Posts Tagged ‘KX3’
A nice way to rest a sore back.
May 3rd, 2013 | 
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| Relaxing on the deck. |
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| New loop to tripod adapter |
A weekend with the Xiegu X1M
So, I have now had the X1M since Friday. I have to say that overall, I like it. Friday night (as previously posted) I checked in to the
Xiegu X1M
Brothers Net, and was heard clearly in Virginia, and again on Saturday night, when one of the members in Virginia relayed my check in to the operator in Maryland. Also on Saturday I logged 5 of the 7 Florida QSO Party spelling bee stations from my living room, as well as a couple of other Florida stations. Reports ranged from good for QRP, to Wow! Only 5 Watts? Keep in mind this is in a much-less-than-ideal setup.
In our apartment, KD2CHE and I are extremely limited on space, inside AND out. The X1M is attached to an L-shaped random wire in the front yard, by way of a Balun Designs 9:1 Unun, and an Emtech ZM2 tuner. Emtech recommends not using an additional balun or unun, but it seems to perform a little better with this crazy antenna.
It tunes up on most bands, and appears to tune up on 75, but signal reports were bad on 75, with a lot of RF feedback, and I can hear myself in the speakers I have attached to our TV when I transmit. 17 meters seems to be an issue with the TV speakers as well. I’d love to put up something better in the front yard, but we’ll see what the landlord and neighbors are willing to put up with. 160, by the way is a no-go, but I don’t think that’s a surprise.
I’ve gotten the hang of using the X1M pretty quickly. I haven’t used the memories yet, but I use the dual VFOs quite a bit, as well all of the different tuning speeds. Everything is fairly straight forward once you get the hang of it. Audio is what you would expect for a radio of this size (this thing is SMALL!), and fine through headphones. The receiver is very sensitive. I’ll get some actual numbers next weekend. I like that you can kill the display light to conserve batteries, which will help when portable.
I’ve tried battery power. With 8 alkaline AAs the radio seems to perform OK, however, 8 LiIon batteries are not quite enough voltage for the rig, producing some howls and distortion with the volume above about 40%. I guess I’m not too surprised at this, since 8 FULLY charged AA Eneloops only put out 9.6 volts. I will supplement that with 4 more Eneloops in series for a max of 14.4 volts. Later on, I can pick up something a little more sophisticated. I also made a coax-to-powerpole cable for mobile use, so I can always just set up next to the car when needed.
A coax power plug for making your own power cord, and a 1/8″ stereo (3 cond) plug for wiring to a key/paddle are included. The power connector is a very common size, 5.5mm OD x 2.1mm ID, or Radio Shack size M, which made powering the radio up easy, since I had a size M-to-tinned-leads cable already. I wired a straight-key up to the 1/8″ plug, and had to set the keyer mode to manual, which was also not hard to figure out. The instructions are in Chinese, but an English translated manual is available from Import Communications, or in the X1M Yahoo group.
I think the little X1M has a nice future in my collection. It’s no KX3, but for about $300, it’s a nice little radio.
To be continued………..
My Elecraft KX3 has a ping??
Problem has just been solved seems if I have the rig on dual RX and VFO A and B are very close to each other I am picking up "me" on VFO B. Which makes sense and when in dual mod the head phones are split with VFO A in one ear and VFO B in the other. This would explain why the ping was only heard in one ear!
The bandwidth on the Alexloop.
28.004 (SWR at 2.2) to 28.060 (SWR at 2.1) around 60 Khz of bandwidth.
21.020 (SWR at 2.0) to 21.070 (SWR at 1.7) around 50Khz of bandwidth
14.000 (SWR at 2.1) to 14.035 (SWR at 1.9) around 35Khz of bandwidth
10.110 (SWR at 1.8) to 10.125 (SWR at 1.9) around 15Khz of bandwidth
7.005 (SWR at 2.5) to 7.015 (SWR at 2.6) around 10Khz of bandwidth
I did however use the ATU on the KX3 and the SWR was flat when used on all bands so if I want I can use the tuner and increase the bandwidth of the antenna. I do know that my attic dipole on 10Mhz the SWR is about 9.1 to 1 and the tuner will flatten that out and I have made lots of milli watt contacts all over the world. So the next step is to get this antenna out doors and give it a whirl out there and see how it does.
The Alexloop vs my attic dipole
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| The new Alexloop antenna |
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| A quality case |
So lets get to the nuts and bolts.....how does it work....sure anyone can say anything about their antenna but the proof is in the radio waves!!
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| Antenna location..cat standing guard |
I wanted to do a comparison between my attic dipole which is the Alpha Delta DX-EE up about 30 feet in the attic and the Alexloop set up in my XYL's office just opposite my radio room. Let me state that this is not a comparison to see which antenna preforms better as that is not a fair comparison....but I wanted to see how well the loop did compared to my attic dipole. The Alexloop was mounted on a tripod....well ty-wrapped to it as the the Alexloop would not fit over the tripod center pole section. This is something I will have to work out later. Each of these antennas have their disadvantages....the dipole is in the attic, this means a wooden roof above, rafters all over and insulation below. The Alexloop is in a second floor room, it's a small loop antenna and very close to the ceiling. So really both antenna are far from ideal when it comes to location.
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| Temp tripod mount |
My overall impressions of the Alexloop are as follows:
1. Shipping was fantastic, this antenna got here from South America faster than products I have ordered from the U.S.
2. The support is great, I had a question about the loop when it arrived and it was answered within 30 minutes!!!!
3. This unit is quality quality quality from the carry case to antenna!!
4. The tuning was a cinch, turn for peak noise and then transmit and tune for lowest SWR....takes about 20 seconds!
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| 14.060, 7.032 Alexloop |
6. Antenna foot print is very low profile and can be used vertical or horizontal.
7. The SWR on 20m and 40m (only bands used so far) was 1.4 at 14.060 and 1.7 at 7.032.
The bottom line is I am very very impressed with this antenna and I will be taking it to the field and updating the blog on how it does. Up to this point would I recommend this antenna.......dam right I would it's support is excellent, quality of the product is way above par and so far the results have been very impressive.
QRPTTF Practice
It was a very unseasonably warm day today in Central NJ. I took advantage of temperatures in the mid 70s, and headed out to a park near work during my lunch break. North Branch Park is all of about five minutes away.
I decided to use the Buddistick on the mag mount on top of the Jeep, so set up was a snap. After getting to the park, I was on the air within just a few minutes. There was a ton of activity towards the low end of 20 Meters, but it was all contest traffic. I probably could have worked a few DX stations, but I didn’t know the exchange, so I headed towards the QRP watering hole instead.
There, I ran into Martin KØBXB in Burlington, WI. We had a short QSO as I didn’t have a lot of time. It was very pleasant however. Martin was 579 into NJ and I received a 539 in return. Martin was using his IC-7000 at 5 Watts into a G5RV.
Later on, back in the building, I saw that Martin is quite the accomplished Ham. He builds, he experiments, and he was the winner of the May 2012 QST Cover Plaque Award.
So it just goes to show, you never know who you’re going to run into when you turn on the rig! In addition to learning more about Martin, I did a little research on his town of Burlington, WI. It’s an old town that was settled somewhere around 1835 by the sons of some Revolutionary War soldiers. Burlington is nicknamed “Chocolate City, USA” because of the Nestle chocolate factory that is located there (pssst …… don’t tell the folks in Hershey, PA ……. OK?). Burlington was also the home of a lot of notable and famous people. But one in particular, caught my eye. Burlington, WI once was “home” to Gregory Itzin. If you’re a fan of the TV series “24” then you know Mr. Itzin better as President Charles Logan – unfortunately, not one of the good guys.
But getting back to the topic of QRPTTF practice, I wanted to share with you all how I carry my portable QRP equipment out and about. My KX3 is my pride and joy, so I want to protect it as best possible. A tip o’ the QRP hat to TJ WØEA for recommending the Lowe Pro Traveler 150. We’re having thunderstorms tonight, and I’m off the air, so I made a little video:
Hope you enjoy it – I’m certainly no WGØAT or K6BBQ, but you’ll get the idea.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
A very good night
And if I wasn’t so tired, I’d probably stay on the air for a little longer; but alas, I am just about ready to call it a day. As soon as I finish this post, I will turn in.
I have read and heard reports of the big flare that occurred, and how we’re supposed to get hit tomorrow with potentially huge geomagnetic disruptions.. Main stream media news outlets are saying that we might see aurora tomorrow night, even here in NJ. If that is true, then tomorrow’s HF conditions will probably be, how shall we say, less than optimal?
But tonight was a good night. 20 and 30 Meters were exceptional. On 20 Meters, I worked E74UB in Bosnia-Herzegovina, LZ1QI in Bulgaria, TF3JB in Iceland (with 2.5 Watts!), and the topper – the prize for the night A71CM in Qatar. I have never worked Qatar before, ever -and to get him in the log with 5 Watts had me doing the happy dance.
On 30 Meters, I actually had two honest-to-goodness QSOs with Lin G4DZE in England and Viorel YO6LV in Romania. When you can have a civil QSO with more details that RST and TU, it’s always special. Special thanks to Lin and Viorel for that. I also worked SP6EIY in Poland and UY5BA in the Ukraine.
40 Meters was a little tougher, but I managed to work H70ORO, a special event station down in Nicaraguan to finish out the evening.
For the record, all tonight’s QSOs were completed with the KX3, using the HF9V on 20 Meters and the 88′ EDZ on 30 and 40 Meters.
I am making so many typos here that it’s ridiculous – thank God for spell check!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
