AmateurRadio.com

DX Sherlock, the website that has the very useful real-time propagation maps derived from DX Cluster and WSPR spots, has moved to a new site.

The addresses vhfdx.net, vhfdx.info and dxsherlock.com will now redirect to dxmaps.com. If you have bookmarked the site you will need to update your bookmarks.

I tell ya!

I had a virtual pipeline into Northern Europe tonight on 20 Meters.  I worked Latvia, Denmark and a whole bunch of Ham friends from European Russia.  I was consistently getting 579 reports, and I will take those at face value.  Whenever I don’t get that automatic “599”, I figure any other report is probably pretty honest.

Hey, 5 Watts to the Butternut and I’m getting 579 from over across all that water that’s separating us?  I’ll take THAT any day of the week! If I wasn’t so tired from work, I’d do the Happy Dance.

I’ve got a bunch of yard work planned for tomorrow, so that I can have Sunday free for Flight of the Bumblebees.  Fresh air, trees, sunshine, wire and a radio.  You can’t beat that with a stick!

Since portable ops seems to be the thing that a lot of folks associate with QRP, I’m attempting to boil the essence of that down into a design for a T-shirt.   This is what I’ve come up with so far:

I’ve put this design on some stuff at Cafe Press.  I think I’ll order myself up a few shirts so that I can wear them while I’m Skeeter hunting (too late for FOBB).  I’ll have to see if I can’t find a real graphic artist who can improve on the execution of my idea – but for now – not too shabby (at least I think so!)

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

Hendricks attenuator in service

Final testing

1. Have fun and enjoy!!
2. Look for DXCC's I do not have so I can add to my  ARRL Diamond  count.
3. See if I can beat my miles per watt record of 45,868 miles.
4. Have fun and enjoy!!

Some of the extra parts

This QRP thing is just like fishing. Yesterday, it was like I had magic bait. Every time I cast my call out upon the waters, I had a hit.  Every time I called a station, I had a hit.

Today was the antithesis of yesterday.  No one answered my CQs and also wasn’t able to raise anyone that I called.  Reverse Beacon Network said I was getting out just fine …. no strikes, though.  The difference between yesterday on today?  Nothing except that yesterday was Sunday and today is Monday.

As much as we would like it to be, this Amateur Radio thing is not an exact science.  I think tomorrow I will head out somewhere nature like and will try the EFHW.  I had good luck with that “fishing pole” last year.

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

I participated in the QRP-ARCI Summer Homebrew Sprint for only a very little this afternoon.  But thankfully, quality is not defined by quantity, so the QSOs, while few in number were great in fun.

I began by operating on 20 Meters.  The Buddistick was set up with two 11 inch arms, the coil and the super long whip atop the Jeep on the magmount.  With my coil tapped in the normal 20 Meter spot that I am accustomed to, the Autek analyser displayed an SWR of 1.4:1.  I hit the ATU button anyway, for a very short “Brrrrp” and got a 1:1 match.

While on 20 Meters, as I was calling “CQ QRP” for a bit, and much to my surprise I was answered by Fred G4HOM out of Birmingham, England.  He was much louder than the stateside stations that I was working; so I immediately thought “tower and beam”. Nope!  Fred was using his K2 at 10 Watts to a simple wire – propagation, being what it was, favored a QSO between Lake George and Birmingham.  Signal reports were good both ways.

Shortly thereafter, I switched to 40 Meters by undoing the tap from the coil to take advantage of the entire Buddistick coil, and I added two more 11 inch arms.  After a bit of a scare that I won’t go into here (due to my own stupidity), the KX3 had matched the Buddistick to 1.4:1 on 40 Meters. I had several QSOs down around 7.030 MHz, including one with my very good friend Bob, W3BBO.  This was our first QSO while I have been at Lake George.  He had a good 579 signal and gave me a good report as well.

The Buddistick on the magmount, using the vehicle as a ground plane is great combination.  Thanks to W3BBO for getting me to try that.  It works so well that I may just forego using the EFHW wires unless I am on the hiking trail later this week.

Oh, I don’t remember if I mentioned this; but I decided to leave the Lead Acid battery home.  I am going strictly with the Lithium Ion this week.  It held up very well this afternoon.  I never dropped from 5 Watts output throughout the couple of hours of operating time this afternoon, including a few prolonged “CQ QRP” sessions.  I think “The Little Blue Guy” will be quite adequate for my needs.

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