AmateurRadio.com

I was listening around the bands this afternoon, looking for juicy DX, when I heard something that I’m not quite sure I’ve ever heard before.

Ivan 5N7M in Nigeria was on 17 Meters and he had QRS’ed to a very nominal speed. My estimate was somewhere around 18 WPM, maybe? Far slower than I was accustomed to hearing him, and he was calling CQ, but for new stations only.

I thought that was pretty FB. There are a lot of budding DXers out there, new to the game who are probably intimidated by this aspect of the hobby.

We’ve all been there. Do you remember what it was like? You’re pretty proud of your code speed, only to find yourself in the middle of a pile of Hams who seem to be calling one station all at the same time.

“What was his call? 5NZM? No, that can’t be right!”

“HN7M?  Oh, no, I think it’s 5N7M. Man, that sounds like 40 WPM!”

To the beginning Dxer, it is all so confusing and it all must sound like being caught in the middle of a buzz saw factory. For Ivan to take the time to slow it down, and seek out new stations that have never worked him before is commendable.

I wonder how many new DXers might have been born today.

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

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

The new Alexloop antenna

Just over 2 weeks ago I placed an order for the Alexloop,  For some time I have been debating what antenna to use when I was out and about with my KX3. I looked at the Miracle whip, Par end fedz antennas and the Alexloop. For my needs it boiled down to the Alexloop. I did have a miracle whip in the past and it is a great antenna but just not worth the money for the performance you get. The Alexloop was ordered and arrived within a week and a half!! I was very impressed with the reviews online and the testimonials at Eham. . The antenna comes in a very well made carry case that can be taken into the field with all parts contained for your setup......well almost all parts...a tripod is one of the recommend ways to setup the antenna for field work. There are other ways it can be deployed including holding it by hand (not as young as I used to be so this method my not work for me). You can clamp it to a pic-nick table or attach it to a chair....just for starters.  The unit cost's 299.00 and I will say this is not cheap but it's very well made and portable as well. The case that holds the unit is about 1.5 by 1 foot in total. I also want to add that the case is very well made with a shoulder strap and carry handle.

A quality case

So lets get to the nuts and bolts.....how does it work....sure anyone can say anything about their antenna but the proof is in the radio waves!!

Antenna location..cat standing guard

I wanted to do a comparison between my attic dipole which is the Alpha Delta DX-EE up about 30 feet in the attic and the Alexloop set up in my XYL's office just opposite my radio room. Let me state that this is not a comparison to see which antenna preforms better as that is not a fair comparison....but I wanted to see how well the loop did compared to my attic dipole. The Alexloop was mounted on a tripod....well ty-wrapped to it as the the Alexloop would not fit over the tripod center pole section. This is something I will have to work out later. Each of these antennas have their disadvantages....the dipole is in the attic, this means a wooden roof above, rafters all over and insulation below. The Alexloop is in a second floor room, it's a small loop antenna and very close to the ceiling. So really both antenna are far from ideal when it comes to location.

Temp tripod mount

For the rig I used my Elecraft KX3 (as this is the rig I will be using when in the parks, backyard and where ever else I decide to go!) The power output was set to 5 watts and the bands I chose were 20m and 40m. The plan was to run coax from the Alexloop to a 2 position antenna switch and switch between the two antennas. The Alexloop did not seem to take a liking to the added coax. I was not able to get the SWR down below 2. Once I used the length of coax that came with the loop (about 10 feet) all was well. This just meant I was going to have to connect and disconnect the KX3 from one antenna to the other for the comparison. I was calling  CQ on 14.060 and 7.020 on the attic dipole and call CQ on 14.050 and 7.032 on the Alexloop and check out the Reverse beacon network to see who was picking up the CQ call. Not sure if the conditions were not all that great but both on 20m and 40m the attic dipole just got hits in the U.S as did the Alexloop. There was one big surprise when the Alexloop had a hit with OL5Q (along with the attic dipole) I was very impressed that a loop antenna in a bedroom was able to get a report from OL5Q!!
My overall impressions of the Alexloop are as follows:
1. Shipping was fantastic, this antenna got here from South America faster than products I have ordered from the U.S.
2. The support is great, I had a question about the loop when it arrived and it was answered within 30 minutes!!!!
3. This unit is quality quality quality from the carry case to antenna!!
4. The tuning was a cinch, turn for peak noise and then transmit and tune for lowest SWR....takes about 20 seconds!

14.060, 7.032 Alexloop

5. Assembly is done in 4 minutes for a first timer and I imagine with practice I can cut that time in half.
6. Antenna foot print is very low profile and can be used vertical or horizontal.
7. The SWR on 20m and 40m (only bands used so far) was 1.4 at 14.060 and 1.7 at 7.032.
The bottom line is I am very very impressed with this antenna and I will be taking it to the field and updating the blog on how it does.  Up to this point would I recommend this antenna.......dam right I would it's support is excellent, quality of the product is way above par and so far the results have been very impressive.
 
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Back at the end of last year, Malcolm G8NRP, secretary of the Harwell Amateur Radio club asked me if I’d be willing to give a talk there. Of course, I said, but at the time I had no idea what I might speak about it. Of course, it didn’t get much more brain time until a few weeks ago when Malcolm contacted me again…

“Did you decide what you were going to talk about -as we need to put it into GB2RS news”! Ah…

So, a quick decision was needed. I’d been playing with my Raspberry Pi computer a lot at the time and also with the USB receiver dongle for SDR applications. I thought I could probably put together a talk along those lines.

Earlier this month I gave the talk. I think it was ok. I think I was better on the SDR stuff than the Pi stuff, but anyway, it seemed to go down ok.

I promised the Harwell club a link to the slides which is here

As ever, I’d do it slightly differently next time!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Six Episode Eight of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Boston Marathon All Hams Reported Safe
• First Cuba to EI contact on FO-29
• Radio hams active in Argentina floods
• Radio Ham named to Senior State Department Telecom post
• Irish entries wanted for Youngsters On The Air
• Ham radio club's 90th birthday
• Warwick University students fly CubeSat
• The Michael Owen Plaque
• UK 434 MHz balloons head for Poland
• UKQRM launches public facing website
• Inner Hebrides on Ham Radio Satellites
• VK5 National and Conservation Parks Award

Listener mailbag feedback and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) talks to the Cambs-Hams about their upcomg DXpedition to Mull.

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Six Episode Eight of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Boston Marathon All Hams Reported Safe
• First Cuba to EI contact on FO-29
• Radio hams active in Argentina floods
• Radio Ham named to Senior State Department Telecom post
• Irish entries wanted for Youngsters On The Air
• Ham radio club's 90th birthday
• Warwick University students fly CubeSat
• The Michael Owen Plaque
• UK 434 MHz balloons head for Poland
• UKQRM launches public facing website
• Inner Hebrides on Ham Radio Satellites
• VK5 National and Conservation Parks Award

Listener mailbag feedback and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) talks to the Cambs-Hams about their upcomg DXpedition to Mull.

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Six Episode Eight of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, listener mailbag feedback and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ)is joined by the Cambs-Hams to discuss their upcoming DXpedition to Mull.

• Boston Marathon All Hams Reported Safe
• First Cuba to EI contact on FO-29
• Radio hams active in Argentina floods
• Radio Ham named to Senior State Department Telecom post
• Irish entries wanted for Youngsters On The Air
• Ham radio club's 90th birthday
• Warwick University students fly CubeSat
• The Michael Owen Plaque
• UK 434 MHz balloons head for Poland
• UKQRM launches public facing website
• Inner Hebrides on Ham Radio Satellites
• VK5 National and Conservation Parks Award

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

The eagerly awaited JT-Alert for WSJT-X has finally arrived! You can download it from the Ham Apps website.

This useful accessory will let you know if you have worked a station B4 or whether a station will fill a wanted band or mode slot. It sends spots of JT9 stations to the HamSpots website, providing a useful reverse beacon for the mode. It also logs contacts to  a few of the popular logging programs including MixW which happens to be the same log format used by KComm. Due to some nifty programming this new version of JT-Alert works with JT65-HF as well.

This new program couldn’t come soon enough for me as I have worked just about everyone who is on JT9 at the moment and it was getting tiresome doing manual log lookups. Hopefully this new program will attract some new participants to this amazing mode.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].