Elecraft KX2: The end of kits for Elecraft? UPDATE: WITH VIDEO!

Elecraft has always offered kit versions of just about everything they make, until now.  The newly announced KX2 (not a successor to the KX3 or the K2 interestingly) is their first offering to come in factory built ONLY.

Expected to be priced at about $750, it seems they will be targeting the more mainstream ham market.

I'm sure they'll get a lot of gruff for leaving out 6m or 160m but I think those are reasonable to leave out.  The idea of a rechargeable lithium option sure sounds nice too.  Maybe this is the secondary radio I would want from Elecraft - something I won't ever use on my desk but is destined to be carried in the field.  At the $750 price tag, that option seems far more likely than it did with the KX3 at nearly 2x the cost.  We will see how it compares from a performance standpoint though if you're comparing it to just about any other radio (save KX3) it doesn't need to be a stunner in the RX department to be a winner.

I'm going to be keeping my eyes out for more details, so be sure to check back!

UPDATE: WG0AT posted this video to YouTube:

And another:

A spot of SPACE!

I was happy to find some goodies in my mailbox when I got home from work today: a nice personal QSL card from KG6EYC, Frank, and my new (to me) ELK dual band log periodic antenna.

Frank's QSL is one of K1NSS's special creations, a personalized piece of art.  Frank's card features his two daughters and some of their art work.  Very cool!

The coolest part of receiving this card though was that it was our first CW contact.  Frank isn't so much a newbie at CW but he's still learning.  He's completed the CWOps Academy and it shows, he's got a good pace going.  Just a few more months and he'll be eligible to join the club I'm sure.  It's always nice to know someone as interested in CW as he is and at his age.  Best of luck Frank!  Also check out his blog at http://vadept.com/.

As far as the Elk goes, I unpacked it up in the office in my apartment and as soon as I figured out how it all gets together, I got a text on my phone alerting me that there was an SO-50 pass in just 10 minutes.  I had planned on being able to make it but everything seemed to fall out of sync so I was not prepared.  I quickly grabbed everything off the desk I'd need: 817, voice recorder, mic, bag, coax and antenna.  I ran up the 4 flights of stairs and got myself situated on the roof of the parking garage just as the satellite peaked over the horizon.  

I started getting the radio set up for the cross band split and sure enough, with some pointing, I could hear a bit of activity on the satellite, but for some reason I had insane SWR when I transmitted.  I had tested the antenna briefly in the shack and everything seemed in order so I couldn't figure it out.  I fiddled with it through the whole pass and didn't have any luck.  As the satellite passed below the horizon, I reassessed the situation and checked on the next pass.  SO-50 wasn't due for another day and the next one was FO-29, one of the linear transponder sats, in about 20 minutes.  

In an act of desperation, I swapped the ends of the coax I was using and much to my surprise, the result was a suitable SWR.  Don't ask me how that works!  (Yes, I'm going to have to get some new coax methinks...)  

So I sat for the next 15 minutes until FO-29 came up.  The pass was a decent one with about a 35 degree max elevation.  I have not had a ton of luck working the linear sats half-duplex but it was worth a shot.  There was a strong QSO going on in the upper part of the passband but I stuck right in the center and called a few times.  The thing about these sats is that you can never be quite sure where you're coming out on the other end so I have to tune around a lot to find the person calling me.  About 8 minutes into the 15 minute pass, I finally heard my call coming back to me from that familiar voice of Wyatt, AC0RA, back up in Cedar Rapids.  I have worked Wyatt a few times on the satellites when I was in Iowa so he also recognized my call.  I had one under my belt!  I kept tuning around and calling but I was unable to stir up any more activity.  I followed the strong QSO a while and I heard a 6 station calling towards the end of the pass but didn't have the brains to figure out where I needed to tune my transmitter to get close to his signal.  Maybe in time I'll get there!  

So if you're on the birds, keep an ear out for my little signal from EM13 and chase me around the band, transmit fixed.  

Moving...again

Happy Spring everyone!

In my last post I talked about getting on D-Star and all that jazz.  Well I'm happy to report the VHF/UHF repeaters in the area are pretty active so there's a lot of travel time stuff to listen to and take part in.  I actually played Jeopardy on a repeater one night.  That was something new!  There are even special interest nets on the main repeater for astronomy buffs, food buffs, and Raspberry Pi people, and the net controllers seem very down to earth.  All in all, it has been enjoyable listening in.
We signed the lease at our new apartment complex, Bella Vida Estates.  It's further north in Plano, just about to Allen.  They have a brand new remodeled club house which is really nice.  They have lots of community activities and events and they invited us to their grand opening party last week.  There was a few contests and drawings including an Instagram drawing that I managed to win!  So I've got a few bucks to spend!

A sample of the decor in the clubhouse

So now that we know where will be moving to, I've started to plan my activity for the next year and I decided with the challenges I've experienced so far, I'm going to try a bit more to play on VHF/UHF.  Oh a whim I spun the dial around the bottom end of 2m to see if there was any weak signal (SSB/CW) activity and was pleased to find a round table going on.  With the polarization losses and lack of directivity with my Arrow J-pole, I could only hear one or 2 guys but I figured out what the net was so now I know what to look for next week.  With that gift card I won at the party, I am going to get an Elk dual band log periodic antenna to get some gain and directivity too.  Of course, I'm going to go back to trying my hand on the satellites too.

Have no fear though, I'm not giving up on HF.  I will probably give up on my magnetic loop for the time being.  Unfortunately it just doesn't do the job most of the time.  I have my hamsticks from mobile ops (which are very very few and far between) so I might go ahead and try to get them set up on the balcony somehow.  HamCom is coming up here in Dallas so I'll probably pick up the goods to get something going on the balcony at the new place then.  

Speaking of HamCom - I'll be there both days.  I decided to take Friday off of work and peruse the goods.  I think all of the presentations are on Saturday and I don't want to miss the deals in the flea!  Anyway, if you're coming in, let me know.  We'll definitely set up some sort of Reddit/Twitter meetup as we get closer to the date!

Quick update

Hey guys/gals - I wanted to put up a quick update to let everybody know what I've been up to the last few weeks.  Before Dayton I started working on remodeling our main floor bathroom and it has been a bear so I've pretty  much been spending all my free time working on that or tired enough that I just want to veg.  I will be getting back to my 100 Days of Summer stuff soon enough though.  Just keep an eye on Twitter for operating announcements!

I did get out to the deck last night while dinner was cooking on the grill.  I tossed my EFHW over the pergola and stuck the end to a 20' crappie pole.  I wanted to try out the Youkits FG-01a antenna analyzer I got at Dayton (well ordered at Dayton, apparently Ten Tec didn't bring anything to the actual hamfest).  Granted the setup was not ideal but I only saw at best 2:1 SWR so I may have to go re-trim or re-cut that antenna once I get out to the park again.  None the less, the analyzer is pretty easy to use and I'll have to do a writeup and/or video on that in the future.

An updated EFHW for 17-40m

I've been requested over and over to make a post on the topic of my latest EFHW project.  As seasoned readers of the blog will know, I am a huge fan of these antennas for a number of reasons, primarily that they are incredibly easy and quick to erect.  The big limitation is the operating frequencies are relatively fixed with a single wire antenna.  The PAR design for 40, 20, and 10m works great on those bands, and in a pinch on other bands with a tuner but I wanted something with a good match on all bands I wish to operate on.

I should note that this design is nothing novel, I know other hams are using similar methods to multi-band their antennas so I can't take any credit for the idea.

My antenna solves the problems of my other EFHW antennas by introducing breaks in the wire where I can add or remove length to get on other bands.  These are made by tying fishing snap swivels onto the wire (we're using #26 PolyStealth wire here) and soldering a mini-bullet connector as the mate.  This is best described in pictures:

As you can see, both ends of the wire get a snap swivel which then connect to each other, taking any tension off of the connection and placing it on the wire instead.  Then to switch bands, you just press the bullet connectors together and hoist the antenna back up.  Sure, pulling the antenna up and down any time you want to change bands is a bit of a pain but it uses zero power and has zero loss so you can't really beat that.

Now you could just do that for every band, but after 20m, your wire starts to get pretty long and I had grown very fond of the ~40' wire used on the 40/20/10 PAR antenna.  It is a great length and I don't usually have any problem getting a support string up that high on the first shot.  Any longer though, and things get interesting.  So, I was convinced I'd have to figure out how to keep the antenna short enough for that.

As you know, the PAR design uses a loading coil to shorten the antenna on 40m.  I had to add one to my design as well.  Here's how I managed it:

As you can see, I continued with the snap swivel design but because I wanted to get on other bands, I couldn't just solder the wire right onto the bottom of the coil so I added bullet connectors again.  The snap swivel is held on the coil by a second piece of heat shrink.  It feels pretty solid but there is probably a better way to secure the swivel.  Oh and the coil is about 34uH as we've discovered in our previous work with EFHWs.  I think it is 51 or so turns around 1/2" pipe.  In this case I'm not sure it is even that critical.

So with the coil in place, there's another length of wire and the same snap swivel/bullet gadget between a 30m element and the 40m element.  The total length is about 40 feet again but now I can get on 17 through 40m without any problem.  I'd like to go back and add 15m but I'm hesitant to do that and risk missing the mark and scrapping the whole first length of wire.  I may go that route eventually.

So anyway, that's the new antenna.  The matchbox is unchanged from our previous models and it seems to work great.  I hope others can improve on the design, and if you do, let me know!

Field report: QRPTTF/SOTA 2014

View from atop Platte Mound

On May 3rd we celebrated the QRP To The Field event by going out to Wisconsin for some W9 SOTA and a spot of portable ops.  I've been out to Platte Mounds, W9/WI-017, before, back when the W9 association was launched.  Read about that double activation here.

This time around I decided I'd just stick to the "easy" peak and make the most of my time there.  I also treated this activation as one of my 100 Days of Summer which was easy since it took me almost exactly 10 minutes to climb the stairs and trek through the wooded area on the peak to find a spot to operate.

Platte Mound is a public attraction so there's a few picnic tables on the top in a clearing.  This is where I operated last time but I thought I'd go into the woods a bit this time for a little more privacy.  It was a very windy day so that location offered a little respite from that as well.

Log where I sat for the duration of the operation - sore rear end.

I brought along my homebrew 2m/440 antenna I use for satellite work too but unfortunately I didn't make a single sat contact.  I had plenty of luck on HF though!  I set up my latest EFHW which uses snap swivels and little bullet connectors to work on several bands.  I'll have a separate post on that antenna.

I put the FT-817 on 17 and started off. I took a bit of video of the event and put it on Youtube.  I included a review of my new QRP portable bag at the beginning.  Check it out:

QRPTTF/SOTA Tomorrow!

Tres de Mayo!

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Wisconsin for QRP To the Field and SOTA activation at Platte Mound.  I was there not too long ago to be the first to activate a W9 summit.  Read about that here.

I plan on being set up and QRV around 9 AM local time.  I'll be taking along my 817 and MTR and wires for 17-40m in addition to my satellite antenna so I'll be looking for satellite QSOs too.  I may scan around on V/UHF simplex too but I doubt there will be any activity.

This will also be a 100 Days of Summer day so I guess I'll have to run around in circles on the peak for 10 minutes before I start!

Keep an ear out for me and have fun tomorrow!

100 Days - 2 and 3

Over the weekend, I completed another 2 days of our 100 Days of Summer operating, bringing us to a total of 3.

The weather on Friday was really nice.  Here's a quick video.

Saturday was also really great, but a bit windy.  I came home from getting groceries and was shocked to find that my new FT-817 had arrived.  I had been expecting it to arrive on Monday, so I was quick to get the thing on the air and went straight to the park.

I didn't know if I'd have any luck with my 8 cell AA pack with the 817 but it actually did pretty well.  I figured I might have a little more luck on voice getting people to get excited about the operation, plus I forgot to grab my portable CW key from the truck, so I didn't have much of a choice.

This is starting to get really interesting though.  I am going to be able to start experimenting with all kinds of different operations.  I'm really excited about trying satellite ops too.

Anyway, here's the last bit of the log for days 2 and 3:

C6/W0EA/MM???

As many of you probably know, I am an avid cruiser.  We've gone on 7 now and won't be stopping any time soon.  This fall we're planning on going on the Norwegian Getaway which sails to Nassau, St. Thomas, and Sint Maarten.  I've always toyed with the idea of bringing gear along, but my investigations have always lead to dead ends and prohibited items lists.  

Still, again and again, I would see reports of QRPers taking their gear to far away places without much trouble so I finally decided I was drawing a line in the sand and this cruise was going to be the one.

I have had my application for a C6 license filled out for quite a while but I've never finished scanning the documentation to send off.  You need a photocopy of your passport, a copy of your license, the form, and $35 and the process is supposed to take a few months.  Really, there's not much to lose.

The difficult part though, is getting permission from the cruise line.  As I mentioned earlier, most cruise lines have a list of prohibited items, and at least on Carnival and Royal Caribbean, "HAM RADIOS" are listed explicitly.  I couldn't find such a list on Norwegian's site, but I'm sure there is one.  So with a fair bit of hope in my heart, I fired off an email to NCL's "Guests with Special Needs" contact.

The email I sent is here:

Hi, I am writing to inquire about bringing and operating amateur radio equipment aboard the Getaway.  My wife and I are planning a vacation in the Fall and our decision to sail with NCL is somewhat dependent on whether I will be able to bring my equipment with me.  I am an FCC licensed operator and will abide by all FCC Part 90 and Part 97 regulations while aboard the ship.  My equipment would be limited to the following:
Yaesu FT-817 High Frequency, low power transceiver (http://goo.gl/IMqYm9)
Buddistick portable HF antenna (http://www.buddipole.com/buddistick.html)
Batteries
Any allowed operation would be unobtrusive to other cruisers and will not cause any interference to the ship's communication or navigation equipment.  I will also contact the ship's Master to get permission to operate and will abide by any limits provided by him and his crew.
I know many other amateur operators have been granted the ability to bring their equipment on board and operate, I am hoping I am granted the same.
Thanks, I look forward to hearing back.

As you can see, it is brief and detailed enough to get the point across: I don't plan on being a pain, and nobody will probably even notice me.  Unobtrusive as possible is the goal.  Heck, I may not even operate ON the ship and instead focus operating efforts in the ports of call.

Well it only took a little over a day to hear back, and things are at least neutral at this point:

 
Thank you for your e-mal.
 
We have forwarded your inquiry to the staff aboard the MS Norwegian Getaway for their review and response. Once a response is received we will respond to your inquiry.
 
Thank you

It isn't a flat out no!  Based on what I've seen from others who have been successful on other lines, the captain almost always approves the operation.  The officers and staff should know that amateur stuff will have no impact to their operation and a fair number of the captains are hams themselves!

So we will see what happens with that....  stay posted!

100 Days of Summer - Day One

And we're off to the races!

It was a cool day on Tuesday the 22nd when I decided it was time to kick off the operating challenge of the year.

As a reminder, 100 Days of Summer is a challenge to myself to get out and operate more and most importantly, get some exercise!  The post about that is here.  So I strapped the dog into his harness and took off for Bever Park, my regular stomping ground for portable QRP operations.  The short route takes about 5 minutes, so I looped around a bit in the park before heading up to the top of the hill where I normally operate.  Temperature was about 65 but the sun was out and the dog was having way more fun than I was!

For today's operation, I was carrying my MTR for 20 and 40m and a newly made end fed half wave (EFHW) for 17-30m.  Since I guess I am a little crazy and wanted to start with a bit of a bang, I only had a single, fresh 9v battery to operate from, which would limit my power output to about 2.5w and further limit my duration quite a bit.

Using the tried and true method of golf ball + fishing line to loft my antenna into the tree, I was on the air within a few minutes of the alarm signaling the end of my 10 min walk.  I pulled up HamLog, which I just recently purchased for my iPhone and prepared to log QSOs.  It took a little work but before long, I had my first one with a fellow QRPer, W0CCA, out in Colorado who was testing out a new antenna setup near Four Corners.  Not a bad start!

Unfortunately that was the end of the easy ones!  I resorted to tuning around and answering CQs so I could get my 4 contacts in and call the day a success.  Luckily it only took about an hour of operating to post all 4 of them, then it was time to pack up.

Log for the day

So, there's one day down!  I'm going to try to publicize the operation a bit more, keep an eye out for some more news on that...

100 Days of Summer

I was reading AD5A's (Mike) recent blog post about "Ham Radio and Fitness" and it got me thinking.  I'm a little overweight and I could stand to lose about 20 lbs.  This is not uncommon.  Usually I swing up and down about 10-15 lbs through the year, usually with binge weight loss before our cruises in the Fall and Winter.  I usually gain back any loss during the cruise!

Anyway, I need to be far more active, which brings me to the topic of this post.  I do not have mountains in IA.  I don't have beaches to walk.  I have sidewalks, and small parks, and that is about it.  So unlike Mike, I cannot go hike to the top of a mountain every weekend (oh man would I LOVE that!).  So I have decided instead that I will make 100 trips to operate portable this year.  There's 93 days in the actual season of Summer but I don't plan on waiting until Summer actually starts.  If I hit 100 operations, I'll try to make it another 10 or 20 or however seems reasonable, but I will be getting outside.  A lot.

As you would with a SOTA activation, I am going to be judging the success of these outings by contacts made.  Just like SOTA, 4 contacts are required to make it a day I can count towards the 100.  This should make things a bit more difficult.

Next requirement is that I have to walk at least 10 minutes before I plunk down and start operating.  The park I like to operate from is only a 5 minute walk away so this should help me move to other parks in the area.  If nothing else, it will mean I have to get more exercise!

What do you think?  If you have any other ideas for guidelines I could follow to make the experience more interesting, let me know.

A few snapshots from a the park with the MTR

I went to the park on Friday night with the MTR and the new battery and the squirrels were out in full force, surely stocking up for the season.  

At first blush, the new battery is working great.  I worked 4 guys including a really nice long 2xQRP contact on 40m before the sun dipped below the trees and it started cooling off.  I even worked some DX.  The bugs were even pretty tame.
There's still more testing to do but so far, I'm loving it.

Run For The Bacon (RFTB) and some night time operating

Band conditions kept me from going to the park on Saturday and a get together for my wife's work kept me busy most of the day Sunday but I managed to carve out some time on Sunday night to get into the Flying Pigs QRP club's Run For the Bacon.

RFTB is a monthly 2 hour QRP sprint style contest.  I had not really participated in one before but I've been a FP member for a while, number 2258.  I was hoping to run the MTR for the event but I realized that with the new battery I'm pushing 6w to the wire so I decided not to cheat!  So KX3 it was.  The weather was really nice last night, about 73 even after the sun set and there were no bugs to speak of so a deck operation was called for.  I've been meaning to try a magnetic loop antenna again so I took the box I already had made up for the capacitor, found a piece of RG58 jumper that would serve as the loop element, put an FT117-43 core over the coax with a couple turns of hook up wire for the coupling feed and ta-da, a magnetic loop was (re)born!

I set the antenna up on at light stand at about 4 feet next to the table on the deck and set to it.  I could get 1:1 SWR on the loop on 20 and 40 though I suspect the efficiency on 40 was single digits, and probably not much more than 30% on 20.  No less, I could hear several QRP signals from all over the country and I managed to work NY, GA, AL, and TX in the hour of casual operating.  Yeah, not stellar numbers but as the ambient light was dwindling, I also took the opportunity to play with my new camera a bit and captured some  pretty cool shots.

I need to really tune this magnetic loop thing.  I would really use one if I could get it to be more efficient and easier to tune.  I might need to build a Tayloe bridge...

2-fer SOTA Activation in the new W9 Association

Whew... I just got done transcribing the logs onto my computer and uploading to the database. Ended up with 87 total QSOs between both peaks.

First stop was Platte Mounds, W9/WI-017, which is about 2 hours and 15 min from my house in Cedar Rapids, IA. Not a bad drive at all. I couldn't convince my wife to come with... As I drove, I monitored 146.52 simplex and actually worked a guy who was aeronautical mobile right as I pulled up to the parking lot at the base of the summit. That was pretty cool!

View from Platte Mound, WI, W9/WI-017

There's something like 250 steps to the peak so it made the hike pretty easy. There were a couple of picnic tables at the top so I set up shop on one and hauled up my homebrew 10/20/40 EFHW to one of the little trees near the table. The end was up about 15 feet, not as high as I would have liked, but it worked all right. I unloaded the KX3 and got to it. I ran with the internal AA cels, 2000mAh rated Eneloops, and 5w the whole time at Platte Mounds, which was great, I was a little unsure how long I could go. There were a few others at the top coming and going but only one visitor who was interested in my activity. A quick chat (his kids went to school in IA) and I was back at the pileup. I finished up with 45 QSOs and headed off for Blue Mounds.

SOTA Flag flying on Platte Mound

As luck would have it, W7II, Bill, was also in the area going to a Shakespeare festival that his sister was participating in. Bill is one of the N0MA contest guys and lives at the farm. It was perfect timing; just as I pulled out of the parking area at Platte Mounds, he called me on 2m simplex. He was just a few miles away and he road along with me for a while on the way to Blue Mounds.

I pulled into the Blue Mounds community and it turned out that there was a big bike race going on in the park. I figured I would be have a bit of trouble finding a spot to set up. I was a bit disappointed to find that the park requires a parking fee to enter, $10/day for out of state plates. Oh well, all in the name of radio!
Anyway, a quick zip around and I manged find a nice tucked away spot to operate that was somewhat private. I got on the air as fast as I could, hoping to work ND0C on W0/ND-003 for a Summit 2 Summit first: first activation of an ND summit and first activation of a WI summit. Signals were not the best, but we got it! I set off to my own frequency and ran stations on CW for quite a while. I switched to SSB and worked a few more new ones and several guys I had already worked on CW. Somewhere along the line, I got the BATT LOW message on the KX3 meaning the NiMH battery voltage had dropped below 8.5VDC so I grabbed the big SLA (7.5AH) and cranked the power to 10w on the KX3. I figured it might help a few who were not hearing me yet. I ran 10w the rest of the activation.

I was hoping to stay long enough to work another S2S with Frank, K0JQZ, but they were running behind quite a bit so I couldn't wait, I had promised the wife I'd be home by a certain time. Sure enough, about 10 minutes after I left, I saw the spot that they were QRV.

In all, I had 87 contacts, including 5 S2S contacts, a huge success in my book. I do wish they were more "traditional" summits with some hiking and awesome mountain views, but we take what we can get in the flatlands! Both logs have been uploaded to the SOTA database, LoTW, ClubLog and eQSL so if you're waiting for a QSL, check there. I transcribed the logs by hand so there's a chance I made a mistake somewhere. If you have not got a QSL and are expecting one, let me know!

This was my 2nd SOTA activation, first being Emerald Mountain in Estes Park, CO 2 years ago. I learned a lot in that first activation that helped me on this one. There was no SOTA Goat iPhone app so getting word out was not as easy and I don't think I announced it anywhere when I got to the peak. There was also a big contest going on and I had not prepared for any bands but 20 and 40m. That made it pretty tough. I was also rushed a bit since I was with other (non-ham) people. This time was a lot different, and it helped a lot that I have been following the pros like wG0AT so I knew a lot better what to expect. There's nothing like sending that first CQ after spotting yourself and hearing 20 station come back. This ham loves a pileup!

A special thanks to WA2USA, Dennis, who spearheaded the W9 association setup. I'm sure it was a lot of work! Thanks to all the others who worked me, I hope I was able to work everybody who called, if not, there's always next time!