Author Archive
QRP Club Forum
July 3rd, 2014 | 
Author: I don’t know why, but I’ve never been a big fan of checking out Amateur Radio forums. Whether it’s the forums on eHam or QRZ, for some reason, I never got “into it”. I always preferred perusing and reading the various QRP e-mail reflectors.
A couple of weeks ago, I received an e-mail invitation from Nicola IZ5ZCO, to check out his QRP Club Forum. When I got there, I liked what I saw. The atmosphere is friendly and international – an international society of QRPers, as it were. But …. like all forums, I guess it could use more activity. You should check it out – you might like it! Here’s the URL: http://www.qrpclub.org/qrp
I just posted something about the EARCHI antenna that we used this weekend, as it’s always good to share.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
OK ….. Wait …… What?
Wow! It was hot here today! It got up into the upper 90s (36C) today and I was loving it! Well, maybe not “loving” it, but I wasn’t hating it or wishing it away. I was in my element as I went out to the Jeep and proceeded to try a little QRP.
I wasn’t hearing too much on 15 Meters and everyone on 17 Meters seemed to be involved in a ragchew, so I proceeded down to the good ol’ standby – the 20 Meter QRP Watering Hole. It was there that I heard a station calling CQ rather slowly. I set the KX3’s keyer for about 13 WPM and waited for him to sign. I am guessing that this person is a relatively new Ham because of the slower code speed and because he had a 2X3 callsign and the prefix was KK. I think in the #2 call district we’re still at KD as a newly issued prefix.
I sent his call twice followed by mine, three times. He had a decent 579 signal, and he gave me a 549. OK, not the strongest, but in my book, a 549 signal is decent enough to have a ragchew with. After the preliminaries, I thought we were going to get into the heart of a nice chat. That’s when I got, “BANDS SEEM TO BE UNSTABLE. YOU ARE UP AND DOWN. 73 DE KKXXXX”. Just like that, he was gone.
OK …. wait a second ….. what just happened?
It seems to me that one of the attributes of short wave communications is QSB, i.e. fading. It’s a rare conversation where it doesn’t occur, even mildly. It’s something you learn to adapt to and overcome in all but the severest cases, as you build up your skills. I feel bad for this guy, because if you’re going to limit yourself to only 599 signals, you’re going to miss out on a lot of fun. And you’re not going to develop yourself as an experienced operator, either.
The antennas are unplugged tonight. As a result of the hot weather and a cool (not cold) front moving through, we are getting some hellacious thunderstorms. No hail, but the downpours have been heavy and even though the rains have stopped for now, it’s still lightning. A lot.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
Field Day 2014 – Wow!
That’s all I can say – wow! A magnificent time was had at the first Field Day for the South Plainfield Radio Club. I posted the following to QRP-L, and I’ll insert some other thoughts at the end.
The South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club operated Field Day in Spring Lake Park in South Plainfield, NJ. We used Club call NJ2SP, and ran as 2A (Battery). The “2A” were two Elecraft KX3s. The CW station ran to a EARCHI antenna (53 foot radiator, 9:1 UNUN, 25 foot length of coax). The elevated end of the EARCHI was about 30-35 foot up in a tree. The SSB station used a G5RV, about the same height between two trees.
And if you look closely (click on the picture for a bigger image) you can see the EARCHI antenna sloping upward and away towards the tree it was anchored in.
The EARCHI antenna was a resounding success. The KX3’s internal tuner handled it exceedingly well on all bands. We made just a tad over 270 CW QSOs, with our best DX being Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands.
The G5RV worked exceeding well, also. The KX3 again tuned without a hiccup. The SSB team completed just over 100 SSB QSOs – these guys are all QRO ops and they were skeptical about completing even a single QRP SSB QSO. They ended up surprising themselves, and they ended up being quite amazed at what they were able to accomplish. Yes, it was not as easy as using 100W rigs, but even in keeping with the ARRL’s 5 Watt limit for the battery category, they were quite pleased.
We operated on solar charged batteries all weekend without a hitch. The energy hogs for the weekend were the two laptops that we used for logging. The Field Day rules state that since we were not using the laptops for rig control, we could have powered them from mains (which we did not have) or a generator (which we had, but didn’t use). In keeping with our self imposed “severe emergency capability” theme in order to make this a drill as much as possible, we also powered them off a deep cycle battery using an inverter. We needed to switch the laptops over to a fresh battery somewhere in the mid morning hours, Sunday.
SPARC’s first Field day was an outstanding and unqualified success, and I think we ‘busted’ the myth that Field Day has to be QRO to be fun.
The EARCHI worked great and way better than I dared hope for. With less exceptions than I can count on one hand, I was able to work everyone that I tried to. Being on an energy budget because of the batteries and wanting them to last all weekend if possible, I didn’t try calling CQ or running a frequency (it was S&P all weekend). I will reserve that for FOBB and the Skeeter Hunt, which are only four hour events. I can afford to be a little “battery foolish” during those, and I expect the EARCHI to work just as well during those two events.
The other Godsend of the weekend? That Joplin ARC antenna launcher kit that I purchased and built up. We were able to place antenna lines pretty much exactly where we wanted with hardly any effort at all. That thing is one of the greatest things since sliced bread! One or two of the guys were skeptical about being able to place an antenna line so easily and accurately with such little effort. The old saying is “That seeing is believing”. They’re believers now!
After being awake for 24+ hours, I fell asleep while waiting for the Mayor to show up late Sunday morning. I woke up in time for his visit, though!
In closing, I’ll answer a question that was posed to me by a member of the visiting public, the way I wanted to answer it. A woman asked me if it was a bit extreme staying awake throughout the 24 hours of Field Day. Of course, I gave her the answer of “In the event of an emergency or a natural disaster, sleep may very well be a luxury, …….” Yadda, yadda, yadda.
What I wanted to say was any of the following:
1) It’s Field Day! Sleep is overrated!
2) Heck no Lady! Field Day is fun!
Or I could’ve gotten all Clint Eastwood and said:
3) Ma’am? I’ll sleep when I’m dead!
One final, last added mention. Last year, Marv K2VHW introduced me to Deep Woods Off moist towelettes. They are a must for the Field Day Go Package. They worked extremely well, and I was not bothered by a single “Skeeter” (pesky little fellows, I should have had them pound brass!) all night long.
This is Amateur Radio Week
in South Plainfield!
Field Day is two days away and the weather here is supposed to be gorgeous! Psyched!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
Not bad!
36 intrepid souls have signed up for the 2014 NJQRP Skeeter hunt since the opening bell rang early yesterday morning. And I am proud to say that one of our Skeeters this year is Mr. NJQRP himself. George N2APB sent an e-mail and was assigned Skeeter #29.
I also see that several of my fellow QRP Polar Bears have signed up for numbers, too. These guys are fantastic and are never ones to miss the opportunity for an outdoor QRP adventure. Thank you fellow Polar Bears – grrrrrrrrrrr. Will be looking to join you in swatting Skeeters from bear hide this August.
I’d like to take this opportunity to “borrow” and old New Jersey slogan. This was an advertisement that ran back in the days when Tom Kean was governor and it was designed to increase tourism in NJ. It went like this, “New Jersey and you ….. prefect together.”
If I may, this kind of sums up the whole idea and intent behind the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt.
“QRP and the great outdoors ….. perfect together!”
Join us and see for yourself.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
2014 Skeeter #13
MONDAY MORNING IMPORTANT UPDATE: Argggghhhhh! I went to my spam file this morning and found about 20 Skeeter Number requests that were sent over the weekend. I didn’t know they were there, and I didn’t even think to check there until this morning! So if you sent me an e-mail request over the weekend and still haven’t heard from me …..you will tonight. I promise!
Summer – it’s finally here!
After a long, cold Sprinter (that’s what you get when Winter seems to last endlessly into Spring), Summer is finally here! Yay! And as promised, as of today, numbers are being assigned for the 2014 NJQRP Skeeter Hunt.
The Hunt will be held on Sunday August 10th this year – and right now, the best place to see the rules is at http://w2lj.blogspot.com/p/njqrp-skeeter-hunt.html. I am trying to get the QSL.NET page updated with the new bonus points rules, but the server seems to be down right now.
Yes – bonus points this year for gathering enough letters from callsigns to spell out the word “SKEETER”. 100 extra points will be added to your score if you accomplish this feat. In any event, the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt is a grand time and folks seem to enjoy themselves a lot, so send me an email ([email protected]) and reserve your Skeeter number today.
Today was also the Raritan Valley Radio Club annual hamfest, which is held at Piscataway High School, in Piscataway, NJ. The weather was absolutely beautiful – perfect for a hamfest! It was sunny and it got up into the high 70s. Very nice, but yet not exasperatingly hot. And as you can see from the two quick photos that I snapped with my phone, there was not a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately, it was perfect sunburn weather. Reporting time for the hamfest workers was 5:00 AM and as I was driving to the hamfest site, I had realized I had forgotten to bring sunscreen. I discovered the hard way that there are NOT a lot of places open at 5:00 AM where you can buy sunscreen!
There were plenty of vendors and lots of buyers. The ARRL had a presence with the appearance of Bill Hudzik W2UDT, our section Vice Director. (Psst! It helps that he’s a club member!) We also had a VE Exam session, where three people earned their Technician licenses, and we also had one upgrade to General and one upgrade to Extra.
In the top photo, you can see the huge mast sticking up from an old broadcast van that Brian N2MPM had acquired. Running up the mast was a PAR END-FEDZ antenna that Alan W2AEW using to make QRP contacts. If you follow this blog, you know that I have mentioned Alan’s YouTube videos in the past. He does an excellent job producing videos on how to use test equipment and other neat technical tutorials. If you haven’t subscribed to his YouTube channel, then you are cheating yourself. After you read this go over and subscribe – it’s definitely worth it.
Here’s a video he took of today’s festivities:
Pulling off a hamfest like this is a huge undertaking. Thanks to the direction of our two Hamfest Committee Chairmen, Drew W2OU and Rich W2PQ and all the members of the RVRC, this comes off flawlessly – year after year.
In between my duties of assisting with the parking and placement of the vendors, and being the lead in administering the VE session, I did get a chance to look at the various wares on the tables. I purchased some BNC to PL259 adapters and some large alligator clips that we will to connect to batteries that we will be using next weekend during Field Day. Not a big spender much to the discontent of the vendors, but much to the delight of my wife. 😉
I’ve been up way too long and am making way too many typos – even more than I usually make, so it’s off to the sack for W2LJ. (Thank God for spellcheck.)
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
Skeeter #12 for 2014
Does it get any better?
I suppose it can. I suppose one could make DXCC Honor Roll, or perhaps get elected to the QRP Hall of Fame, or perhaps invent some cool, new piece of QRP equipment that the world will beat a path to your door for (and make you some $$$ in the process!).
But for a Ham an’ Egger like me, the best is just getting on the air making contacts – ANY kind of contacts. DX quickies, ragchews – whatever. It’s all good. And today was another comparatively good lunchtime QRP session. I worked RZ1OA, Vlad in Russia, and I worked XE1XR, David in Mexico. Two good, solid DX contacts.
The best QSO was the last one, and it was not a DX contact. In fact, the miles covered were only about 650. But it was exciting, fun and satisfying nonetheless.
After working the two DX stations, I decided to go to on down to 20 Meters to listen perhaps for some SOTA stations. That’s when I heard a weak, but very copyable KC8JNL calling CQ right at the QRP Watering Hole. I answered and hooked up with Pat who lives in Rothbury, MI. Not as distant as Russia or Mexico – definitely. But this QSO was exciting in and of itself, because Pat was using a Rockmite at QRPp power levels. There was some vicious QSB, and I didn’t quite copy Pat’s power output level. Having my own 20 Meter Rockmite, I knew it had to be under 1 Watt. Pat gave me a 559 and I gave him a 459 in turn. The QSO would have been Q5 copy both ways if it weren’t for the QSB. But even with the fading, I knew what Pat was saying to me, and from his answers, I had a good idea that he was making me out just as well.
QRP to QRP, or QRP to QRPp, or even QRPp to QRPp QSOs get my wonderment juices all fired up. That we can effectively hold a conversation using such little power is still an amazement to me after 36 years in this hobby. It’s truly like …. can it get ANY better than this? (My apologies for speaking like a teen – having two, it tends to rub off). I talked with Pat and Vlad and David today, all while enjoying the sunshine and the 80F (27C) temperatures that we are having here today. No wires, no cell towers, no infrastructure of any real sort ….. not much more than two guys shooting a bunch of electrons out of some wire or aluminum – hoping that they’ll bounce around to and fro, and eventually be picked up by a like minded enthusiast – somewhere.
Magic. Pure magic.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
