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Today was a holiday out this way in Canada I just relaxed today and for some reason thought I would give the radio a go again this afternoon. I have not had to much luck of recent with making any contacts...put it down to the conditions. 20 meters seems to be a good starting point for me and I tuned up the MFJ 1788 and spun the VFO on the K3 to see what the propagation gods would have me work. I heard 6Y5WJ booming in and I gave him a go and he came back to me with a 559 report. I was thrilled to make it into Jamaica considering yesterday I tried the NAQP CW contest for a short time and U.S stations were not even hearing me. This was a very short contact as he had a number of prospects waiting to contact him. I then just moved a short distance down on 20m and came across VO1DD from Newfoundland calling CQ. I came back to him and we had a very nice QSO until some threatening thunder storms started to roll in this way. Doug is from Heart's Delight and  was running the FT 1000 a rig that I had before my K3 and it's a fantastic rig and still very very popular. He was running 90 watts into a dipole antenna. With just these two contacts in under 10 minutes I am very happy to see the MFJ 1788 is doing a fine job with only the 5 watts I pump into it.  It's now time to get the steaks on the BBQ and relax.

As I am doing my operating from the condo there are a number if items in the shack that have just been gather dust. My feeling is if Im not using it someone else can! So the following items are up for sale…….
1. Balun designs balun model 1110cu it's called a QRP balun but is rated at 300 watts. It's a 1:1 isolation balun I did use them at my old place to make sure not unwanted RF was radiating from the coax. Since I only have one antenna now I no long require one.
The price is 25.00 including shipping within North America.


2. Elecraft N-Gen this is a kit that I put together myself and works great. It is very good for many RF and IF alignment tasks. The price including shipping is 50.00.

3. LDG AT200pro antenna tuner I am no longer in need of a tuner as my K3 and KX3 all have on board ATU's this unit works and looks great. Price is 150.00 shipping included.


4 Hendricks 41dB step attenuator, I put this unit together myself and works great. Price is 50.00 including shipping.


The selling of these items will both clean up the shack and give me some ham bucks to clutter things up again!

Tracer Battery kit

In a recent post I told the blog world about the failure of my KX3 portable power source. It was an external battery that was ordered from China. The battery  lasted under a year until it just failed to take a charge. The battery was only used maybe 6 times.  Not sure what failed but a fellow blogger  Larry W2LJ with the same battery had a similar failure as well.  It was time to get on the net and look for another external, compact and reliable battery. Plan number one was to avoid the products from China as I have learned a hard lesson there! Reading blogs of op's who operate portable and use an external power source (when the internal batteries give up the ghost) I came across a company called Tracer operating out of the U.S. To make a long story short I ordered from them and below are the spec's on the Lithium Polymer battery.

The setup in the car

It was a great day today even though they called for rain  it was just overcast and very nice cool temps in around 17C. I was off work today and after I had completed the chores around the house it was time to get out in the outdoors for some ham radio. Since there was a chance of rain I decided to not set up outside and get rained out but instead I took my car and set up the Elecraft KX3 mobile from one of our near by parks on lake Ontario. I set out on my way and checked and double check all my items (last weekend I forgot   a coax connector and the portable op's came to a fast end) I arrived at the park around 13:00 local time and began to call CQ 20m I had no takers and decided to spin the dial to see who I could find. I did come across some DX stations calling CQ but was not able to be heard and some had very long waiting lists wanting to contact them. I then came across Bernie KB4JB from Florida and we had a very nice 20 minute QSO. The CW speed was in around 14 WPM and both of us were able to share station, location and other information before conditions changed and we both faded out. The KX3

20m mobile whip

operated just fine for over an hour and a half on the internal batteries at 5 watts output. At one point during my QSO with Bernie for some reason my KX3 key was just not sending what I wanted. As time passed in our QSO I noticed my headphone cord was under the KX3 Key and causing the troubles. Once that was dealt with the code improved minus the headphone cord! I only made one QSO for the outing but it was a long one and the speed was at a very comfortable.  The antenna was a mono band 20m whip, the power was 5 watts from the internal rechargeable batteries and the radio as was mentioned the Elecraft KX3. It was time to head home and get dinner going for Julie's home coming from work.

A foggy view of Toronto from my setup

This weekend I planned on getting some radio time in Julie was going to see a friend who lives out of town on Saturday so I thought I would get out and get hamming. We live right on Lake Ontario and within a short walk and or bike ride there are some great locations on the lake to do some portable op's. On Friday night I charged up the KX3, set out all of the needed items for outdoor ops. Saturday came and off I went, I decided to walk and it turned out to be a longer walk then I thought. I arrived at my

Trail on the way there.

spot and setup the KX3 along with my Alexloop. Just as I sat down to get some operating time in it started to rain! With no rain gear and about a 1/2 hour to walk back I packed things up and headed back. Well I tried it again on Sunday and this time I took my bike and some rain gear just in case. This time I set everything up and was ready to go until I tried to connect the Alexloop to the KX3…..it seems for some reason I removed the adapter that allowed me to go from PL 259 to BNC at home! There was no way to hook up my antenna to the KX3 radio so I decided the radio god's were just not smiling on my this weekend and I headed back home the long way to tour around the lake.  Lesson learned I now plan to make up a small 3x5 card with all that is needed for the trip.

Small river on my way home.

One of the many beaches

This was the battery I purchased just over a year ago, it was for the Elecraft KX3 as a back up battery for the times my internal batteries gave up the ghost. Unfortunately the battery will no longer hold a charge and it's only after a year and maybe 3 uses. I am now in the market for an external battery that I hope will not let me down after only being called on 3 times. Any ideas out there??

MX0CCE Bob

Not much going on

I was able to get some time on the radio Sunday afternoon, there were some contests going on but did not seem much other than that. At the same time I was able to get my radio control program (N4PY software) to work along with my logging program (N3FJP's AClog) and I found out that there is a cluster program that is offered with the N4PY program. It also has been integrated very nicely. Back to my on air time……I did run into two very strong signals calling CQ and giving signal reports. The first was MX0AAA It's a club station that was founded in 1934 and according to the map on QRZ.COM the station is located in London England. The contact was made on 20m with 5 watts and my signal report was 559. I then saw another strong signal on my P3 again on 20m. The call was MD0CCE and Bob was located on the Isle of Man and my signal report was 579. That was it for the contacts for the weekend. I was very pleased with these two contact for QRP and the MFJ Loop antenna.