Archive for the ‘antennas’ Category
Exceptional Service
April 29th, 2014 | 
Author: Last Wednesday evening, just before turning in for the night, I placed an order with Amateur Radio Supplies for some antenna rope and wire. I placed an order for 150 feet of 14 gauge jacketed Flexweave and 200 feet of Dacron rope.
The next morning, I had an order confirmation in my inbox and by the end of the day on Thursday, I had received a “your order has shipped” e-mail. To be honest, my initial thought was, “Yeah, right!”.
Much to my surprise, the rope and wire arrived on Saturday via FedEx Home Delivery. Wow! I have to say that Amateur Radio Supplies made a believer of this sceptic. I certainly was not expecting such fast service, but was very happy to receive it.
This weekend is QRP To The Field. The weather for Saturday is looking “iffy” right now – partly sunny/cloudy with a 25 percent chance of showers in the afternoon. I will probably operate from the backyard and will have my son help me cut a few radiators to try out the 9:1 EARCHI UNUN a little bit more.
In order to prepare, I did the first lawn mowing of the season tonight after dinner. The front yard needs some work (re-seeding), but the back yard is in decent shape.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
Many thanks
to those of you who posted comments, or sent me private e-mails concerning the 9:11 UNUN, and particularly to “Anonymous” who provided the link to: http://www.balundesigns.com/servlet/the-102/QRP-9-cln-1-Unun-1.5/Detail
That was an eye-opener. If the weather isn’t too chilly or damp this weekend, I think I am going to see what happens when I use the 24.5′ and 36′ wires as the radiator. As my friend Bob W3BBO says, this is the fun of playing around with homebrew antennas – playing around until you discover something that works for you. It will help if propagation is decent – it’s never a great day to evaluate an antenna when just about no one is around!
The 24.5′ wire would allow decent SWRs on 40 through 6 Meters (according to the chart, the highest SWR would be on 17 Meters at 2.1:1), while the 36′ wire would allow decent SWRs on 80 through 6 Meters (according to the chart, the highest SWR would be on 20 Meters at 2:1). In either event, this should work better than what I had previously tried, where I was getting a 3:1 SWR or higher on some bands.
I know there’s no “one size fits all’ kind of solution here. If there was, someone would be either very rich, or very famous. My concern is to be able to go to the park, toss one manageable wire into a tree and get as much operating time in as possible. Multi-band doublets might yield better results, but at a cost of increased setup time as well as the need for two supports. Another simultaneous goal is to be able to switch bands as much as possible, without messing around with wires too much after the initial set up.
I know – about as easy as trying to change lead into gold.
I’ll keep you who are like minded posted as to what I discover.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
And here I thought it was me!
To say it is a beautiful day in New Jersey today is in understatement. The sun is shining, and the temperatures are in the upper 60s (20C). The breeze (if there is any) is so gentle that you don’t even notice it. So I decided that after grocery shopping, but before other chores, that I would sneak off to the park and try out the EARCHI antenna. I built the 9:1 UNUN late last Autumn and didn’t get a chance to try it out.
So it ends up that today was not the day to base a critical performance review on, I will have to wait for another weekend with decent weather and better band conditions for another test. In the meantime, I will also browse the Internet to see if I can garner more information on optimal radiator lengths for use with a 9:1 UNUN.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
Snow is coming
And I certainly hope this is the last blast for the Winter of 2013/2014. The Equinox is less than three weeks away, and I am ready – perhaps readier than I’ve been in a while. The snow that is forecast to start this afternoon, and last into Tuesday morning my bring us 4 inches – and then again may bring us 14-18 inches. The meteorologists just cannot seem to agree on this one. So that tells you the situation is extremely volatile, and we’ll just have to wait until after it’s over to see who was right.
But in the meantime, here are some warm weather thoughts from the Buddies in the Caribbean from LAST Winter. Barbados seems like a good place to be right about now!
I was able to get on the air for a bit yesterday afternoon. The CW portion of the bands were kind of on the barren side, as the ARRL DX SSB was going on. I could swear I heard a tumbleweed or two blow through. But I did manage to work W1AW/7 in Washington State on both 12 and 15 Meters – first call with QRP each time. I also worked HK7/AL4Q – an Alaskan call in Colombia – that’s different! I also worked EA6BH in Mallorca. That’s probably another wonderful place to be this time of year.
Clear away those dishes after a delightful dinner – enjoy some wine and set up the KX3, throw an EFHW over the railing, and we’re good to go!
I can dream ….. can’t I?
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
Location, location, location
I might not be in the best location for the QRP Fox hunts, but I do have to admit that I am blessed when it came to achieving QRP DXCC. Those of us in the Northeast definitely do not have the edge in Fox hunting that our fellow Hounds from the Midwest have. When you look at the Hound’s scores, the guys “who get ’em all” are usually, if not exclusively, from the middle of the US. But those of us in the Northeast, and on the East coast in general have the edge when working Europe and the Caribbean. I believe that Jim W4QO in Georgia posted that he worked over 100 different DXCC entities just this past weekend. That’s nothing to sneeze at and is a great accomplishment!
But if your a new QRPer you may be saying to yourself, “That’s all well and good, but I’m just starting out and I don’t have a tower and a beam or a fancy antenna farm.” I’m not saying that those wouldn’t be helpful, but you can achieve a lot with simple antennas. I posted yesterday that I worked about half a DXCC award this past weekend. I did it with a Butternut HF9V antenna and a home brewed 88′ Extended Double Zepp antenna. These antennas are surely within the reach of beginner QRPers (HOAs notwithstanding). With 5 Watts, I worked (in no particular order):
Estonia
Norway
France
Czech Republic
Belgium
Columbia
Italy
Slovenia
Bulgaria
Poland
Spain
Bahamas
Puerto Rico
The Ukraine
European Russia
The Azores
Mexico
Brazil
Chile
Morocco
The Turks & Caicos
The Cayman Islands
Alaska
Madeira Island
Portugal
US Virgin Islands
Sweden
Nicaragua
French Guiana
Lithiuania
Aruba
Curacao
Anguilla
Finland
Atigua & Barbuda
England
Scotland
The Balearic Islands
Germany
Jamaica
Belize
The Canary Islands
Bonaire
Belarus
Denmark
That’s 45 DXCC entities in just around four hours of operating. So I don’t want to hear about how QRP DXCC is hard or impossible. I’ve done it and believe me, if a ham and egger like me can work 100 different countries using 5 Watts, then you can do better! And when you come down to it, my performance this past weekend was really nothing to crow about. If you want to read a great story, then make sure to read Phil AK2MA’s recount of his ARRL DX Contest effort – 150 QSOs and 57 countries worked with an INDOOR Buddipole on just one band (15 Meters)! THAT my friends is an achievement!
There is a price to pay, however, and that is you’re going to have to work on your Morse Code. Life is not a dish of assorted fancy cashews. QRP DXing and CW go together like hand and glove. Some of these contest stations were sending so fast that it took me 7 or 8 listens to get their calls right. Normally I am comfortable copying up to 25-28 WPM; and on a good day, I can stretch that to 35 WPM if the code being sent well and the exchange is short (like a contest exchange). Some of these guys were sending around the 40 WPM stratosphere and I had to just pass them by. But with dedication and practice you can get to the “mere human neighborhood” of 25 WPM without going crazy.
And that’s part of what this is all about, too. Constantly improving your station, your antennas, and yourself!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
QRP/SOTA Fun Without Climbing A Mountain
So I set up my operating position just as I would on a summit. I was testing one of the SOTA beams EFHW antenna with counterpoise and a homebrew 29 ft. wire. I brought along two tuners including Hi-Tee Tuner from SOTAbeams and a recently acquired Hendricks SLT+ 80m-10m end fed half wave tuner.
The SOTAbeams combo was my first configuration. I put the antenna over a limb about 15ft. up and let it slope down to another limb about 7 feet up and then down to the radio. The antenna wire terminated into a 4mm plug that prevented me from running through the eyelets of my pole. I plugged the wire into the tuner (which will only take a 4mm plug, there is no binding post) as well as the counter poise. The antenna tuned nicely and I had QSO with a station in Arizona. As I finished that QSO I tuned across the SOTA frequencies and heard W0CCA calling CQ SOTA from a summit in Arizona on 20m. Cool, now could I work him with this set-up? I usually don't have to wait long in a pile-up but for this QSO I would have to. I was tempted to run over to the QRO shack and make the contact to ensure I got the points since he was on a 10 pointer, however I resisted the temptation. My faith in QRP was rewarded, Cap finally heard me and gave me a 229. Cool.
So now I set-up the simple 29 ft. wire. Since it didn't have the banana plug on it, the Hi-Tee Tuner was useless, so I set up on the SLT+. I was able to use my pole this time, so the wire was higher off the ground in an inverted L configuration. By that time KX0R was calling CQ SOTA on 20m from a summit in Colorado. Evidently the pile-up had run it's course because I got him on the first call. So my little tuned wires had netted 12 SOTA chaser points. I am regularly amazed by QRP, how much you can do with a few watts and some wire.
A great day of QRP/SOTA fun.
Antenna repair work
always seems to be conducted when weather is less than optimal for such things.
You may remember me telling how I had to temporarily re-hang my 88′ EDZ wire last Saturday. Just a week ago, we were enjoying weather in the low 50s (11C), it was a good day to perform that task. But then during the week, I noticed it wasn’t working right and seemed to be deaf. I thought initially that there was a short in the PL-259 connector. I changed that out and it made no difference. I suspected a fault maybe a bit farther back in the coax, as feedlines always seem to be a probem, but then I thought – what if the problem is with the window line and not the coax?
So today, I headed outside and this weekend, the weather is quite a bit colder than last. In fact, it’s quite the opposite of last weekend. Last night we had a low of -3F (-20C) and today’s high was about 20F (-6C), so where did I find myself? Of course, in the back yard, freezing in the new fallen snow, inspecting my antenna to see where the fault might lay. And since I work better without gloves, that just added to the pleasure!
Fortunately, the fault was found quickly and it was an easy fix. When I was re-hoisting the antenna, the window line must have flexed and stressed badly at the BALUN terminals, and on one side, the wire had snapped. It proved to be a simple matter of loosening the screw, removing the old tiny bit of wire, stripping back a bit more of the insulation on that side of the window line and re-screwing the bare wire back down in place. I needed tools no more sophisticated than the Swiss Army Knife that I always carry. (You can’t work for a Swiss firm for 22 years of your life and NOT carry a Swiss Army Knife with you wherever you go.)
I went to my basement shack, where it’s a balmy 58F (15C) and was delighted to see the KX3 deliver a match in literally, just a couple of seconds. My preferred wire is now back in action and I am quite a happy camper. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that my temporary support line will hold for the rest of the winter!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
