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

So I missed a day – so what!

I got right back up on the horse and in the saddle via another great QSO with Jim W1PID on 80 Meters.  Jim was telling me that if the weather stays warm in New Hampshire tomorrow, that he just might experiment with  a kite antenna.  I told him to make sure to grab lots of pictures to post!

Jim has asked me how my KX3 “fever” was going.  I told him it was starting to climb and the only cure would be a package from Drs. Wayne and Eric.  I will patiently wait and endure, but the recently released eHam review isn’t making things easier.

I got the new QST “Antenna Issue” today and with interest I read the little blurb about QST going digital some time mid year 2012.  While all ARRL members will continue to get a paper version, the digital version looks to have a lot of potential. Links to videos and the like will be embedded and the plan is that the digital version will be compatible/readable from not only PCs, but tablets, phones and all sorts of mobile devices.

I guess it’s only a matter of time before paper periodicals become the exception rather than the norm.  I have downloaded and have read many books on my Kindle.  That was one of the best Christmas gifts my wife ever gave me.

Interestingly, I read an article on the InterWeb today where Apple might release the iPad3 on Leap Day. Supposedly the screen is so good, that it is being compared to the quality of a  printed page.  As much as I would like one, I can only afford one major purchase a year and the KX3 was it!

On a totally different note, because of how well it works on this laptop and on my Acer netbook, I have pretty much made Google Chrome my default Web browser.  It seems to be a lot quicker and responsive than Firefox.  I guess it doesn’t enjoy a lot of popularity, however.  When I look at my blog stats and I go to the “Browser War” section, Chrome places a distant third after Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Has anyone else noticed that the sunspot number has taken a dive lately?  Today it was 33 and it’s been a while since it was “up there”.  Hopefully this will be the quiet before a storm of good band conditions for the Spring and Summer.

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

And so my everyday streak comes to an end.

Yesterday was one of those days at work where you just want to dig a hole, jump in and pull the hole in after yourself.  And unfortunately, due to the wonderful world of cell phones and Blackberrys, it didn’t end once I got home.

Needless to say, when all finally calmed down around 10:30 or so, I didn’t feel like getting on the radio.  All I wanted to do was go to bed. And I did.

I tried raising V31JZ on 30 Meters tonight, after coming home from a slightly better day at work;  but I could not bust through the pileup before the witching hour came and 0000 UTC occurred.  So February 9th, 2012 goes QSOless.

So, what do I do?  Pick myself up, dust myself off and start anew.  This is one of those years, where if I still make a QSO for every day for the rest of the year, I can still honestly claim that I made a QSO for 365 days of 2012.

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

The other night, I tried uploading some QSOs to Log of the World.  I was unsuccessful as my certificate had expired.  I filed for a new one, got everything working and uploaded my latest batch of QSOs without a problem.  I try to do this once a month or once every couple of weeks.

Out of curiosity, I went back to the LOTW site tonight to do a little math.  I have a LOTW QSL return rate of 19.8 percent.  I have no idea as to whether that’s good, bad or average.

I went over to eQSL and did the same math – 19.27 percent – slightly lower.  Frankly, that surprised me.  I think we can all agree that eQSL has less “hoops” to jump through in order to get it working.  I am not criticizing LOTW when I say that – I’m just pointing out what I think is fact.  Although personally, I have not had any insurmountable LOTW problems, I have heard horror stories from other Hams who had, and gave up – running and screaming into the night.  eQSL may not be as secure, I don’t know – but it does seem easier to use. 

I would have thought (there goes that “conventional wisdom” again!) that being easier to use would also translate to ” greater participation and use”.  I guess not.

Tonight is the 80 Meter QRP Fox hunt.  Dave N0IT in Missouri is not feeling all that great, so he has swapped with John K4BAI.  So the Foxes will be John in Georgia and Jim K9JWV in Utah.  “Conventional wisdom” is telling me that from New Jersey on 80 Meters, I should be able to work John fairly easily and that Jim may be a stretch, if I hear him at all.

We’ll see.

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

I guess in all reality, that’s a misnomer.  There are antennas – period.  I often get asked, “What’s the best antenna for a budding QRPer?”  Without a doubt, this is:

But if you’re like the rest of us mere mortal human beings, you don’t have the real estate, money or insurance agent for one of these.  But you do want to get involved in QRP on the HF bands. What should you use?  Again, my friends – that’s the $64,000 dollar question; and there as many answers as there are Hams.

But the main thing to remember is this.  In the end, you have to determine this for yourself, as everyone’s situation is different.  Here are some questions that you can ask yourself:

1) Can you even put up an outdoor antenna?
2) How much do you want to spend?
3) How much room do you have?
4) Do heights scare the living heck out of you?
5) Are you handy?
6) What bands do you wish to operate on?

If you cannot put up an outdoor antenna, then you will have to end up with a real “compromise antenna”. That may sound really crummy, but don’t be discouraged!  There are lots of folks out there who have earned Worked All States and DXCC using indoor or stealth antennas. Dipoles can be strung up in attics and be quite effective.  Also, keep in mind that if your antenna is not going to be exposed to the elements, then you can lash up something quite often using lighter duty wire and components.  Another antenna to investigate are the magnetic loop antennas.  Use Google to invest yourself with the wealth of information on these babies.  I have a friend AF2Q who lives in an apartment that is more like a Faraday Cage than anything else.  He uses a magnetic loop from inside his apartment and works juicy DX all the time – even with 5 Watts.  Other folks with antenna restrictions use the Buddipole and Buddistick for temporary installations and have great success. My friend Bob W3BBO just finished WAS for the umpteenth time – but this time using a Buddistick mounted to a mobile mount on his car – and he got HK0NA in his log before I got them in mine. So, there’s a lot to be said for his set up, even though it’s not considered to be “ideal”.

If you have access to the outdoors then your choices are greater; but they can still be dependent on the size of your lot.  I would love to have a full sized 160 Meter loop antenna; but this postage sized New Jersey suburban lot just does not allow for it.  In my case, I have two antennas – an 88′ Extended Double Zepp (EDZ) wire antenna and a Butternut HF9V antenna.  With these two, I can operate anywhere from 80 to 6 Meters with no problems.  The 88′ EDZ was homebrewed and the Butternut is a commercial antenna, of course.  The EDZ fits nicely.  I had a G5RV for 12 years and one leg had to be zigged and zagged to get it to fit within my property lines; but it worked well. The only reason I took it down was that it physically degraded between the harsh summer sun and the harsh New Jersey winters.

If you’re going to operate on just a few bands, individual resonant half wave dipoles might be your answer.  If you want to operate on most, if not all the bands, then a non-resonant antenna like my EDZ and a tuner will allow you to do that.  I can work all the bands on the Butternut, too. If space is at a super premium, keep in mind that a vertical will require ground radials. I have about 25 (25′) radials currently attached to the Butternut and I want to add more.  It works very well; but I want to add even more.

If real estate is not a problem, the a 160 Meter full sized loop might be the way to go.  Even if you’re not going to operate on 160 Meters, you can operate on all bands if you use a tuner.  And loop antennas tend to be quiet and sensitive.  The point is, if you have a very spacious backyard with plenty of trees, then there’s no reason to put up as much wire as you can, as high as you can.  Individually tuned dipoles will eliminate the need for an antenna tuner, if that’s something you wish to avoid. The great thing about wire antennas is that they are fairly cheap, if you go the homebrew route.  Again, there is a wealth of information about them on the Internet.  Utilize Google to investigate dipoles, doublets, loops, long wires (Zepp antennas), W3EDP, bazookas, etc, etc, etc.  While Amateur Radio gear is becoming increasingly more complex and expensive, wire antennas still provide an area for low cost experimentation.

If price is a MAJOR factor, please go to my links section and click on the link for the $4 “Special” antenna.  I used one of these for years at my old East Brunswick QTH. It may not be pretty; and it may not be fancy; but it works and gets results.  Ham friends would come over to my house and laugh at it, “How does THAT thing work?”- then they’d walk inside my shack and see a ton of QSL cards on the wall. Which would you rather look at – your antenna or a wall filled with QSL cards?  I think you’re thinking that you’d rather look at the cards and of using the wire to get the cards. Pretty antennas are nice; but antennas were never meant to be aesthetic works of art.

If you’re deathly afraid of heights, then you’re either going to need some help getting wires up or you can use a ground mounted vertical – just keep in mind the radials deal.  If you’re all thumbs, or building and experimenting is not your thing, then you’ll just have to resort to commercial antennas for all your needs.  Hey, just about everything that you can possibly think of is offered commercially, it just depends on how much you’re willing to spend.  If you have really deep pockets, you can always invest in a tower and a beam and have them commercially installed and maintained, but then you’re getting closer to the picture above.  And if you have THAT much money, would you consider adopting me?

So in the end, after answering the necessary questions, and doing a lot of Web surfing, you’ll probably come up with a half dozen or so solutions that will work for you.  Don’t be afraid to experiment, modify or change. Keep thinking outside the box!

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

This appeared on the KX3 YahooGroup reflector today:

All-

Attached is a photo of KX3 #6. It’s an outdoor shot with the backlight off. This unit is in Field Test here, which is its own type of milestone for all those waiting patiently. I’ll be writing objective appraisals of this FT unit. That will be my intent, anyway (objectivity). This email is a first cut. Read on.

My personal opinion is that this is the coolest amateur transceiver ever designed, built, or dreamed of. Perfect size, perfect weight, VERY respectable performance. You can *really* take the KX3 with you, and you’ll really want to. Mine’s going everywhere with me, including the workplace! I know my engineering staff will demand to see how Wayne and crew fit it all in, and how well the KX3 works.

After one day using this unit, I’ve reached the conclusion that the KX3 is basically ready for initial production. As is usual for a ‘young’ rig from Elecraft, firmware is still a work in progress. This should be no surprise to anyone on this list. The hardware is at near-100% shape, IMHO. There are a few minor issues – mostly features not yet implemented. And I mean minor. If I weren’t an engineering manager in the consumer products industry I would not have noticed any of them. The electronics seems solid, and I’ve done a bit of lab testing for MDS and selectivity. Most of my testing has been on the air though. My lab testing shows MDS better than -136 dBm, but my signal generator can’t extend any lower. No problems with rejecting out of band signals (away from the roofing filter’s coverage).

On the air: I’ve had about fifteen CW QSOs, using between 1 and 12 Watts output power. The antenna is a homebrew multi-band vertical, ground mounted. Four of these Qs were on battery power. No differences were found between operating on external and internal power, except for the output power limitations due to batteries. One Q was with an extremely weak QRP station in New Mexico. The APF helped with this, to the point that I could not have pulled him out without the feature. With APF engaged, his signal was 539 with rapid fades to 319. He was running 0.5W and I was running 3 W. Great ragchew, with very few repeats.

Except for Navy-Marine Corps MARS, I’m mostly a CW op. Several SSB contacts went successfully after a false start: I had to finagle the MH3’s input connection a bit (a virgin socket seating issue). I set the MIC and CMP values by listening on a second receiver and built in MONitor, giving MIC=18 and CMP=10 as the best combination. Audio reports using the MH3 and this setting were excellent – “clear as a bell” and “good presence”. Output using the internal speaker is adequate, though not amazingly loud. Some of that is probably my 55 year old ears and too many rock concerts when I was younger. The frequency response seems relatively flat and lows are surprisingly well-represented. Distortion is low (< 2% THD the way I hear it).

The FOC and NA contests run this weekend were an interesting environment for first-time ops on the KX3. Lots of strong signals, many in excess of S9+25. A majority of the QSOs mentioned above were near strong signals and with the roofing filter in place I had pretty good luck ignoring the big guns while working weak signals. I have to admit this is completely subjective, however years of experience with the K3 also tells me that the KX3 has similar characteristics in this regard. The best example from on-air testing was the NM CW station I mentioned above. His signal was marginal, meaning the APF was essential for pulling him out of the band noise. At the same time, 3 to 4 KHz up was one of those big guns thumping away. I could even hear key clicks from the contester, but only a tiny amount of blocking from his signal on the KX3. That’s what I mean by “similar to the K3”. It’s not identical though. I found instances where a little bit of a strong station’s signal was near- or in-band, and as you would expect some pretty severe blocking occurred. I’d recommend everyone make sure they have the roofing filter on the “essentials” list for purchase. In many ways the roofer makes the KX3 what it was meant to be.

One thing that’s notable and exceptional: I haven’t seen any of the typical issues of a “zero IF” architecture. No image problems, no ripple in the passband (in either SSB or CW), no audio artifacts. The advantage to a zero IF architecture is that there’s no “donut hole” around the IF frequency; there are others too – one single conversion takes less space than multiple conversions, less power consumed, less heat generated.

As a Navy-Marine Corps MARS operator, I’m looking forward to using the KX3 in our ECOM exercises. Its size and power consumption are perfect for such types of portable operation. It’s the item that will take the least amount of space in your Go Kit.

Sorry so much of this is non-quantitative. I’ll try to get more out after another day or two.

Standard disclaimer: I am not employed by nor do I have a fiduciary interest in Elecraft.

73,

Matt Zilmer, W6NIA / NNN0UET / NNN0GAF THREE
NMCM RMS Winmor: NNU9ET-5: Upland, CA.

W2LJ is …..trying…….to……..remain calm ……….not get………too………..excited ……….

Not working – not working – not working !!!!

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

Now this is REALLY Freeze Your Buns Off / Polar Bear Moonlight Madness !!!

QRP’ers – are we dedicated or just plain crazy?

Gatineau Park and the Wolf Trail sure look beautiful!  Thanks Martin, for sharing, you have shown us the quintessential FYBO / PBMME effort.

FYI, the HK0NA DXpedition ended today.  Thanks to the crew and its supporters for their efforts.  I got them exactly once and that’s plenty for me.  According to the Team, even after 190,000 +++ QSOs, the pileups were still very deep.  Hope all of you were lucky enough to have worked them, if you were trying.

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