AmateurRadio.com

has been very good the past few days.  I have worked a lot of European stations the past couple of days, and I have taken to listening for Special Event stations for the European Football Championships.

These stations are on the air from June 1st to July 5th.  So far, the few that I have contacted, from the Ukraine and Poland have been superb ops with great ears!  If you want to find out more about this program, you can visit:

http://sq2rh.idsl.pl/efc/index_en.php

The KX3 continues to impress.  Except for not being able to connect two antennas, like I can on my K2, it has all the features my K2 has (plus many more) in a much smaller footprint.  And the smaller footprint is not annoying, and I am a fudge fingered kind of guy.  The buttons have multi-functions, but not so many levels that it is frustrating.

I like having 6 Meter capability, which I have never had before.  I like the feature where the KX3 will auto zero beat the desired CW signal that you want to work.  The APF feature – Audio Peak Frequency really helps dig out the weak signals.  I can easily hear stations that cannot hear me, so I really, really have to get used to the fact that just because I can hear them, they might not be able to hear me, with me at only 5 Watts.

There’s more to be discovered, I am sure. I still have to come into the 21st century and hook up the radio to my computer and at least give computer control a try.  Up till now, I have been a “twirl the dial” kind if guy.  I don’t anticipate that changing really; but I’d like to give it a try, anyway.

One thing I am not too thrilled with is the weighting of the CW.  To my ear, the dits and dahs sound a little truncated, even with the weighting turned to the max.  Several folks have also mentioned this on the KX3 reflector and Wayne from Elecraft has agreed.  Once he gets back from a well deserved vacation later this month, he is going to incorporate a fix in an upcoming firmware update.

After watching W0EA’s video about the Lowepro Traveler 150, I went out to Wal-Mart and picked one up at a great price.  I am going to see how everything fits in, later this week, to start getting ready for our Lake George summer sojourn.  Maybe I’ll do my own video and post it here.

That’s it for now – going to head on down the shack and see who I might be able to work.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

3 Responses to “17 Meters”