KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

QRP

Dayton 2006: Day One

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Dayton has lost some of its luster over the years, but it’s still the coolest gathering of amateur radio operators in the world. For the second year in a row, I took some time off so I could be down in Dayton for more than just a single day.

My Dayton started at 5 am Thursday morning, when I pulled out of my driveway, hoping to get to the Fairborn Holiday Inn by 8:30 am. Why so early? Well, that’s when QRP Amateur Radio Club International‘s Four Days in May (FDIM) started.

I drove it in on swell foop and actually made it just in time. I pulled into the parking lot right about 8:15 am, and by the time I got out of my truck, stretched, and got myself registered, it was 8:30 am. How’s that for timing!

The sessions were all really great, and I came away with a lot of good advice and great ideas:

  1. Antennas – the Practical Aspects, Bill Kelsey, N8ET. “Don’t think too much. Throw up some wire and make contacts.”
  2. High-Density Design and the KX-1 Transceiver, Wayne Burdick, N6KR. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” (I’m referring, of course to how they shoehorned yet another band into the extremely small box of the KX-1.)
  3. A Regenerative Receiver Primer: A Little History and Some Practical Ideas, George Dobbs G3RJV. “Non multa sed multum” or “Not quantity, but quality.” This was a wonderful talk on how to build regen receivers, and George included a bunch of circuits to play with. I’m going to get my middle school kids to try some of these.
  4. K7QO’s Mark IV Transceiver, Chuck Adams K7QO. I don’t think I came away with any specific idea from this particular session, but certainly a lot of little ones as they relate to homebrewing your own radios.
  5. Making Antennas With Fiberglass Poles, Gary Breed K9AY. “It’s more fun to use these things to make antennas than it is to go fishing with them.”

I’m probably the most geeked about building the regenerative receivers. The circuits are relatively simple, and George showed one project that bore a striking resemblance to the no-solder code practice oscillator that I had the kids build. You first print out the circuit diagram and then paste it to a chunk of wood. Then, you pound in some copper finishing nails at all the circuit nodes and solder the components to them. No circuit board required!

In fact, George advised against doing a printed circuit board for these projects. I can see why. Doing so would add a level of complexity that isn’t really needed. These circuits are simple enough that using copper nails–or perhaps terminal strips–is the way to go. These construction techniques would certainly make experimentation easier.

That evening, there was a “Meet the Authors” gathering, and I got to meet both G3RJV and K9AY. Both are great guys, and it was a very enjoyable time. George was selling a CD with all of the circuits he described in his talk, and I bought that from him for $10. In fact, I was advised to buy one of everything that George was selling, but I only bit on the one item.

In the hallway outside the meeting room, Lloyd K3ESE had set up a small station consisting of his KX-1 and a Buddipole (or some such antenna) just outside the door. They were using the callsign K6JSS, the QRP ARCI club call. For some reason, just as I approached, Lloyd had to step away.

Since none of the other guys were familiar with operating a KX-1, I got pressed into service, and over the next half hour or so, I made about ten contacts with other QRPers operating their QRP rigs in the Holiday Inn and adjoining hotels. That was a blast.

Perhaps the coolest QSO was with AB1AV, who I found out afterwards, was standing right behind me. He was operating a little rig in an Altoid tin feeding a dummy load! We had to quit when he reported that the dummy load was getting too hot to hold on to. :)

Well, that’s all for Day One. Stay tuned for my report on Day Two at Dayton 2006.

QRP on TV

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From Jay, AJ4AY via the Flying Pigs QRP Club e-mail list:

As I was walking throught the den earlir this afternoon, I though I herd a K in morse code on the TV. Nahhh! Phyllis is watching her DIY shows. They don’t do Morse code. In the kitchen, I heard some more Morse code on the TV so I looked again. Sure enough, there was a gentleman on the DIY channel talking about QRP and building radios in Altoids tins. Not only that, he had a tuna tin II. I never saw or heard the man’s name or call. It was one of those 5 minute shorts. After a little searching, I found this page on the DIY website.

Our own Mike Boatright KO4WX fp#298 was on the tube and showing off his goodies. A great big oink-oink for him.

How to operate Pedestrian Mobile with the KX1

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As those of you who read this blog know, I’m the proud builder/owner of an Elecraft KX-1. Below, courtesy of Paul, W0RW, is a message he posted to the Elecraft mailing list. I can’t wait until it gets warm enough outside to try this….Dan

The KX1 is a great portable rig but it is also a great pedestrian mobile rig. You can go to new heights, evade local power line noises and find hot spots near flag poles and in baseball diamonds.

Step by step (peripatetically speaking), here is how to do it…

  1. Get your KX1 on the air from your base and learn how to use all the controls. You are going to have to increase the LED display brightness as soon as you get out in the sun. (Hit MENU, rotate Dial to ‘Led’, Push MENU for 1 second, Push RIT to raise LED brightness to 6). It is a good idea to cary a small instruction cheat sheet with you. If you see P=0 on your display you won’t be having many QSO’s.
  2. Get a banana jack to BNC converter for the KX1 antenna connector.
  3. Get a two-ft. paint stirring stick (free from Home Depot).
  4. Attach an 8 foot whip (or longer) to the stick with duct tape.
  5. Attach a 3 foot piece of insulated wire from the base of the whip to the KX1 hot banana jack (do not use ANY coax for this run).
  6. Attach a 13 foot piece of insulated wire to the black terminal of the banana jack (this is your counterpoise or drag wire).
  7. Put the paint stir stick in your back pocket (low ‘Z’ part of your body). Attach the whip to the upper part of your body by using a short strap around your neck and arm to hold the upper part of the whip.(You could use one of your old shoulder holsters). I am in cold country so i almost always just use my North Face down vest. The whip goes through the arm hole in the vest and rests in my rear pocket.
  8. Turn the KX1 on, install ear buds, walk 15 feet into a clear space (letting the drag wire layout behind you). Set the KX1 for 14060+/- (or your favorite tune up frequency). Push the TUNE buttons. You should get 3W and <1.5 SWR. Start walking. Call CQ xxx/pm. I have “CQ CQ de w0rw/pm” in memory so i don’t have to do anything but hit ‘PLY 1’.
  9. You can lessen your antenna directivity loss by walking away from the station you are communicating with. The single drag wire makes the whip directional. You can get a 3 dB boost from your local flag pole or street light by using it as a reflector.
  10. Operation on 30 and 40 meters will be greatly aided by adding a top hat to the whip. i use 4 of those little underground utilities flag markers (also available at Home D.) You can see my top hat in the ‘photos’ section of the HFPack2 Yahoo Group in the folder ‘w0rw’. Watch out for those top hat eating trees.
  11. I hold the KX1 in my left hand with my left thumb near the paddle and send with my right hand. i added an additional rubber foot under the “L” in Elecraft for a finger grip.
  12. I carry an external battery pack in my pocket for long hikes.
  13. I have a small log that attaches to my cuff, like an NFL Quarterback.
  14. Make sure the 2 bottom case screws are tight and keep the paddle thumb screw tight. If they get loose, add lock washers. You cannot find these screws if you drop them in six inches of snow.

Hope to see you on the trail.

You can see a picture of my KX1/pm on the Adventure Radio Society web site at http://www.arsqrp.com/ars/pages/back_issues/2005_text/1205_text/W0RW.html or read about my KX1 pedestrian mobile contact with Latvia at http://www.eham.net/articles/9262.

Jim, W0EB, replied:

You forgot to mention to watch out for following pedestrians. They tend to step on the drag wire and this gets interesting when it comes up short. Tends to yank the KX1 out of your hand, or in my case, bust the BNC to binding post adapter off. Also taught me to buy a Pomona BNC to BP adapter. They are much more rugged than the cheap ones.

Finally, W0RW sent me this list of recently published pedestrian mobile articles he’s written:

January BBQ Hot off the Fire

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Brian Murrey, KB9BVN, the esteemed editor of the Flying Pigs reports:

I have just uploaded the latest and greatest issue of the BBQ (Bacon Bits Quarterly).

Thanks to everyone that made a contribution this quarter! All in all it’s a pretty good issue if I do say so myself. I am now accepting articles for the April BBQ. Don’t be shy, we print almost
anything.

In this issue:

  • Build your own Z-Match
  • Build your own Heavy Duty Junk Box Dipole Thingie
  • Build your own Flying Pig Dip
  • Build your own VNA
  • QRPing from Pike’s Peak
  • Excellent QRPp QSL Cards
  • Tribute to Michael Hopkins FP-820 AB5L SK
  • And more!

This Weekend in Ham Radio at KB6NU

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I got an early start to the weekend on Saturday, leaving the house at 6 am to get to the Holland Hamfest (about 2.5 hours away). At the hamfest, I gave my ABCs of Strong Clubs seminar. The seminar was sparsely attended, but the quality of the participants more than made up for the quantity. We had a nice discussion of clubs and what seems to work and what doesn’t.

At the hamfest, I purchased some stuff to help me finally build the Icom serial interface kit that I bought. It’s all surface mount parts, so I figured I better get some tweezers to help me handle the parts.

Fortunately, there was a vendor there who had a selection of them for three bucks a pop. Since I was kind of stumped as to which to buy, I asked the guy selling them for some advice. He said that I should probably get one with points that are not too fine, as the points tend to deform easily. With that in mind, I chose an appropriate set. I also picked up a couple of fine point Weller soldering iron tips and a new pad for my iron.

One of the exhibitors there was FISTS, the CW Preservation Society. They were giving out CDs with the K7QO CW Course. I picked up four of them to pass out here in Ann Arbor. They were a good deal too–they were free.

On Sunday, I had a family event to attend, but even so, I managed to make 40 contacts (in about two and a half hours) in the QRP ARCI Fall QSO Party. For a while there, I was even able to camp out on 7.042 and run stations. Then, the sun set, the band changed, and QSOs were as rare as hen’s teeth.

This was really a fun event; there was a lot more activity than I thought there would be. Almost makes me want to send in my dues to join.

Two of my contacts were notable:

  • 8P6BX. This was my first DX contact with the KX-1.
  • KE4RUN. Yet another to add to my collection of QSLs from stations whose callsigns spell words.

Cracklin’ Good

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I’ve just joined the Flying Pigs QRP Club, so I guess that makes me a piglet. I have been having fun working the Run for the Bacon sprints and participating on the FP mailling list, but I hadn’t taken the time to check out Bacon Bits Quarterly (BBQ), the FP newsletter. Boy, was I missing out.

I finally got around to reading a BBQ yesterday when I got a notice from Brian KB9BVN, one of the co-editors, that the the latest issue was now online.

What a very cool publication! This latest issue contains the following articles:

  • Designing and Building a 6-Meter Field Day Quad
  • Ham Shack Logging with XMLog
  • A Pocket Sized Tuner for End Fed Wires
  • MFB’s Antenna Project (Making do, with bad geography)
  • An Introduction To QRP on a Budget
  • A FROSTY KOOL KEY
  • SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR THE HOMEBREWER, PART 2 – Let’s BUILD Something
  • QRP TTF 2005 – A success story from the Florida Keys
  • Fun with Radio Antennas from Military Field Antenna
    Handbooks
  • PIG-TIONARY

And this is just one issue. There are 40 more issues available via the FP website. As the FPs say, “Oink, oink.”

Filed Under: QRP

Oink Oink

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You know, there is something quite appealling about operating QRP. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but I think it has something to do with being able to make contacts with something that runs off batteries and that you can hold in the palm of your hand. I’m not ready to sell my IC-746PRO, but the KX-1 is really a lot of fun to operate.

This weekend, I operated it in two different contests: QRP Afield and the Flying Pigs’ Run for the Bacon. As I reported earlier, I really was afield on Saturday, operating in both the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Awareness Day / Emergency Power Operating Event and the QRP Afield contest. I was sharing an antenna with Bruce KD8APB and his IC-706, so I was just operating casually, but even so, made eight contacts.

I worked the Flying Pigs’ monthly Run for the Bacon sprint last night. This is a two-hour sprint, and was a lot of fun. I made nine contacts in about an hour, including seven different states, for a score of 189.

The Run for the Bacon is a bit unusual in that scoring is really on the honor system. There’s a web page on which you enter your score–and a comment if you like– and a web-based program scores your entry and posts it immediately to the website. That’s kind of cool.

This being my first RTFB, there was one thing that kind of puzzled me at first. After a QSO, guys would sign “OO.” Now, an OO to me is an Official Observer, but that just didn’t seem right in this context. It finally occurred to me that “OO” is the Flying Pig abbreviation for “Oink Oink.” :)

An Interesting Confluence of Events

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This Saturday, Septemeber 17, 2005, there are three events taking place:

I’m planning work all three events with a single operation: my KX1 running off a battery from a picnic table in Gallup Park.

Amateur Radio Awareness Day is an annual event, and this year they’ve decided to shoehorn in the Emergency Power Operating Event. For the first part, I plan on having brochures near me on the picnic table. And, of course, I plan on evangelizing anyone that happens to show even the slightest interest. My emergency power will be my 12V battery pack.

The QRP Afield Contest is a contest run by the New England QRP Club. The contest officially runs from 11:00 am to 11:00 pm, but only your highest-scoring six-hour period counts. Another interesting thing about this contest is the way they score the contacts. You get:

  • 1 point per contact if you are QRO (above 5 watts) and operating from a permanent location,
  • 2 points per contact if you are QRO and operating from a field or mobile location,
  • 5 points per contact if you are QRP (5 watts or less) and operating from a permanent location, and
  • 10 points per contact if you are QRP and operating from a field or mobile location.

So, operating portable with four watts should put me in good stead if band conditions are good.

Anyway, I’m going to put this out on our club net tonight and send out a message to our club maililng list and see if I can get some other people to join me.

A New Battery Pack for the KX1

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Vector Pocket PowerSome time ago, on the Elecraft mailing list, someone mentioned that an outdoor supply house was selling lead-acid battery packs for $15 or $20. That sounded like a decent deal, so I bought one, and as soon as it arrived, stuck it on the shelf.

I didn’t have time to futz around with it during the maiden voyage of my KX1, but yesterday, I charged it up. Today, I built the cable to hook it up to my KX1 (ligher plug to small DC connector).

Fully charged, the output of the battery pack, which consists of two 6V, 4.5 amp/hr batteries connected in series is about 12.5 V. With this supply, the KX1 puts out 4.0W. Very cool.

The disadvantage, of course, is that the battery pack is much bulkier than the internal batteries, but it’s a tradeoff. If you don’t plan on taking the KX1 backpacking, it’s a tradeoff you might want to make, too.

In surfing around for information on the battery pack, I notice that the manufacturer is selling reconditioned units for $18. That’s a pretty good deal considering that it comes with all the accessories, including a wall charger, a car charger, and a carrying case and shoulder strap.