Lightning storms with thunder that shook the house kept me off the air for much of late Friday & early Saturday. QRN lasted for too long after the storms passed, affecting 40/80 more than the higher bands and took a bit of the wind out of my sails as far as enthusiasm and dedication to the contest was concerned.
I operated single op, all bands, QRO with K3/AL80BQ and dipole.
A few observations: Continue reading '2012 ARRL DX Contest (CW)'»
"Swell"
Just as the bands kick back into high gear with good DX and strong signals for this weekend’s contest, a drought-ending series of thunderstorms is headed to southern Texas.
As Clint would hiss, “Swell.” Continue reading 'DX vs. WX'»
So who’s going to be the first QRPer to turn this idea into a working QRPp transceiver…
Engineers at General Motors are tinkering with a new alloy known chemically as Ni45Co5Mn40Sn10 (may I just dub it nicomagtin?) that has the dual properties of magnetism and “ferroelectricalism” – a permanent electrical polarization. Continue reading 'Skutterudites & clever conversions: Heat to electricity…and radio'»
These plots were made with West Mountain Radio’s Computerized Battery Analyzer:
More battery plots can be found in the Pages section of this website under QRP>QRP & Batteries above.
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Last week I mentioned Sanyo’s new higher capacity Eneloop NiMH batteries. I ordered myself an 8-pack of them from Amazon.com…along with a new charger – La Crosse Technology’s BC-1000.
The package arrived yesterday and that charger is pretty darned amazing. It automatically does in one fell swoop for four batteries what used to have to be done on each individual bettery – if I bothered at all. Which I didn’t… Continue reading 'A better way to monitor your batteries’ performance'»
NOTE: Far more detail on these two rigs is available on Thomas K4SWL’s website here.
With Ten Tec now selling a YouKits version of Elecraft’s KX1 I thought I’d take a look at how the two compare in basic features.
Numbers don’t tell all but they’re a good place to start: Continue reading 'Elecraft KX1 vs. Ten Tec HB1B'»
- Click for larger
Today’s mail brought an envelope from Portugal, courtesy of CT1FFU and CT2IRW, containing a bag of tiny parts…but not too many of them!
I’m not the most enthusiastic builder of kits containing SMD devices but with only a small handful of parts I’m not expecting much ado. With only one cap to tweak and no coils to wind, construction ought to be a snap and will add HF reception to the FCD’s already broad spectrum of coverage.
This second round of kits seems to have sold out quickly but their website promises to make the kit available for at least another round.
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Taking advice from an old rock & roll song, I’ve decided to pull my recently updated FT-857D from storage and install it into my car.
An upcoming business trip coincides with the DXpedition to Spratley Island 9M0L and one or two other DXpeditions. The only hope I have in being able to work them is mobile – though not with a mobile antenna. The idea is to have a 100-watt signal and a wire vertical (I won’t be the guy with a Hamstick on his Corolla).
The corporate apartment where I’ll be staying may or may not have a cooperative tree outside the window for antenna hanging but having the rig in the car will allow me to drive to a park or some other location where an antenna will be possible. Continue reading '“Going mobile” with an FT857D'»
Ashley, eneloop'ed
A bit over a year ago, I ordered and tested Sanyo’s new-at-the-time rechargeable AA batteries known as Eneloops (you can read that here).
My portable QRP trips are few and far between these days but I’d been going through alkaline AA batteries in my camera flashes like a sailor goes went through beer in Subic Bay. There had to be a better way… Continue reading 'Eneloops prove their reliability…and get better'»
This blog generates a stream of email – some of which are the basis for posts you’ve read. Others update me on material presented in previous posts. Here are some of those:
A Tree-Mounted Yagi
Last months’ post about Leroy N7EIE and his uniquely mounted triband Yagi may have jinxed him. Larry has the good fortune to be surrounded by trees that make my tall pines look like shrubs. Being the practical individual that he is, he saw them as organic towers – just as I would. In a follow-up email, Larry reminds me of Newtonian mechanics with photos of his Yagi’s submission to gravity. Actually, it was the tree limbs that fell in Washington state’s worst ice storm in 40 years.
From Leroy:
I learned that with a vengeance last week during Washington’s worst snow/ice storm up here in 40 years.
As you can see from some of these pictures, Continue reading 'Misc: De-tree’d Yagi, capacitance meter and 80m DXing at the far end'»
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