portable – Page 21 – WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio

Weekend Antenna Testing

Carrying on from the initial testing I did last week, I went out for a bike ride yesterday and took my experimental vertical along. (I gave a general description of this antenna project in my previous post.) I rode a few miles up the Schuylkill River Trail and on to a park along the Perkiomen Trail.

I set up in a remote section of the picnic area and quickly took some readings on 40 and 30 meters with my antenna analyzer. I had done some tweaking to the loading coil but, unfortunately, both bands were still resonating too low.

My set up at Lower Perkiomen Valley Park. If you look closely at the S-meter in the upper right of the display, you can see the horrendous noise level on 40 meters.

I set up my KX3, intending to make some contacts. This, however, was not to be. There was a background noise level that was higher than I had encountered on a previous visit to this park. As I was tuning around, I looked over and saw that the wind had blown my antenna over. I neglected to bring anything along that I could use to stabilize the antenna and tripod. I set it back up but it wasn’t long before the antenna was on the ground again. After it blew over a 3rd time, I gave up. I packed up the bike and rode back down the trail to my truck.

My bike loaded up for the trip home. No contacts today but at least I had a nice bike ride!

This morning I made another adjustment to the antenna’s loading coil and headed over to Valley Forge Park to test it. Like yesterday, it was somewhat breezy. This time, I hung my backpack from a hook on the bottom of the tripod to make sure the antenna stayed upright.

My set up at Valley Forge National Historical Park. I hooked my backpack to the bottom of the tripod to help stabilize it in the wind.

I took some antenna analyzer readings and found that the 40-meter band was now resonating right where I wanted it. I saw some improvement on 30 meters but it was still resonating below the band. Obviously, the tap for the 30-meter band is in the wrong place.

As I tuned around, it the bands seemed better this morning. I worked N5P in Texas on 20 meters. N5P was participating in the Museum Ships Weekend event from the National Museum of the Pacific War. I moved down to 30 meters and heard a couple of strong stations. I didn’t make any contacts there, though.

I called CQ on 40 meters and quickly got a call from N1PVP in Massachusetts. I remembered working Marino a couple of weeks ago. He always has a very strong signal into Pennsylvania. I wrapped up with a two-way QRP QSO with Alan AC8AP in Ohio.

Antenna-wise, I have to do some thinking about how to proceed with my experimental vertical. As I see it, I have a few options:

I could continue to tweak the existing coil. If I remove turns from the bottom of the coil while adding the same number of turns to the top of the coil, this would effectively move the tap point for the 30-meter band.
It might be easier to just re-wind the coil and add a few more tap points. I could do some testing to see which tap works the best.
I could always invoke the “do nothing” option. The SWR on 30 meters is only about 4.3:1, which is a trivial match for the KX3’s internal tuner.

In any event, the antenna is useful as it stands. I’ll take some time this week to consider my next move.

72, Craig WB3GCK

Memorial Day Antenna Testing

Some time ago, I bought a small, lightweight telescopic fishing pole from a Chinese vendor on eBay. It’s about 19.5 feet tall and collapses down to about 26 inches. It’s a great size for backpacking or transporting on my bike. It weighs practically nothing. In fact, it’s too light for supporting anything but a lightweight vertical wire. Although I have used it a few times to support various antenna configurations, I never really found one that was a “keeper.”

Since I had some time over the long holiday weekend, I scratched out a quick design for yet another vertical antenna and cobbled it together with parts I had on hand in my junk box. I designed it to operate as a base-loaded resonant vertical on both 40 and 30 meters. On 20 meters and higher, it operates as a non-resonant wire; thus, an antenna tuner is required on those bands. Along with the loading coil, the matching unit contains a 1:1 choke balun to isolate the feedline. Both the choke balun and tapped loading coil are wound on toroids and mounted in a small, plastic enclosure. The radiator is a 19-foot piece of #28 wire. I could have shortened the radiator to make it resonant on 20 meters also, however, I went with the longer radiator for better performance on 40 meters. I used four 12.5-foot radials that I made from a 25-foot roll of cheap speaker wire.

The antenna I was testing. The white piece between the telescopic pole and the tripod is an adapter I made from PVC pipe.

Normally, I like to use the “build a little, test a little” approach. Since I don’t have the luxury of space at home for antenna testing, I just took my chances and built the whole thing. I headed out to a local park yesterday to give it the “smoke test” and see how close I came with my loading coil design.

My operating location on a cloudy and rainy morning

It took less than 5 minutes to set it up. I used an antenna analyzer to take some initial measurements. On both 20 and 30 meters, the resonant frequencies were low and fell outside the band. I still have some work to do there. On 20 meters and up, the KX3’s tuner loaded it up easily.

The antenna matching unit. The red jumper is used to change bands.

Next, I wanted to put it on the air. I started on 40 meters and used the KX3’s tuner to tweak the SWR. I called CQ a few times and eventually got a call from K4ALE in Virginia. Bevin said I was 559 with QSB. Despite the poor band conditions, we had a nice chat.

After I signed with Bevin, I set the antenna for 30 meters and kicked in the KX3’s tuner. I called CQ and was quickly answered by NN4NC in North Carolina. Jim gave me a 569. At times, the band would fade to just about nothing. As I was chatting with Jim, some drizzle started blowing in under the pavilion where I was sitting. So I signed with Jim and quickly packed up.

I’ll be doing some adjustments to the antenna over the coming weeks. It looks, though, that this could be a useful portable antenna, once I get the loading coil straightened out.

Since this is a work in progress, I left out the details for now. After I get the antenna working as intended, I’ll provide a detailed description, schematic and parts list in a future post.

72, Craig WB3GCK

IFR – The Curse is Broken!

field_radio_logo I went out to a nearby park to operate for a bit in the International Field Radio Event. It took 3 of these events but I finally worked another IFR participant!

I didn’t expect to be out for very long so I kept my setup pretty basic. I set up my Alexloop on a short tripod on top of the picnic table. (That decision would come back to haunt me later.) I fired up my KX3 and found the bands were suspiciously quiet. In fact, it was hard to get enough receiver noise to peak up the Alexloop. That’s usually a bad omen. A check of the Band Conditions website confirmed that.

Band conditions weren’t the greatest today.

Undeterred, I started calling CQ on 14.035 MHz, the Field Radio group’s 20M calling frequency. I got a call from NE3I whose signal was very strong. It turned out that Bob was only about 5 miles away from me. As he noted during our conversation, we could have done the QSO on 2M simplex. Bob wasn’t in the IFR event but I appreciated his call; I wasn’t going to get skunked today. As I was working Bob, I was keying with one hand and swatting at bugs with the other.

Picnic table portable for the International Field Radio Event. The Alexloop was on a short tripod on top of the table.

I moved down to the 40-meter calling frequency (7.035 MHz) and had a short two-way QRP contact with another non-participant, K3JPT. He was two counties west of me. After a while, W3DET in North Carolina came up on the frequency and called, “CQ IFR.” I gave him a call and he came right back to me. Happy dance! After we exchanged IFR numbers, Dave noted that this was his first IFR contact. I replied that it was mine also. How about that? I finally made an IFR contact!

I wrapped things up with another non-IFR contact with N1PVP in Massachusetts. As I was signing with Marino, the wind kicked up and knocked the Alexloop over. That was my clue that it was time to pack up. Yep, I probably shouldn’t have set the tripod up on the table.

With my first International Field Radio Event contact in the log, I declared victory and headed home.

For more information on the Field Radio group, visit www.fieldradio.org.

72, Craig WB3GCK

Trailer ‘Tenna

We recently retired our old pop-up tent trailer and acquired a small hard-sided travel trailer. The antenna I used with the pop-up camper evolved over 19 camping seasons to a pretty decent all-band antenna. It covered 80 through 6 meters (with a tuner) and required almost no space at all when deployed. I needed to come up with something similar for the new trailer.

My new travel trailer on its maiden voyage to Codorus State Park in south-central Pennsylvania.

For the first outing, I went with a modified version of the Pop-Up Vertical. In a nutshell, I used a 30-foot vertical wire, fed through a 4:1 unun. The ground side of the unun was attached to the frame of the trailer. My 31-foot Jackite pole supported the wire. I used my drive-on mast support to hold up the pole. Instead of parking one of the trailer’s tires on top of the drive-on mount, I put it under one of the trailer’s stabilizer jacks to hold it down.

This is the drive-on mount that supported the Jackite pole. The black box is the 4:1 unun. To the left of the unun, you can see the clamp for the ground connection to the trailer’s frame.

On our first camping trip with the new trailer, I was able to quickly set up the antenna. For the feedline, I used an 18-foot length of RG-8X coax, which I ran through a window to the dinette table inside the trailer.

Using the tuner in my KX3, I was able to get the antenna to load up on 80 through 6 meters. The 80M band was a bit touchy but the KX3 was able to get to 1:1 SWR. I had a nice CW chat on 40M with N1ESZ up in Connecticut. Tony gave me a great signal report. This thing appeared to be radiating! I was a little concerned because part of the antenna was close to the metal wall of the trailer but my signals were going somewhere.

WB3GCK operating from the new trailer. My XYL took this picture while I was working N1ESZ on 40 meters.

I made another half-dozen QSOs on 80, 40 and 20 meters over the weekend. The antenna performed well during some lousy band conditions but I did encounter some issues.

There was some noise that appeared about every 25 or 30 KHz that moved around a bit. It was loudest on 40 meters. I suspect that the trailer’s converter, which converts 120 VAC to 12 volts DC, is the culprit. My antenna was pretty close to the trailer’s power cable that connects to “shore power.” I could have picked up the noise from there. Also, during a QSO with KK0I in Wisconsin on 40 meters, I noticed that a LED on the trailer’s control panel was flashing in unison with my CW. My 5-watt signal was finding its way into the trailer’s circuitry. The extra amenities and gadgets in the new trailer are convenient but not necessarily radio-friendly.

Not unlike the antenna on my old camper, this will be a work-in-progress. On our next trip, I’ll be relocating the antenna to a corner of the trailer that’s further away from the electrical stuff. I also have some tweaks to the antenna configuration that I want to try. If all else fails, I’ll just have to mount the antenna further away from the trailer.

Stay tuned…

72, Craig WB3GCK

A Memorable Contact

I’m sure we’ve all had memorable contacts. You know, the ones where you can recall the content and the events surrounding them, even decades later. I was going through one of my old logbooks today and I saw an entry from almost 22 years ago that brought back a flood of memories.

Back in August of 1995, my wife and I took our two daughters on a weeklong tent camping trip to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. My wife had a “milestone birthday” that week (I won’t say which one) and that’s how she wanted to spend it.

We arrived at our campsite on Saturday, August 12th, 1995, and quickly set up our tents. As is my usual custom, I brought a QRP rig along. My simple set up for this trip was my old MFJ-9030 30M rig and my old J-38 straight key. I strung a lightweight dipole between two pine trees and ran the RG-174 coax down to a picnic table. The rig was powered by a 7 A-H gel cell battery, which was enough power for a week of casual operating. The MFJ-9030 put out about 3 watts under battery power. On a typical day, I got on the radio each morning for a couple of contacts and again later in the day.

Our vacation got off to a great start. While my wife was away from the campsite on her birthday, the girls and I threw her a surprise birthday celebration. We decorated the campsite with balloons and streamers. My family enjoyed spending time outdoors without the distraction of TV and telephones. Back in 1995, smartphones weren’t available and I didn’t own a cellphone yet. By Monday, there weren’t any other campers near us. So, we were blissfully unaware of what was going on in the world outside of our little campsite.

The morning of Tuesday, August 15th, 1995, was a typical morning for me while camping. I was up earlier than the rest of the family. I got the percolator ready and fired up our old Coleman camp stove. While the coffee was brewing, I turned on the radio and tuned around the 30-meter band.

Just before 7:00 AM local time, I made contact with Clark W8IHN/8. Clark was operating portable from Houghton Lake, Michigan. We had a very nice rag chew. During our CW conversation, Clark mentioned that he was 79 years old and had been on CW for 66 years! He was interested in our camping set up and our location. He asked me if I was following the news. I said I hadn’t been. He said I should since there was a hurricane heading our way. He said it looked like the Virginia coast was going to be getting high winds and “big surf.” He advised that we not wait too long to leave the area. We signed off after an enjoyable 45-minute chat. In my notebook, I wrote, “QSL for sure. Send a postcard.”

QSL card from W8IHN. On the back of the card, he wrote: “What can I say, Craig, it’s not often that I run into a fellow ham that I take a liking to. I do hope we can meet up again on 30M.”

Concerned by Clark’s warning, I got in the car and tuned the radio to a local broadcast station. Clark was right — Hurricane Felix was heading our way. Before we left Pennsylvania, Felix was still churning around in the Caribbean. It didn’t seem to be much of a threat to our vacation plans. Now, a hurricane warning, which included our location near the lower Chesapeake Bay, had been issued. To the south of us, they were planning an evacuation of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Things were getting serious.

We spent the day listening to the news on the car radio and considering our options. I suggested that we head inland and look for a safer campsite. In the end, we decided to just head home the next day.

The next morning, I made two last contacts on 30 meters before taking the dipole down. After breakfast, we tore down the tents and packed up for the trip back to Pennsylvania. We stopped in the campground office to check out. They said they were planning to evacuate the campground later that day. Since they were planning to close the campground, they gave us a credit for our unused nights.

We were all disappointed that our vacation was cut short. At least, we able to get out of the area, avoiding the traffic and confusion of an evacuation. As we drove home, I was glad that I brought the QRP rig along and very grateful for that CW contact with W8IHN that had tipped us off to the bad weather heading our way.

In the end, Felix never did make landfall in the U.S. It did, however, impact the East Coast. In addition to major beach erosion, nine unfortunate souls lost their lives due to the heavy surf.

Clark and I exchanged QSL cards but I don’t think I ever worked him again after that. His real name was Whittier E. Clark. Doing some Internet research, I found out that he became a Silent Key two years after our contact.

Wherever you are, Mr. Clark, I still think about our CW contact in the summer of 1995 and the concern you showed for me and my family.

73, Craig WB3GCK

QRP to the Field 2017

I missed the QRP to the Field (QTTF) contest last year due to family obligations. I almost missed it again this year for the same reason. I had some family coming in this weekend but I managed to sneak out for a few hours to make a few contacts.

The theme this year was, “A River Runs Through It.” Stations operating near a river get a higher multiplier for their score. Living near the Schuylkill River, I have a lot of options. I decided to head over to Upper Schuylkill Valley Park, which is one of my regular operating spots.

A view of the Schuylkill River from Upper Schuylkill Valley Park.

The weather forecast was calling for periods of rain throughout the day, so I opted to operate from inside the truck. As it turns out, that was a wise decision. It rained most of the time I was operating.

My “stationary-mobile” set up for QRP to the Field

I set up my trusty 30-foot vertical on the back of my truck and set up my KX3 on the center console. I was quickly on the air but I wasn’t hearing much. Between some solar storms and static from the rain, band conditions were pretty lousy.

After a while, 40 meters opened up a bit. I had a brief run of stations there. Twenty meters remained pretty dismal. I heard W0RW/M out in Colorado early on but could connect with him. I eventually worked Tom K4AKC in Alabama. Besides that, I didn’t hear much of anything on 20 meters.

After about two hours, I had to leave. The rain started picking up, so I quickly took down the antenna and headed home. I ended the day with 10 contacts on 40 meters and just 1 on 20 meters.

As I was packing up, a large group of kayaks traveled down the river.

I sure could have used some better band conditions and weather but, all things considered, I was happy with the 11 stations I managed to work.

72, Craig WB3GCK

Back in the Saddle Again

I took advantage of this sunny Spring day to get in my first bike ride of the year. The Straight Key Century Club’s Weekend Sprintathon (WES) was in progress, I figured I would stop along the way to make a few contacts.

I rode a few miles down the Schuylkill River and Perkiomen Trails and set up in a park. I’ve operated from this spot on many occasions. The ground was still muddy from recent rains but, fortunately, there’s a convenient bench there.

My antenna launching arm was a bit rusty. It took a few tries to get my line over the tree branch I was aiming for. I set up the radio on the park bench and tuned around. The bands seemed a bit quiet for a contest weekend.

My trusty bike once again serving as the anchor for my 30-foot wire antenna.

I alternated between calling, “CQ WES,” and searching around for other SKCC stations. I wasn’t having much luck. I got my phone out and checked a couple of propagation sites and wasn’t encouraged by what I saw. I checked RBN and saw that I wasn’t getting many spots. I was also getting an S4 noise level on 40 meters. There was a park building about 100 yards away from me. I’m guessing that something over there was causing the noise. All-in-all, this wasn’t shaping up to be a memorable day for QRP operating.

Park bench portable in Lower Perkiomen Valley Park.

Fortunately, W8IQ heard me in Ohio and rescued me from getting skunked today. Sometimes there are days when it would have been more productive to pack a fishing rod instead of a radio.

Anyway, it was a great day to get back out on the bike and loosen up these old knees of mine.

72, Craig WB3GCK

Back to the Field Again

Boy, it sure has been a while since I’ve done any portable operating. Other projects and interests seemed to have overtaken ham radio for the past few months. With temperatures near 70F today, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to shake off my cabin fever.

My XYL was planning to drive out to our daughter’s house to help her out with a household project. I decided to tag along and do some operating from my daughter’s property. I purchased a new truck about a month ago and had yet to do any QRP operating from it. Today looked like a great opportunity to do a little testing.

I parked the truck in a remote corner of my daughter’s property, next to her neighbor’s corn field. I set up a 29.5-foot vertical using my bike rack mount on the rear of my truck. I fed it through a 9:1 unun and ran a 25-foot coax cable into the passenger side window of the cab. So far so good.

My new truck's first QRP-portable outing. — My new truck’s first QRP-portable outing.

Given that this truck is larger than my last one and the configuration of the center console is much different, I had to do some finagling to place my KX3. I used a small Rubbermaid® container on the passenger seat and placed the KX3 on top of it. Due to the distance involved, I had to place my clipboard and paddles on the console in order for the cable to reach the rig. (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the setup.) It worked OK but I need to figure out a more comfortable arrangement. I have some ideas that I’ll be exploring.

Bike Rack Antenna Mount. A 9:1 unun is attached to the Jackite pole with a bungee cord.

My goal for today was to make contacts on 40, 30 and 20 meters. I started out calling CQ on 40 meters and NN4NC in North Carolina came back with a very strong signal. During our QSO, Mac reduced his power to match my 5 watts and he continued to boom into southeastern Pennsylvania. I then moved up to 30 meters and had a short exchange with W1TEF in South Carolina.

When I moved to 20 meters, I heard WU5M calling CQ near the QRP watering hole. I gave Bryan a call and we had a two-way QRP QSO, despite some fading on the band. It started to rain so I signed with Bryan and quickly took down the antenna. I was parked in an area that tends to get very muddy when it rains.

So, everything worked fine with the new truck but I do need to work out some better ergonomics. It felt good to get back out in the field again, even if only for an hour or so.

72, Craig WB3GCK

Winter Field Day 2017

Well, there wasn’t much “field” in Winter Field Day (WFD) for me. My XYL and I traveled out to central Pennsylvania for the weekend to babysit our 2-year old grandson. My plan was to sneak out into the backyard for a few hours each day to operate in WFD as category 1O (outdoor). Before the weekend, however, I came down with a wicked cold (courtesy of my other grandson). I decided that operating out in the cold probably wasn’t a good idea.

I strapped my 31-foot Jackite pole to the fence in the backyard and used it to support the far end of my LNR EFT-10/20/40 end-fed halfwave antenna. The feed point was just inside a second story window. I set up my KX3 and operated under battery power. I read over the rules and concluded that I was a “1H” (home) station.

My temporary indoor station for Winter Field Day

After setting up, I had a warm-up QSO on 20M with K0WEW in Kansas. Everything appeared to be working. I operated mostly during nap time (my grandson’s, not mine). With just a couple of hours of actual operating, I ended up with 20 CW Winter Field Day stations in the log. I’m sure I could have logged more if I had plugged in the microphone. I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.

Outside of the contest, I worked TM1A (France) in the REF Contest (on 40 meters, no less). I also had a nice two-way QRP QSO with W4MQC. Alan was operating portable from New Hampshire.

Even though it wasn’t much of a Field Day for me, it wasn’t without some excitement. At one point, all the signals on 40 meters suddenly dropped way down. I looked out the window and saw that the wind caused my Jackite pole to collapse putting half of my antenna on the ground. My halyard line got caught between two sections of the pole when it collapsed. It took me about 30 minutes to get that mess straightened out.

My hat goes off to all the hardy hams who braved the cold for Winter Field Day. Hopefully, next year I’ll get out there, too.

73, Craig WB3GCK

Camp Run-a-MOC 2017

Our loosely-knit group of QRPers, known as the Boschveldt QRP Club, gets together each year in January for a weekend of operating and socializing in the woods. We rent a small cabin at the Mohican Outdoor Center (MOC) in the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area in Northern New Jersey. The MOC, which is adjacent to the Appalachian Trail, has been the site of this annual gathering for the past 12 years or so. This annual event has come to be known as “Camp Run-a-MOC.”

In attendance this year was K3YTR, WA3WSJ, NK1N, NU3E and me. Walt KB3SBC was there on Friday but, unfortunately, had to leave to deal with a plumbing emergency at home.

When I rolled into camp on Friday afternoon, Ed K3YTR was busy setting up his gear for the ARRL VHF Contest and John NU3E was setting up an end-fed halfwave antenna for some JT65 & JT9 operating. Ed WA3WSJ and Glen NK1N were operating pedestrian mobile near Crater Lake. It turned out to be a rainy hike for them. After a dinner prepared by K3YTR, there was a lot of catching up and story swapping.

John NU3E operating JT modes from the cabin. It wasn’t that cold in the cabin; John was dressed for our hike to the Catfish Fire Tower.

After breakfast on Saturday, WA3WSJ, NK1N, NU3E and I made the two-mile hike up to the Catfish Fire Tower on the Appalachian Trail. Although we hiked through dense fog on the way up, the weather cleared up a bit when we reached the top of the ridge.

I set up my KX3 and AlexLoop at a picnic table, while WA3WSJ and NK1N operated pedestrian mobile. NU3E came along for the hike and caught a short nap on the bench of the picnic table where I was operating.

WB3GCK operating from the fire tower. This was taken during a brief break in the weather.

After we each had made a few contacts, the sun went in, the temperature dropped and a dense fog rolled in. We packed up our gear and made the trek back down the trail.

Ed WA3WSJ operating pedestrian-mobile near the fire tower.

Back at the cabin, K3YTR and NK1N made more some contacts in the VHF contest before we headed into town for dinner. By the time we headed back to the cabin, the heavy fog and limited visibility made for some tricky driving. When we got back to the cabin there was some more VHF contesting and more tall stories. On Sunday morning, we all enjoyed NU3E’s famous Belgian waffles before packing up for the trip home.

ED K3YTR working the VHF contest from the cabin.

Glen NK1N operating 6 meters in the VHF contest from the cabin.

So, another fun Camp Run-a-MOC get-together is in the books. The weather wasn’t great but at least it didn’t snow this year.

The next outing for the Boschveldt QRPers is Field Day. I’m already looking forward to that.

72, Craig WB3GCK