We've arrived at cooler temps and have been at our AirBnB for several days now, located between Courtenay BC and Strathcona Provincial Park. We see snow on the mountaintops from our balcony - what a concept!Mount Rainier was our last stop before taking the ferry over from Port Angeles WA to Victoria BC.We did a 4 mile hike there and came face to face with a black bear heading our way on the
We are currently in Oregon, en route to Vancouver Island - a long way from Florida in a lot of ways.Up to now we've been mostly focused on laying down the miles. We are now a bit ahead of our scheduled ferry and AirBnB reservations so a few activations have (and will) creep in.Arches National Park was the first one and I appreciate all the calls. Is there more of an interest in working national
Sometime between 1600-1900z today I'll be activating US-0004 in Utah for 30 minutes. FT-891 (100 watts), vertical antenna, 20m CW...
I've been home from my TAT ride for several weeks now. More accurately, it was a 1/2-TAT as I headed home after riding Colorado.My age and the Oklahoma heat did me in.Oklahoma was three days of slow, sandy riding in 104F/40C heat with more of the same for Utah. Colorado was a cool relief in between that made the upcoming desert even less appealing than if I hadn't ridden in those snow-covered
ArkansasHeavy rains made for muddy riding through a beautiful state. I managed a quick activation (US-4425) just before the rain started but the high winds preceding the rain made the audio from the activation's recording unsuitable for posting to YouTube.Thanks all, for the contacts.Lunch was at the cafe in Oark where I met a great group of people who invited me to join them at their table.
A few folks have asked about what I'm using on the road, particularly in regard to the antenna and how it is mounted.I'm currently taking a day off the ride to wait out the heavy rains due here in central Arkansas which gave me time to put a short video together. Back on the sure-to-be-muddy Trail tomorrow. Directly on YouTube ..
Two days on the TAT now and making a fast progression west - not due to any skillful or fast riding on my part, it's all due to the fact that the TAT from Tennessee eastward is mostly paved roads. County roads make up most of the TAT in these eastern states and, while beautifully scenic, they are not what comes to mind when the word "trail" is used.That changes tomorrow. From here on out, "trail"
TAT/QRP will begin on the morning of 3 June, starting near Chatsworth GA.It's impossible to predict with any reliability how much radio'ing I'll be doing (and when) since weather and POTA proximity to the TAT are big factors.But the TAT passes directly through, and immediately adjacent to, many parks along the way and I'll try to make use of that when possible.Radio gear will be that
I've now gone through six charge/discharge cycles of my KX2's internal battery using the new KXUSBC2 to charge it and I've used different sources and USB-C cables for each charge.Regardless of the charging voltage used, the KX2 battery gets a complete charge, whether the charging source was 5V or 15V.Contrast that with different source voltages when used with Elecraft's KXIBC2 internal charger:&
(Also shown: Iniu 20AH power bank, KWS-1902C USB-C power meter) 13 May: Updated info, including notes from its designer, Manuel HB9DQM. I received my KXUSBC2 in the mail today and wasted no time installing it into my KX2.No soldering or de-soldering was required. Other KX2's may or may not require a small amount of soldering, depending on when the it was manufactured.Those
Since my initial posting a few weeks ago, I've heard from half a dozen other ham/off-road motorcyclists who have ridden or are planning something similar to what I'm hoping to do. It's great to know that there are others reading this who can relate.I'm working toward my planned ride of the Trans-America Trail on several fronts:Departure DateI'm keeping a close eye on the Colorado passes and
The little QMX has come a long way since it was first released as a CW/digital transceiver, and I don't just mean the addition of SSB.Far more significant to me are the very recent firmware updates that corrected two major shortcomings with the radio:Strict DC input voltage limitations andCommon failure of the final BS170's during high SWR at full power.These two issues prevented the QMX (and QMX
The manual for the KX2's internal battery charger (KXIBC2) allows for a variety of input voltages, up to a maximum of 15V, to be used to charge the radio's 2.6AH lithium battery. The manual also mentions that lower voltages (down to 11V) can also be used although the battery will not be fully charged at these voltages.I was curious to see how a lower charging voltage - ie, a partial charge -
I've made several short excursions with three of the following QRP rigs (except for the Currahee, which I just received today) and am considering which of the four to carry with me on longer trips like the TAT and various BDR's.Conditions would be: Bumpy riding, likely to fall (I hate riding in deep sand!), exposure to heat and humidity.I operate only CW and would like to activate parks (and
I've had a hankering to build something lately and happened across a relatively new offering from the 4 States QRP Group: the Hilltopper Tallboy, a monoband QRP CW transceiver kit.Available for 15 to 40 meters (and maybe 60m soon), I ordered a 20m version. It arrived 5 or 6 days later and I started building it right away.The Build The kit's contents were well organized as were the
I went into the contest with the goal of testing the performance of the HL2+ in crowded CW conditions.Rather than writing a dry narrative of "How I spent my weekend" (actually only four hours of it), I'll just sum it all up in bullet points:I used the HL2+ on Saturday; the Anan-10E on Sunday. Same mini-PC, same antenna and same 100W Neptune amp. And Thetis SDR software for both.The two radios are
With the arrival of my Apache Labs 10E, I finally worked up the courage to put my HL2 under the knife for the surgery required to convert it to a Plus version.No, it didn't get fatter; it just got better.The update required removing a 0603 ferrite bead, adding a 0603 resistor & a small piggy-backed PC board, and updating the gateware.And a few other small things that, all tolled (or is it "
I went through the rest of the bands today and the HL2 looks good on all of them. My HL2 includes, of course, the N2ADR Low Pass Filter board, as they all should (and probably do). 10m .12m .15m .17m .20m.30m.40m .60m .80m .160m ...
While waiting on an "Your Anan-10E is ready" email I thought I'd test a claim on Apache Lab's website regarding SDR radios that use the AD9866 processor - ie, the Hermes Lite 2.Apache Lab's comparative chart claims that the HL2 is not compliant on 10 meters. News to me...let's have a look.[UPDATE: Harmonic content is within spec on all bands. I'll check IMD later in the year.] I also wanted
I was rearranging the rat's nest of cabling that constitutes the best-unseen space between my operating desk and the wall yesterday when it happened...Once everything was satisfactorily cleaned and ship-shape, I fired up the Hermes Lite 2 and the Neptune amp that I've had for about a year now...and something wasn't quite right.For starters, the green "ON" LED was blinking slowly rather than
The recent purchase of a UV-Pro has me in need of a satellite antenna for the "Easy-Sats" and International Space Station.Arrow makes the perfect antenna but I thought I could homebrew one at a much lower price.The main component that differentiates the Arrow from other dual-band Yagis is the diplexer, not duplexer, as it is incorrectly called by Arrow (and others).A search online located several
We've been in the Black Hills region of South Dakota for a few days now with about a week left before we head north.The area is amazingly beautiful.I finally got around to two very brief activations today, both CW-only with the FT-891 and magnet-mount 17' vertical on top of the car.The first was the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site near Wall SD; the second was Badlands National Park.I
An interesting concept from WD4ELG: a very brief summary of various QRP rigs. The Good and the Bad of each, distilled down to the minimum, by various QRPers: FT-817ND biggest positive: shack in a box. I did Satellites, SSB, CW, digital (with Signalink), FM. Listened to air band and police band. It is rugged. I worked DX from the car. It was my go-anywhere rig.FT817ND biggest
"Every CW op should have a Ten-Tec"Those words were spoken to me when I bought my first rig as an almost-ham in 1978 as I paid for my shiny new Century 21. The Novice ticket arrived in the mail & the Century 21 (and many hams on the other end of it) began schooling me in the art of CW.Elecraft came onto the scene years later and my old Elmer's praise of Ten-Tec could have applied to Elecraft
Scarecrow and Blue I left the house early yesterday morning, driving north about 70 miles to the Suwannee River (Florida), whose shores contain a string of POTA sites.They're back!My destination was US-10594, known among civilians as Manatee Springs South State Conservation Area. This is distinct from Manatee Springs State Park just up the river.The State Conservation Area became, for me, a
Receiver sensitivity of the QRP Labs QMX+ is currently being discussed on the QRP Labs forum with at least one member of the group is disappointed that the MDS value of the QMX+ isn't published.With the QMX+ being a kit, any published value of MDS would have to be a range of fluid values since receiver characteristics will depend, not only on component tolerance deviations, but of builder's