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CB3RRR > PACKET 05.02.21 11:04l 240 Lines 9924 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 1822-CB3RRR
Read: GAST DQB789
Subj: New Vector 4000 antenna & my Early Years
Path: DBO595<DBX320<DBX233<VB1BOX<NL3VKL<CB3RRR
Sent: 210205/0914Z @:CB3RRR.NBW.NLD.EU #:1822 [Rijen] $:1822-CB3RRR
From: CB3RRR@CB3RRR.NBW.NLD.EU
To : PACKET@WW
To view this post with all of the images, you can find it on the web here:
https://eindhoven.space/2021/02/04/whats-the-vector-victor/
PREFACE
This began as a journal blog entry just about a newly acquired antenna however I
have expanded it to include some backstory about the early days of my youth bef
ore I became a fully licensed radio amateur, a little bit of my life from the ag
e 14 and up.
I hope you enjoy the read, please let me know if there are things that you would
like to hear about in the future. This story is not embellished, though it does
lack some pieces I had originally intended to publish but the things I wanted t
o include with the permission of a friend unfortunately didnāÖt materialize in ti
me but will hopefully make it into another journal entry at some point in the ne
ar future.
QRM
That afternoon, my radio had been particularly noisy with the usual noisy pest-
skip from the continent. All the channels were full of it, just a splatter of co
nstant atonal screeching- the all too familiar FM carriers colliding from people
too far away to hear one another. The whine and raspy hash of mashed up signals
mixed with Italian and Spanish SSB wobble & warble breakthrough- it was useless
trying to get out anywhere ālocalā.
While clunking the channel selector on the radio I settled on some unusually str
ong signals. IāÖd heard POCSAG pagers from the local hospital before but these we
re entirely different and I could tell that some, but not all were coming in on
the skip. I really didnāÖt know what I was listening to but the tones were pleasa
nt and definitely structured in packets. A header, a data burst and a tail, each
one a little bit like the loading sounds from a cassette loaded computer game.
It just to happened that IāÖd actually been flipping through the Maplins catalogu
e while sat on the bog. Looking back now, it was probably a bit weird but for me
at the time, it was how I chose how to blow all of my saved up birthday & pocke
t money.
IāÖd seen the kit several times in the mag already but not really bothered to rea
d the item description before, but IāÖd got a spark from the idea that it might a
ctually be for this type of signal so I looked it up. A packet radio modem kit,
1200 baud speed. Hmmm.
I had a hunch. After a neatly coordinated bus and train trip to and from the Map
lins in Coventry, IāÖd bought home a pile of components and a plastic box.
After successfully constructing and then setting up the modem with the radio and
then configuring the terribly old and slow Compaq Deskpro XT PC with the Baycom
software, the first packets decoded floored me.
Readable data traveling through the air from France, the Netherlands, Germany, I
taly, Spain and probably more- incredible!
This was gonna be huge for me and my mates. Unlimited āonlineā chatting, connect
ed so no need to use the mic to talk all night- we could chatter & trollolol on
about cheese without any distractions or interruptions or sleep- today in the ag
e of smartphones this is seriously taken for granted.
By 1996 ENG01A BBS had served quite a large portion of the Midlands during its f
our or so years of operation. The radio also served as a digital packet repeater
(digipeater) during frequent radio path openings to the continent as well as a
āhotspotā for forwarding mail up to Cannock and across to Birmingham. Some of my
mates even used my system to hop to distant stations on the continent during ās
poradic-Eā-layer ionospheric propagationā it was awesome to watch in action!
The original Vector 4000 CB 10 & 11 meter antenna mounted atop a scaffolding pol
e on the custom built owl house.
Pictured above is the bulletin board, sat inside the attached covered shed perch
ed on top of a small freezer used for the owl food.
The BBS in its final form was a machine comprised of a ācustom builtā 486 DX bui
lt from 2nd hand scrap, with a Kantronics KPC-3 Terminal Node Controller (TNC) c
onnected to a āSuperstar 3900ā CB radio- operating on Channel 24. (27.235MHz). R
unning inside a shed that would easily spike at over 35Ā°C during the summer mont
hs, the gear was punished pretty severely!
Networked to the secondary machine located in my old teenage bedroom via a massi
ve run of RG-213 coaxial Ethernet cable, enabling remote access, saving uncounta
ble trips down to the owl house attached shed during freezing cold or miserably
wet British weather.
FAST MOVES
By aged 17, having passed the RAE (amateur radio exam qualification), and then d
iving head first into the internet, it was not long before an online relationshi
p quickly matured to a very real life getting-engaged situation. A sudden and sw
ift decision on my part to save money on the phone bill and weekly plane tickets
- I ultimately quit my job and moved to live in the Netherlands, with some hard
graft put in at Ericsson R&D, we finally purchased our first home together in 20
01.
EARLY BLOOMERS
CB radio had been booming & blooming in the Netherlands with digital packet radi
o networks for almost a decade. Dutch legislation had effectively enabled the di
gital adoption by deregulating the Citizens Band entirely. This lead the way for
manufacturers to legally advertise and sell packet radio equipment to quite a s
ubstantially larger market then just radio hams. A stark contrast compared with
the UK.
Later, unlicensed usage and the allowance of data over RF would be ratified and
somewhat protected in the CEPT specification with several channels/frequencies s
pecifically set aside for packet/data.
The CB and ham packet stations in the Netherlands eventually began to decline be
yond a sustainable network in the mid-2000s. For the CBers, The sunspot cycle ha
d come to an end and so too did the interest in long distance (DX). For the hams
, there were fresher new digital-mode pastures to play with now that the interne
t had most certainly won.
COVID-19
The lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a noticeable increase of acti
vity on amateur radio as people- perhaps likely perturbed by everything going on
- have come back to their radios. As a consequence the packet community has been
busy helping a number of hams set their packet stations back up again. Yay! šÄ
The idea to put up a new 10 meter band antenna began to gather momentum as perso
nal forecasts for 2021 predicted it likely to be up to another year locked indoo
rs- something we are already quite familiar with due to IlonaāÖs cancer treatment
in 2019. So I purchased a shiny new antenna from the local ham shop and it was
delivered the very next day:
2021: Brand new Vector 4000
The Vector 4000 is a J-Pole style antenna.
The radiator is the short stub on the lower left that couples to the large verti
cal in the center.
At the top of the antenna is a wire ball for hypothetically reducing corona disc
harge- high voltage RF (radio frequency) sparking into the air when running very
high power. Though I suspect this is yet another window dressing feature of CB
antennas- its probably for the looks. I operate almost exclusively within my lim
its and I have consideration for my densely packed in neighbors so itāÖll never b
e presented with more than 100 watts of power.
The circular basket? Probably extra capacitive coupling for the radiator element
, though- jury is still out on this oneā¦ Looks cool though šÄ š”
If only we could see RF with our eyesā¦ š
PERFORMANCE
Yay! šü IāÖm once again able to work 10 meter band digital modes, so you may hear
me on FT8 or WSPR from time to time.
I have checked the packet signals on 11 meters (CB)- there is a bit of ālocalā F
M packet activity from stations about 80-100km away, but it is too weak to decod
e- unfortunate!
Luckily I am able to log into those packet stations remotely via the internet ga
teway and can remotely trigger their transmitters, so far I have worked out who
I can hear: NL9UTR and NL9SHB ā Utrecht and Den Bosch respectively. Bit of a rea
ch to Rijen apparently. šæ
Due to quite high levels of neighborhood interference from power-line networking
, solar panels, crappy laptop chargers and ISM band encroachment- its a constant
S5 of noise here, even with local phase cancellation mitigation on the packet f
requency. However, during good skip conditions, signals from abroad can easily b
e 20db+ so its a bit of a mixed bag- now on to some testing āÜ”ļø
Early Signal Reports
Contacts to Africa, Australia, Brazil, Falkland Islands & a large
portion of Central Europe within one 24 hour period.
See Website for images.
CONCLUSION
So the Vector 4000 is basically as good as I remember it being back in the 90s.
It is limited in use though, as one cannot tune it to anything other than the de
signed band.
The resonance drops way off after 1.5MHz bandwidth curve so donāÖt be expecting t
his to work as a multi band antenna.
For 10 meters, the Vector 4000 is an exceptional performer, the reception across
the shortwave spectrum is also decent but not overwhelmingly as you might expec
t for a vertical.
Weather robustness ā this Vector 4000 has happily survived some close-to-gale fo
rce winds recently, metal fatigue is a factor I may yet have to contend with as
the aluminum joints arenāÖt all that large or convincingly strong. My previous Ve
ctor 4000 back in the 90s suffered from a severe clobbering from an Oak tree, br
eaking it in half, though if into for that, it probably would have lasted many m
ore years.
All of the bolts, joints and connections have been triple wrapped in āScotch 23ā
electrical self amalgamating tape which does offer some extra tensile strength
as well as waterproofing, so we will have to see!
Thanks for reading!
73
CB3RRR / PE1RRR
winter@ehvairport.com
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