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We’re getting ready to hit the road for vacation.  It’s been a whole year since KD2CHE and I tied the knot on a cliff overlooking Lake Tahoe.

Xiegu X1M

We’re not going to be heading back there yet, but wandering through New York’s North Country a bit.  I’m expecting to get a little portable QRP operation in as we poke around up there.  In anticipation of the trip, I picked up a spare power supply from my brother a few weeks ago to use with the Xiegu X1M, and any other 12V items I have or may acquire when I’m not near my main setup.  I decided to assemble the “motel room” version of my QRP setup here to see how it works.  I have the Xiegu, my Emtech ZM2 tuner, mic, the spare PS, and a small amplified speaker sitting here on the couch.  A string of 2 alligator leads is running from the ZM2 to the feed-thru from my random wire up near the window.  Everything powered up, and tuned up, so I decided to answer a couple of calls on 15M.

I made USB contacts with UT7UJ in Kiev, and S51ZZ in Slovenia from my test station on the couch here in Long Island.  Not bad for 5 Watts.  This little rig is full of surprises.  I also just found out from Ed at Import Communications through a post to the Xiegu X1M Yahoo group that he is going to be offering upgrade kits for the earlier X1M to upgrade the front panel and display to the newer version, as well as a strong possibility of a firmware upgrade that will cure many of this rig’s little issues.  The firmware upgrade has already been released for the newer model.

Now, time to pack it back up, and hit the road.  73s de Neil, W2NDG