Merry Christmas to you all in blogland!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
The shortest day...
...and the longest night is tomorrow December 22. At this time of the year we have only about 5 hours of something one could call daylight here at 63 degrees North.
It is really some few hours of dawn transmogrifying into some few hours of dusk.
In between there is 19 hours of darkness.
There is a webcam out at the Replot Bridge about 10 miles northwest from Vaasa and there you can see how dark it really gets here.
Replot Bridge WebCam
Well today it is a beautiful day and the sun is shining though it is moving so low behind the trees from my point of sight so I cannot really see it from here where I sit.
If you are watching this webcam you may wonder where is the snow and the ice?
Yes, so do we. This is another exceptional year when there is no snow and ice around. No hope for a White Christmas this year.
There were two occasions when this have happened before, in 1972 and 1992. Please observe that these are the only occasions in modern history here and now a third one in less than 40 years.
Something about the climate is changing very rapidly now.
Anyway, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year out there in blogland!
It is really some few hours of dawn transmogrifying into some few hours of dusk.
In between there is 19 hours of darkness.
There is a webcam out at the Replot Bridge about 10 miles northwest from Vaasa and there you can see how dark it really gets here.
Replot Bridge WebCam
Well today it is a beautiful day and the sun is shining though it is moving so low behind the trees from my point of sight so I cannot really see it from here where I sit.
If you are watching this webcam you may wonder where is the snow and the ice?
Yes, so do we. This is another exceptional year when there is no snow and ice around. No hope for a White Christmas this year.
There were two occasions when this have happened before, in 1972 and 1992. Please observe that these are the only occasions in modern history here and now a third one in less than 40 years.
Something about the climate is changing very rapidly now.
Anyway, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year out there in blogland!
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Fighting for Public Radio
When I was listening to Radio London, Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg and even operated my own pirate-radio station in my teens, I couldn't imagine, not even in my worst nightmares, that I one day would find myself fighting for the existence of a Public Radio station.
Public Radio is a form of society or governement operated radio and TV that should serve the people with social, cultural and educational information interleaved with news and entertainment.
Most of the ether-media in Europe was and still is operated like that. Fundings for Public Radio is generally collected in the shape of something called "TV-fee" or "TV-license" and for the moment being it is around 230 EUR p.a. and household in Finland.
All the material is broadcast as "Free To Air" and can be received by anyone without encryption etc., the finnish brodcasting company is called Yleisradio - Rundradion, abbreviated YLE
In the 1980:s the broadcasting law was changed to allow commercial competition (okey, there had been commercials in Finnish TV long before as one company called "Mainos TV" or MTV hired transmittertime from YLE who thereby got some of their fundings) and people started escaping the TV-fee because "they did not watch /listen to Public Service TV/radio". Later on YLE disconnected their transmitter network from their core business, formed a transmitter company called Digita and sold it to a french broadcasting company who let the commercial stations into their broadcasting masts.
This flight from the TV-fee mentioned above got sharply accentuated this year when all the Public Radio went digital and some people on the fringe of the transmitter coverage found themselves without any picture in their TV-sets and/or malfunctioning subtitles/sound despite upgrading to new digital TVs and set-top-boxes. This digitalization process has been induced and directed from the top governement in a way that seems to be a carbon-copy of the way they produced and operated their 5-years plans in the former USSR.
Last week the management of the YLE declared that they are lacking another 50000 TV-fees this year and they have to cut down their operations, two radio channels and one TV-channel have to be closed down.
The thing that got me going was that one of the channels was the swedish-speaking youth-radio, Radio x3m.
That channel was established 10 years ago when the youth programs grew too big inside the one and only existing swedish speaking channel then.
You may wonder why a swedish speaking channel in Finland? Finland is a bilingual country with two national languages, finnish and swedish, as defined in the constitution from 1918. The citizens should be treated equal despite language and thats why YLE has been working using both languages from the very beginning. As per beginning of 2006 there were 6 finnish speaking radio channels and 4 finnish speaking TV-channels operated by the YLE, 2 swedish speaking radio channels and one swedish speaking TV-channel operated by the same.
There are dozens of commercial TV and radio channels, none of them broadcasting in swedish.
The big problem is that we swedes in Finland are hardly 300000 people out of 5 millions anymore and as such too small a group to be interesting to any commercial company. The other problem is that we are dispersed in some thin, elongated areas isolated from eachother on the south, southwest and west-coast i. And the Aland islands of course but they have their own autonomy and that area is by law unilingual and swedish-speaking.
At the west coast here arond the city of Vasa we could watch TV and listen to radio from Sweden before there were any finnish TV-transmitter in our region and that of course turned us closer to swedish culture, tradition and politics than in southern Finland where they could not watch TV from Sweden.
Up to the introduction of Radio x3m, swedish speaking youth from different parts of Finland did not really know much about eachother. Me myself was continuously listening to the P3, the youth-channel in Sweden but after some few years after the introduction of Radio x3m I found that I had switched to that channel on all fronts, in the car, at the summerhouse and at home.
Now this channel uniting all the young swedish speaking people in Finland was threatened. People reacted spontaneously, they wrote to the newspapers, they gathered on web-communities, they wrote petitions, they demonstrated on the streets and outside the YLE-building, they collected lists of names and they bombarded the parliament and governement with e-mails and I was one of them.
The political establishment went into shock, the reaction from the grassroots was totally unexpected and the propositions to axe the Radio x3m were withdrawn in a hurry last tuesday evening.
But, the problem with the lack of fundings still remains and we are told that one TV-channel has to go and that YLE has to further cut down their news-departement to save money.
YLE in english
Radio x3m web community
Public Radio is a form of society or governement operated radio and TV that should serve the people with social, cultural and educational information interleaved with news and entertainment.
Most of the ether-media in Europe was and still is operated like that. Fundings for Public Radio is generally collected in the shape of something called "TV-fee" or "TV-license" and for the moment being it is around 230 EUR p.a. and household in Finland.
All the material is broadcast as "Free To Air" and can be received by anyone without encryption etc., the finnish brodcasting company is called Yleisradio - Rundradion, abbreviated YLE
In the 1980:s the broadcasting law was changed to allow commercial competition (okey, there had been commercials in Finnish TV long before as one company called "Mainos TV" or MTV hired transmittertime from YLE who thereby got some of their fundings) and people started escaping the TV-fee because "they did not watch /listen to Public Service TV/radio". Later on YLE disconnected their transmitter network from their core business, formed a transmitter company called Digita and sold it to a french broadcasting company who let the commercial stations into their broadcasting masts.
This flight from the TV-fee mentioned above got sharply accentuated this year when all the Public Radio went digital and some people on the fringe of the transmitter coverage found themselves without any picture in their TV-sets and/or malfunctioning subtitles/sound despite upgrading to new digital TVs and set-top-boxes. This digitalization process has been induced and directed from the top governement in a way that seems to be a carbon-copy of the way they produced and operated their 5-years plans in the former USSR.
Last week the management of the YLE declared that they are lacking another 50000 TV-fees this year and they have to cut down their operations, two radio channels and one TV-channel have to be closed down.
The thing that got me going was that one of the channels was the swedish-speaking youth-radio, Radio x3m.
That channel was established 10 years ago when the youth programs grew too big inside the one and only existing swedish speaking channel then.
You may wonder why a swedish speaking channel in Finland? Finland is a bilingual country with two national languages, finnish and swedish, as defined in the constitution from 1918. The citizens should be treated equal despite language and thats why YLE has been working using both languages from the very beginning. As per beginning of 2006 there were 6 finnish speaking radio channels and 4 finnish speaking TV-channels operated by the YLE, 2 swedish speaking radio channels and one swedish speaking TV-channel operated by the same.
There are dozens of commercial TV and radio channels, none of them broadcasting in swedish.
The big problem is that we swedes in Finland are hardly 300000 people out of 5 millions anymore and as such too small a group to be interesting to any commercial company. The other problem is that we are dispersed in some thin, elongated areas isolated from eachother on the south, southwest and west-coast i. And the Aland islands of course but they have their own autonomy and that area is by law unilingual and swedish-speaking.
At the west coast here arond the city of Vasa we could watch TV and listen to radio from Sweden before there were any finnish TV-transmitter in our region and that of course turned us closer to swedish culture, tradition and politics than in southern Finland where they could not watch TV from Sweden.
Up to the introduction of Radio x3m, swedish speaking youth from different parts of Finland did not really know much about eachother. Me myself was continuously listening to the P3, the youth-channel in Sweden but after some few years after the introduction of Radio x3m I found that I had switched to that channel on all fronts, in the car, at the summerhouse and at home.
Now this channel uniting all the young swedish speaking people in Finland was threatened. People reacted spontaneously, they wrote to the newspapers, they gathered on web-communities, they wrote petitions, they demonstrated on the streets and outside the YLE-building, they collected lists of names and they bombarded the parliament and governement with e-mails and I was one of them.
The political establishment went into shock, the reaction from the grassroots was totally unexpected and the propositions to axe the Radio x3m were withdrawn in a hurry last tuesday evening.
But, the problem with the lack of fundings still remains and we are told that one TV-channel has to go and that YLE has to further cut down their news-departement to save money.
YLE in english
Radio x3m web community
Amazing Journey
The movie. It finally arrived! A fascinating documentary about one of the greatest Rock-bands that ever existed: The Who
Monday, November 26, 2007
Can you see the writing on the wall?
We redecorated the house a little while ago and we quoted Pete Townshend and "Relax" on one of the walls of our living room. On one of the walls in our hallway you can read: "Come to this house, be one of us!" Are we Who-fans or are we just nuts?By the way, my wife Ingela has posted some nice pictures again, go there and give her a shoutout:
Ingelas blog
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Applescrumping anyone...?
Well, I don't think this apple is inviting to any such activity. :)
The picture is nicked from my wife, Ingela, and it describes the general mood and weather here right now.
This is the very last species of apple still clinging onto a branch on one of our appletrees. It is partly rotten, it is nibbled by the birds and deep-frozen but it still hangs in there, probably waiting for the next summer as I do.... :)
Ingela is posting a new picture every day, she blogs in swedish but you can comment in english if you want to. No need to understand the context.
http://alegniinoffice.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
It's a sad day....
At least 7 people killed in a school shooting in Tuusula some 30 miles north of Helsinki. The shooter is a 18 years old student. This is not America, this is Finland for heavens sake and such things's wouldn't happen here, would they?
The shooter is known to have been hanging on internet sites admiring Hitler and Stalin and posted videos onto YouTube of himself training handling of and shooting with a handgun.
I really don't know how to interprete my feelings about things like this and the obvious connection to Internet lighting the fire of sick minds.
Pete Townshend wrote an essay named "a Different Bomb" in the beginning of this millennium where he exposed his ambivalence regarding the Internet and the usage of the same. I then thought his perception to be very dark and grim but a day like this I am prepared to believe him.
Please light a candle for the pupils, teachers and parents tonight.
The shooter is known to have been hanging on internet sites admiring Hitler and Stalin and posted videos onto YouTube of himself training handling of and shooting with a handgun.
I really don't know how to interprete my feelings about things like this and the obvious connection to Internet lighting the fire of sick minds.
Pete Townshend wrote an essay named "a Different Bomb" in the beginning of this millennium where he exposed his ambivalence regarding the Internet and the usage of the same. I then thought his perception to be very dark and grim but a day like this I am prepared to believe him.
Please light a candle for the pupils, teachers and parents tonight.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Offshore Radio
aka Pirate Radio is something that have fascinated me since my early teenages. It is also one of the major operators that made the Brittish R&R and pop-music explosion possible from early 1964.
This issue has got new actuality recently when both Pete and Roger of The Who both have given credit to Radio London and Radio Caroline for their immediate success in recent interviews.
Radio in Europe was something else than radio in the US back then, in most countries there was "public radio" only operated by governement owned monopoly and there was not much space for popular music programs and/or teenager oriented programs.
Commercial radio was not allowed except in Luxembourg but Radio Luxembourg was more or less in the hands of some few big record labels and did not provide much room for young emerging artists.
One method to overcome this was to launch a transmitter on international waters and that was what happened in the spring 1964 when Ronan O´Rahilly launched Radio Caroline.
You can read about my adventures on the airwaves in the mid-sixties here:
http://www.radiolondon.co.uk/rl/scrap60/hansa/hansqsl.html
If you Google using search phrases as "Offshore Radio", "Radio Caroline", "Radio Nord", "Radio Veronica", "Radio London" etc. you will find a lot of information.
Hans Knot in the Netherlands is THE information source:
http://www.hansknot.com
another good source is Martin van der Vens "Offshore Radio":
http://www.offshoreradio.de
This issue has got new actuality recently when both Pete and Roger of The Who both have given credit to Radio London and Radio Caroline for their immediate success in recent interviews.
Radio in Europe was something else than radio in the US back then, in most countries there was "public radio" only operated by governement owned monopoly and there was not much space for popular music programs and/or teenager oriented programs.
Commercial radio was not allowed except in Luxembourg but Radio Luxembourg was more or less in the hands of some few big record labels and did not provide much room for young emerging artists.
One method to overcome this was to launch a transmitter on international waters and that was what happened in the spring 1964 when Ronan O´Rahilly launched Radio Caroline.
You can read about my adventures on the airwaves in the mid-sixties here:
http://www.radiolondon.co.uk/rl/scrap60/hansa/hansqsl.html
If you Google using search phrases as "Offshore Radio", "Radio Caroline", "Radio Nord", "Radio Veronica", "Radio London" etc. you will find a lot of information.
Hans Knot in the Netherlands is THE information source:
http://www.hansknot.com
another good source is Martin van der Vens "Offshore Radio":
http://www.offshoreradio.de
Friday, October 19, 2007
HTPC anyone?
We recently bought a digital-TV set-top box (DVB-C) with a built-in harddisk-drive so one can record programs or time-shift programs when needed.
Now when there is streaming-TV of all kind out there on the web it would be nice to integrate that also into one and the same gadget along with DVD-player-burner. Normal web-surfing in the sofa on the 37" screen would be nice also when there is nothing on the telly.
I decided a while ago that I will try to build my own multimedia-PC and also integrate Digital-TV into the same.
My first preference is low power consumption so it will be built around stuff commonly used in Lap-Tops, my second preference is cheap.
Cheap and laptop components don't really fit together so I must search auction-sites for used or refurbished stuff. That takes a lot of time, trying to get MoBos and CPU:s to a low price.
Then one should find a reliable PCI-card for cable-TV reception here in Europe. The market seems to be small and there isn't much (cheap) stuff around on web-auctions.
But when I've gathered the components I will start to build this fancy apparatus. :)
Anyone out there with experiences from such a project?
Now when there is streaming-TV of all kind out there on the web it would be nice to integrate that also into one and the same gadget along with DVD-player-burner. Normal web-surfing in the sofa on the 37" screen would be nice also when there is nothing on the telly.
I decided a while ago that I will try to build my own multimedia-PC and also integrate Digital-TV into the same.
My first preference is low power consumption so it will be built around stuff commonly used in Lap-Tops, my second preference is cheap.
Cheap and laptop components don't really fit together so I must search auction-sites for used or refurbished stuff. That takes a lot of time, trying to get MoBos and CPU:s to a low price.
Then one should find a reliable PCI-card for cable-TV reception here in Europe. The market seems to be small and there isn't much (cheap) stuff around on web-auctions.
But when I've gathered the components I will start to build this fancy apparatus. :)
Anyone out there with experiences from such a project?
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Helsinki DVD
Wow! It finally arrived, the DVD from The Who's show in Helsinki the 9:th of July.
What a great show it was!
What a great show it was!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Ingela's new slideshow
Ingela put up a new slideshow on Myspace today. http://www.myspace.com/alegni
The slideshow contains pictures from our life and surroundigs, the thing is that every picture is named after a The Who - tune!
:)
Please go there and give her a shoutout!
The slideshow contains pictures from our life and surroundigs, the thing is that every picture is named after a The Who - tune!
:)
Please go there and give her a shoutout!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
continued: summer 07
A helicopter-view of the area where we travel by boat to our summerhouse. In the foreground you see the marina of Björkö where our dinghy is moored. This picture is on the front cover of the application for inclusion in the World heritage List.
Photo by Arto Hämäläinen / Geonat Project
More information regarding Kvarken can be found here:
http://www.kvarkenguide.org/mainen.html
Choose "Björkö Archipelago" from the drop-down list.
Late in the evening at our summer house
Calm sea
The beacon at Svartbådan
Sunset
Approaching Svedjehamn
A basinful of perch (Perca Fluviatilis) The most common fish in the waters surrounding our summerhouse
The pot of gold is in our garden shed but please don't tell anyone...
Most of the pictures are of course taken by Ingela
Photo by Arto Hämäläinen / Geonat Project
More information regarding Kvarken can be found here:
http://www.kvarkenguide.org/mainen.html
Choose "Björkö Archipelago" from the drop-down list.
Late in the evening at our summer house
Calm sea
The beacon at Svartbådan
Sunset
Approaching Svedjehamn
A basinful of perch (Perca Fluviatilis) The most common fish in the waters surrounding our summerhouse
The pot of gold is in our garden shed but please don't tell anyone...
Most of the pictures are of course taken by Ingela
Monday, August 13, 2007
The OH6MY multiband loop-dipole-hybrid antenna
In the previous post I described an antenna I built this summer and found to be working on all the classical WARC bands. 30 meters (10 MHz) would theoretically also be possible but I did not investigate that option.
I promised to upload some phots here so here they come:
In the first photo you see the antenna from behind, the feedpoint is closest to the birch in the middle of the picture.
In the second photo you can see the feedpoint to the left and also get an impression of the layout of the antenna with the 1/4 wavelenght stubs in the corners of the square-shaped loop.
The dimensions you may find in my earlier text. One ft is 0.305 meters.
Edit Nov. 18 2008:
As I see that I get many hits to this antenna-blog I will paste the text from the preceeding blog here:
The basic OH6MY multiband antenna for 40 - 10 m. is as follows:
-the base is a square-shaped loop for 40 m, installed parallell to the ground
-1/4 wavelenght stubs (on 40m) added in two opposite corners.
-the antenna will resonate as a dipole on 80 m. as well if there are some 2.5 m "whiskers" added to the shorted ends of the stubs
-antenna wire is 2 mm diameter enamelled Cu-wire
-each side of the loop is 11.1 m.
-each stub is 9.1 m. of polyethylene coated 450 ohm ladder line or (theoretically) 10.1 m home-made 450 ohm ladder made from the same wire as the antenna. I built this using the polyethylene coated line.
I built and tested at approx 8 m. above ground at my summer house (sorry Ingela...)the stubs in the corners are falling down perpendiculary to the plane of the antenna for some few meters and then sloping sidways-outwards, the shorted ends are at approx. 1 m. above ground. Added 2.5 m. of the same wire to the end of the stubs, parallell with the ground to bring it into 80 m.
Different heights and/or ground properties would need slightly different stub lengths, start with 9.5 m and search for the point of resonance on 40 m by moving the shorting point upwards in increments of 5 - 10 cm. The resonance is fairly sharp. Whenever it is in resonance on 40 m. it will be on the upper bands as well.
If you bild and test this antenna, please give me a shoutout per e-mail at:
hans.astrom@netikka.fi
73:s
Hans
I promised to upload some phots here so here they come:
In the first photo you see the antenna from behind, the feedpoint is closest to the birch in the middle of the picture.
In the second photo you can see the feedpoint to the left and also get an impression of the layout of the antenna with the 1/4 wavelenght stubs in the corners of the square-shaped loop.
The dimensions you may find in my earlier text. One ft is 0.305 meters.
Edit Nov. 18 2008:
As I see that I get many hits to this antenna-blog I will paste the text from the preceeding blog here:
The basic OH6MY multiband antenna for 40 - 10 m. is as follows:
-the base is a square-shaped loop for 40 m, installed parallell to the ground
-1/4 wavelenght stubs (on 40m) added in two opposite corners.
-the antenna will resonate as a dipole on 80 m. as well if there are some 2.5 m "whiskers" added to the shorted ends of the stubs
-antenna wire is 2 mm diameter enamelled Cu-wire
-each side of the loop is 11.1 m.
-each stub is 9.1 m. of polyethylene coated 450 ohm ladder line or (theoretically) 10.1 m home-made 450 ohm ladder made from the same wire as the antenna. I built this using the polyethylene coated line.
I built and tested at approx 8 m. above ground at my summer house (sorry Ingela...)the stubs in the corners are falling down perpendiculary to the plane of the antenna for some few meters and then sloping sidways-outwards, the shorted ends are at approx. 1 m. above ground. Added 2.5 m. of the same wire to the end of the stubs, parallell with the ground to bring it into 80 m.
Different heights and/or ground properties would need slightly different stub lengths, start with 9.5 m and search for the point of resonance on 40 m by moving the shorting point upwards in increments of 5 - 10 cm. The resonance is fairly sharp. Whenever it is in resonance on 40 m. it will be on the upper bands as well.
If you bild and test this antenna, please give me a shoutout per e-mail at:
hans.astrom@netikka.fi
73:s
Hans
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Summer of 07
I am back at work. The summer was great despite the rainy final week of my summer holidays.
New engine for me dinghy.
I had a brand new Westerbeke 20B, 18 Hp Marine-Diesel installed in my old 21 ft dinghy this spring. The fuel consumption is only half of what it used to be in my 48 years old petrol-powered engine. And the diesel fuel is much cheaper. The low fuel consumption caused us trouble some days ago when we went out to our summerhouse one evening after work when the temperature here started to reach 30 oC here on the mainland. I had completely forgot that routine of checking the fuel left in the tank and on our way back in the sunset, the engine stalled after 10 minutes. The tank was almost empty and driving at cruise-speed made the bow rise to an angle thad got the fuel left run away from the fuel outet. I had to dive into the bulkhead in the bow and get to the tank, jacked it up and tilted it forward using Ingela's slippers so the fuel left could reach the outlet. The cruise continued at some hefty 4 knots and at that speed (well below hull-speed) the boat remained in a level position and the fuel flow was secured.
Computer crashes several.
I had to finalise some documents at home in the beginning of my holidays so I brought my laptop home. It crashed immediately upon bootup. Harddisk trouble. Got it up and working after running diagnostics, CHKDSK and fixing MBR.
Ingelas fairly new laptop (2 years old)crashed one Monday morning. No warranty left. One IC in the internal power supply on the motherboard had erupted, cause unknown. Maybe overvoltage on the main supply, modern switching PSU:s are a pain in the butt. Good old transformers in the front end of PSU:s would save many vulnerable pieces of electronics from being destroyed at home.
Repair at the producers European repair-shop would cost as much as a new laptop with the same specifications. So I built her a new desktop computer instead. I later on found a motherboard for the laptop, used and in working order, on the eBay in UK and I will put the laptop together again any rainy weekend now.
Upon returning to work my laptop crashed again after some few hours. The HDD went FUBAR this time and I am now waiting for a new laptop.
The Who gave a un-f*cking-believable good show in Helsinki. You can find my comments on that further below in this blog.
We are now eagerly waiting for the DVD from that show to show up in our mailbox :)
Another evening we went to the outdoor summer-theatre in Närpes to see a show. All the actors involved are mostly amateurs and what a good show it was.
As much time as possible got spent at the summer-house. July was though a very rainy month here in Finland as well as in many other places in Europe but as usual, the weather out in the middle of the sea between Finland and Sweden is much sunnier than on the mainland where afternoon and evening showers are common.
A new antenna concept for the HF-bands.
All HAM:s (amateur radio operators) know that there is no real multiband-HF-antenna that fulfills all the criteria that could be put down for such a beast:
-resonant (Z = R +-j0) inside all (or the most of) the "classical" WARC- bands like 80, 40 ,20, 15 and 10 m.
- SWR less than 1:3 when resonant, that means R in between 17 to 150 ohms when operated at 50 ohms output which reduces the need for complex matching devices.
Well folks, that is the antenna I built and tested this summer! the OH6MY antenna. Hit the road G5RV and W3DZZ... :)
It all started several years ago when experimenting and testing different loop-antennas for 40 m. in co-operation with my old friend Lars, SM5GQV, former OH6MX, to get a satisfactory configuration to be able to have regular contacts on the airwaves between our QTH:s, he is living in Norrköping, Sweden. This path is a little tricky, sometimes very good propagations on 40 m, sometimes on 80 m and sometimes not at all.
The problem is the space needed for loops, the easiest way is to hang it horisontally but that usually means that it is hanging parallell to the ground at close to 1/4 wavelenght and the radiation will take off at 90 degress vertically. Good for local QSO:s but not for longer distaces and DX-ing.
So, the main objective was to create a loop that could hang at a low level parallell to the ground and have as low radiation angle as possible.
The radiation problem is solved by shifting the phase of the current maximums 180 degrees, then we have radiation in the same plane as the loop with current maximums at the feedpoint and opposite to it. We are from here on discussing a loop shaped as a SQUARE, fed at one corner.
My idea for the phase shift was to insert shorted 1/4-wave stubs at the corners adjacent to the feedpoint and having voltage maximum. A shorted stub is an isolator at its other end and thus perfect for insertion in the voltage maximum point.
Two 1/4-wave stubs introduces a total of 180 degrees phase shift and that is what I wanted. The 1/4-wave stubs are made of 450 ohm ladder-line.
I then modelled this creation into the 4NEC2 (based on MININEC )software, heigth about 8 meters above normal ground and got really promising results when running the simulations.
The radiation angels were as expected and the impedance at 40 m. was much closer to 50 ohm than i a normal 40 m. loop.
The real surprise was that I in the simulations also could find resonances inside the 20, 15 and 10 meters as well! Even in the 6 m. band :)
Everybody trying to get a normal 40 m loop to resonate in the upper bands knows that the resonance points are well below those upper bands.
And the most surprising finding was that this antenna shows some kind of folded-dipole resonance immediately above 80 m. as well and that I could bring this into the 80 m. band by adding a 2.5 m "whisker" to the shorted end of the stubs without affecting the resonance on the other bands and that the impedance was close to 50 ohm at 80 m. as well!
The basic OH6MY multiband antenna for 40 - 10 m. is as follows:
-antenna wire is 2 mm diameter enamelled Cu-wire
-each side of the loop is 11.1 m.
-each stub is 9.1 m. of polyethylene coated 450 ohm ladder line or (theoretically) 10.1 m home-made 450 ohm ladder made from the same wire as the antenna. I built this using the polyethylene coated line.
I built and tested at approx 8 m. above ground at my summer house (sorry Ingela...)the stubs in the corners are falling down perpendiculary to the plane of the antenna for some few meters and then sloping sidways-outwards, the shorted ends are at approx. 1 m. above ground. Added 2.5 m. of the same wire to the end of the stubs, parallell with the ground to bring it into 80 m.
Different heights and/or ground properties would need slightly different stub lengths, start with 9.5 m and search for the point of resonance on 40 m by moving the shorting point upwards in increments of 5 - 10 cm. The resonance is fairly sharp. Whenever it is in resonance on 40 m. it will be on the upper bands as well.
I have tested and worked several QSO:s and it is resonant on all bands and the radiation angle on 40m is very low, in fact too low for me and SM5GQV because from my QTH I hear German and Italian stations on 40 much louder than I hear him. On 80 we have had good QSO:s despite the very low erection for a 80 m. dipole.
I heard stations from the Middle East and the US one evening on 20 m. Did not try to work them because I am only running some 20 - 30 watts from an IC-706 and a old car battery.
I will post some pictures of this creature here from home later on.
73:s es GL
OH6MY aka Hans
New engine for me dinghy.
I had a brand new Westerbeke 20B, 18 Hp Marine-Diesel installed in my old 21 ft dinghy this spring. The fuel consumption is only half of what it used to be in my 48 years old petrol-powered engine. And the diesel fuel is much cheaper. The low fuel consumption caused us trouble some days ago when we went out to our summerhouse one evening after work when the temperature here started to reach 30 oC here on the mainland. I had completely forgot that routine of checking the fuel left in the tank and on our way back in the sunset, the engine stalled after 10 minutes. The tank was almost empty and driving at cruise-speed made the bow rise to an angle thad got the fuel left run away from the fuel outet. I had to dive into the bulkhead in the bow and get to the tank, jacked it up and tilted it forward using Ingela's slippers so the fuel left could reach the outlet. The cruise continued at some hefty 4 knots and at that speed (well below hull-speed) the boat remained in a level position and the fuel flow was secured.
Computer crashes several.
I had to finalise some documents at home in the beginning of my holidays so I brought my laptop home. It crashed immediately upon bootup. Harddisk trouble. Got it up and working after running diagnostics, CHKDSK and fixing MBR.
Ingelas fairly new laptop (2 years old)crashed one Monday morning. No warranty left. One IC in the internal power supply on the motherboard had erupted, cause unknown. Maybe overvoltage on the main supply, modern switching PSU:s are a pain in the butt. Good old transformers in the front end of PSU:s would save many vulnerable pieces of electronics from being destroyed at home.
Repair at the producers European repair-shop would cost as much as a new laptop with the same specifications. So I built her a new desktop computer instead. I later on found a motherboard for the laptop, used and in working order, on the eBay in UK and I will put the laptop together again any rainy weekend now.
Upon returning to work my laptop crashed again after some few hours. The HDD went FUBAR this time and I am now waiting for a new laptop.
The Who gave a un-f*cking-believable good show in Helsinki. You can find my comments on that further below in this blog.
We are now eagerly waiting for the DVD from that show to show up in our mailbox :)
Another evening we went to the outdoor summer-theatre in Närpes to see a show. All the actors involved are mostly amateurs and what a good show it was.
As much time as possible got spent at the summer-house. July was though a very rainy month here in Finland as well as in many other places in Europe but as usual, the weather out in the middle of the sea between Finland and Sweden is much sunnier than on the mainland where afternoon and evening showers are common.
A new antenna concept for the HF-bands.
All HAM:s (amateur radio operators) know that there is no real multiband-HF-antenna that fulfills all the criteria that could be put down for such a beast:
-resonant (Z = R +-j0) inside all (or the most of) the "classical" WARC- bands like 80, 40 ,20, 15 and 10 m.
- SWR less than 1:3 when resonant, that means R in between 17 to 150 ohms when operated at 50 ohms output which reduces the need for complex matching devices.
Well folks, that is the antenna I built and tested this summer! the OH6MY antenna. Hit the road G5RV and W3DZZ... :)
It all started several years ago when experimenting and testing different loop-antennas for 40 m. in co-operation with my old friend Lars, SM5GQV, former OH6MX, to get a satisfactory configuration to be able to have regular contacts on the airwaves between our QTH:s, he is living in Norrköping, Sweden. This path is a little tricky, sometimes very good propagations on 40 m, sometimes on 80 m and sometimes not at all.
The problem is the space needed for loops, the easiest way is to hang it horisontally but that usually means that it is hanging parallell to the ground at close to 1/4 wavelenght and the radiation will take off at 90 degress vertically. Good for local QSO:s but not for longer distaces and DX-ing.
So, the main objective was to create a loop that could hang at a low level parallell to the ground and have as low radiation angle as possible.
The radiation problem is solved by shifting the phase of the current maximums 180 degrees, then we have radiation in the same plane as the loop with current maximums at the feedpoint and opposite to it. We are from here on discussing a loop shaped as a SQUARE, fed at one corner.
My idea for the phase shift was to insert shorted 1/4-wave stubs at the corners adjacent to the feedpoint and having voltage maximum. A shorted stub is an isolator at its other end and thus perfect for insertion in the voltage maximum point.
Two 1/4-wave stubs introduces a total of 180 degrees phase shift and that is what I wanted. The 1/4-wave stubs are made of 450 ohm ladder-line.
I then modelled this creation into the 4NEC2 (based on MININEC )software, heigth about 8 meters above normal ground and got really promising results when running the simulations.
The radiation angels were as expected and the impedance at 40 m. was much closer to 50 ohm than i a normal 40 m. loop.
The real surprise was that I in the simulations also could find resonances inside the 20, 15 and 10 meters as well! Even in the 6 m. band :)
Everybody trying to get a normal 40 m loop to resonate in the upper bands knows that the resonance points are well below those upper bands.
And the most surprising finding was that this antenna shows some kind of folded-dipole resonance immediately above 80 m. as well and that I could bring this into the 80 m. band by adding a 2.5 m "whisker" to the shorted end of the stubs without affecting the resonance on the other bands and that the impedance was close to 50 ohm at 80 m. as well!
The basic OH6MY multiband antenna for 40 - 10 m. is as follows:
-antenna wire is 2 mm diameter enamelled Cu-wire
-each side of the loop is 11.1 m.
-each stub is 9.1 m. of polyethylene coated 450 ohm ladder line or (theoretically) 10.1 m home-made 450 ohm ladder made from the same wire as the antenna. I built this using the polyethylene coated line.
I built and tested at approx 8 m. above ground at my summer house (sorry Ingela...)the stubs in the corners are falling down perpendiculary to the plane of the antenna for some few meters and then sloping sidways-outwards, the shorted ends are at approx. 1 m. above ground. Added 2.5 m. of the same wire to the end of the stubs, parallell with the ground to bring it into 80 m.
Different heights and/or ground properties would need slightly different stub lengths, start with 9.5 m and search for the point of resonance on 40 m by moving the shorting point upwards in increments of 5 - 10 cm. The resonance is fairly sharp. Whenever it is in resonance on 40 m. it will be on the upper bands as well.
I have tested and worked several QSO:s and it is resonant on all bands and the radiation angle on 40m is very low, in fact too low for me and SM5GQV because from my QTH I hear German and Italian stations on 40 much louder than I hear him. On 80 we have had good QSO:s despite the very low erection for a 80 m. dipole.
I heard stations from the Middle East and the US one evening on 20 m. Did not try to work them because I am only running some 20 - 30 watts from an IC-706 and a old car battery.
I will post some pictures of this creature here from home later on.
73:s es GL
OH6MY aka Hans
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Home again
Home again after a birilliant show.
I added some more picterus of Zak, roger and Pete.
The most of our pictures you can find in my Myspace site in "my Pictures" at http://www.myspace.com/oh6my
Those who are not memebers of myspace can enjoy the slideshow but there is a lot of other stuff too so be patient :)
Hans
Edit 11.07.2007
The setlist was approximately like this:
I Can't Explain
The Seeker
Anyway Anyhow Anywhere
Fragments
Who Are You
Behind Blue Eyes
Real Good Looking Boy
Baba O'Riley
Relay
Drowned
A Man In A Purple Dress
You Better You Bet
My Generation
Won't Get Fooled Again
Encore
The Kids Are Alright
Pinball Wizard
Amazing Journey
Sparks
See Me Feel Me
Tea And Theatre
I must have been very excited because I found it hard to remember the setlist immediately after the show, It was easier to create it backwards from what they did not play :)
The last finishing I got from the message board at thewhotour.com were one community member had put this list on and I checked it against my memory.
I added some more picterus of Zak, roger and Pete.
The most of our pictures you can find in my Myspace site in "my Pictures" at http://www.myspace.com/oh6my
Those who are not memebers of myspace can enjoy the slideshow but there is a lot of other stuff too so be patient :)
Hans
Edit 11.07.2007
The setlist was approximately like this:
I Can't Explain
The Seeker
Anyway Anyhow Anywhere
Fragments
Who Are You
Behind Blue Eyes
Real Good Looking Boy
Baba O'Riley
Relay
Drowned
A Man In A Purple Dress
You Better You Bet
My Generation
Won't Get Fooled Again
Encore
The Kids Are Alright
Pinball Wizard
Amazing Journey
Sparks
See Me Feel Me
Tea And Theatre
I must have been very excited because I found it hard to remember the setlist immediately after the show, It was easier to create it backwards from what they did not play :)
The last finishing I got from the message board at thewhotour.com were one community member had put this list on and I checked it against my memory.
The Who rocked Helsinki
The Who rocked Helsinki tonight, the band was in the form of their life and Roger´s voice was nearly as good as new!
I will return with a complete setlist when I´ve calmed down and that could last for a few days. :)
We sat in the second row opposite Pete and the pictures above are taken by my wife, Ingela, or at least with her camera. The camera was operated by everybody in the famiy to get some good shots from different angles.
My boys got a plectrum each and the younger one one of Zak´s drumsticks.
We are very happy!
Thank you guys!
Monday, July 09, 2007
The Who...
...will enter the stage at Hartwall Arena in Helsinki within a few hours. Maybe for the very last time ever if I read Pete´s last blog between the lines OK.
We have been staying in Helsinki for a few days, shopping and enjoying ourselves. The weather suddenly took a turn to the better this afternoon, just in time for the concert, well, it is an indoor event but anyway, nice weather is always a bonus.
We have been staying in Helsinki for a few days, shopping and enjoying ourselves. The weather suddenly took a turn to the better this afternoon, just in time for the concert, well, it is an indoor event but anyway, nice weather is always a bonus.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Ready for maximum R&B
Got the tickets for the Who show at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki today. See ya there! Ingela ordered the T-shirt with the RAF bullseye for me. She is so kind, isn´t she?
Meet (me and) my sons
Here is a photo of me and my sons taken recently, from the left: Lukas, the 16-year-old icehockey goalie, myself, and Ian, the 14-year-old kickboxer.
In the second picture is my oldest son Markus documenting some details of his own art exhibition in the city of Tampere last winter.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Myspace.com
I have got an account at Myspace.com and so has Ingela.
Ingela´s myspace: http://www.myspace.com/alegni
My myspace: http://www.myspace.com/oh6my
Please take a good look at Ingela´s photos.
Ingela´s myspace: http://www.myspace.com/alegni
My myspace: http://www.myspace.com/oh6my
Please take a good look at Ingela´s photos.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
My first Lifehouse-method portrait
My first musical portrait is here on my home server:
http://astrom.selfip.com/tune001236.mp3
Edit:
My wife Ingela also signed-up and had her first portrait made:
http://astrom.selfip.com/ingelas tune001538.mp3
This server is an old HP desktop located under a sofa in Ingela´s office and that computer is not exactly a rocket in performance and it is behind an adsl-connection and the upload speed is only 512 kb/s so be patient... :)
http://astrom.selfip.com/tune001236.mp3
Edit:
My wife Ingela also signed-up and had her first portrait made:
http://astrom.selfip.com/ingelas tune001538.mp3
This server is an old HP desktop located under a sofa in Ingela´s office and that computer is not exactly a rocket in performance and it is behind an adsl-connection and the upload speed is only 512 kb/s so be patient... :)
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
A poem Ingela wrote me recently
Drowned in the man
Behind blue eyes
Who are you?
Is it in my head?
I can’t explain the heatwave, but I think
Love is coming down.
I don’t even know myself
But they made my dream come true
We got o hit
Anytime you want me
Out in the street
Anyhow, anywhere, anyway
See me, feel me
I’m one
The real me
I need you
For Two thousand years and more
You stand by me
See my way
Don’t look away
Love reign o’er me
I love this! But I think Ingela could have some copyright-problems... :)
Behind blue eyes
Who are you?
Is it in my head?
I can’t explain the heatwave, but I think
Love is coming down.
I don’t even know myself
But they made my dream come true
We got o hit
Anytime you want me
Out in the street
Anyhow, anywhere, anyway
See me, feel me
I’m one
The real me
I need you
For Two thousand years and more
You stand by me
See my way
Don’t look away
Love reign o’er me
I love this! But I think Ingela could have some copyright-problems... :)
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Meet my wife
It is about time to introduce my family. I will start with my wife, Ingela, the reincarnation of Keith Moon you see in the picture here. This is the real Ingela, happy and joyful, trying out something completely new. We met soon 18 years ago, working for the same company and got introduced to eachother by workmates and within one year we were married and had our first son and everything else. I have been very careful to expose my family here because the Internet is sometimes a weird place but the bloggers I got acquainted to here are mostly very nice and witty people, exactly the environment where Ingela fits in like a glove with her wits, sense of humor and kindness. She is a translator and have a way with words in many different languages. I love her deeply.
Hans
Friday, April 20, 2007
Our Easter Bunny is a Eastern Jackrabbit!
At least two out of the three cuties in the posting below have survived. They skipped past my kitchen window yesterday morning and they have gained a lot of size and weight in a few weeks.
As we have seen their mother around here all the winter and she has not changed white as the Mountain Hare, lepus timidus , which is also very common here, I came to the conclusion that they are specimen of the European Hare or Eastern Jackrabbit, lepus europaeus , in the US.
As a bonus information to all fans of the Who I can tell that there is a cousin in the US called the White tailed Jackrabbit or Prairie Hare, lepus townsendii
:)
As we have seen their mother around here all the winter and she has not changed white as the Mountain Hare, lepus timidus , which is also very common here, I came to the conclusion that they are specimen of the European Hare or Eastern Jackrabbit, lepus europaeus , in the US.
As a bonus information to all fans of the Who I can tell that there is a cousin in the US called the White tailed Jackrabbit or Prairie Hare, lepus townsendii
:)
Friday, April 06, 2007
The Easter Bunny was pregnant this year
This is what we found in our backyard a few days ago. They are so cute! Mother-bunny have now moved them away to some place safer and did not leave us any Easter-egg either but she was perhaps too occupied... :)
Happy Easter to all of you!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
I am back.
Back to work, that means. My left arm should be ok they told me and sent me back into office. Well, it looks fine to the naked eye but it really dont work that way at all... :)
I have to live with the fact that I have to excercise it for months to come, in order to build up the muscles and retrieve the flexibility. Maybe it would never be as flexible again as before the accident. My left biceps has deteriorated into something like Rachel Fullers "Bingo wings" and is hanging down on the wrong side of the arm.
Looks quite silly...
Well, the next week I am allowed to start lifting heavy stuff and throwing things so I think I will be in shape for some windsurfing in the summer.
It seems that the spring is arriving here soon because the temperature outside is now reaching the level it usually reaches in the middle of April. I hope we won´t have the usual backlash we often see with blizzards and temperature dropping down to -15 C in the end of April.
Take care!
Hans
I have to live with the fact that I have to excercise it for months to come, in order to build up the muscles and retrieve the flexibility. Maybe it would never be as flexible again as before the accident. My left biceps has deteriorated into something like Rachel Fullers "Bingo wings" and is hanging down on the wrong side of the arm.
Looks quite silly...
Well, the next week I am allowed to start lifting heavy stuff and throwing things so I think I will be in shape for some windsurfing in the summer.
It seems that the spring is arriving here soon because the temperature outside is now reaching the level it usually reaches in the middle of April. I hope we won´t have the usual backlash we often see with blizzards and temperature dropping down to -15 C in the end of April.
Take care!
Hans
Monday, February 12, 2007
It is done!
I purchased four of the most expensive tickets to The Who concert in Hartwall Arena, Helsinki the 9:th of July 2007. Row 2 in the center, seats 1 - 4. The Who is a must to see and I want to share that experience with my whole family because it was the band that had the greatest influence on me in the mid sixties. The Stones, the Kinks, the Small Faces, they came and went and they were good but I recurrently returned to The Who. And still am. I have been a frequent visitor at www.peteownshend.co.uk since I found it some 10 years ago so I am pretty updated regarding what they are up to.. :) I hpe to meet some of you in Helsinki in July!
Hans
Hans
Friday, February 09, 2007
The Who is coming to Finland!
I nearly fell of my chair this morning when I read about it in the local news paper!
Or if I use a quote from Rachel Fuller: "I nearly peed in my pants.." that´s the level of my ashtonishment with the fact.
Well, Hartwall Arena, here I come! I hope that In The Attic will be there too.
Or if I use a quote from Rachel Fuller: "I nearly peed in my pants.." that´s the level of my ashtonishment with the fact.
Well, Hartwall Arena, here I come! I hope that In The Attic will be there too.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
I did a Pete yesterday...
And it was very painful. As you Who- and Pete Townshend fans know, Pete had a bike accident in 1991, smashing his wrist and yesterday I had a bike accident on the icy and slippery Finnish roads and smashed my left elbow into smithereens. :(
Coincindentally I also smashed my left wrist in Novemder 1991 falling out of a tree from where I was removing some remainings of a long-wire antenna I´ve used when I was listening to Radio London and Radio Caroline in the 60:ies.
Typing with one hand is very slow and confusing.
Hans
Coincindentally I also smashed my left wrist in Novemder 1991 falling out of a tree from where I was removing some remainings of a long-wire antenna I´ve used when I was listening to Radio London and Radio Caroline in the 60:ies.
Typing with one hand is very slow and confusing.
Hans
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