TAX05 - Traneberg & other places 050903 - 061107

061107
9:20 pm (UTC+1)
Some weeks ago I pulled my self together and finalized 37 reception reports I had left from PAX 57. Today I could harvest a little piece of my last effort: Two interesting envelopes was found in the mail box today. WBKV 1470 -West Bend, WI and KPNW 1120 - Eugene, OR both sent me some nice letters of verification, thanks guys for taking the time to write to me.

By various reasons I hereby will, with this short announcement, close down TAX 05 and start up TAX 06 - beginning tomorrow. TAX 05 was a mighty fine expedition and I hope that the next will be even better.

061105
9:02 pm (UTC+1)
After a long absent regarding the updates of my "Blog" I'm back again. I guess it’s appropriate to continue were I left you at Dayton:

Saturday was shopping day....the picture below shows some of the stuff I bought at the hamfair. I actually had to buy myself a new suitcase to bring home all things to Sweden again.

Down below is a picture of Tom, NYØV and Rod, KØDAS having a great time at the ham fair.

Early Sunday morning we ate our breakfast at our usual place "The Breakfast Club" and afterwards we drove the 800 miles back to Cedar Rapids.

Last picture from this absolutely wounderful trip was taken from the car when we crossed the Mississippi river. The next day I flew home to Sweden with minor troubles taking all my new toys trough security....

Back in Sweden I went back to work as usually and I had no radio related stuff to report for a long time.

During my 4 weeks of summer vacation I drove up to Lulea which is the town I grew up in. Stayed there for about two weeks and I brought my IC-7000 with me to work some radio from my summer QTH. A simple dipole where hoisted up in the trees (with a sling shot) and I worked as SF2F a couple of nights on 40 & 80 meters.

In late July I finally got my HF2V vertical (40 & 80 Meters) erected (tnx Teemu - SMØW for the help) and after some tuning it worked flawlessly, especially on 40 meters.

A couple of month later. in early October, during the Scandinavian Activity Contest the unthinkable happened...after 17 hours of CW-ing...my mighty fine IC-7800 broke down..... The output power dropped down to a maximum of 10 watts, no matter what buttons I pressed or controls I turned.

The next Friday I drove with my "QRP radio" to Swedish Radio Supply, which is the main distributor of Icom radios in Scandinavia. They were of course fixing my faulty transceiver and at the same time do the upgrade with new roofing filters etc. plus some additional fixes, like modify the radio to get rid of the RF in the headphones jack.

They found the problem with the faulty TX quickly: it was the pre- , pre- , pre amplifier (a tiny transistor which drives the next stage with 0 - 100 mW) for the final transistors in the transmitter chain that had gave up.

The next stage was to do the upgrade to get the new and improved receivers in the rig. The result of the upgrade was the reason why the rig had to meet its maker....literally.

As I was one of the early adopters and bought this radio as soon it came on the market (I was nr 3 in Sweden to get a IC-7800) it was not possible to do the upgrade according to the instructions from Icom, Japan.

The Swedish main supplier had to send the transceiver back to Japan to let them do some investigation and of course the upgrade as well...and in the light of what I saw when I got the rig about two weeks later it was the best thing that could happen to my radio.

If the serial number on the IC-7800 didnt match the one I have written on the warranty card I could swear that Icom sent back a totally new radio to me. It looked brand new with not even an fingerprint on the cabinet or anywhere. The upgrade with the new 3 KHz roofing filter and everything else worked perfectly. The modification that eliminates the RF in the headphones works great....not even a trace of RF is left where I had huge problems before.

It feels that I really got a new IC 7800, thanks Icom!

060519
10:43 pm (EST)
WOW, I'm finally not an Dayton virgin anymore, experenced my first day here at the Dayton Hamvention 2006.

Out trip from Cedar Rapids, IA started at 6:30 Thursday morning. The weather was most parts of the time good with som minor rain along the path. In this picture we have "The Death Van", carrying all the stuff that was to be sold at Dayton, just ahead of us.

And here is a picture for my VAS (Visited All States) collection:

And here is another new one for my VAS:

We finally made it to Dayton OH and our sleeping quarters at 5 pm (EST). Here is the some of the CR gang gathered at our complimentary suite:

As the tradition bids we went out to a place called "The Dairy Farm", a couple of mile outside Dayton, and ate som really good food & ice creams.

Friday morning we got up early to be at Hara arena at 8:00. Even though we were arriving there quite early, the parking lot starting to fill up.

Below follows just a sample of all the pictures I took at this HUGE hamfest:

Today I only bought my self a name tag and a base ball cap with my call sign on it...tomorrow I'll start my serious shopping...

CUL es 73 de SFØF/W9

060517
7:39 pm (CST)
This afternoon I got another chance to go to the Collins Museum a second time and now I was allowed to take the camera with me!!! Here is a picture of me, proudly, holding a copy of a book covering Collins first 50 years as radio manufacturer.

The following picture shows Art Collins first radio transmitter, the 4A which was produced 1933. It had 20 watts of output power.

This is a picture of the Collins KWS-1 transmitter which was produced from 1948 to 1966:

The next picture is the AN/ART-13 which was an airborne auto tuned 100 watt transmitter. Please notice the box placed on top to the left, that’s one of the motors that was used for the automatic tuning...wow! AN/ART-13 was produced from 1941 to 1946:

On one long bench there was a cavalcade of transceivers and receivers standing next to each other:

From left to right: KWM-1 Transceiver (1957-1959), KWM-2A Transceiver (1959-1985), KWM-380 Transceiver (1979-1983), 51-J4 Receiver (1952-1954).

And show just went on...

From left to right: 51S-1 Receiver (1959-1972) and the 651S-1 Receiver (1969- 1983).

And just went on...

From left to right: 851S-1 Receiver (1981-1989), 451S-1 Receiver (1980) - only 10 ex produced, HF-2050 Receiver (1985-1988).

Plus lots and lots of other nice radio equimpment on display....

060517
9:30 am (CST)
Last day of meetings with Rockwell Collins Inc, and less the 24 hours before our journey to Dayton, OH starts...

I'm really, really looking forward to this.

060516
9:39 pm (CST)
The last few days nothing worth reporting has happened except lots of work and going to some nice restaurants. Among them was the Texas Roadhouse, where they served excellent steaks.

This evening the whole TDRS (Software Design Radio) team from RCI & Sweden went out and for a last dinner together, as our meeting comes to an end and every Swede going back home tomorrow evening...everyone but me...

Thursday morning, I'm going to drive 500 miles (about 800 Km) to Dayton, OH together with some hams from Rockwell Collins. I'll keep you posted with pictures and stories form the biggest Ham fest in the world....

060514
8:50 pm (CST)
After a full day of work...yes we had to have a looong internal meeting even though its Sunday... we finally got out from our meeting room here at the hotel. Finding a decent restaurant with not to long waiting time to get a table was hard as it's Mothers Day here in the US today. We finally ended up at a Mexican restaurant called "The Hacienda" which had decent food and excellent margaritas.

060513
2:15 pm (CST)
This morning Tom - NYØV picked me up at the hotel to go to the annual pre Dayton swap meet at the parking lot outside RCI main plant. The weather was typical for outdoor activities...42 degrees Fahrenheit (6° C), windy and some light rain. About 30 hams showed up - despite the weather. We stayed there for about an hour before we couldn’t stand the cold anymore.

Afterwards Tom took me to his home and showed me his shack and his impressive collection of QSL cards on the wall (each one representing a DXCC country he has verified - 339 on CW, 344 on SSB and 346 Mixed).

Me myself worked a couple of QSO's and I even had a successful sked with my friend Teemu - SMØW before we had to go QRT for the day as Tom had some other business to take care of. All in all (despite the bad weather) I had a great Ham day.

060511
4:40 pm (CST)
Yesterday I had the great pleasure to meet Tom Vinson - NYØV who is the President of the Collin Amateur Radio Club (WØCXX) here in Cedar Rapids. He took me to visit the two club stations that is within Rockwell Collins Inc. (RCI) industrial complex (at least 5 or 6 different plants all over the northern part of CR). I tried to work Europe but I guess it was a little early on the day to have propagation in that directon.

He also took me to visit the Collins museum which showed Art Collins earliest work from 1932 to the things they have done recently. Unfortunately, cameras are prohibited here at RCI so I was not able to take any pictures at the museum or the club stations.

I took one picture though...and that was of one of the most impressive antenna installations I've ever have seen... It's called "Billoard Antenna" and RCI used to build it for the for the US Airforce. The antenna on my photo is still funtional (runs from about 9 to 28 MHz with a gain of 17 dB) and was last used by the Collins clubstation in last years Sweepstakes.

Tom and I was in the Collins Comm Central which was hooked up to this antenna and had loads of fun with it.

This evening I will be visiting the Cedar Valley ARC meeting and hopefully I bring the camera and take some pictures from the meeting. I'll keep in touch as soon as possible.

060509
7:40 pm (CST)
Finally made it to the hotel at CR, the weather was somewhat cloudy with some sunshine filtering trough the clouds. Temperature is about 20 degrees Celcius (70 F).

I took a walk around the area, which is more or less an industrial area, to get my self to the local mall and to avoid myself from falling asleep... Just 200 hundred meters from the hotel I found this interesting antenna tower and after futher investigation it gave absolutely no clues what it's used for...

Tomorrow morning I will meet Tom NYØV (President of the Collins Amateur radio Club i CR) who will take me on a tour to the Collins museum and the two club stations that are within the Rockwell Collins Area.

I will be back tomorrow evening (local time) to tell you all about it.

CUL es 73 de WØ/SFØF

060509
1:20 pm (CST)
After a 9 hour long flight I'm now at O´hare Airport Chicago, IL waiting for a connecting flight to take me to Cedar Rapids, IA where I will stay 9 days on a buissiness trip to Rockwell Collins.

060308
13:15
Yesterday I got a new country verified and to make it twice the fun it was also an new US state for me, KLHT Honolulu HI - 1040 AM sent me a very nice, and personally written, letter of verification. Included was also some brochures and an HUGE bumper sticker. My thanks goes to Clif Burchfield at KLHT!

060301
22:50
March could'nt start better...received a two QSL's today: KTOE, Mankato MN - 1420 AM and CKNW, New Westminster BC - 980 AM. Both stations wrote me very nice letters of verification. If you guys, that are taking the time to answer my reception reports, ever comes to this site and read this, I want to thank you all for giving me the great pleasure of receiving your confirmation of your station!

060228
16:05
For two days in a row I've received a QSL from an North American BC station. Yesterday I got i nice letter from KICY, Nome - 820 AM and today I've got a fine letter of verification from CFFB, Iqualit NU - 1230 AM... a very nice start of the week which I of course hopes continues in the same manner the rest of the week.

If you would like to see what QSL's I've received from PAX 57 then you have to go to my BC Log page. All stations on a green background in the table I've recently got QSL's from.

060223
03:55
Finally at home, sweet home...

Among the huge pile of mail, pouring out in the hallway when I opened the door I found 14 new North American BC QSL's (and my first refridgerator magnet!!!). More about that later...gotta get some sleep.

060220
20:25 UTC
All most home...back in Europe again....only a few days to go...

060218
2:55 pm PST
Yesterday I went up to San Fransisco where Len picked me up and we drove up to KFSG - 1690 AM transmitter site wich is located at Elverta, about 20 km outside of Sacramento CA.

KFSG's, omni directional, antenna:


KFSG's 10/1 KW transmitter:

After the short visit to the transmitter site we went down to KFSG's studio in downtown Sacramento. The studio building is shared by KFSG & KLIB, two Spanish speaking stations that are owned and operated by MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting Inc.

The entrance to the studio building:

The studio of KFSG:

The entrance to the studio of KLIB - 1100 AM:

At the time of my visit, there where no locally produced programs from the studios so I had no chance to meet any of the program producers.

Today I've learned from Len that all programs are recorded and stored for 90 days before it's erased. The program logs, tough, (which in breif describe the program, time for commercials, public announcements, station ID etc.) have to be stored for 3 years before they can be shredded (FCC regulations)..

A closer look in to the studio of KFSG:

By the way, the stations have to make their station ID's in English at the hour (listen to KSJX in the table below) - and the guy who is doing the talking in those ID's are actually Len Harris himself.

This will probably be my last report from "over there" as I'm leaving for Europe tomorrow morning.

060215
7:05 pm PST
Here are some samples of the stations that can be heard from my hotel room, here in San Jose CA:

060214
5:45 pm PST
Today I had the great pleasure to meet Len Harris, Technical Director of the MultiCulturar Radio Broadcasting Inc, who do the service on the transmitters of KSFG Roseville 1690, KSJX San Jose 1500 to name a few stations he is responsible for. He had the kindness to take me to visit KSJX which is a Vietnamese speaking station here in San Jose CA. Len also took the opportunity to write verifications letters of my and Lars Skoglund reception reports of KFSG, which is by the way hereby my first confirmed station from California.

Len with my and Lars Skoglunds verification letters of KFSG:
If you click here you will see a close-up of the letters. Please pay close attention to the letter in Len's left hand (which is for Lars) and you'll see that I'm now, officially, is KFSG's Swedish QSL manager :-).

A picture of the stunningly beautiful and fantastic nice Chantell Nguyen, who is KSJX's program announcer:

A picture of the super nice Operations manager of KSJX, Victor Vuong Nguyen:

A picture of the KSJX 10/1 KW transmitter:

A close-up picture of the current figures of the transmitter:

A picture of two of the four antennas at KSJX:



A picture of the entrance gate to one of the antennas:

Thanks guys for letting me visit your station and all the kindness you showed me!

060212
1:00 PM PST
Some sightseeing in Monterey CA with beautiful weather and 23 degrees Celcius.

060211
5:15 PM MST
A nice view over the Rockey Mountains.

060211
4:30 PM CST
Leaving Dallas TX for San Jose CA.

060210
07:30 PM CST
Visited the biggest electronic store I've visited in my whole life, "Fry's Electronics", where they had EVERYTHING you can imagine. Bought my self a Pelican Case for only 270 $ (cost about 870 $ in Sweden) to use when I travel around with my IC-7800.

On the package for the PeliCase I found one of the funniest guarantee label I've seen in my life:

060210
08:30 AM CST
Here is a sample of what you can hear in a simple AM radio from a hotel room in Richardson, TX:

060210
06:30 AM CST
A typical dinner in Dallas TX.

060208
10:05 PM CST

060207
6:27 PM CST

060202
21:17
Hmmmm... just received an email from KGDD Oregon City OR - 1510 KHz which put me in a very akward situation. The letter included a Word dokument contaning a perfect verification letter with the station logo and everything that you could expect from a valid QSL. I do not, normally, count e-mail verifications as valid QSL's but I do not know how to react i this case...

I've wrote back to the V/S and kindly asked him to send that letter with a written signature on it by snail mail, but I have not got any reply from him so far... Let me ponder over this tonigth and I will make the big decision tomorrow. By the way the letter look great when I printed it on my colour laser printer....

They also send me this mp3-file contaning their cool ID.

060201
15:12
Yet another great day to come home from work and find a nice letter of verification from KFXY Enid OK - 1640 Khz which also is a new state fore me!

I also got an e-mail from the Swedish Amateur Radio Association which confirmed my request for a vanity call sign. So from the 15th of February and onwards I´ll will also be known as SFØF.

060130
21:12
Just arrived home from work and a meeting at the local BCL'ers club and found to my great pleasure the first QSL from PAX57 waiting for me behind the front door. VOWR St. John´s NL - 800 KHz sent me a absolutely gorgeous QSL Certificate and it only took 18 days for them to reply to my reception report. I will scan it in to the computer as soon as I have the time to do it. Right now I’m pretty much tied up with writing all the reception reports I have left from PAX57 and I got about 70 more reports to go.....

060122
22:35
From now on all the expedition news will be in English as more and more international readers comes to my web page. That of course I'm very happy for.

I've been away this weekend on a cruise from Helsinki to Stockholm and back to participate in the annually Contest & DX meeting arranged by the Contest Club Finland and OH DX Foundation. It was great trip where I had a chance to have a eye-ball QSO with hams I've spoken to many times over the radio and met many new ham friends.

It was, tough, a little weird feeling to go on this trip from Finland to Sweden as all my similar ferry trips has been the other way around.

During the 19th to early morning the 20th of January I participated in BEX02 (participants was me, my self and I) and even though the conditions was not great at could at least log two new stations, WWAA Adel Georgia - 1690 and WCBS New York - 880. You'll find the whole log and some recording as soon as I've got the time to update the BEX02 page.

060115
10:39
Långt mellan uppdateringarna men och andra sidan har det inte hänt så mycket på TAX fronten sedan sist jag skrev mitt inlägg. Visst fungerar antennen som förväntat och jag hör väl dagligdags den vanligaste östkustarna på min antenn, dock kvarstår bakgrundsbruset (vrålet) vilken förstås förtar en del av upplevelsen med mellanvågs-DX.. Dock har jag hunnit med en expedition till Parkalompolo (PAX 57) som varade mellan 051226 till 060105 och resulterade i 137 nya rapporter varav ca tolv av dem är follow-ups. Sysselsättningen kvällstid är därmed tryggad för en bra tid framöver

.

Under julhelgen gav jag mig själv en liten julklapp som består av Icoms nya allbands tranciver (IC-7000) som som fungerar med sändning på alla amatörband upp till 70 centimeter och mottagning från 100 Khz upp till 490 MHz. Hade riggen med upp till Parka för att göra lite A-B tester mellan den och min IC 7800 och den fungerade helt OK med avseende på känslighet dock verkar inte storsignalsegenskaperna vara lika vassa som min stora rig. Men man kan ju inte förvänta sig att en 19 000 :- rig skall vara i samma klass som en radio för 92 000:-. Jag är definitivt inte besviken och kommer att bli min expeditionsrig i fortsättningen (dock släpar jag fortsättningsvis den stora riggen till Parka).

I skrivande stund sitter jag och funderar kring min senaste expedition som bedrevs i natt och har beteckningen BEX som består av bäver på 550 meter mot Nordamerika. Expeditionen gick mycket bra och utförligare rapport om BEX 01 kommer under en separat BEX sida så småningom.

051023
05:02
Har övergett 1390 då den damp ned i bruset och verkar ha bestäms sig för att stanna där för gott. Har nu suttit en stund och bevakat 1540 som pratar vidare samt bevakat en station på 1320 som ligger hårt klämd mellan NRK som går med 59 +60db och en ryss?? och en britt som samsas om 1323. 1320 fadar supersnabbt upp i ett par sekunder (spelade bla The Locomotion) för att lika snabbt störtdyka ned i stördimman igen.

Trots att det bara är ca två timmar kvar till soluppgången ids jag inte sitta uppe längre. Jag har fått en bra kvittens på att min nya longwire verkar fungera avsevärt bättre än den gamla med avseende på mellanvågslyssning och det räcker för mig denna natt. Det känns som om TAX05 kommer att bli en spännande expedition inom sinom tid....

God Natt alla trogna läsare!

051023
04:05
Sitter här och väntar på att 1390 skall fada upp igen. Fick ID klockan 02:00 z men kan inte uttyda, låter nått i stil med "This is W?CL????" formatet verkar vara något form av snackprogram. I övrig har jag hört oidade jänkare på 1150 & 1500 (WTOP?) båda med pratprogram.

051023
03:00
Fick precis nyss ett fint ID på 1510 WWZN Boston som just nu går super!!! (Lyssna själva)1540 går dock fortfarande lös oidad signalen har dessutom nästan helt försvunnit. Hade kanske turen att trots allt höra KXEL vid deras lokala solnedgång.

051023
02:35
Lyckades somna i soffan under senkvällen och sov TV tills ca halv 2 då jag vaknade upp av oväsendet från någon actiorulle på dumburken. Kunde inte låta bli att knäppa på radio och till min stora förvåning gick det fortfarande jänkare på 20 meter. Snackade med en trevlig snubbe från Drasco Arkansas en stund men efter en ca 5 - 10 minuter hade han fadat bort. Det verkar som det är goda konds...

Snabbt ned till mellanvågen före n snabb koll innan läggdags och till min milda förvåning hörde jag (00:30 UTC) en jänkare på 1510 (med all sannolikhet WWZN Boston MA) med hyfsad signalstyrka. Just nu sitter jag och bevakar 1540 som stundtals går riktigt bra, trots att programformatet är TALK bör det nog vara WDCD Albany, NY. Jag har svårt att tro att det är KXEL Waterloo IA men den som lyssnar får förhoppningsvis veta ..

051018
23:15
Efter nästan en hel månads av absolut tysnad på denna expeditionssida är det hög tid att bryta denna trend och rapportera om den senaste månadens aktiviteter.

Den nya trådantennen har fungerat ungefär som förväntat....fungerar hyfsat som lyssnar antenn och halvhyfsat som sändarantenn. Problemet på sändmimgssiddan ligger i jag får en hel del RF tillbaka på när jag sänder på 40 meter (7 MHz) och på vissa frekvenser inom detta band får min dators tangentbord fnatt och börjar att skriva av sig sig själv när jag sätter igång att sända....

Vet inte för närvarande hur jag skall lösa detta men nått skall jag nog komma på...

Hur antennen fungerar som mellanvågsantenn återkommer jag till lite senare.

Under den senaste månaden har jag haft den stora förmånen att gå en veckolång kurs som hölls i Lusanne Schweiz. Självklart släpade jag med mig min lilla handapparat för 2 meter & 70 cm som oxo har en heltäckade mottagare från 0.1 till en massa MHz. Väd där nere i Schwez fick jag kontakt med en av traktens mest aktiva amatörer HB9AFI, Kurt som bjöd in mig till fredagens klubbmöte i kantonens amatörradioklubb.

Självklart tackade jag till inbjudan och fick på fredagskvällen det stora nöjet att träffa ett gäng glada radioamatörer varav hälften av dem pratade engelska och resterande del parlevoade endast på franska. Trots vissa språkförbistringar hade jag en supertrevlig kväll med alla närvarande radioamatörer.

Jag passade även på att köra från deras klubbstation med anropsignalen HB9MM och fick några kontakter med Sverige men mestadelen av tiden spenderades med att ha "Eye ball QSO" med alla på klubben..

Väl hemkommen efter en mycket trevlig vecka i Schweiz var dags att börja hårdtesta min longwire på mellanvågen och redan på söndagmorgon, dagen efter hemkomst, hördes WHDP 1620 starkarare än vad jag någonsin tidigare har hört dom här hemma. Fick dock ID men det är högst troligt att det var dom med tanke på programformatet - oannonserad musk som hördes fram till dess att stationenen försvann i samband med soluppgången. Det hördes en hel del andra starka spansktalande stationer på jämna 10 KHz frekvenser men eftersom min spanska är troligtvis ännu sämre än min franska så fick jag inte ut något av dessa stationer.

Lördagmorgon den 15 oktober dök dom första Nordamerikanerna upp. Jag hörde hörde bärvågar på de flesta NA frekvenser men de flesta var allt för svaga att resa sig ur den konstanta stördimman som huserar här kring Stockholm city. Dock fanns det tre lysande undantag:

Morgonen därefter lyste dock det flesta signaler (bortsett från WWZN) med sin frånvaro.

050903
21:20
Så till sist så sitter den där, min nya longwire, kanske inte helt färdig då det finns en del småsaker att fixa då tråden har fastnat under en gren (som får anntenen att "dippa" ned ett par meter innan den går upp till normalhöjd, ca -15 - 20 meter, igen). Då antennen även skall kunna användas för sändning var jag tvungen att fixa till en del specialarrangemang vid matningspunkten för att undvika en longwires typiska egenskap att skicka tillbaka en hel massa RF tillbaka till shacket. Det verkar som jag har den mesta av RFen under shack men det finns mer att göra. Se den underbara skapelsen nedan.

Och härmed var TAX05 officiellt öppnad!

TILLBAKA