KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

portable

Awwww. How cute!

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Yesterday, I got this press release from James Hannibal, KH2SR, the proprietor of QuirkyQRP:

Finger Morse Straight Key

For portable CW opera-ng

Finger Morse is a fun, inexpensive, & ultra lightweight Morse code straight key that allows you to easily stay on the air making CW QSO’s with your QRP rig while you are walking.

It’s a great option for staying on the air while hiking to/from your next SOTA/POTA activation location or while on a backpacking trip.

It’s also nice to have as an inexpensive backup straight key incase you forget your main straight key/paddle, or if your main key/paddle happens to fail while you are in the backcountry.

No more being stuck sitting down while operating. Go for a walk, get some exercise and keep making CW contacts!

With the Finger Morse CW Straight Key by QuirkyQRP Ham Radios, you can finally try operating QRP pedestrian portable.

I have no idea how well this thing actually works, but it’s cute, isn’t it? I also like the company name: QuirkyQRP. :)

If you make or sell ham radio products, please be sure to send me a press release when you introduce new products. If you include a sample, I’ll even do a more in-depth review.

Portable antenna book is typical ARRL publication

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The ARRL’s Portable Antenna Classics is a typical ARRL antenna book. That is to say, it’s a collection of QST articles, the oldest dating back to the September 1980 (“The Shooter – A 3-Band Portable Antenna” by E.W. “Twisty” Ljonquist, W4WDK/W1CQS). Fortunately, antenna physics hasn’t changed in the last 35 years, so this article is as relevant today as it was in 1980.

Overall, this book reprints 25 HF antenna articles, six VHF and UHF antenna articles, and seven articles on masts and supports. A lot of these articles I remember reading when they were first published, such as “The NJQRP Squirt” by Joe Everhart, N2CX. I was interested in this antenna because it’s only 68-ft. long, but can be tuned on 80m. I never did get around to building this antenna, and now have a homebrew version of the 80m “Cobra” antenna hanging in my backyard.

Another example is “The Miracle Whip: A Multiband QRP Antenna” by Robert Victor, VA2ERY (July 2001). This antenna was actually commercially available for a while, and the URL for the company’s website—www.miracleantenna.com—appears in the article. Unfortunately, the company seems to be out of business. Going to that URL brings up a site that reviews sewing machines.

Some of the antennas are what you might call “novelty” antennas. These include the articles “Build an HF Walking Stick Antenna” by Robert Capon, WA3ULH (December 1994) and “A Paint Pole Antenna” by Anthony J. Salvate, N1TKS (August 1995). While you might get these antennas to work, I’m not sure how useful they’d be for serious portable operations.

In general, though, the articles in the book are pretty good, and even if you don’t make the antennas exactly as described, they will certainly give you some ideas for your own design. For example, “A Simple HF-Portable Antenna” by Phil Salas, AD5X shows how to build a simple, lightweight dipole that can be configured for use on multiple bands. Another article that I liked was “A Portable 2-Element Triband Yagi” by Markus Hansen, VE7CA (November 2001).

Another idea that this book gave me was to publish my own book on portable antennas. One of the shortcomings of this book, imho, is that it doesn’t mention any commercial products at all. Nor does it discuss antennas that can be used with the internal antenna tuners now commonly found in QRP rigs. So, look for KB6NU Goes Portable or KB6NU on Portable Antennas sometime in the future.

Operating from “Up North”

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When people in southern Michigan want to get away from it all, they go “up north,” which means the northern part of Michigan’s lower penninsula and Michigan’s upper penninsula. For at least the last ten years, my family—including my brothers and sisters (but mostly my sisters, and their kids and now grandkids)—have been renting a set of cottages on Elk Lake.

For the last three years, I’ve been taking my Elecraft KX-1 and operating from up there. I have a really idyllic operating location. I operate from the screened-in porch of one of the cottages. From my operating position, I have a great view of the lake.

This year was the best in terms of amateur radio, anyway. The first year, I used the 28-ft. random wire vertical antenna described in the Elecraft manual. It loaded up just fine, but I had trouble making contacts with it.

Last year, I used the portable dipole I made with 30-ga. wire and twisted pair feedline. This antenna definitely works better than the 28-ft. vertical, but I still had trouble making solid contacts.

This year, I used the same antenna, and had much better success. For example, where last year, my contacts were mostly short ones with mediocre signal reports, this year’s contacts were much longer with generally good to very good signal reports. For example, the very first contact I made was with W3ANX. He gave me a 579 signal report, and we talked for 40 minutes. One of my other contacts lasted for 30 minutes.

I attribute this mostly to band conditions. When band conditions are poor, low-power signals tend to drift in and out of the noise, making copy rough. When band conditions are good, low-power signals stay above the noise and are easier to copy. When your signal is easier to copy, station you’re in contact with stay with you longer, and longer contacts, in my opinion, are more enjoyable, than short ones.

Another thing I noticed is that I heard stations that I never hear from home. Part of it is the difference in location, but it’s probably also due to the difference in antenna pattern. What I take away from this is that it’s probably a good idea to have more than one antenna per band, if you can swing it. Having two or more antennas with different antenna patters will allow you to talk to more people than if have just one antenna.

I also learned that my iPod earbuds have more output than the earbuds I had been using. While lately I’ve been using an amplified speaker on the output of my KX-1, when I pulled it out of my toolbox, I found that I’d forgotten to turn it off last time and the battery was dead. Not having a ready source of 9-V batteries, I plugged in the earbuds. Then, just for kicks, I decided to try my iPod earbuds. They were noticeably louder, so I used them exclusively.

All in all, it was a great vacation. The scenery was beautiful, weather was mostly nice, the food was great (we take turns preparing dinner), and the company fantastic. Add in the good band conditions, and you have an almost ideal vacation.