically 2.8 KHz or less, but sometimes up to 8 KHz for AM reception. Compare that to software-defined receivers that are capable of taking in the entire high-frequency band from 1 MHz through 30 MHz. Because the signal is digital and has such a wide bandwidth, it allows the whole band to be displayed graphically, in real-time, on a computer monitor. This representation looks very much like what we saw using the Digipan software in the previous article. That is, a waterfall of signals, except in that case we were looking at only a narrow slice of a radio band provided by a conventional receiver set to its widest receiving bandwidth (or passband).

Here is a screenshot from the high dollar Flex Radio, these are amazing !