K8LD Qrp Radio

The continuing saga of building a vertical...

2011-04-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems like MFJ is not currently making the Hy-Gain antenna I was looking at so I went ahead and bought a used Hustler 4BTV vertical with the DX Engineering 17 meter add-on. And the next thing I did was to buy some 14g copper wire--two 500 foot rolls. I have put down about 30 radials each at 34 ft. and will be putting down about a half-dozen more. The radials are directly on the ground and are pinned down with three-inch staples. This is to prevent any accidental uprooting of the wires when I am mowing the yard. I have tested this antenna and it is playing well! The pictures show the antenna, the radial plate I fashioned for the radials and the DX Engineering 17 meter trap. The antenna is a small package and stands at about 19 feet. I am hoping it will out-perform my inverted V which is only up about 30 feet. I am betting that it will work some serious DX, especially on 10, 15, and the 20 meter bands. It also plays well on 40 and I will be testing it on 17 meters in the near future.

Building a Vertical Antenna

2011-04-17T14:47:00.000-07:00

Adding another antenna will be my next project. I will be putting up a Hy-Gain AV-12AVQ vertical antenna which works the 10, 15, and 20 meter bands. Pictured are some of the components I am gathering together so that when a few warm days appear I'll be ready to do some preparatory yard work for the antenna. Pictured are a base plate that I made along with a bunch of staples to hold the radials to the ground.The staples for holding down the radials were fashioned from insulation supports. These are a heavy gauge wire just about the same diameter as a coat hanger. Also in this photo are two 500 ft. rolls of 20 gauge wire for the radials. I plan to lay the radials on the ground and secure them with the staples. They will lay flat and after a season of mowing they will pretty much disappear into the ground. In addition I will have to bury the transmission line so that it doesn't lay across or come in contact with any of the radials.The antenna I have chosen is only about 13 feet tall and presents a small profile. I am looking forward to warmer weather and working DX on the higher frequencies. Pictured below is a one-to-one choke balun which will prevent any RF from going back down the transmission line and into the shack. This is made by wrapping about 20 feet of RG8-U coax around a four-inch diameter pvc pipe. The choke will be attached directly to the antenna and tied into the transmission line. On the other end of the transmission line in the shack will be another balun like this. And the beat goes on...

PSK31

2011-04-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

After an absence of about three years from this mode I am back. The top picture is of my equipment for running digital modes. I had sold my PSK interface, the Navigator, by US Interface because most of the PSK31 contacts I had were from either European or South American hams who wanted nothing more than to swap station information and then go on to the next call. Myself, I like rag-chewing where you can find out about what makes the operator and NOT the equipment tick. Well, I bit the bullet and got an inexpensive interface, the Signalink USB pictured above:
I've made several contacts now, mostly on 40 meters and mostly with hams who want to talk about themselves in addition to what they are running for a station. I just had a most interesting QSO with AB3MG, Derek in Maryland. I was running at about 20 watts power which is about 15 watts more than I am accustomed to running when working in the CW mode. He was running 1 watt of power with his Softrock SDR radio. And the beauty of it was he was 100% copy. PSK31 is becoming a more attractive mode for me!

Fix it or forget it!

2011-03-09T14:08:00.000-08:00

I got a phone call a few days ago from Jim Weaver, K8JE, about my response to a questionnaire that the ARRL sends out to those who have let their membership lapse. Evidently my answers to the questions merited a call from a concerned ARRL member. Well, I pretty much told him that for me the ARRL was nothing more than a good ol' boys club ensconced in their spiffy headquarters in Newington, Connecticut playing with all of the latest multi-thousand dollar rigs. As for their publication, QST, putting aside the few articles about radio events and the construction of some pretty basic equipment it merely serves as a monthly catalog of amateur equipment. If I want a catalog I'll go online and download one for free. And while we're at it, their logging program, "Logbook of the World" is a first class joke. It doesn't even support the Contestia mode. As the old Russian proverb states, 'the fish rots from the head." As far as I am concerned the ARRL national headquarters needs a good housecleaning. One of their problems is that they are in a state of denial about the present state of amateur radio. For a great look at this state of affairs take a look at the blog at http://k4ac.net
The first thing that needs to be done is give the boot to K1ZZ and his minions. More about this in later posts...

Solar flare

2011-02-18T14:56:00.000-08:00

All the hype about the solar flare a few days ago was a bit over-inflated. Nasa said "The particle cloud produced by the Valentine's Day event appears to be rather weak and is not expected to produce any strong effects at Earth other than perhaps some beautiful aurora in the high northern and southern latitudes on Feb. 17." Actually, today there was a good opening on 20 meters. I worked OE5FIN, Fritz from Austria and SQ2GXO, Marek from Poland. Both contacts were accomplished with 5 watts! My 5 watts got me a 559 RST from both hams. Not bad for a puny signal from my Elecraft K2.

2011-02-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

The K-2 has arrived! It sits atop my Icom 735. K-2 umber 6255 with all sorts of goodies: internal antenna tuner, RS232 serial port, and many more. Basically every extra but the 100 watt amp and the 60meter option. I built K-2 #250 the first year the kit became available. I had forgotten what a great radio it is. I am presently using a Tentec 701 hand mike but have an Elecraft/Heil MH2 on order. The rig requires an electret type microphone to drive it. The Tentec is doing an adequate job. While I really like the Elecraft K-1 you have to take off the top and insert various band modules to other bands. The beauty of the K-2 is that it has all of the frequencies you want on one board.

2011-02-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

This how my Qrp station is configured now. However, things are about to change. Within a week I will be adding an Elecraft K2. It will have all of the bells and whistles except the amplifier board and the 60 meter module. Its place will be next to the K1 where the clock is presently. The rig to the right, while not a Qrp rig, is an Icom 735 which I have cranked down to run at about 10 watts. On the extreme left is the ARK 40 which I picked up recently.

Some random thoughts on Qrp

2011-01-30T17:00:00.000-08:00

Nothing drives home the thought quicker than the importance of operating with a resonant antenna when operating at Qrp power levels—5 watts or less. Those hams that use a linear amplifier into an inefficient, non-resonant antenna are wasting their time and dollars. Give me a resonant zepp antenna over some of these multi-band verticals or G5RV antennas. Using a resonant dipole keeps it simple AND efficient.

Shakespeare would have been a great Qrper. In Hamlet when Polonius says “…brevity is the soul of wit…” it pretty much captures the spirit of sending good CW. Abbreviations like “sed” for the word said, “cuz” for the word because are just two of many abbreviations that are convenient in the use of CW as a medium for communication. Again, this is the concept of doing more with less. You could argue that avid CW proponents were the first at coming up with shortcuts that are now popularly employed in text messaging.

Operating Qrp by its nature encourages experimentation and innovation. A great example of this is the NUE-PSK Qrp digital modem. Check it out at: http://www.nue-psk.com/
And look at other Qrp kit sites like http://www.qrpkits.com/ or check out the Small Wonder Labs site: http://www.smallwonderlabs.com/ These are folks that have developed well-designed transceivers for the Qrp market. And of course we shouldn’t forget Elecraft at http://www.elecraft.com/ a company that has arguably produced one of the all-time great Qrp rigs, the K-2.

And finally, there is camaraderie in Qrp devotees that stands out among the diverse amateur radio community. Rather than having the clubby, superiority complex that some of the other radio groups evince, Qrpers seem to go out of the way to welcome new-found low-power enthusiasts.

Code Readers

2011-01-30T04:52:00.000-08:00

Code readers—any useful purpose? Well, if you are receiving keyboard-sent code then there isn’t a problem. What you see is REALLY what you get. However interpreting sent code is all about CONTEXT. You listen to a typical QSO and the first thing you look for is the call sign, followed by (usually) a signal report using three numbers, most of the time being 599 or 5NN, followed by the name of the operator, and finally the QTH or location. So, even if the code is not sent very well, the letters are not evenly spaced or worse yet there is no space between the dits and dahs you know the CONTEXT within which the information is sent and you intuitively interpret what is being sent. A CW reader doesn’t think. The way it is programmed if the code isn’t sent within its programmed parameters you will see a question mark or a bracket instead of the character sent.

For me, personally, the only useful purpose of a CW reader is to see how properly or how poorly a ham is sending CW. If it helps you to send or receive code more properly, so much the better. However there is no substitute for just listening to and sending a lot of CW. It’s like learning a foreign language: you just have to speak it a lot, be willing to make mistakes and not worry about how you sound. You will eventually become proficient and you will even receive compliments from those of the ham community who appreciate good CW.

2011-01-27T05:33:00.000-08:00

Just picked up this tuner. Ordinarily I use auto-tuners such as the LDG line. I think they make very good products but in this case I needed a small non-auto tuner for use with my ARK-40. The ARK-40 does not have an adjustment to set the RF at anything less than its 7-watt output and matching an auto tuner with an MFJ SWR analyzer isn't going to happen with its 15 milliwatt input. As a result I picked up the MFJ 971. I usually avoid MFJ products like the plague. They have had over the years many quality control issues. I took the tuner lid off to set the jumpers for Qrp operation and noted that everything was as it should be with no cold solder joints etc. It turns out that the tuner works quite well with ARK-40. In fact I just had an 8 AM qso with a Philadelphia ham, Jerry, whose call sign is one for the books: N3HAM!
73 for now, Mark.

The ARK-40

2011-01-23T05:51:00.001-08:00

Just received my latest Qrp rig, the ARK-40 by S & S Engineering: it's a rugged little rig with a strong extruded aluminum case. For tuning you use a series of four thumb-wheel switches. If you don't have small, limber digits it can be a bit cumbersome tuning around the band. Anyway, this thing puts out about 7 watts and employs a frequency synthesizer module for frequency stability. Just another tool in my Qrp tool box.

Starting up again after all these years.

2011-01-22T07:29:00.000-08:00

Anticipating the arrival of a classic radio by Fedex today. It's the S & S Engineering ARK 40. I built one several years ago and regretted selling it. Time to get back into the adventure of low power radio. I will add a photo of it to my web page which is at http://home.roadrunner.com/~mpaley/K8LD_Qrp.html.