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My lunchtime QRP session stalled for a day.  I went out to the car yesterday, and could not get the KX3 to tune the Buddistick.  If I twisted the coax near the radio connector, it would intermittently tune, but would not stay tuned. A SWR of 25:1 is certainly not desirable.

I brought my magmount into the house when I got home.  With some time to kill before the 20 Meter QRP Foxhunt, I checked out the PL-259 with my VOM, and found an intermittent short between center connection and shield.  So I snipped the cable back a few inches and soldered on a bright and shiny new PL-259.  Viola`!  Problem solved! And this is exactly the reason why, that one of my yearly purchases at some local hamfest is a small bag containing PL-259s. You never know when the need for one will arise.

Today, my results were like night and day.  The Buddistick tuned today with not even a blip of the KX3’s autotuner.  I had 1:1 matches on both 20 and 15 Meters.  20 Meters yielded two nice QSOs, one with John K9DX down in Lakeland, FL and the other with Scotty KG3W in PA.  Scotty and I have worked many, many times before.  A few rag chews but mostly brief QRP Sprint QSOs.  It was good to spend a few minutes with him.

The coup de grace, came on 15 Meters however, after I had finished up with Scotty.  There was an extremely loud PY0F/PP1CZ on 21.023 MHz with quite a pile up chasing him.  He was soooo loud, though, that I knew if I could figure out the split he was using, I stood a good chance.  Trying to figure out the split can be tricky on 15 Meters, though, because you can’t always hear the station the DX is working.  If you’re patient and give it enough time, sooner or later the DX station is going to work someone that you can hear, too.

That was the case today.  I waited long enough until I heard him go back to a European station that I was also able to hear.  I figured out the split and within a few minutes, I had Fernando de Noronha in my log. Worked with 5 Watts to a Buddistick plopped on the roof of my Jeep.  Don’t let ANYONE tell you that QRP doesn’t work!

By the way, did you know that tomorrow is “Respect the QRP Frequencies Day”?  The QRP Respect Committee (an Italian organization) is running a day long QRP QSO Party tomorrow. A non-competetive event on or about the QRP Watering Holes.  Check out their Webpage here.

So spend some time around those frequencies tomorrow if that’s not something you already do.  You just might find more DX than you might otherwise expect!

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

Here’s a cool little video from HowToLou.com (I’m guessing this guy is named Lou) with a third prototype of a homemade engine made strictly from hardware store parts.  It’s not quite working yet, but it’s rather interesting and I think he’s on the right track.

I’m more electronically inclined than mechanical and have some ideas on how to make the timing of the spark and the exhaust valve better, using electronics.  But I probably couldn’t do it with just hardware store parts, unless perhaps the hardware store sells radios that I can scrounge parts from.

One of these homebrew engines coupled with a homebrew generator connected to a QRP rig would make a nifty little project to show at your local ham club or field day.

A week or two ago, Julian G4ILO blogged about a new version of WSJTX that he’d been testing with Joe K1JT (incidentally, great to see that Joe will be at the RSGB’s Convention later in the year) that supported both JT65A and JT9 modes. At the time of Julian’s blog posting, the program wasn’t publically available, but when I checked earlier this week, it was there and available.

The rather nice idea is that if you have a receiver with a filter that’s 4khz wide or so, you can place your receiver strategically so that it can receive both JT65A (say around 14.076Mhz) AND JT9 (up around 14.078). You can decide whether you will monitor both modes or just one. And when you double click to reply to someone, the program determines which mode they were on and transmits accordingly.

I downloaded the program yesterday and had it monitoring away happily in rather poor HF conditions.

More great software from K1JT!

Laurent F6FVY tweeted the other day a very interesting link, showing that people had used a LNBF designed for broadcast satellite reception and an RTLSDR dongle for 10GHz reception.

There are two good videos and I particularly liked the one from EA5KGD showing his reception of EB5EA’s 10GHz signals using the LNBF and the RTLSDR as an IF on around 618MHz.

So, I’ve ordered a suitable LNBF from the USA, which came in at just over £14 including shipping. If I can get a 10GHz receiver going for just under £20, I’ll be happy!

The only puzzle I have at the moment, which I am sure is easily solved, is that the LNBF requires its power to be fed up the coax. I am not sure what arrangement to use for this in conjunction with the RTLSDR. If anyone has seen anything suitable written up, I’d be very grateful! It looks like I need to find a way of feeding the 12V up the coax…

This looks like it would be fun to get going. There’s a 10GHz beacon on Cleeve Hill about 40 miles from here. I wonder if I could receive it and potentially look for rainscatter.

There is a very jagged peak just east of Buena Vista, CO called Castle Rock (not to be confused with the city by the same name). I knew this was a SOTA summit (W0/SP-112) and I had my eye on it for a while now. It is extremely rocky and jagged near its summit, so I was not sure if it could be ascended without a technical climb. A little research revealed that it was climbable but quite steep near the top. SummitPost.org has a good description of how to ascend this peak.

Castle Rock

My hiking partner and wife, Joyce K0JJW, joined me on the climb. We managed to get off the preferred route and got into some very steep rock scrambling. Good judgment prevailed and we regrouped and found a more reasonable path but probably cost us an extra hour of hiking. As advertised, it did get very steep at the top. (Study the SummitPost information more carefully than I did.)

Assembling the Arrow 2-Meter antenna

Recently, I picked up an Arrow 3-element Yagi antenna for 2 Meters  (Model 146-3). This antenna can be dismantled and carried inside a reasonable size daypack (or strapped on externally). The boom has two threaded holes for mounting the antenna on a camera tripod. I used a MountainSmith trekking pole that can double as a camera monopod and mounted the antenna on it.

Operating with the Arrow antenna mounted on the trekking pole

For this SOTA activation, I kept it simple and just used my Yaesu FT-60 to work 2 Meter FM. Accordingly, I configured the Yagi antenna for vertical polarization. (There are two mounting holes on the boom, so you can choose vertical or horizontal orientation.)

The trekking pole is not self-supporting and does not provide much additional antenna height but it makes the antenna a lot easier to point for extended periods of time. I like to use a trekking pole for hiking, so this is a good way to get a little extra utility out of it. I am pleased with how this antenna system performed and will use it again.

73, Bob K0NR