AmateurRadio.com

courtesy: http://www.banggood.com/

A recent posting to the GQRP Yahoo Group brought my attention to another inexpensive offering from China. This time it's Bangood's complete "Pixie" type 40m QRP transceiver for the incredible sum of $4.16 (U.S.)! The price includes all components, a nicely silk-screened PCB and free shipping. One really wonders how it is possible to make any profit with such an offering but it obviously is. However, all may not be what it seems. One purchaser, IK1ZYW (Paolo) who built the kit, described his findings in a recent blog posting of his building experience.

In spite of the problems noted above (with some now corrected), the kit still seems a bargain, if one takes the necessary care with construction.

Playing with QRP can often provide ham radio's best "fun for the money" as DX- capable transmitters can often be built for just a few dollars. I vividly recall the fun I had one winter while pursuing the first-ever Tuna Tin W.A.S. endeavour on 7040kHz.



I made many new friends on 7040 that winter and every weekend many of them would listen-in or call to see how my progress was going. The highlight of the adventure was late one Saturday night when I had three New England stations all answer the same CQ ... what amazing fun for a handful of parts at less than $10 ... not including the cost of a can of Tuna!


The little Pixie kit offered above has a power level fully capable of W.A.S. on 40m and with the decrease in solar conditions, 40m will just keep improving. If you purchase and build one of these kits, please let us know how your experience went. The 'interesting' construction notes may be found here.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Great job by the South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club Rookies who activated NJ2SP - and an equally great job by Marv K2VHW who mentored the event.

Can't wait 'til Field Day!

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].

After kind of causing the problem, in the first place.

http://kdvr.com/2015/05/17/littleton-snowshoer-rescued-after-falling-off-icy-ledge/

Thanks to Drew W2OU for pointing this one out.

But in all seriousness folks, portable ops can seem harmless, but they come with their own hazards and some can be life threatening.

Just a few basic things to keep in mind:

Don't go hiking alone if you're unfamiliar with the trail. It's too easy to get lost. I speak of this one from personal experience. Once I was out on a hike in the Adirondacks on an unfamiliar trail for the first time, and I took a turn I shouldn't have and found myself off the trail. Fortunately, I kept calm, retraced my steps and found my way back quickly and easily. However, if you panic, all bets may be off. Moral of the story - two or more sets of eyes are better than one when looking for trail markers.

Always take along extra water, food and appropriate clothing. While it may be hot and sunny when you start out, weather can and often does change in a heart beat, so keep weather conditions in mind. For good measure, always bring along your VHF/UHF handheld, it could literally save your life.

Let someone know where you're going and approximately how long you'll be gone.

This is an obvious one, but people sometimes forget. If you can hear thunder, shut the station down! A storm does not have to be right on top of you to be a lightning threat. Lightning bolts can touch down more than 10 miles away from a thunderstorm's leading edge.

Portable operating is about the most fun you can have in Amateur Radio, but you have to approach it in a common sense fashion.

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].

My engraved SOTA Mountain Goat trophy finally arrived. It took 118 summit activations to earn this little piece of glass making it priceless, to me at least.

My Ph.D. in Portable Mountain Ops

No two trophies are alike, each is hand chiseled. Pretty cool!!
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

My engraved SOTA Mountain Goat trophy finally arrived. It took 118 summit activations to earn this little piece of glass making it priceless, to me at least.

My Ph.D. in Portable Mountain Ops

No two trophies are alike, each is hand chiseled. Pretty cool!!
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Yaesu FT7 – a true classic

Way back in about 1979 I owned a Yaesu FT7. This was a 10W HF rig using a modular construction.  It was a beautiful radio with a lovely, quiet receiver.  It is probably the best radio I have ever owned and used. It predates WARC bands and only covered one 500kHz part of the 10m band and the non-WARC bands from 80m-10m. Today, it looks large. It was an analogue radio – no memories, no synthesisers – just a very good HF radio transceiver.  I worked all over the world with mine using QRP SSB and simple, low, wire antennas and no beams, mainly on 10m. In those days, most (all?) USA SSB was above 28.5MHz. Canadians were mainly below 28.5MHz.

My little FT817 has more bands and modes and is about 1/10th of the size.

I can thoroughly recommend the FT7, but they are very hard to find.  A later version was 50W pep and had full 10m coverage in 4 x 500kHz sections. The FT7 was a “real” radio – no gimmicks, just a truly amazing rig. Many who owned them and sold them (like me) later regretted selling them. As they say, these rigs are “keepers”.  If you find one you are unlikely to be disappointed.  Also, the handbook was complete so you could service it and not an SMA component in sight!

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/ft7 .

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

A 56 inch long whip can only behave like a 56 inch whip. This is a basic law of physics. What the Miracle Whip (MW) and its derivatives do is match this whip on the HF and VHF bands. With a decent ground or counterpoise wire the MW may be only a couple of S-points down on a “decent” antenna on the higher HF bands. They work reasonably well and, in the past, I used my MW quite a bit, even from indoors.  They are definitely NOT a miracle antenna, although they are not too bad.  Since the owner, a Canadian called Robert, died there have been a few newcomers in the market.

Would I buy one today? Probably not. I have had better results with small loops.  As a simply deployed mainly RX antenna they make an ideal companion for an FT817 or similar. Their beauty is their simplicity. If you want optimum performance in a small antenna there are better solutions.  Small loops seem to work better, but then bandwidth becomes very narrow although loops don’t need grounds or counterpoises to work well. Personally, at QRP levels I’d use a loop every time.

As Wheeler showed years ago, efficient small antennas are reactive and unless losses are minimised, efficiency suffers. This is a fundamental limitation. Although high permeability ferrites and high permittivity ceramics can help to alter the size of space near an antenna and “magnify” the effective size of small antennas, the effect is small unless there is a lot of ferrite with high permeability or a lot of ceramic with a high permittivity. In theory, a tiny antenna can be very efficient but you’d need superconductors and lossless capacitors!  At the moment, sadly, neither are practical to mortals!

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/antennas/mwhip .

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.