John, ON4UN - SK

Dear folks,

Very sad news just received from the daughter of John, ON4UN

It is with sadness, but also gratitude and pride, I have to let you know my father John ON4UN, has become silent key.

John’s health has steadily deteriorated throughout the year, but in the last few weeks he was home with us where he peacefully passed away yesterday November 9.

Ham Radio, and especially Low Band DXing, were my father’s lifelong passion and always had a strong presence in our house. Sometimes literally, when many of you paid us a visit or a group of DX’ers came over for a weekend of contesting. At other times in the background, when my dad was working on a project or experimenting with new equipment or antennas.

Though I don’t have a call-sign, I very much feel part of the big radio family and always will. I am very proud of everything my father has accomplished together with you, and I am grateful to the many of you who have given him so much joy over the years. We will miss him dearly, but we take comfort looking back on the beautiful life he lived as a member of the wonderful Ham Radio community.

We are planning a digital farewell ceremony on Saturday November 21st and will keep you updated on practicalities.

If you would like to send us a message please mail to ON4UN.SK@gmail.com – John’s old e-mail account is not in use anymore.

In the meantime, you can pay him a visit at QRZ.com where he always kept his resume up to date.

Marleen Devoldere

Orion AGC Settings by Len, WT6G

Hi all,

found it on QRZ.com > all rights reserved to Len, WT6G.

After playing with the Orion for over a year I've come up with a procedure that appears to really work for these settings and I thought I'd write it up.

First, one comment. The AGC Hang time is VERY useful for FAST AGC in CW mode. Dots are often short enough at high speed, but some operators shorten them intentionally. Frequently the signal length of a single dot is so short the AGC of any rig has trouble acting properly, which makes the signal harder to copy and leads to operator fatigue.

This is easily fixed using the AGC Hang time. I typically use a hang time of .12 seconds or less for about 22 wpm, but if you are slower you can increase this a bit. I've played with settings as high as .25 seconds for novice speeds, and find values of .04 and .08 more useful for high speed CW during contests.

This setting means that once the agc level is determined by a signal, the dsp will hold that level for the indicated amount of time. It helps to visualize this in terms of the frequency that the signal is "evaluated". For example, if the Hold Time is set for .250 Seconds, the AGC will be evaluated 4 times per second, or once every 250 milliseconds. This is ok for very slow CW. Faster speeds should use faster sampling or shorter Hold Times. The Orion offers holdtimes of .04 .08 and .12 seconds, which are very useful for fast CW. Try adjusting this while listening to CW on your favorite band with the Fast AGC set and you will really see what a great feature Hold Time can be!

To set the SQUELCH control use the following procedure:

1. Preamp OFF, RF Gain 100, no antenna connected, AGC slow Set the bandwidth for the mode you normally use with slow AGC ie SSB, 2.8 KHz

2. Select the Main RX then got to Menus, RX and select Main RX Sql.

3. The default is -127 dBm. Decrease this until the audio is squelched. Be sure to find the exact point where it squelches. On my Orion this happens at -110 dBm.

4. Now select the slow Threshold for Main AGC and increase the number slowly from the default .37 uV until the radio unsquelches (ie The audio comes back. On my Orion this happens at .59 uV.

At this point, your DSP has some reasonable levels for Squelch, and AGC threshold. The audio should never be muted by the squelch and the AGC action will begin at a realistic level for your radio.

You may notice, if you don't set these values as I've described, that the RF gain control will unsquelch the radio as you decrease it if you have the squelch set.

To demonstrate this, leave the sensitivity set at .37, squelch the audio, and then return to normal operation and decrease the RF Gain below 100. My audio pops back on! Once you follow the procedures outlined above, this little anomaly will go away, and you will note what appears to be a smoother operating AGC. I didn't write the code, and it's not Open Source so I'll have to admit some lack of knowledge on the exact effect this has on the radios firmware, but it seems to improve performance.

Repeat the procedure for "med", "fast" and "prog" at the bandwidths you typically use for each of these. I set up "slow" and "med" at 2.8 KHz. "fast" and "prog" are set up at 250 Hz. "fast" and "prog" work nicely at 500 Hz when set for 250 Hz.

AFTER the AGC is set up, you can adjust the Hang Time for the AGC speeds you normally use in CW. On my orion I set this to .12 for "fast" and .08 for "prog". I also set the decay slope at 200 dB/s for "prog", 5 dB/s for "slow", 40 dB/s for "med", and 80 dB/s for "fast".

In CW, I usually use "fast" and then switch to "prog" for really fast QSO's. I use "slow" and "med" for SSB with no hang time.

NOTE: If you set your bandwidth too narrow, (ie 100 Hz) you may have
trouble making these adjustments. I recommend 250 Hz minimum because at 100 Hz it's sometimes hard to hear enough noise without a signal to tell if the RX is squelched or not. Of course this note applies to CW ops. You can get really confused if your filters are not centered.

Accordingly, you should have the additional roofing filters properly  centered before you make the AGC adustments. This is simple to do. I accomplish it as follows:

a. Select a bandwidth using the BW control equal to the filter you are aligning. For example, 500 Hz or 250 Hz. Tune in a cw signal and in the Filtr menu vary the Center Frequency Adjustment.

b. As you move it around you should see your S meter change. note the points on the ends where the signal goes away (a weak signal will drop completely out) This will give you two numbers. For my 500 Hz filter, I noticed the signal edges appeared at -200 and +550. (this depends on signal strength).
The difference between these points is 750. Divide this by 2 to get the center of the passband, and then add this to the lowest number to get the absolute setting. 750/2 = 375 -200 + 375 = 175 ... I set the control to 170 since values of 10 are the only resolution available. Obviously you can do this quite accurately with a voltmeter on your audio and a constant CW tone signal source, but you get "close enough" by ear for all practical purposes.

I find a strong CW signal and the S Meter is pretty accurate to find the edges.

Don't be surprised if you start to hear some incredible stuff while ou're adjusting these settings. I was on 40 meters adjusting my 250 Hz filter after the last software upgrade and copied some JA's in QSO.

There is nothing like a 250 Hz roofing filter followed by a 100 Hz  DSP filter that does not ring! With the settings made as described above you can actually tune accross the band at 100 Hz bandwidth in 10 Hz or less step width and hear and work stations!

I have all of the roofing filters in place from 250 Hz up, and I love the performance of the Orion. There's nothing like it at any price.

/Len WT6G

Capacitive loaded vertical?

Hi all,

did you tried this antenna in your QTH...?

73 - Petr, OK1RP

.../-.-

160m band beacons list (update 3Mar20)

Hi,

there is an improved list of the TOP band beacons. As You can see it is still "trial" and it's not final version and many of the beacons listed over here was reported years ago... maybe an operation has been cancelled or so. I will be appreciated to get any report or info about beacons from 160m band in Your location to put it into the list.

(kHz)	Call	beacon (available) informations
1700.0	CRJ	Maraba (Carajas), Brazil, B 06:06.7S 050:00.2W
1725.0	GA	Goroka, Papua New Guinea, PNG 06:04.3S 145:23.3E
1730.0	FRA	Juiz de For a, Brazil, B 21:46.0S 043:23.0W
1734.0	XPC	Chapeco, Brazil, B 27:07.0S 052:38.9W
1735.0	XPR	Unid Oil Platform? Off coast of Brazil?
1804.8	VP8VHF	GD18DH, Stanley, 16wpm (26Oct17)
1805.0	VO1NA	gm38na, 1W -> inactive (29Nov17)
1810.5	YR2TOP	KN04RU, Zlatita "v v v", 8 s carrier, no 24/7 op., 100W, inv. L, via YO2LC, YR2TOP (11Oct17)
1812.1	AI5	beacon (0011 01 May)
1815.0	KB6FPW/B	beacon RBN reported by N6TV (0052z 20Feb20)
1816.0	GT1	fishnet beacon (0223 01 Aug)
1817.0	ZS1J	kf15pf, 1W
1818.1	4EMU	fish beacon (0450 16 Sep)
1818.5	DIGI	ZL beacon (0952 18 May)
1818.6	ZL	beacon ? (1429 02 Oct)
1820.8	3IBY	fishnet beacon (0059 01 Aug)
1821.1	UT8	beacon (2118 11 Sep 2008)
1822.0	3RPD	beacon (1007 18 Jan)
1822.2	BA4EE	fish beacon
1823.2	UMTL	beacon (2118 11 Sep 2008)
1824.0	PAU	fishnet beacon (0239 08 Aug)
1825.0	FG5	beacon, regular ID (0453 09 Sep)
1825.1	IS0	fish beacon (0209 29 Apr)
1825.4	9V1PC	beacon mode (2141 14 Apr)
1826.0	IV2	fishnet beacon (0215 20 Aug)
1826.9	4BOI	beacon (1103 01 Mar)
1826.9	3RAD	fish beacon (0504 02 Apr)
1827.0	3RAD	fish beacon (0456 13 Feb)
1827.0	4BOI	beacon, three ID's every few mins (0221 27 Oct)
1827.0	3RAD	fish net beacon (0615 03 Jan)
1827.0	3BOI	driftnet beacon (0157 13 Dec)
1828.0	3NQA	fishnet beacon (0107 15 Feb)
1828.0	LL5	fishnet beacon (0303 07 Oct)
1828.2	DST	Loud fishnet beacon
1829.0	3RLX	beacon, fishnet ? (1340 20 Nov)
1830.4	3LPB	driftnet beacon (0107 12 Feb)
1830.5	3LPB	driftnet beacon
1831.5	3LVP	beacon ?
1832.0	PW2	fishnet beacon (0247 24 Jul)
1833.3	NH1	beacon (2118 11 Sep 2008)
1835.0	KB4	beacon (0549 30 Sep)
1836.2	SK50AU	KP04LQ
1837.0	IW3FZQ	JN55VF, Monselice PD, 8W, Dipole
1840.0	OK0EK	JN89QG, 4W (29Nov17 -> inactive)
1843.2	I1YRB	JN35UB, Torre Bert, QRSS3, 0.2W, vert., 24/7, via I1RFQ
1843.2	I1DFS	JN54AC, Nr La Spezia, QRSS3
1854.0	OKM1	JO70UF, Stezery, on air 0400-1800UTC, 60m vertical, 100W, via OK1FMZ, http://www.ok0ev.cz
1875.0	DL3KR	JO63LV, Demmin “test”, 5W, dipole (27Dec14)
1960.0	GB3SSS	IO70IA, off (Poldhu), 9 pwr steps, -6 db each, id+carr(30s)+PSK at 0,15,30,45 min each hr, GB3SSS
1995.6	XE3EOL	EL51HH
1998.0	SA6RR	JO67KI, Oxaback, "qrpp+id+ttt", 0.8W, inv.L, SM6BGP (4Feb17)

Last update : 3-Mar-2020

Do not hesitate to email me if any information is not valid or if You have any new one...

73, Petr OK1RP

.../-.-

Thanks for update to:

Per, SM2LIY (29-Jul-2015)
Jul, OK1SP (28-Nov-2017)
Jan, OK1FMZ (29-Nov-2017
Martin, LU5DX (29-Nov-17)

Beacons unconfirmed > under investigation (3Mar20):

1815.0   KB6FPW/B RBN reported by N6TV (0052z 20Feb20)
1836.2   SK50AU   KP04LQ                       
1837.0   IW3FZQ   Monselice PD, JN55VF, 8W, Dipole
1843.157 I1DFS    Nr La Spezia, JN54AC, QRSS3
1843.167 I1YRB    Torre Bert, JN35UB, 0.2W, Vert., QRSS3, 24/7
1995.6   XE3EOL   EL51HH
1804.8   VP8VHF   GD18DH, Stanley, (26Oct17), 16wpm
1875.0   DL3KR    JO63LV, Demmin "test", 5W, dip. (27Dec14)
1998.0   SA6RR    JO67KI, Oxaback, "qrpp+id+ttt", 0.8W, inv.L, SM6BGP(4Feb17)