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It’s still beautiful even though most of the leaves are off the trees. I’ve gotten out the last two days. Yesterday a bike ride in East Andover… today I used the DSW in a field on Shute Hill to work Curacao, the Netherlands and a 2-way QRP QSO with Pennsylvania. I’ll start with today.

Judy and I hiked up the Rufus Colby Road and down the lane way into Will Ellis’s field. The beech trees are still glowing orange. I brought the beautiful DSW for 20 meters and a dipole. I decided to put the dipole up as a sloper… one end in a pine tree… the other end tied to a line and held down by a rock in the field. It didn’t go smoothly. I pulled off the PL259 connector from the RG-174 when it caught on some stubble in the field. Fortunately I had a knife and a little screw driver in the backpack, and I cobbled a connection together.

What a sweet rig. 2 watts… digital VFO with a built in keyer and nice filtering. As soon as I got set up, I worked Al WA3PTY in Pennsylvania! He was only running 1 watt. Wow… We’ve worked each other a dozen times before, but what a hoot to make this QSO from Shute Hill… 2-way QRP.

After that I went down the band and worked PA2EVR in the Netherlands. It was a quick 599/599 exchange. Then I worked PJ2/DL8OBQ in Curacao, an island just north of the Venezuelan coast. This was also a quick exchange. But what a lot of fun! A tiny rig, low power, simple antenna from the top of Shute Hill. It doesn’t get much better. Thanks Dave for designing the little DSW!

Bike Ride in East Andover

Yesterday, Judy and I rode our bikes about 5 miles on the old rail trail in East Andover. There were so many leaves on the trail, we couldn’t even see the ground.

I stopped at a little brook to operate and discovered that I’d left the backpack and the rig in the camper. This is not a good sign. Before heading home, we stopped at Highland Lake.

I tossed 33 feet of wire into a maple tree and sat down on the grass with the KX3. I started on 12 meters. W1AW/7 in Nevada was very strong and we made a quick exchange. Then I switched to 15 meters and called Oscar EA1DR. I’ve worked him in Spain at least a dozen times from the field. He’s always a welcomed QSO.

Things may look a lot different in a few days. There’s a forecast of snow for Sunday.

Interesting news that I’ve picked up over the last couple of days is that both Wouxun and TYT will be offering a version of their quadbander mobiles which will include 70MHz.

In the case of the Wouxun KG-UV950PL you lose 28MHz, which makes good sense to me, giving you 50/70/144/432MHz. Although 28MHz is a great mobile band, – FM only is maybe a bit restricted. Martin Lynch & Sons’ website carries a link to the new rig, which is not yet available – but hopefully not far off. There’s talk of 50W output on 70MHz.

I have it on good authority that the TYT TH-9800 will also be available in a configuration which includes 68-88MHz. In the case of the TH-9800, this is at the expense of the 50MHz band – so you would have 28/70/144/432MHz. The TYT version will hopefully be in the UK from mid-December.

All of this sounds good for 70MHz FM activity – particularly being packaged with other bands – whereas PMR boxes used for the band tend to be big and don’t do anything else for you (albeit they are the right price!)

I wonder if we’ll see triband 70/144/432MHz mobile antennas available?

Interesting news that I’ve picked up over the last couple of days is that both Wouxun and TYT will be offering a version of their quadbander mobiles which will include 70MHz.

In the case of the Wouxun KG-UV950PL you lose 28MHz, which makes good sense to me, giving you 50/70/144/432MHz. Although 28MHz is a great mobile band, – FM only is maybe a bit restricted. Martin Lynch & Sons’ website carries a link to the new rig, which is not yet available – but hopefully not far off. There’s talk of 50W output on 70MHz.

I have it on good authority that the TYT TH-9800 will also be available in a configuration which includes 68-88MHz. In the case of the TH-9800, this is at the expense of the 50MHz band – so you would have 28/70/144/432MHz. The TYT version will hopefully be in the UK from mid-December.

All of this sounds good for 70MHz FM activity – particularly being packaged with other bands – whereas PMR boxes used for the band tend to be big and don’t do anything else for you (albeit they are the right price!)

I wonder if we’ll see triband 70/144/432MHz mobile antennas available?

It was really all that on the bands last weekend. Easy fun as well. Just dial in 10 or 15 meters and stations back to back, with great signal strenght and from all over the world. Just blurt 59 24 into a microphone and the other party is as happy as a clam. My radio was alive and despite me being not too keen on contesting I did spend quite some hours on Saturday and Sunday giving away point, just for the heck of it.

More importantly, I did a side by side comparison of my 5m and 12 meter verticals. The 5 meter one is hooked up to a transmatch, the 12 meter one to an CG-3000 autotuner. The latter is prone to RF feedback, but since being partly above my roof it did perform better. I haven’t found the perfect lenghth of wire to cover all bands with the CG-3000, but for now I am satisfied with it.

I didn’t work any special stations, only VK9XSP from Christmas Island. They were easy to work in CW as well, because of the few takers. Unfortunately it left me with no time to participate in the CLE-188 as advertised by Steve VE7SL. I think I wouldn’t have heard much either, because when I tested the setup on Thursday there was so much noise I couldn’t even get clear signals from the local beacons. Never mind, there is always next time.

The only thing that made this weekend a little sad was to learn of the passing of Julian G4ILO. His blog was great and I am glad to have exchanged some mails with him. He will be missed. I hope conditions are always top where he is now.

It was with much sadness that I read of Julian’s death last Friday on Twitter and then on his blog

Like many others who have tweeted or blogged about Julian’s passing, I found his blog an inspiration and there was always something of interest for me.

On the air, I think I first worked Julian on 2m CW back in the 1980s when he was still ‘down south’. I remember it well, as G3ILO was local to me and working G4ILO made me smile. We didn’t have many on air QSOs in recent years, although we emailled and commented on each other’s blogs quite regularly.

A memorable communication from Julian was an APRS message he sent me, bounced off the ISS. We also had a nice Echolink QSO one evening, when I was on the train and he was in his shack. We never worked on DSTAR, a mode that it fair to say, did not appeal to Julian at all, and he was quite happy to say so!

Happy memories of a very interesting man who I shall miss. Sympathies to Olga for her loss.

Julian’s last blog post reminds us to hold our loved ones close…

It was with much sadness that I read of Julian’s death last Friday on Twitter and then on his blog

Like many others who have tweeted or blogged about Julian’s passing, I found his blog an inspiration and there was always something of interest for me.

On the air, I think I first worked Julian on 2m CW back in the 1980s when he was still ‘down south’. I remember it well, as G3ILO was local to me and working G4ILO made me smile. We didn’t have many on air QSOs in recent years, although we emailled and commented on each other’s blogs quite regularly.

A memorable communication from Julian was an APRS message he sent me, bounced off the ISS. We also had a nice Echolink QSO one evening, when I was on the train and he was in his shack. We never worked on DSTAR, a mode that it fair to say, did not appeal to Julian at all, and he was quite happy to say so!

Happy memories of a very interesting man who I shall miss. Sympathies to Olga for her loss.

Julian’s last blog post reminds us to hold our loved ones close…