• Where: Round Table Pizza, Ukiah (downtown)
• When: Thursday, Feb 2, 5:30PM
• Who: Guest speaker Dan Grebil, WD6FKJ, Chief of Ukiah Valley Fire, will cover the county-wide communications system — how it’s used and how it works.
• Also: Upcoming community events and recruiting for March licensing course and test.
• Food: Pizza by the slice ($2 each)

WARS – Feb 11, 2012

• Where: Old Mission Pizza, Willits (near Ray’s market)
• When: Saturday, Feb 11, 11:00AM
• What: Ham radio equipment, then and now. Bring your old tube gear or cool new gear, photos, and favorite memories.
• Also: There will be a raffle prize, $1 per ticket.
• Food: Pizza provided (contributions welcome, put them in the jar)

However, all is not lost. It is possible to make sense out of using higher frequencies in mountain communities, and at the November WARS (Willits Amateur Radio Society) seminar Tim Hanna, WB9NJS, described some of his experimentation and research on this topic.

Tim got interested in mountain VHF propagation after being surprised that he could communicate over 2M FM from his home QTH in Willits to Wayne, W6WMV, in Finely (south of Clear Lake.) The signal path is a good distance and there are two significant mountains in the way; regardless, Tim was still able to communicate quite well.

In his presentation Tim reviewed the ways radio signals change direction:

• Reflection: wave changes direction by bouncing off other objects (a metal fence post for example).
• Refraction: wave changes direction due to variations in the air (or other medium). Examples are cold and hot spots where the density of the air differs.
• Diffraction: wave changes direction by passing over sharply defined edges — often called the “knife edge effect”.

Next, Tim introduced a handy mapping tool for analyzing signal paths. The software is from DeLorme and makes it fairly easy to go from a flat map of the path to an elevation profile view that helps you see the obstacles that are in the way.

Since Tim uses an 8 element 2M beam, he first determined the bearing of the best signal to Wayne. This could then be plotted on the DeLorme map:

Once that was done, an elevation profile could be generated:

Looking at this profile, you might begin to wonder how Tim’s signal was able to reach Wayne in Finely. There are a two peaks that should block the signal. Tim speculated that perhaps knife edge diffraction was helping his signal bend over one or more peaks.

Tim also noticed another possibility. It could be that signals were being reflected off Mount Konocti behind Wayne. If so, the signal map becomes:

To plot such an elevation profile, the profile is “unfolded” to show it by distance. It becomes:

To understand this profile, note that that tall peak on the right isn’t blocking the signal, it’s reflecting the signal. That’s how reflection is shown on a profile plot.

So, this signal path seems more likely. Although there may be a knife edge effect at the peak closer to Tim, the reflection of the signal from Mount Konocti behind Wayne makes sense. The middle peak becomes less of a factor because it’s no longer in the way.

Tim went on to show several other signal paths for unusual radio contacts he’s made from his QTH on the west side of Willits. Some are not such direct paths as the one to Wayne in Finely, but looking at the elevation profiles helps you understand how such paths are even possible. For example, he’s able to communicate with K6FTY who lives a considerable distance to the north. The trick again is to use a directional antenna to reflect the signal off various high-elevation peaks.

Thanks again to Tim Hanna for his educational WARS presentation. It’s good information for those of us who live in the mountainous terrain of Mendocino and Lake Counties. If you find you can’t make a VHF/UHF QSO directly, you now know that you can try reflecting or diffracting your signal off various peaks to increase the likelihood of your success.

All hams in Mendocino, Lake, Northern Sonoma, and Southern Humboldt counties are welcome to attend. No need to be a member of either club. This is a great time to visit with old friends, or meet face to face with folks you have only “met on the net”.

To help control costs for the sponsoring clubs, guests are asked (but not required) to bring a present to donate to the raffle. No need to wrap the gift, and please keep the value at $15 or less. Each club will be providing a special “grand prize” for the raffle.

Seating is limited, so RSVP soon to reserve your seat. Payment is not needed until the night of the event. Please provide the names and callsigns of everyone in your party, as we will be making nametags. You may RSVP to Tim WB9NJS or Sharon KE6YKY by email, by phone (707 459-4116), or if you are a Facebook member, by visiting our Facebook event page at: Ham Radio Holiday Dinner.

Hope to see you all on the 16th!

73, Tim – WB9NJS

Several topics were presented:

• Brian, K6FTY, was not able to make it due to a last minute hydroelectric power plant obligation, but Len described Brian’s radio setup, and his success at getting a signal out from the remote mountainous terrain of Trinity County. We’re hoping Brian will be able to attend the next meeting.
• Bill Hillendahl, KH6GJV, the San Francisco ARRL Section Manager, gave us an update on news and related topics. This included the status on legal cases involving topics like neighborhood CCRs being challenged for exterior antennas, tower configurations, and even describing a “ride along” with the FCC for hunting down an “open mic” signal on a Northern California repeater.
• Tim, WB9NJS, made a very interesting presentation about mountain signal propagation and showed maps of signal paths and elevation profiles between various stations he has contacted. This all came about when he got his new VHF Yagi operational and discovered that the direct path to other stations wasn’t always the best. Propagation was often made possible along non-line-of-site paths by knife edge diffraction and reflections over and between mountain peaks. (We’re hoping to add a short article about it to MendoRadio soon.)
• WARS officers were elected for 2011. Jim Cline, W6JRC, stepped up as the next CEO, and many thanks again to Len Gwinn for revitalizing and reorganizing WARS over the last couple years. The meetings/seminars, pizza gatherings, St. Patrick’s day lunch, and picnics have been appreciated by all of us Mendocino hams.

I want to remind everyone that this is a joint effort of several hams, and you’re all invited to join us. If you would like to make announcements, write a short article on a relevant topic, post some notes about your antenna/radio/contacts, provide links to interesting amateur radio websites, and generally participate on-line, then we welcome your participation!

Also, if you run one of the local ham clubs (or represent them in some way) feel free to post related notices on this website.

How to post to this site:  It’s as easy as typing into most text editors. You don’t need to know anything about HTML. Create a WordPress account (see the right column), then contact us or post a message here, and we can add you as a contributor. If you’re posting often and want more capabilities, just let us know and we can upgrade your account to “author” status. That will let you directly post new articles and edit existing articles.

73, -Carl KB6ZST

Download free user software: RMSExpress or Paclink
ftp://autoupdate.winlink.org/User%20Programs/

Mendo folks can contact me for help and tips setting up APRS or Winlink. Alan n6vud Ukiah alan@spamcop.net

Other great sites and software:

The best internet APRS site
http://aprs.fi/

OpenAPRS hosted by a ham in Napa. You can send APRS messages to other hams from this site.
http://www.openaprs.net/

The best APRS home software APRSIS32
http://aprsisce.wikidot.com/

Checkout my APRS links from last years APRS presentation:

http://mendoradio.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/aprs-web-links/

If you remember the power formula from ohm’s law, you know that:

power = voltage squared / resistance

and signal strength is most often measured in voltage per unit length (for example micro-volts per meter.)

To show this relationship, here are a few photos of signal strength measured on the 10M band at four different power levels. This was done by connecting an oscilloscope to a nearby monitor antenna, then snapping a photo of the screen.

Each image is twice the power of the previous image.

For 10 watts we see 0.39 volts (peak-to-peak):

For 20 watts we see 0.542 volts. Notice that we don’t see twice the 0.39 volts, what we see is the square root of two times the square of 0.39.  So, thats:

0.39 squared = 0.152
0.152 x 2 = 0.304
square root of 0.304 = 0.551 (roughly)

For 40 watts we see about 0.846 volts. (Notice that it’s not precisely what we expected. That’s because I don’t have precise control over the radio’s power output. It’s just approximate.)

For 80 watts we see 1.192 volts:

So, when you go from 10 watts to 80 watts you don’t see your signal strength increase by a factor of 8, you only see it increase by about 3!  (Kind of seems like a rip-off, doesn’t it?)

That’s worth keeping in mind if you ever need to measure the signal strength of your antenna or figure out strange antenna puzzles posted to miscellaneous ham radio sites on the web.

Three weeks ago at the McARCS meeting in Mendocino, a few of us built cheap Yagi-Uda antennas for 2M. I wrote about the experience in Snipping the Yagi. There’s nothing like building an antenna to make you curious as to how and why they actually work. Yagi-Uda antennas provide excellent gain and directiveness, and the more directors you add, the more they provide!

I remember once reading that the Yagi design was invented back in 1929, but that their theory of operation was not understood until 1975. That being said, good luck finding a decent description of how they work! I’ve searched online and also looked through a number of radio textbooks, but so far I’ve come up empty for an adequate description of the Yagi’s mechanism. There are plenty of descriptions covering its design and properties, but very little about the theory behind it.

While over on the coast, I chatted with Derek, KE6EBZ, who uses a nice 2M Yagi beam that he built from an old TV antenna. We agreed that the function of the reflector seemed like that of a mirror — not difficult to imagine. But, the directors were more of a puzzle. Derek suggested that the shorter lengths of the director elements helped focus the wave in the forward direction.

As Cindy and I drove home later that afternoon… I thought more about Derek’s suggestion. I’d seen that kind of focus pattern before — 30 years ago while building a laser diffraction lab at UC Davis. Essentially, if you paint a big dark circle on a window, light diffracts around it much like a lens. It’s called a zone plate, and… if you continue the pattern of dark and clear in concentric circles around it, it will become even more focused. It becomes a Fresnel lens.

So, is that how Yagi directors works? They form a sort of Fresnel lens? I don’t know. Seems like something to study a bit deeper.

Such a lens might account for the directivity of a Yagi, but where does its high gain come from? Its gain can go beyond 18 dBd. Producing that much gain from parasitic (non-driven) elements seems difficult to comprehend, especially if you think of the directors as focusing only the radiative EM field (the far field) and only in a single dimension.

Recently it dawned on me that many of a Yagi’s directors fall within the near field of the driven element. That means they have mutually inductive and capacitive coupling to the driven element, more than just an effect due to re-radiation of the far field. So, in terms of magnetic induction, the first director works a lot like a transformer. That means that the director can actually pull more energy from the driven element — energy that cannot be tapped from the radiative field alone. Something similar could also be said about its capacitive coupling of the E field to pull energy. So, the directors can pull more power from the feed point… which really helps explain where the high gain comes from. Very cool.

Of course, this also means that the phasing of the whole mechanism must be very precise. The induced and coupled energies must perfectly match the phase of the radiated wave as it passes by. Wow, isn’t that elegant. You could almost think of a Yagi as a medium of propagation… with the wave travelling through it. (Of course, that means the wave velocity is changed while it does so… interesting to consider… hmmm, could be something to this.)

Well, I suppose everyone already knows this, and I’m just the last guy on the block to figure it out. The elmers reading this article are yawning and commenting, “yes of course that’s how it works, dummy.” But, it does get me thinking… what happens in the subsequent directors as the near and far fields pass by… and how far backwards can the induction and coupling have an effect?

Obviously, the mechanism of a Yagi is fairly complex. It sure would be nice to learn more about it. You’ve really got to wonder why such a elegant antenna has so little published about how it actually works.

If you’ve come across in-depth descriptions of Yagi theory, please post a comment here for all to read! Many thanks.

This is a wonderful question because it shows how power and field strength differ, even though they are directly related.

An insight into the answer comes if you ask the question: if you double the power to your dipole, how much does the field strength increase? The answer is that power is related to E-field strength squared.  If your power is 100 watts, and you double it to 200 watts, your field strength does not double. That’s because the square root of 100 is 10, and the square root of 200 is 14.14. So, doubling your power only increased your field strength by about 40%.

With that in mind, you can now analyze the dipoles above for transmission. Here’s a diagram that shows the proportional values (not actual values):

So, here’s what’s happening:

1. 100W is divided in half, so 50W for each dipole.
2. 50W radiates as a field that is proportional to the square root of 50, thus 7.07.
3. At the receive antenna, the two fields combine, 7.07 + 7.07 = 14.14.
4. The power received is the square of the field strength: 14.14 squared = 200.

So, you must add the field strength of each dipole, not power.  (And of course, the above is written to show the proportions, not actual values. The actual received power is substantially less due to distance and antenna pattern.)

You can now see that the power gain of the system is double (3 db, just like before), even though the power was been split between the two dipoles!  Another way to write this is:

pwr-recv = (sqrt(pwr-xmit / 2) * 2) ^ 2

If you enter that into your favorite calculator, slide-rule, or programming language, you’ll see that the pwr-recv result is always double the pwr-xmit input.

So, the principle of antenna reciprocity is safe and sound. The gain is the same for both receive and transmit.

For greater detail see: Signal Strength Relationship to Radiated Power.

It seems as tho the major problems were already identified, namely too small of wire, and the insulation left on the wire.  While the antenna in this mode was just below the two meter band, it would not tune up.

Carl borrowed Steve’s (KJ6EIF) antenna analyzer and I brought mine also, along with two of the antennas I made.  Mine were with one eighth inch bronze rod and were pretty close.  Carl found with the analyzer he could play and prune the antenna into the proper range ((see his Nibbling notes on this blog)).

This last week I played with mine at home.  One antenna tuned just right for where I wanted it–144.200–and the other was high by about 550 khz.  I tried to lengthen the driven element single rod piece with a short section of tubing, but it did not move the resonant frequency swr much.  I moved the tubing to one end of the first director and the slightly long now element made the antenna come alive.  Easily went to one to one swr at my required frequency.  That first director has a REAL BIG effect on the impedance and matching of the antenna.  I have read about this before but never really noticed the amount of the effect.  Guess I have been very lucky in my past antennas!!

BTW, my antenna showed very close to a one to one at 144.200 ((my design frequency)) and a two to one swr band width of plus/minus one and a half mhz.

Anyway, if you build one of these antennas with the WA5VJB specifications, it should come close.  To first check the swr, move the coax connection location slightly.  Then maybe try a slight length adjustment of the driven element or the opening/closing of the driven part of the loop.  Then you could try a shortening or lengthing of the first director.

Please note that there are differences of length for different sizes of rod!!!  This can affect the frequency of operation.  Even on two meters there is an adjustment to be made between the ssb/cw and the fm portions of the bands.

Good luck and happy antenna work.