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On Sept. 24, 2014, our NAQCC WV Chapter club member Steve Ashcraft (KC4URI) and I met near Grantsville, WV for some quality radio and star gazing time. Steve knew this place because he’s been here to star gaze with a local Amateur Astronomy Club. This site is known as the “darkest” place in West Virginia for good reasons. It’s isolated and located nearly the “center” of the state. The Calhoun County Park was once a golf course. The grounds are still neatly trimmed. This particular spot, at the highest knoll in the area, was the perfect place to set up an Inverted Vee cut for 40-20- and 30 meters. Steve’s 30 foot fiberglass pole worked nicely from here.

It’s been many years since I’ve camped like this, and I was apprehensive about sleeping on the ground in a small tent. I’m happy to say I survived the night, with no fatal aches and pains, but I’m sure it was amusing as I crawled out of the tent the next morning. It would have made a good video with all the snap, pop, and crackling of bones in the lower back.

After the sun set over the horizon, we saw millions of stars. The Milky Way was visible from horizon to horizon. The sky was so dense that I could only recognize Scorpio, and Sagittarius low on the horizon. The Big Dipper was there but the top part of the sky towards the North star was a mass of galaxies. Looking at this dark sky is a humbling experience when one realizes we’re on such a small planet in the midst of such a large universe.

Steve built this little Elecraft K1 and put an antenna tuner and extra filters it.  He also built the variable speed keyer. I was impressed with both those features; especially the filters. That’s also a beautiful brass K4QU “March” Iambic paddle. Steve also brought a solar panel and a large deep cycle battery. We could have literally ran this rig for days under these circumstances.

While Steve cooked dinner with a little butane stove; this fellow was my first contact,

For those of us in the NAQCC Club, I’m sure you recognize Paul Huff. (N8XMS) Paul had just set up on the patio of his daughters home in Ann Arbor Michigan and transmitted his first CQ.

Making my first contact with Paul, on his first CQ, with another portable QRP station, and the leader of the NAQCC club was a special treat for me.

Paul said:  “That was a lot of fun! 2XPortable, 2XQRP, 2XNAQCC, 2XFirst QSO” 

His daughters home is in the country near Ann Arbor, Michigan. Paul was using his KX1 running about 3 watts. He had a wire tossed up in a tree and a counterpoise on the ground. 

As the skies got darker, I soon worked club member W3ZMN in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

We were getting contacts at distances around 300-400 miles at the time. The stars continued to mesmerize us. The call of a whip-poor-will was near and the sound of a hooting owl, exchanging greetings, echoed around the fields.

Steve took the key and soon worked club member K8FAC in Youngstown Ohio. The temperature was dropping by now and the air was becoming crisp and clean as I took the key once more.

The next QSO was eerie as I talked to W8HOG in Lynchburg, Ohio. Jerry and I have talked several times previously. He just happened to be looking at my bio on the QRZ site. My electronic QSL card pictures me sitting on the back porch of a cabin with my 1970 EKO acoustical guitar. His daughter wants to learn to play the guitar and I made suggestions about what to buy for the “first guitar”.

I talk to KG9HV in Lafayette, Indiana on a fairly regular schedule, and I had told John earlier about our upcoming camping trip to the mountains. Our last QSO, a few days earlier, was on 30 meters. I made a promise to use that frequency when I went on this trip. Sure enough, when I sent my call out he was there on the first attempt.

 After a nice chat, he promised to shift back to 40 meters latter during the night. As the sky turned nearly pitch black, both Steve and myself had nice conversations with him for the second time.

Steve worked W8KM in Parma Indiana shortly afterwards and just before pulling the plug for the night, I worked WB7PNC in Metropolis, Illinois. Bill was astounded with a nearly 599 signal to him.

John Smithson, Jr., N8ZYA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from West Virginia, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

"LU" - 214kHz Abbotsford, B.C.  Has been heard from W1-KH6

Yes, it's once again time for the monthly Co-ordinted Listening Event (CLE) for NDB hunters....the 186th event. These always interesting and popular affairs take place over three nights, with this one starting on Friday, Sept 26th at local noon and running until Monday, Sept 29th, local noon. CLE186 covers the frequency range of 350.0 to 369.9kHz only.

These listening events serve several purposes. They:

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are actually in service and on-the-air so the online database can be kept up-to-date

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range

• will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations

• will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working

• give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed

Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted here a few days after the event.

The very active Yahoo ndblist Group is a great place to learn more about the 'Art of NDB DXing' or to meet other listeners in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome.

If you are contemplating getting started on 630m, listening for NDBs  is an excellent way to test out your receive capabilities as there are several NDBs located near this part of the spectrum.

Courtesy: http://www.classaxe.com/dx/ndb/rna/

You need not be an ndblist member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers. Reports may be sent to the ndblist or e-mailed to either myself or CLE co- ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA).

Please...don't be shy and do give CLE186 a try....then let us know what NDB's can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

In this episode Bob McCreadie reports from the recent AMSAT-UK Colloquium, and finds time to test out the SuperAntenna Superstick delux package. Nick Bennett travels north and discovers a rather remarkable radio club. And we reveal the winner of our first free-to-enter competition.

See the new episode at www.txfactor.co.uk

We hope you enjoy the show!

TX Factor Team

Nick Bennett 2EØFGQ co-hosts TX Factor with Bob McCreadie GØFGX and Mike Marsh G1IAR. Contact the team at [email protected]

What exactly is “zero distance communication”?

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

Today I took a step back 15 years and went for a hike with an old MFJ Cub and a plain dipole. I worked Wales and Wisconsin with only 2 watts.

I hiked up to the cabin at Knox Mountain and had a beautiful afternoon.

As I approached the pond I found a small patch of mountain gentians near the old dam. The pond was beautiful in the afternoon sunlight.

An old cabin overlooks the pond. I set up my gear just on the other side of the front porch under the wild cherry tree.

I tossed a line over a high branch and pulled up a half wave dipole fed with RG-174. I hung a water bottle from the low end. This way I could use the dipole as a vertical.

I plugged the dipole into the 20 meter MFJ Cub without a tuner. I searched around for a while and soon heard GW0FZY from Wales calling CQ. Justin had a strong signal and was kind enough to answer me. He gave me a 569. There was some QSB earlier on, but toward the end of the QSO he sent, “Solid Jim… FB on UR hike.” It was an absolute pleasure to work Justin all the way across the ocean!

The little Cub performed well… I think I built it nearly 15 years ago from a kit. I used to hike with it all the time.

Next I answered Ron W9UW in Wisconsin. Ron was very gracious and sent, “UR doing a great job there with 2W.” Ron also gave me a 569.

I packed up the gear for the downhill journey. I took one last photo of the pond.

As I left the blue jays sent 73 with their “Dee Dee Dee” calls. Along the trail, I treasured each moment. As I noticed the change in color, I realized our days are numbered before the woods turn gray.

Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

It's often easier to achieve high power on 630m or LF by combining lower powered amplifiers than it is to build a single high-power rig. A simple Class D push-pull switching FET amplifier can readily produce 400-500W when operated in the 35V range. Combining two such amplifiers, both sharing a common oscillator / driver stage, would yield 800-1000W output...probably much more than needed on 630m.

The low parts-count of the amplifier stage in the GW3UEP Class-E transmitter should easily produce 150-200W when run at a slightly higher drain voltage and proper heatsinking. Combining two such modules would yield 300-400W output at very low cost.

Combining can be done with a Two-Way (3-port) Wilkinson Splitter / Combiner. Splitters and Combiners are one and the same, depending on which ends are used for input(s) / output(s). When used in the 'combine' mode, insertion losses are virtually zero and mainly due to the miniscule resistive losses of the coils.



Combiner component values can be calculated the old fashioned way or by using one of the numerous online calculators. This excellent online video by Sebastian (KF5OBS) explains exactly how to calculate component values for the truly dedicated amongst us:

Courtesy: https://www.youtube.com
He also has a new video showing how to calculate values for combiners having more than two outputs, should you want to combine three or more individual amplifier modules.

The first combiner I built was for my 2200m kW and combined the output of two 500W Class-D modules:


The air core coils are high-Q, cheap and easy to produce. If space is important, the inductors could just as easily be made using frequency-suitable powdered iron toroids, but at more expense. In actual operation, I have never been able to detect any heat from any of the combiner components, even when running a full kW at lengthy keydown periods of several minutes during QRSS transmissions, affirming the almost 'zero' insertion loss when used in the combining mode.

When I decided to use the same amplifier on 630m, a suitable circuit was designed and built for that band as well:


The terminating / balancing resistor (R) is used only as a safety device in case one of the two amplifiers fails during operation. It allows the still-working amplifier to safely dump some of its power into the load without destroying itself. Under normal operation, no current flows through this resistor so no power is wasted, assuming both inputs are equal. I have read of some schemes that will sense any current flow through 'R' and immediately shutdown the entire transmitter, thus allowing a resistor of lower dissipation to be used for 'R'.

Another benefit of the Wilkinson L-C Combiner is its filtering capability, as it works extremely well as a LPF. Neither my 2200m kW or 630m kW use any low-pass filtering other than that provided by the combiner's L-C network. It also seems to work well as a buffer of sorts, as both myself and VE7TIL noticed with our 2200m systems. We immediately stopped blowing FETs mysteriously when operating at full power. The amplifiers did not seem to react any longer to reactive components suddenly appearing in the antenna system or somewhere in the output network....everything was 100% more stable and reliable it seemed.

I can envision an exciting project consisting of a pair of GW3UEP finals feeding a toroid-based combiner, all in a very small footprint.

Should you choose to combine a pair of amplifiers for 630m, here are the values that were used in my own combiner:



Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].