A mini expedition for QRP
Love this video of some guys going on a mini expedition to work QRP in north east Oregon, Eagle Cap SOTA.
Great seeing them work CW and SSB QRP from a nearly 10,000ft summit. Just an awesome take off for RF and great views!
Sep 28
May 31
WebSDR Slovenia
I was playing around with this WebSDR in Slovenia tonight, well it was around lunch time over there :-)
The first station I picked up on 40m was a CW beacon "IZ3DVW/B" from Italy, I "googled" the beacon callsign and found out it's running 100mw into an inverted V dipole.
I'm not completely familiar with the geography so I used an online grid square converter to work out the distance between the SDR and beacon.
Based on grid square to grid square it was 268km, not a bad distance for daytime on 40m from a low powered beacon :-)
Thanks to the guys in Slovenia for running the WebSDR, it works pretty well and I can't wait to test it during something like CQ WW!
Nov 6
Very Simple All Mode Receiver
Here's an awesome really basic receiver you can homebrew with bits from your junk box.
The very simple receiver for the whole shortwave band.
Regenerative control, tuning, band selection, it has everything.
Even a fine tuning by moving your hand towards the coil!
Read more at the authors website.
As noted by Charley VK2ZYZ:
This rig will never be you main rig, it is just a novelty but it is a blast, if you have a junk box and an hour to kill give it a go, build one with the grandkids
Something for a rainy day in the shack.
Oct 5
30m QRSS Transmitter Kit
I was just reading about this exciting QRSS Transmitter Kit by Hans Summers:
This 30m QRSS Transmitter Kit was produced by Steve G0XAR and Hans G0UPL.
The kit contains a keyer chip programmed with the buyer's callsign, all components, and a 2.5 x 2-inch PCB to build my QRSS transmitter project
More reading at Hans website, however at 15 USD it looks like another kit I can add to my wish list!
Aug 7
Got an antenna up
Today I spent some time and got my G5RV / dipole back up in the air. It's only temporarily up, the ends are on poles and the middle is on a ladder in an olive tree :-)
Oh and the coax feeding the balun/600ohm ribbon is pretty horrid.. So I have some work to do before it's a permanent or useful fixture.
Still this afternoon a quick listen on 20m CW I copied KH7Y from Hawaii, and a quick tune up to the shortwave band I heard Voice of Malaysia on 15Mhz.
So maybe not too bad for receiving, although transmitting at this point isn't an option. Will see how much I can improve it or what other options I can find to get a signal back on air.
-.-
Jul 30
WLW 500KW AM Transmitter
I recently stubled across this link while reading something else on the web, as you do :)
http://www.ominous-valve.com/wlw.html
Somehow, he finagled the Federal Radio Commission into an "experimental" authorization for 500 kW, first with the special callsign of W8XO, finally as commercial WLW.
It makes pretty interesting reading, 500KW on AM is not to be sneezed at!
Jul 25
More radio kits - Small Wonder Labs
Been looking around for some kits to build and one of the places I came across was Small Wonder Labs.
I'm a bit taken by the Rock-Mite CW transciever, even a kit building noob like myself should be able to have a go at that.
The PSK kit for something like 30m might be interesting, although some of the stuff that you can do with SDR makes it a bit pricey for a once use type kit.
I dropped an enquiry email to Dave K1SWL asking about stock of the RockMite and I had a response in aobut 30 minutes, pretty good customer service.
Will make an order soon I think, mmm the smell of solder smoke, can't wait :)
