Posts Tagged ‘Elecraft’
Portable QRP operations in the park.
October 7th, 2016 | 
Author:  |
| Hunting for that one contact |
A great day for portable op’s.
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| View from the portable op's position. |
N4OX on 20m from FL
AF4RK on 20m from FL
K5WK on 20m from MS
N6ER on 20m from CA
KZ5D on 20m from LA
N5XZ on 20m from TX
W9ILY on 40m from IL
AA3B on 40m from PA
N8BJQ on 40m from OH
I found the contacts on 40m were no repeat backs and all the info was conveyed on the first try. As for 20m I was asked for repeats on my call, name and serial by most if not all the contacts. I raise the output of the KX3 to 10 watts and the external power supply seemed to handle it just fine.
A great day for portable op’s.
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| View from the portable op's position. |
N4OX on 20m from FL
AF4RK on 20m from FL
K5WK on 20m from MS
N6ER on 20m from CA
KZ5D on 20m from LA
N5XZ on 20m from TX
W9ILY on 40m from IL
AA3B on 40m from PA
N8BJQ on 40m from OH
I found the contacts on 40m were no repeat backs and all the info was conveyed on the first try. As for 20m I was asked for repeats on my call, name and serial by most if not all the contacts. I raise the output of the KX3 to 10 watts and the external power supply seemed to handle it just fine.
A great weekend for portable op’s
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| The setup by the Lake |
This past weekend the weather was great and the propagation seemed to be fair. So that meant it was time to take the Elecraft KX3 along with my bike and hit the trails again. I went out on Saturday and Monday (It was a long weekend up this way) to see if the Ham god's would smile on my QRP signal. On Saturday there was a CW contest in full swing which meant there was contesters with keen ears wanting to make contacts. On Saturday I setup at the same location I blogged about on Friday. The park located where we live was not too busy and I was able to scoop a nice picnic table. I was using the same setup the KX3 and mono band 20m whip mounted on my bike. I heard DL2SAX calling CQ test but I was not able to raise a contact from him. I did make contact with CO2RQ from Cuba who was in the contest. This contact told me my signal was getting out as up to this point I had not made any contacts with this setup. I then hung out at the QRP watering hole calling CQ there did not seem to be much action and I was beginning to wonder if Cuba would be the only contact. Then WL2LG came back to me, Len and I had a very nice QSO my report was 229 and I gave him 559. We had a nice QSO talking about antennas, rigs and weather. For Saturday that was it for my contacts.
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| A visitor |
On Monday I got out a bit later and the park was very active and finding a picnic table proved to be very challenging. The spot I had been at for the last couple of days was taken. I did find another spot about 15 minutes away from my first spot but again it was on the lake with a nice breeze. I setup and was on 20m in no time calling CQ at the QRP watering hole again. I did hear K4BBH and VE4AK but they did not come back to me when I sent out my call. I did notice on Monday the conditions had changed to the point where an S8 signal in no time was down at the noise floor. I did make one contact for the day with W2KJ, Joe was in North Carolina. He has a good signal that without warning would fade down to the noise floor. The Audio Peak Filter (APF) on the KX3 saved the contact for me as I was able to dig Joes fading signal to readable levels. We both were QRP at 4 watts and both of us were using Elecraft KX3 rigs. My RST was 329 and I gave him 559 and that seem to be it for my contacts for the day. I packed up and when back home satisfied with only one contact considering the conditions and my minimal setup.
Out on the trail with the KX3
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| The bike all loaded up |
After loading up the bike the first thing I found out was the kick stand on the bike would not support the bike and the loaded side bags. It turned out to be a fine balancing act when it
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| Diamond K400 mount |
Here is a list of the items I am packing:
KX3-on it's own with no Pelican case
Extra battery just in case- The Tracer battery pack
18 gauge counter poise- only for 20m at this time
Pens, paper and 3x5 cards with programming Kx3 instructions
Headphones- I don't use ear buds as my hearing is not that great and any noise around me tunes out CW.
Trunk lip mount base for antenna- Diamond K400
Miscellaneous items- antenna connectors, adjustable wrench, tire repair kit for bike, hat, sunglasses and so on.
Lets get to the trail adventure..........I was able to bike to one of my pre picked spots down at the Lake where a nice size picnic table was available. The antenna mount setup worked great on the bikes rear rack which I mounted back at the condo in case there was issues. I attached the counter poise via a male female 14 gauge connectors. The rig setup was straight forward as I have done this many times in the past. I fired up the rig and I wanted to see at this point if the counter poise was sufficient for a decent SWR and it was. BUT after
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| The setup |
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| The surprise error code |
Listen to the music
Comparing CW audio
The Elecraft KX3 and the Ten-Tec Eagle
The bands were very poor today from my home and finding stations to operate were few and far between, especially at QRP power. So I thought I'd take a break from operating and create a brief video demonstrating the CW audio differences between the Ten-Tec Eagle and the Elecraft KX3.
The radios
The Elecraft KX3 and Ten-Tec Eagle don't have much in common apart from having DSP architectures and both being from American radio manufacturers. The Eagle is devoid of bells, whistles and has no-menus. On the Eagle, what you see is all you get, as opposed to the KX3 which has multiple kitchen sinks stuffed into it's tiny enclosure.
Setup
Both radios have their pre-amps off and DSP bandwidth set to 500 Hz. I have the RF gain reduced by about 15dB on each radio since turning up the RF gain on a noisy day like today just makes for white noise.
During the video I operated the NR (noise reduction) button on the Eagle to demonstrate how it makes a signal pop and in the same manner operate the APF (audio peaking filter) on the KX3. I end the demonstration by reducing the DSP bandwidth down to about 100 Hz on each radio. The Eagle has both 600 Hz and a 300 Hz IF filters so it gets a bit of insertion loss when I pass through the 300 Hz setting. There were no adjacent signals so the IF filtering wasn't doing anything for either radio in this case.
The audio from the Eagle is coming from its built-in speaker, while on the KX3 I'm using an iHome external, self-powered, speaker. The KX3 has an abysmal internal speaker and there's little point in trying to listen to it compared to a radio with a real speaker. In my opinion that speaker is one of the few serious flaws in the KX3.
After I shot the video I realized that there was a bit of a bias against the Eagle's audio because the microphone in the camera was below the top of the Eagle's case and thus wasn't directly hearing the cabinet speaker, whereas it was in direct view of the external speaker connected to the KX3. The Eagle's audio sounds crisper than this in person when your ears have a straight shot to the speaker.
Subjective listening
Audio is a very subjective thing because people can hear the same thing very differently so I won't comment on my opinion on which I prefer.
I would however be curious to hear other's opinions.
That's all for now
So lower your power and raise your expectations
73/72
Rich, AA4OO
KX3 and FT817
Further to my earlier comments in a blog post yesterday, I have received several comments about both rigs. The general view remains that the performance of the KX3 exceeds that of the FT817ND although it is in many ways less suited to field use than the FT817.
I have never owned owned a KX3 as these are very expensive in the UK. I own both a very old FT817 and a recent FT817ND. For the modes I use mostly, the FT817s do a great job. I just wish Elecraft radios were not so expensive and looked, and were, more robust. I for one would think twice about using an expensive KX3 as a field radio. I am sure they work really well, but they look flimsy. A fully loaded KX3 is currently more than twice the cost of the FT817, which is a fine radio. My FT817 gets used from MF (with my homebrew transverter) all the way to 70cms. The FT817 has worked all over the world, including indoor handheld SSB QSOs with the USA.
For the avoidance of any doubt I love the FT817 radios and would like a KX3 for home use, if the latter was less expensive. My views, others may not agree.
