The Challenge of a New QTH

A decade ago, my wife and I spent four years in Floyd County in one of her church postings. We loved the area, and imagined we'd retire there.

In November we took the first step. Bought a house in Floyd County near Rome, GA. House is on the top of a small mountain - Ward Mountain, rising 300 feet above the valley floor below. From the front porch, there is a gorgeous view to the West. On a clear day we can see 35 miles to Lavender Mountain, which is practically in Alabama,

The house is a little smaller than we'd like at 2100 square feet, but there's over 11 acres of land. A small office outbuilding with one room and a tiny bathroom has become the ham shack.

We've owned the house in Gwinnett county for 30 years. Now we are transferring things to the new house. There's a lot to do. We'll sell the Gwinnett house in the next months. In the meantime, I'm focused on building up the Floyd QTH when I have the energy.

Antennas are the first order of business. I first put up an 80/40/20m Trap Dipole. It's up about 12m in the trees. I erected a 160m Inverted-L with two elevated radials. It's a bit noisy, so receiving antennas are likely needed to make the most of that. I plan for three beverage antennas. A 6m dipole barely 4m up in the trees offers me an option on that band.

I've also put together the HF4B. I've mounted it on a 19 foot pole lashed to a deck post. It needs adjustment to work well. It's OK on 10m, but 15 and 20m aren't quite right.

I'm planning to put up a tower. I'll need to take down the tower in Gwinnett first. My plan is 70 feet of Rohn 25, with the A3S/A743 on top. 35 feet below that will be an A3S, pointed at Europe. This would give me a stack toward Europe, plus coverage in other directions with the top antenna. Horizon is unobstructed in every direction except to the NorthEast, where the two additional summits of the Ward Mountain chain are. Those peaks are just 100 feet and 140 feet higher, but they are 1 km and 2 km away, respectively.

I'm already seeing good results with the 80/40/20m trap dipole. There are benefits to being on the top of a mountain. Even a simple tower should be awesome.

For 6m, I'm on the lookout for a 5-6 element beam. The Cushcraft A50-3S i've been using in Gwinnett just doesn't have enough gain to work the intercontinental paths. 

On the office building, I've already moved in an operating desk with desktop shelves, and another luncheon table that serves as a workbench. The main part of the floor is a little more than nine feet square, And almost six feet of the rest of the building is split between the tiny bathroom and the rest of the floor. The desk and workbench are a bit of a squeeze.

A wire shelving rack takes up some of the space opposite the tiny bathroom, and gives me room to store things. I don't know how I'm going to get a whole basement of ham gear into this little building.

Such is the challenge of a new QTH.

RealVNC Changes Terms, without Notice.

Just over three years ago, I figured out how to Remotely operate FT8 using a product called RealVNC. 

RealVNC had a Home plan that allowed up to 3 users and up to 5 devices for non-commercial use. Perfect for remotely controlled computers in a ham radio shack.

Today, without any notice, RealVNC disabled my Home plan, and I had to choose between paying each month for a plan, or adopting their Lite plan, which allows 1 user and up to 3 devices for non-commercial use.

That's fine. They allow me to use their secure remote access software without fees. I can understand they might want to change the terms.

The Lite plan fits my usage. I've only ever had two devices active anyway, and it's just me as the user. 

But, without notice - that is just damned inconvenient. Since I switched plans, I need to visit each device and re-configure them to be part of the new plan. Which means I can't remote into those computers until that is completed. 

And, of course, since I'm remote, I'm not there.

Quite inconvenient.

Fixing up the Cushcraft A50-3S

A50-3S standing tall and
straight next to the house.

Last year, I moved the A50-3S out of the yard and up next to the house. I used a 19 foot mast made of two pieces of EMT. While putting it up the reflector bumped against the roof and turned askew about 15 degrees. 

Never the less, it worked well. I worked a few Europeans and several South and Central American using this antenna.

Still, it needed a bit of work. A one-piece mast would be better, and I could straighten out the reflector when I swapped masts. A bead balun at the feed point wouldn't hurt either. 

So, I researched these. You would not believe what a 20 foot piece of 1 1/2" 0.058 wall aluminum tubing goes for these days. A few years ago, I purchased a 12 foot piece of 2" diameter 1/4" wall 6061-T6 tubing for my gin pole. It was about $150, which seems right for such a substantial piece of metal. 

But 20 feet of the thinner mast? They quoted me $500! If I went with the 1/4" wall, well that was manufactured with a different process -- extruded instead of rolled, so it would be $250. Ridiculous. There had to be another solution. 

I did have 20 feet of mast in two 10 foot pieces. This was from an earlier experiment. I had an old Butternut  HF4B that I had rebuilt, and was hoping to erect in Fulton County. I bought two pieces of Rigid Metal Conduit (RMC) for this purpose. 

EMT and RMC are easily found at your local Home Depot. But it isn't exactly what you would call structural. EMT is design to bend. Easily. I have had some success using it as masting for very small, light antennas. The two pieces I used on the A50-3S lasted for over eight years, plus the several years holding up a 19 element 2m boomer Yagi. RMC is more substantial, and comes with threaded couplings to connect them together. 

Two pieces of 10 foot RMC was $30 a pop, so this wasn't a cheap experiment. Even with the coupling tightened all the way down, the 20 feet of mast had a substantial wobble in the top section. I tried inserting a solid piece of HDPE. That helped, but not enough to hold up the HF4B. 

It occurred to me that this might work with the A50-3S, even with the wobble. The A50-3S is held upright by a wall bracket at the eve of the house, well above the wobbly union. I just needed the vertical support, and not so much lateral rigidity. Besides, I already had $60 invested.

First order of business was to find the doggone things. I put them away three parsonage moves ago, and had hidden them well. They were hiding in my basement. After that, I had to locate the piece of HDPE, which I found in another box. 

It all came together this week. My youngest daughter Lauren helped me to lower the existing A50-3S and mast to the ground. Off came the antenna and the feed line, and the old mast was disassembled and put away. Then I coupled the RMC together with the HDPE stiffener and taped the coupling joints against any water intrusion. With the A50-3S mounted on the new mast, the reflector was aligned with the rest of the elements. 

For a balun, I used five snap-on ferrite beads. I measured these at about 100 ohms resistive at 50 MHz. Five conveniently fit on the 9913 coax from the driven element to the mast, so that is what I used. 

A50-3S facing South East.

Swinging the new mast up into place without bashing the antenna against the house took some patience. The RMC mast is much heavier than the two pieces of EMT. Once vertical, I positioned the mast in the eve bracket and loosely connected the u-bolt clamp. Both my daughter and I lifted the assembly to the top of the railing. From there, I tightened the bracket to eliminate play, but loose enough to allow the antenna to rotate. I used a couple of extra 1/4" nuts as jam nuts so the bracket could not tighten or loosen. 

The antenna is easily Armstrong rotated from the base. Eventually, I'll mount a rotator on the top of the railing and retire my arms.

A quick SWR check showed a 1.2:1 SWR at 50.313 MHz. The antenna is pretty broad. Minimum SWR is around 50.8 MHz at 1.07:1. I suppose I could mess with the matching network to get a better match on the FT8 frequency, but the whole bottom 2 MHz of 6m is less than 1.5:1. 

The antenna is 28 feet (8.5m) off the ground with clear shots from the North clockwise to the South West. Points to the West and North West have to pass through the house roof.

I hope Es season hasn't passed me over yet. 

Remote Operation - Level 1 (RemoteRig RRC-1258MkII)

RemoteRig RRC-1258MkII at Radio

Last spring, I wrote about using RealVNC to remote control a computer in my shack allowing me to make FT8 contacts on 6m. I have made many contacts using that remote system, including several new countries and grids.

I want to be able to operate the Gwinnett county station remotely -- on any mode or band, as if I were sitting there. Doing this required several connections over the internet, and, being behind on other software projects, it seemed a daunting one. 

A company called Microbit (www.remoterig.com) has a solution. The RRC-1258MkII is a pair of devices that establish multiple audio, serial and control links over the internet. One unit sits with the Radio, the other is called the Control. They are similar boxes, with subtle differences: the Control box as a CW speed knob, but the Radio box does not. These units work with a number of radios, including the Elecraft K3. 

One operating mode is K3 Twin. In this mode, the Control K3 acts as a front-end to the remote Radio K3. All the knobs and buttons operate the remote radio. Indeed, Elecraft made special, stripped down, non-RF versions of the K3 for this purpose (K3/0, later the K3/0-mini).

This seemed perfect, as I owned two K3 radios. Obtaining the RRC-1258MkII was more difficult. Microbit is based in Sweden. Due to the pandemic and subsequent supply chain issues, they no longer sold them in the USA. I had to find them used. 

I managed to find Kirby, VE6IV, who had a set surplus to his needs, and we agreed on a price. Then ensued a much longer negotiation on how to get the funds to Kirby in Canada. Eventually, we figured it out, and a week later, the devices were delivered.

Configuration

Configuration was not plug-and-play, by any means. These boxes are designed to connect to 10/100BaseT networks. I found an old router and set up a local network to do the initial configuration. First step was to update the firmware. This did not work over the network, and I had to use the USB connection. After a few tries, I successfully updated both units to the latest firmware. 

The local web server in each box allows configuration of the other parameters. There are dozens of settings, and the manual leaves a bit to be desired explaining all the details. 

First order of business was the IP configuration. I opted to define a static IP addresses on my local network. 192.168.1.64 for the Radio, 192.168.1.65 for the Control. You can use DHCP for the Control, but it is easier to change configuration settings when you know the address. 

The Radio device needs to be accessible from the public internet. Since I don't have a static public IP address, I opted to use dynamic DNS. RemoteRig supplies such a service, at ddns.remoterig.com. They automatically set up a host address based on your serial number. 

I set the web site username and password, as well as the SIP password. Audio was set for 16 bits and 8 kHz dual channel. The COM ports were set with COM1 inactive, COM2 in logical parallel with COM0, and COM3 inactive. 

Setup

Next step was to integrate the Radio unit into the Gwinnett station. I still needed to use the station locally. I found that I could connect the local computer through the COM1 port on the Radio unit and still be able to run WSJT-X locally. One caveat - the RemoteRig devices don't pass through the DTR and RTS signals, so you can't do CW keying from the serial port. You also can't update K3 firmware. Both of these require direct connection of the computer to the rig.

The manual shows the Radio unit connected with seven different cables, but only six of them are described in the manual. The seventh cable connects from the I/O port on the back of RemoteRig to the ACC jack on the K3. The Radio unit turns the K3 off when you disconnect remotely. Without this seventh cable, you cannot turn the K3 on when you connect. That took some experimentation to figure out.

Initial Connection

Puzzling out the rest of the operation was easier on the local network. I programmed my Control unit to connect directly to the Radio unit's local IP address. Initially, I couldn't get anything to work. I would have brief periods where the Control unit would connect. I could hear the audio of the radio, and then it would disconnect. Nothing was happening with the Control K3.

Part of the problem is my Control K3 had been upgraded to a KIO3B, so it did not have an RS-232 jack. Generally, I used the USB port. The KIO3B has an RJ-45 jack labelled RS-232/P3, and I had a cable designed to plug into the P3. I used that cable, but it didn't work. I decided I needed a special cable from Elecraft, part #E980297, an RJ-45 to DE-9S. 

The new cable didn't work either, and that lead to more sleuthing. I tried using the K3 Utility on this cable, and it didn't work either. I then discovered that the CONFIG:RS-232 menu had to be set to 38400 b for the serial connection to work. That was part of the problem.

A bit more checking and I determined that the RemoteRig COM2 jack required a null modem cable between it and the K3. I had that, and it required a male/male DB-9 adapter. Both these items were in the batch of cables that Kirby shipped me. 

With CONFIG:RS-232 and the correct cabling, the Control unit placed the Control K3 into TERM mode. I successfully connected locally. 

Remote Connection

Connecting through the dynamic DNS address was the next step. I figured I had to change the SIP Contact parameter on the Control unit. That was correct, but it would not connect. Then I thought perhaps it didn't work because I was trying to connect on the same IP address on the public network. So, I packed up the K3 and the Control unit and took them back to Warren county. But, it didn't work there, either.

This was frustrating. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I had to re-program the firewall of my Gwinnett county router to let certain traffic pass. I lamented that those experiments would have to wait until I could pack it all up and go back to Gwinnett county to fix. Then it dawned on me that I could use the RealVNC connection to my shack computer to re-program the firewall remotely.

Programming the router was not simple. I used the IP Allocation mode of Default Server to direct all incoming traffic to the Radio unit IP address. That worked! I was able to connect and control the station.

This configuration worried me. RemoteRig uses four UDP ports, plus TCP port 80 for the web server configuration and port 23 for telnet configuration. Having those TCP ports open on the public internet seemed like a bad idea. A single password protected access, which seemed to invite hacking.

Instead, I wanted to pass the traffic on the four UDP ports and block everything else. This was accomplished by setting up four custom "gaming" services for each UDP port. I then assigned these services to the RemoteRig Radio IP address. Bingo.

Operation

Operation is pretty straightforward, even though the RemoteRig manual isn't. To activate the system, you simply turn the Control K3 on. Within 20-30 seconds, the devices connect across the Internet, the remote K3 is turned on and the Control K3 goes into TERM mode, and audio starts streaming into the Control unit. All of the knobs, buttons and indicators on the Control K3 operate the remote K3. 

When you are finished, you turn the Control K3 off, and the remote K3 also turns off. If you happen to lose your internet connection, the remote K3 turns off in about a minute. 

During my experiments, I was able to confirm operation of WSJT-X using the remote shack computer. I've also been able to transmit CW, using the paddle check on the Control unit. So far, though, I haven't figured out how to transmit voice signals. Most likely, I have another cable or configuration problem. 

Limitations

The system has a few rough spots. The audio volume is controlled from the Control K3 volume control. Certain operations stop the audio stream -- switching into or out of SUB receiver mode, or into or out of DIVersity reception. Moving the volume control brings the audio stream back. 

In my set up, the audio occasionally has small drop-outs, perhaps when a UDP packet fails to arrive in time. For this reason, I would not recommend using RTTY across the audio connection. One can operate a remote computer to run RTTY, just as I do for FT8. There may be a configuration option to help this.

Next Steps

While I can operate my Gwinnett K3 remotely now, I need to automate other parts of the station. I cannot change antennas, rotate rotators or switch the K9AY direction. I'm working on solving those problems.

Update: Sad News

Unfortunately, about two weeks after I started writing this article, my Control unit fails to power up. I apply power, but the PWR LED does not come on. I've tried with two different power supplies, no luck. RemoteRig support indicates this could be a failure of the CPU. Sadly, they don't offer repairs in the USA, and will have no replacement units available until May, 2023. 

In the meantime, I'm back to Remote Operation - Level 0.

Remote Operation - Level 0 (RealVNC)

Sometimes experiment pays off. You never know until you try.

I was reading an article about remotely controlling computers over the internet. It occurred to me that if I could do this, it would be easy to operate FT8 from my Gwinnett QTH when I was at the Fulton QTH. Although I have rigs in both locations, Gwinnett is where I have the K3, and can operate on 6m. 

I started to research solutions. I found a product called RealVNC that can be licensed free for non-commercial use on up to five computers. Comes with a separate server and viewer product, and it works on Macs as well as Windows, Linux, even the Rasberry Pi. 

You have to create an account on their web site, but the installation was easy. I have a MacBook Pro hooked to the K3 at the Gwinnett QTH. I installed the server there. Then I installed the viewer software on a couple of Macs, and one Windows computer. 

Making the connection from Viewer to Server requires 2-factor authentication, so it is pretty secure. 

This software worked great. I was easily able to connect to the MacBook Pro and use WSJT-X. The K3 has to remain turned on, and I have no way to remotely change antennas, so I left it switched to the 3-element 6m beam. I also have no way to rotate the antenna remotely (it uses Armstrong rotation...), so I left the beam pointing SouthEast. I was hoping to pick up some propagation to the Caribbean or perhaps Central or South America. 

The first week of this experiment bore fruit the next day. I was in Fulton county, but checking I lucked into an opening to South America, where I worked two stations in Chile and two in Uruguay. Two new countries and four new grids! The next day, there was a powerful, but brief opening to the Cayman Islands, and Belize.

While one cannot predict 6m propagation, remote operating gives me a tool so I don't miss out on openings while I'm away from the Gwinnett QTH. 

This is only Level 0 of Remote Operating. I can only do FT8, and I can't change bands. That's next, I'm working on an automatic antenna switch driver to choose an antenna by the band selection of the K3. 

OK, I'm an Idiot....

Sometimes, it helps to just admit it to yourself. Let me explain.

Back in December 1st 2017, I started using FT8. I set up the WSJT-X Mac software and made my first contact. Mostly operating on 17m, 30m, 12m. I later discovered 6m. Indeed, this last summer was a huge opportunity to work much of the country on sporadic-E (Es) on 6m. I was amazed to work 40 states in just one summer. On all bands, I've worked all fifty states, and quite a few countries with this mode.

So, I've been using FT8 for months. However, one thing bothered me - everything seemed off frequency. You see, there are standard frequencies that are published for FT8, 12m is 24.915 MHz. But if I dialed in 24.915 MHz, everyone was too high -- like no one was using frequencies less than 2 kHz, and some were visible at 3.5 kHz and higher.

My solution to the problem was simple -- I just tuned higher. I decided that 24.916 was more accurate, and operated that way for months. I even reprogrammed WSJT-X so the 1 kHz higher frequencies were the right ones.

But, it bothered me. It seemed wrong.

I managed to work Baker Island using FT8, but it was a bit of trouble, and I had one fellow email me saying I was calling too low for the fox/hound DXpedition mode. I used a higher frequency and almost immediately had an exchange. This made me think about this issue more.

Originally, I had my K3 set up for RTTY using AFSK. This means I was using the AFSK A data mode on each band. For FT8, I would select DATA REV, so it would use USB instead of LSB.

What I didn't realize is that AFSK A means the display frequency is adjusted to reflect the Mark frequency of (in my case) 1445 Hz. This accounts for my frequency being too low -- I was off by 1.4 kHz.

With that figured out, I switched to DATA A, which has the display frequency of the suppressed carrier, as it would for LSB or USB. The frequency jumped, and I tuned again to the standard frequencies (the real ones, not my artificial higher ones).

But, it didn't work. I couldn't hear any signals. Back to AFSK A, and they are there, but switch to DATA A, and they are gone. What?

Turns out, AFSK uses LSB by default, while DATA A uses USB. Since I was using DATA REV, this means DATA A was LSB. Oops. Back to straight DATA mode, using the DATA A sub-mode, and everything works just as it should. Gosh, that's too easy.

I'm an idiot....

I'll just have to remember to change the DATA MD back to AFSK when I'm doing RTTY.