почта from Russia: Fixing the FT-897 Display

As the Hudson River Radio Relay event gets ever closer, I wanted to finally get around to fixing the "zebra stripes" on my Yaesu FT-897 display so that it would be easier to use again in the field while on Bannerman's Island as N2B on June 11th.

Replacement LCD display modules and controller sourcing for this 18+ year old radio has not been easy. Luckily, there is an enterprising amateur named Aleksey in Russia who has designed a replacement and it only cost around $60 USD.

When Yaesu designed the mobile FT-857 and the multi use FT-897 radios, roughly 10 years later many users started to suffer display issues like pictured below. Now my radio was ready for a facelift! 

Not all, but many Yaesu FT-857 and FT-897
have suffered from "zebra striping" on the LCD displays

The bad news is when I finally found out about the miracle replacement display,  there were some issues starting to take shape in February 2022 in the region, which I shall not yet name.

Quickly, Aleksey rushed to the post office to hopefully get the package out of country before worse things could happen. After weeks of lead up, Russian military crossed the Ukrainian borders on February 24th. 

Display has arrived. Now what?

Amazingly, the two piece kit made it across the United States in only 3 days according to USPS after its 48 day customs event between Russia and the destination. Here is what arrived, well packed in bubble wrap. Thanks Aleksey R3ZI! 

The new LCD with attached ribbon cable along with the
new LCD controller on flexible PCB with connector thanks to R3ZI

After dissembling the front  of the FT-897 and separating it entirely from the radio body, all else was needed to remove the seemingly infinite number of screws holding the control board to the face.

It was rather easy to access the old LCD display and start preparing for surgery.

The old LCD display still set within the
white plastic holder prior to removal

Tilting the display up exposed the ribbon cable and the
connections which will need to be desoldered carefully 

I used a hot air SMD rework station to remove the old ribbon connections since I wanted to be careful to not lift off any of of the PCB traces on the main display board of the FT-897D.  I could have just as easily used a standard pencil iron, but when you have the means.....

Extraction was a success and a little clean up was needed to prepare for the new display controller to be attached.

A little more clean up was needed and what appears to be
a missing trace was intentionally blank.  Sigh of relief

I took some solder flux and solder paste and prepared the surface to receive the new flexible controller.

A quick wave of the hot air tool melted the solder into all the right places and the moment of truth in restoring display visibility was now one step closer.  

The new flexible PCB with controller is connected and now just waiting for the ribbon cable for the LCD to be attached and the radio to be reassembled. A thin bead of hot glue was put over the connections for extra security.

Pushing the power button

I was confident in my work and decided to just put everything back together and not try to do some sort of  "preliminary" power up test to see if everything worked the way it should.   

The moment after getting the radio fully re-assembled, applying power, connecting antenna and then taking a breath before pushing the power button was met with success as shown below. 

Thanks for reading and my goal was to NOT do some sort of step by step video or make it easy for you to find out where and from whom I sourced the display, but I promise you that this info is easy to find and is an easy project if you plan carefully.  

Hope to catch some of you from Bannerman's Island via this radio on June 11th.  Will be focusing on 17m SSB and 17m digital modes most likely as part of the N2B station.

Fishing In the Woods: Looking for Radio Signals

This was the first Winter Field Day that justified a reason to purchase an ice fishing tent.

The tent manufacturer claims you can set this up in under a few minutes and pack it up even quicker.  Lets see what the breakdown looks like.

 

Inside the Tent:  Gear needed

We all like lists right?  Here is what was in use in the photo below.

• Icom IC-705

• Emtech ZM-2 Manual QRP Tuner

• Heil HTHD-Y headset

• Lenovo T495 laptop

• 12aH DIY LiPoFe4 battery pack

• Polaroid Brand Travel Tripod

(Photo Courtesy:  Ken Campbell AD2T)

Excluding the table, chair and propane heater, this was a minimal operation which proved pretty comfortable even in the low temperatures during Winter Field Day.

The goal was to operate 10m or 15m  PSK31, JS8CALL or SSTV but most of the time it seemed that FT8 was more popular, so that would not count for Winter Field Day. Too bad!!   The 15m band was wide open which was really nice.  A few contacts were made on 40m SSB, hence the need for the headset.

Antenna Questions

A 40m Off Center Fed home made dipole was used with good success.  This design allows for 40m, 15m and 10m operation without really needing the tuner..  One leg of the dipole is 44 feet and the other is 22ft.  At the center point is a 4:1 DIY balun.  The antenna center was mounting with velcro ties on the 20ft orange Jackite fiberglass mast.   

The mast was secured to the ground with a ground stake and length of PVC pipe which the mast simply slides over.  The longer end of the dipole was attached to a nearby tree with a length of paracord.  The shorter end was attached to an artificial tree known as a tripod.

Even with heavy winds, the antenna system as expected maintained upright for the 24 hour event in the frigid cold!

This antenna system works great and easily stows in a bag designed for audio equipment.  Many other accessories for additional HF and VHF antenna also fit in this bag along with a few 25 and 50 foot RG-8X feedlines. 

I would estimate that my entire antenna kit which includes the storage bag, surplus tripod (RIP KE2EJ), feedlines, support stake, full wave 2m loop, Arrow II antenna, 40m OCF, 10m-17m-20m-30m linked dipole,  End Fed 40m/80 and a few other odds and ends cost less than $200.  This is a lot of antenna gear for different applications mostly meant for POTA operations and not SOTA activity which is much smaller scale.

(Photo Courtesy:  Ken Campbell AD2T)

An article like this can get really long if I wanted to detail how to set up Wi-Fi on the Icom IC-705 to talk to the laptop with virtual com ports and audio cables, but there are great tutorials on YouTube which cover that already.  

The only issue I really ran into which continues to be a level of annoyance is that the "705" has such a broad front end that semi decent antennae can easily overload things, so backing the RF gain down is a good idea.  

Nearby strong out of band signals also are problematic and an external band pass filter will be needed for the 705 to perform better during group special events like Hudson River Radio Relay coming up in June..

Last year during that event, the 705 on the 6m band was useless when nearby 20m or 40m CW and SSB activity was taking place.

Not really sure if this article answered any questions for anyone, but it was fun setting this up for Winter Field Day and spending some time playing radio plus teaching others about how to set up a minimal self contained field station.

ARRL Hudson Division Awards (2020 & 2021)

Saturday November 13th was the  ARRL Hudson Division Awards Lunch which recognized various achievements across the regional amateur radio community in 2020 and 2021 right here in the Hudson Valley and slightly beyond into Northern New Jersey, New York City and Long Island.

Many prizes related to the ARRL's branding of "Cycle 25" were given out all afternoon as well as the usual ARRL publications, including some donations by a latter to be mentioned award winner.  

Ria Jairam N2RJ, ARRL Hudson Division Director, did a fantastic job in pulling this years event together along with the Orange County Amateur Radio Club and it was great again to have some form of in person event take place which the Amateur Radio Relay League was able to visibly lead.

Joe K1JT accepting an achievement award during the ARRL Hudson Division Awards Lunch from Ria N2RJ (Photo Credit: Joe  CupanoNE2Z)

The first featured guest speaker was  Dr. Joe Taylor K1JT, the inventor of so many of the low signal to noise ratio modes enjoyed by everyone involved in HF data communications via FT8 and FT4 as well as those with loftier goals via meteor, tropo-scatter and "Moon Bounce" communications who diplomatically befriend to make radio contact beyond our atmosphere such as JT65 and others.

Here is the new QRP Labs QDX SDR transceiver capable of FT8 plus other modes which we have Joe K1JT to thank  which Neil W2NDG and Steve K2GOG of HVDN recently received and are
quickly trying to build in time for WFD 2022 (Source:  QRPlabs.com)

Following Joe was David NA2AA, the current ARRL CEO, and he talked about everything from major changes taking place within the ARRL to help modernize communication via video based content to better ways to engage the the population which Hudson Valley Digital Network has already been focused on since our inception in 2017. David's discussion was refreshing and encouraging. 

In 2021,  HVDN has 37% of our audience coming from where the ARRL needs help. David NA2AA wants to find more ways to even more closely focus on the 30-40 year old population.
(Source:  HVDN Leadership Team)

It was really great hearing more about the changes that are needed at the ARRL at the national level and also at the regional level straight from the top.  

With the current ARRL CEO not being afraid to speak about his 11m days openly along with other topics which predecessors stayed away from, it should be exciting to see what is next within the ARRL, including "Project X", which hopefully HVDN can be a beta tester for via our upcoming events like HR3:2022.   

The Hudson Division with Ria N2RJ and David NA2AA have lots of work to do and it was great to see them again in person along with an impressive number of section leaders at a sold out event with approximately 100 people attending.

David NA2AA talked about solar cycle 25 and its importance it can have for the hobby for more than the next 11 years to help us grow during a time where much of the amateur radio community is not getting any younger. (Photo Credit: Joe Cupano NE2Z)

So many amazing awards were given out during the event, including those for technical achievements such as David WO2X's remote station projects using NodeRed and Alan W2AEW's energy put into his wonderful YouTube channel with over 341 videos and 159,000 subscribers.  

Alan W2AEW 2020 Technical Achievement and David WO2X 2021 Technical Achievement winners of the ARRL Hudson Division Awards presented on November 13th 2021
(Photo Credit: Joe Cupano NE2Z)

It was great to see one of the Hudson River Radio Relay leadership team responsible for the 2021 N2S station receive the 2020 Grand Ole Ham Award in part thanks to all his many years of being part of the amateur radio community  Congrats Adam AE2AN on this award!!

Adam AE2AN sharing a few words during his 2020 Grand Ole Ham award reception thanks to Ria N2RJ and her wonderful children who helped keep things on track in the later parts of the afternoon.
(Photo Credit: Joe Cupano NE2Z)

There were many other awards given which can be read about on the Hudson Division and sectional websites next they are updated, but lets close this article by highlighting the amateur of the year in the ARRL Hudson Division for this and last year since COVID prevented an awards meeting in 2020.

2020 ARRL Hudson Division Amateur of the Year:  Richie Cetron K2KNB

Richie is well known to many members of Hudson Valley Digital Network since a few of us used to live on Long Island and became good friends with him over the years, especially through using the wide coverage W2VL 146.850 MHz repeater while commuting or while at home.

Richie won this same award in 2012 for his leadership following the Hurricane Sandy disaster that disrupted life for so many.  Providing communications and social well being after a disaster like that was important and while Richie earned this award, he was quick to point out it was the work of many who made this possible.

Fast forward to 2021,  Richie earned this same award for the year 2020 for similar recognition which also helped ensure social comfort at the height of the COVID pandemic.  

While there were other amateur radio clubs such as the Mt. Beacon ARC and Overlook Mtn. ARC which also held social wellness discussions twice daily, the Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club which Richie is President of required a lot more effort to keep it running via many net control operators and many expensive to maintain repeaters which can be heard by all of NYC, Long Island, Westchester and elsewhere.   

Richie is a wonderful recipient of  an award like this and many amateurs can learn much from him in how he leads by example. Being President of LIMARC for now 11 years in itself is no easy task either, so this award is well deserved. Congratulations Richie!

Richard "Richie" Cetron K2KNB was awarded the prestigious 2020 ARRL Hudson Division Amateur of the Year award for his tireless efforts during the heights of the COVID pandemic.
(Photo Credit:  Joe Cupano NE2Z) 

2021 ARRL Hudson Division Amateur of the Year:  Steve Bossert K2GOG

2021 was a tough year and just like Richie K2KNB, the recipient of the 2021 ARRL Hudson Division Amateur of the year award earned this through his work in organizing a safe multi club, multi site special event called Hudson River Radio Relay.

The goal of the event was to help raise awareness for Bannerman's Island since they are funded by donations and tours. The pandemic affected the upkeep of the island and the surrounding communities of the Hudson River.  With eight participating special event stations, the event helped bring together more than ten amateur radio clubs and our local communities in a time of  little in person safe activities.

Steve Bossert K2GOG, one of the co-founders of Hudson Valley Digital Network and main organizer of the event, was given this award and is also the first award recipient in the ARRL Hudson Division for not being a current ARRL member.   It was fantastic that that ARRL chose to honor Steve with this award and is also a great way that shows that the ARRL advocates for everyone involved in amateur radio and not just its current members.

While Steve has only been a radio amateur operator for 23 of his almost 41 years of age, he has learned a lot from mentors like Richie K2KNB and many others who were either at this event or sadly, have passed away into Silent Key land.  Being able to lead and organize an event like this with so many unique challenges and personalities involved was a huge honor.

Success of the Hudson River Radio Relay event is widely captured in the local media and Steve was focused on highlighting so many of the people who helped make a first year event during a pandemic a huge success, even in challenging times, he barely spoke of himself. Here is a video of his acceptance and almost a the very end of a very nice lunch amongst peers of all ages.

 

HR3:2021 Visualized Results

With our first HudsonRiverRadioRelay.com event complete, many of the station sponsors that participated have started to publish articles in club newsletters.

Certificates of Achievement are now being issued to those that submitted electronic logs and printed certificates are being mailed to those that donated to the event's fund raising goal honoring Bannerman Castle Trust.

Summary of  the event is below and at https://hudsonriverradiorelay.com/2021-results.html 

While we are showing an entire list of all contacts  on the Hudson River Radio Relay event page and which of the eight special event stations they were able to contact, it is time to release files to best visualize all the contacts made by station using Google Earth. 

Special Notes: 

• HVDN used the K2DSL ADIF to KML conversion tool to take our logged data from the fantastic N3FJP AClog program to generate these Google Earth files.

• The web based version of Google Earth as well as the desktop versions work great and you can manipulate the data however you like.

• You can download the related KML/KMZ file from each of the eight special event station landing pages to see how they did.

A few things worth commenting on:

• We used the 4 digit grid square locator, so all contact locations are approximate on the map.

• To keep all data uniform, even our eight special event station locations on the map are approximate since we used four digit grids for them also, but actual locations are listed on the event website.

• Grid square locations are listed in the center of each grid versus actual location.

• Next year, we are going to try and ask for six digit grids instead of four digit for enhanced accuracy.

Please also take a moment to visit each of the sponsoring clubs websites to see what else they are involved in as we strive to continue to put the Hudson Valley and our amateur radio community on the map both figuratively and geographically!  

And, if you live in the Hudson Valley and interested in joining a club, here is a great way to learn more about nine of them through this great event.

Much more to follow.....

Operating as N2B, Steve K2GOG (Front, left) operating on 2m FM before a satellite pass.  Joe NE2Z using FT8 on 17m and Lloyd K2JVX in background on 20m SSB.

The Bannerman Castle Tour's were full of young and old that were interested in history.  Mark WA2NYY doing CW all the way at the back with Steve K2GOG and Joe NE2Z trying to be quiet during the tour presentation. Benefits of being a CW operator.....

Fan Mail #1: Hudson River Radio Relay 2021

After exceeding our event fund raising goal and making contact with 526 amateur radio operators around the world on June 12th in under four hours, I would like to honor a few who sent in physical mailed QSL cards this year so far by sharing them right here for all to see! 

For anyone who has sent in a QSL card or shared a log electronically via our website, everyone of those will receive a special commemorative certificate highlighting your achievements for this year's event.

Those that have donated to our Go Fund Me campaign, will receive printed certificates in the mail suitable for framing. If you missed your chance, please look for us next year.

Now that the logs are checked and verified, we will start processing things this week and adding details to the Hudson River Radio Relay website under a new tab at the top of the page called "2021 Results".

QSL Cards

It is nice to see the practice still in use today and will incorporate the cards sent in as part of a special thank you to Bannerman Castle Trust.

Lets start off with.....

First Card (Arrived June 14th 2021)

Jeremy K2GRI made contact with
N2B, N2N and N2D from FN21

Second Card (Arrived June 15th 2021)

Jim N2JHR made contact with N2O
on 40m from FN03

Third & Fourth Cards (Arrived June 16th 2021)

Mike K4MJF contacted N2N on 20m  from EM75
located in Lenoir City, Tennessee

Richard cut through the pileup on 2m SSB to
contact N2S using an FT-897 from FN20

Fifth Card (Arrived June 17th 2021)

Walter was brave and got bit by N2B
all the way from Boca Raton EL96 on 20m

 Sixth, Seventh & Eighth Cards (Arrived June 21st 2021)

Murray was one of the 194 that contacted N2O
and its always nice to hear from VE3JMY in Canada

St. Mary's Amateur Radio Club was one of the few club
contacts made during Hudson River Radio Relay 2021

Canadian amateurs can hold multiple callsigns and
N2D made contact with Ian as VE3SDR and VE3ZIS
hoping we got to our 2,000 goal

Ninth, Tenth & Eleventh Cards (Arrived June 22nd 2021)

John N8XSV made contact with N2N, N2O and N2B
from EM57 in the great state of Kentucky 

Once we get a few more cards in the mail at Hudson River Radio Relay special event headquarters, we will make a nice commemorative poster for presentation at Bannerman Castle Trust who is already looking forward to being part of the event next year. 

Please visit www.HudsonRiverRadioRelay.com for the complete log and listing of contacts who have been awarded special endorsements for multiple contacts during our special event.

HR3:2021 Quick Engagement Results

Yesterday was the first annual Hudson River Radio Relay event. This year our fundraising theme was to support Bannerman's Castle Trust via GoFundMe and we managed to raise $1,418 in total with over $300 of that coming in the hours leading up to, during and just after the four hour event which took place from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern US time on June 12th

While we await the final logs from all eight of our participating special event stations to get compiled and posted to the HudsonRiverRadioRelay.com website, an initial estimate from casual discussion with most all the participating locations sounds like we should end up around 500 to 600 total contacts as a collective group.

There are so many positive things that will get mentioned about this event that will get published in the coming days along with lots of pictures and videos, but here is a quick snap shot just based on who visited each special event web page as well as the QRZ.com page for each of our eight callsigns.   

Both metrics were measured from between May 13th and June 13th at 10:00 AM EST.

It was expected the N2B station would possibly gain the most attention as a never before activated USIAP island NY047, but the N2O station rivaled our flagship location mainly due to its various USIAP, COTA, POTA and SOTA designations along with an amazing number of enthusiastic members that promoted what they were doing.

Our three stations that were not aided by affiliation of the different "on the air" categories like islands, parks or summits such as N2H, N2S and N2V seem to have also been very popular too over the last 30 days of measurements and deserve a lot of credit also.

The three lowest elevation stations, some only a few feet above the river such as N2U, N2D and N2N are hidden gems that deserve much more attention considering how hard they worked and are all actually very rare locations that we need to help promote even more for next year. 

Between these three stations, there was a brand new USIAP NY-073 on a US Army facility plus POTA K-2079, K-4582, K-5161, COTA K-00825 and the former home of the founder of Paramount Pictures.

What's Next?

Now that we have an official website visit metric posted just after the event, please go and learn more about each club and location they operated at during this special event by visiting HudsonRiverRadioRelay.com 

More detailed articles from each station highlighting each sponsoring club and a list of total event contacts plus the winner of our Xiegu G90 package raffle will be coming soon, so please follow the HVDN blog for more details between now and ARRL Field Day which is just under two weeks away.

SNR: Getting the most from your antenna

Hello Amateur Radio Enthusiast!!

Ensuring that the signals you receive are intelligible, means that you want to have more signal than noise or a ratio of the two which is beneficial to your goals.

The easiest way to balance your signal to noise ratio or SNR, is to use the appropriate antenna to receive the signal you want. 

Changing polarity from vertical to horizontal is one way to influence your SNR. Another way to change your SNR is by using an antenna that focuses on the magnetic portion of a signal compared to that of the electrical portion. More about magnetic versus electrical fields can be viewed here.

Here is a great example thanks to Hudson Valley resident, Sebastian KI2D. He is using a Xiegu G90 HF radio with its waterfall function to visualize the signals and he toggles between these two antennae while you listen.  Antennae evaluated are:

• 160m Sky Loop, 560' of wire, Palomar Engineers 4:1 balun
• Chameleon EMCOMM III 130' end-fed half-wave antenna

In the video, the lower noise floor is done with the 160m wire loop which offers both a change in polarity as well as some magnetic properties. This antenna works on other bands beyond 160m also, but with different radiation patterns. Resonant loop antennae can be designed for any frequency however.

The end fed half wave antenna is more suitable for the electrical portion of the signals being received and even though it is also horizontal, have a much higher noise floor compared to the loop.  The end fed or EFW is popular and supports multiple operating bands also, but takes up much less room.

The results of the comparison are impressive

If you would like to enter in for a chance to support Bannerman's Island as part of Hudson River Radio Relay on June 12th, we are not only offering a complete chart of the electromagnetic spectrum, but also chances to be entered in for a drawing to win your very own G90 radio, just like the one featured in Sebastian's video. 

The poster can be viewed mounted in a frame in the recent USMA balloon presentation  by Nolan N2WU during HVDN:LIVE from May 17th 2021

It is likely that the N2S station this year at College Hill Park in Poughkeepsie thanks both to the Mount Beacon Amateur Radio Club and QSY Society will be using a variety of antennae to ensure they can hear and be heard during this four hour event.  Sebastian KI2D will be one of many operators as part of N2S that day. 

UPCOMING 5/17/2021 HVDN:LIVE - Putting balloons into the sky with USMA

On April 27th 2021, the United States Military Academy at West Point put its 11th Astronomy Club and Amateur Radio Club balloon up into the atmosphere of the Hudson Valley and reached 80,000 ft.

Cadets Raymond Triggs '24, Rathin Shah '24, Jacob Willis '23 and Nolan Pearce '22 KE8JCT led a team of fourteen cadets, four of which also have amateur radio licenses.  A total of seven USMA faculty members, including  MAJ Robert Perezamemany and COL. Stephen Hamilton KJ5HY, MAJ Ben Popko N2IAV and Dr. Kate Duncan KB2ZOO helped make this years mission a success.

CDT Nolan Pearce '22 KE8JCT

Please join HVDN: LIVE on May 17th at 8:00 PM EST for a detailed overview of this project

CIC(Cadet In Charge) Pearce will cover the design, build process, launch and recovery of the 6 lb.  STEM focused payload which  included:

• VHF APRS
• GPS
• SSTV
• GoPro camera
• Space beer? (Wet yeast!)
• More....

Cadet Pearce will share details from this years launch over a 30 minute presentation with audience questions saved until the end.

Nolan is active within the USMA radio club W2KGY which will also be participating as N2D during Hudson River Radio Relay this year and he also has a rather excellent blog covering many topics of interest to the amateur radio community.

How to attend?

This presentation is free for anyone to attend via the free open source Jit.si application and will also be live streamed on the HVDN YouTube Channel.

First 50 guests can join via https://meet.jit.si/hvdn/livemay2021 and use password = helium

Additional "human" attendees can follow live or during the replay on the HVDN Video Channel.