I built a SOTA tuner kit over the weekend. This little tuner is very small and matches end fed half wave (EFHW) antennas from 40m through 15m. I had a chance to test it out today while taking our new grill for it's maiden voyage with a nice cut of beef!
Setup on a patio table in the backyard was my 20m DSW-II at about 4 watts, eBay Li-Ion 9800 mAh battery pack, and Palm mini paddles. The antenna was 33' of teflon hookup wire deployed as an inverted-L with about 18' vertical and the rest horizontal supported by two 20' fishing poles. Attached to the he SOTA tuner was a 17' counterpoise.
The tuner didn't have any trouble finding a match. The adjustment was a little touchy but the LED went almost completely out. I plan to add another foot of wire which should help make the match not so touchy.
As the grill did it's thing I tune around 14.060 and hear quite a few signals. Good sign for a new tuner and antenna! I hear F6ECS/qrp calling cq and give him a call. Jack answers and gives me a 559 with qsb signal report. I return a 549. I had to cut it short for dinner but consider the first test of the SOTA tuner with EFHW a success!
Low Power Amateur Radio - QRP!
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Patience...
No, not a Guns N Roses song! What is required for what seems like an eternity until a brown box arrives from Elecraft arrives. The first KX3 was shipped about a week ago. Then on Friday reports of more factory built radios will ship next week. Hopefully that means kits are not too far away!
A spreadsheet here has been established to track order times and shipping information. I'm #9 in line for a kit as of this post. Will the assembly manual be finished next week? I bet by Friday we will know!
A spreadsheet here has been established to track order times and shipping information. I'm #9 in line for a kit as of this post. Will the assembly manual be finished next week? I bet by Friday we will know!
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Holiday Spirits Homebrew Sprint
Sponsored by QRP ARCI the Holiday Spirits Homebrew Sprint is a 4 hour contest encouraging contact with amateur radio operators using equipment assembled from kits or from scratch!
Summary:
Total member QSO's: 17 x5 = 85
Total non-member QSO's: 3 x 2 = 6
Total SPC's: 16
1456 qso points x 7 = 10,192
5,000 bonus for HB transceiver
5,000 for portable with battery & temp antenna
20,192 total points
Summary:
Total member QSO's: 17 x5 = 85
Total non-member QSO's: 3 x 2 = 6
Total SPC's: 16
1456 qso points x 7 = 10,192
5,000 bonus for HB transceiver
5,000 for portable with battery & temp antenna
20,192 total points
Operating position in our back yard.
DSW-II 20m radio running 4 watts powered by a 12v gell cell battery.
My antenna was a "Gusher" by N2CX supported by 20' telescoping fishing poles. This antenna system is very easy to deploy in the field.
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