WØEA Blog!

Mobile Updates

2013-04-24T05:43:00.001-07:00

With Spring weather taking its sweet time to arrive (at least in the Midwest where it's been unseasonably cold), I finally got a chance to clean out the car and start thinking about preparing a mobile setup for the trip to Dayton for Hamvention next month. I had an existing setup that worked relatively well for my KX3 that I posted about a while back but it lacked finesse and permanence. The "burger tray" solution wasn't very good since it was difficult to use without taking my eyes off the road for an extended period of time. So I ended up using a suction mount to support the radio over the cup holder area in my truck instead. This was certainly not ideal since the suction cup was prone to losing suction and I risked tossing my beloved (and expensive!) radio to the floor of the vehicle. Not to mention, with extended use, the suction cup was getting hard and would not support a good suction when cold.

So in preparation for the Dayton trip, I knew I wanted a better solution. I spent a lot of time brainstorming how exactly I'd go about mounting the radio in various positions in the cockpit, but it became painfully obvious that there really isn't a good way to do it in any location except where I had it before. That meant a truly custom solution. As luck would have it, while I was in the camping section of Walmart just browsing while my wife picked up groceries, a rare flash of brilliance struck me. I found a small nylon cutting board that could serve perfectly as the basis for my custom mount. Not only was this a very valuable solution at only $3, I knew that with some liberal application of heat, I could form a piece of the cutting board into about any shape I needed.

Using parts from the existing suction mount, I mocked up the new mount with a piece of cardboard and found that it'd be a simple, one direction bend to get the angle I wanted. Of course it took a bit more work than that but after about 20 trips back and forth to/from the garage to/from the shack, I had a piece of nylon board that was at the angle I wanted and fit in the space I had provided it. Luckily I was able to screw it to the inside of the cup holder which will make the holes almost invisible if I ever decide to remove the mount. The photo evidence is below.

The mount still allows for full, unadulterated use of the driver's side cup holder

This essentially replicates the location used with the suction cup mount but provides the stability that I desired. Obviously, I'm pretty happy with it!

I also decided it was time to look into a permanent VHF/UHF mobile solution for the car. I ran an Icom ID-208H for a while a couple summers ago when I had the radio on loan from the club at work, but that has long since returned to the club. I don't have a great affinity for using repeaters or doing FM simplex work, but it is nice to have during the storm season and when travelling, so with some money I've garnered from building a few kits, I put the money down on a Kenwood TM-V7A thatI purchased from a local ham who was doing some "house cleaning". Unfortunately he was unable to find the separation kit he thought he had for the rig so I had to homebrew my own. The TM-V7A uses a proprietary cable set which has been unavailable for years, and what I have been able to find, were been beyond expensive for what it provides. I figured if I was a real ham, I'd just figure it out.

And figure it out I did. The head uses a 4 pin connector with spring loaded contacts, so I fashioned a piece of PC board with 4 tracks on it and soldered wires from some CAT5 cable, pressed it into the connector then glued a piece of an old credit card across the back of the head, securing the new "connector" to the back of the head (picture of this later). On the main unit, the corresponding connector is just 4 contacts that the spring loaded contacts would press into. I couldn't figure out a way to build a connector that would work for this one but I quickly realized there was room to just run wires to the back of the board that connector was attached to and solder directly to the board, so I just did that. And as luck would have it, I actually managed to get it to work on the first try!

It was smooth sailing after that. I downloaded the service manual for my truck and started tearing into the dashboard so I could discretely run the cable to the head and put the main unit under the passenger seat. It was actually really easy, pretty much all the pieces are just clipped in. I attached the head to the dash using EXTREME Velcro; hopefully it'll withstand the Iowa summer. The head is extremely light so it should. The end result was extremely satisfying:

This is all you can see from the passenger side. Wiring is completely invisible from the driver's seat

If we go back for a moment to the trip I took to Western Nebraska last summer (some of you know about this story already...) I had a little trouble with electrical power running to my radio which nearly resulted in a major catastrophe but was narrowly averted by the quick thinking of my wife. It turns out that while us QRP operators can often get away with minimal safety measures due to the low power nature of our operation no shortcuts should be made when installing power runs in the mobile setting. Alas, I had forgone the use of a fuse on my power cable to the battery out of pure laziness and it worked great for so long. That day was to be the last day that I considered that an acceptable practice, for when we arrived in Omaha at the end of our first day of travel, a pure white smoke began billowing from below my seat and I quickly came to the realization that my truck was nearly on fire! Something had shorted somewhere and it was quickly eating through the coating on the wires and melting itself into the carpet. Of course I had no means of cutting the wire until my wife came to the rescue, materializing a set of nail clippers which when applied to the power cable at the battery, ended our near occasion of disaster.

I have learned from that mistake. Through another friend at work, I got a really great 8 gauge power cable WITH a 20 Amp fuse already in line that was from an old Motorola service rig or something. It took a lot of work but I did take a few pictures of the routing of the power cables for posterity. I did get it all hooked up and there was no fire so I guess things will be OK for now!

Engine fuse/relay block - I hooked up the + lead to the screw in the top right and the ground goes on the bolt at the bottom of the picture

Center console all removed - cable comes in through grommet to the left of the pedals on the firewall

Finally, the power cable goes under the carpet and out under the passenger seat. You can see some remaining evidence of the near fire on the side of the driver's seat - that's plastic melted into the fabric!

The winter duldrums

2013-03-21T13:41:00.002-07:00

Here it is, March 21, and still only 26ºF.

I'm ready for Spring.

And some portable operations.

And some grilling.

:(

I've not been too busy with radio stuff since my last post, other obsessions have taken over for a bit but I'm coming back. Some work continued on the solid state TR switch for the amplifier but right now I'm shelving that particular part and going back to the relay switching. It isn't ideal but I don't see myself using the amp that much in the summer when I'm operating portable a lot more. The Elecraft 100w amplifier is looking nicer and nicer. Hopefully they'll have something to show at Dayton in May. Here's some photos they posted on the @elecraft twitter account:

Last report was that they were receiving a second spin of the boards and working on final hardware design so I'm guessing it'll be done pretty soon.

And speaking of Dayton, I'll be there, FDIM too. My wife has a wedding the same weekend that I wish I could attend, but it actually works out all right. The wedding is in Southern Indiana so we'll just drive out on Wednesday and I'll drop her off in Indianapolis which is on the way for me then pick her up on Sunday on the way back. This will be my 2nd Dayton, I first went in 2011, and my first FDIM. No big plans for any purchases, but I'm sure I'll come home with at least a few goodies.

In other news, Steve Weber released the 2nd run of his MTR rig. Just like the first time, the next 150 kits sold out in a matter of hours. The new run features a nice custom case from Ten Tec which he will be offering for sale a-la-cart before too long for folks who purchased kits from the first run. I plan on picking one up though it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I think I might paint it or something to make it my own...

I need to get a real kit together for my MTR that is separate from the KX3 bag. Presently I take everything when I go out then only use the KX3. Ideally, I can have a minimal kit that is just the MTR and the bare essentials for longer hikes or when I just don't feel like ripping the KX3 setup apart. That means probably a second EFHW tuner at the very least. I guess I could work on that while it's still cold!

Well I think that'll wrap up this blog post for now. I really just wanted to make sure you all knew I was still alive! Keep an eye out for more updates to come as the weather warms up again and the portable operating season returns in Iowa. 73 for now!

Part 4: The Finishing Touches - and Upgrades!

2012-12-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

So far so good with the amp. It's been in service a week now and I have been able to really put it through its paces on a couple of bands. I finally decided to order an enclosure from Ten Tec. I chose one that is similar in size to the raw chassis that I was using as a makeshift enclosure. The new one is 9x9x4 (LxWxH) inches. That's 2 inches deeper an 2 inches taller, which by my measurements, should be a nice snug fit for all the filter boards and the keying board. Ten Tec enclosures are not the cheapest out there, but finding something this size for cheaper is really a crapshoot.

The new enclosure has black top and sides and the end panels are what Ten Tec calls an eggshell white. Since my heatsink is raw aluminum, I went ahead and tore down the amp, removed the PA board and painted it a nice Rustoleum satin black. Apparently it is important to use a primer when painting aluminum so I did that first.

It isn't a bad match and it will look nice on the desk for sure, though the Ten Tec case is more of a matte finish now that I have see it in person.

It is pretty sad to go maim a brand new case but I need to mount the heatsink in the top of the case. A big hole. For this task, I chose my handy dandy rotary hand tool, aka Dremel, with a cutting wheel. As always, measure 30 times, cut once! I went ahead and put the heatsink in the middle of the top cover and cut the whole just slightly bigger than the PA board itself.

The heatsink was already tapped for screws so once the hole was cut, I marked and drilled the mounting holes too.

I moved on to mounting the filters and keying board in the chassis next. Since each board is 2" wide, I had to stack one pair of them to fit the enclosure but I already had some threaded standoffs if you remember so that was easy. I lined all of them up in the case and marked and drilled those for 4-40 hardware.

Next I worked on the front and back panels. I was really worried about screwing this up so there was a lot of measurement and test and fit and test and cut going on here! I also added a 25A circuit breaker to the power input for a bit of protection.

Next the front panel went together. No surprises here since its pretty basic and most of you have already seen my preliminary design for the front panel labeling. It does sport a new dual color LED which is pretty swank:

During Recieve

And During Transmit

Luckily I got the band switch I ordered from China on Monday so I could button this whole thing up. I went to town wiring up the filters to the switch, which was easier than I anticipated, but I did run out of coax so its only hooked up for 3 bands at the moment (40, 20, and 15).

Now we get to the upgrades! As you have seen, I built the keying circuit using a simple, cheap, 12v relay. It has been working fine but I have really found myself seriously missing my QSK, especially when I'm not using the amp and have the break in delay set high. So, since I've come this far already, I decided now is the time to add that solid state TR switch. There are a couple of ways to build one but I looked for inspiration in obvious places - Elecraft's K2 schematics. A fellow QRP op pointed me to the website of G3VMW who just happened to have built a fully home brewed transceiver that used the same AN762 amp and utilized a modified solid state TR switch from the K2. I copied his design as provided, plus one additional cap, and built it up in Eagle. Yet again, with the help of my Norwegian friend, Thomas, we laid out a PCB and everything. I have always wanted to learn how to do that and once I got a hang of the tool, it actually became really rewarding, almost like putting a puzzle together. At any rate, here is the board we ended up with.

3D render of the Gerber files from http://mayhewlabs.com/3dpcb

I went with Seeed Studio for the board fab, mostly based on price. The other houses I looked at were 2 or 3 times more pricey Since Seeed is over in China, I'm not looking for boards for at least 3 weeks. Luckily I will be gone for nearly 2 weeks over the holidays so I couldn't play with any of that stuff if it were here anyway.

After all is said and done and the parts for the TR switch are added up, I think the total cost of the switch comes out to not much more than the relay based switch, and if it works, totally worth every penny.

So in preparation of the new switch, I just stuck the relay board to the case without any screws so I don't have any extra holes.

So the amp works! (still) But now I'm on 3 bands! Here's how she looks on the desk

Bland but it works!

And finally the gratuitous proof that the amplifier is amplifying - over 125w output with a couple watts of drive on 40m

Is it perfect? By no means (yet) but it sure works don't it?! Now if only I could find a better knob for that band switch....

QROOO! Part 3: the PA

2012-12-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

I received the amplifier kit from Communication Concepts today! Here's what I found when I opened up the box:

On the left are the 5 band filters with the amp and parts to the right. I was happy to see that the 3 transformers on the amp were pre-wound for me, which is nice since those are a bit special. Luckily, there's still a few to wind for the filters! It wouldn't be a real kit if I didn't have to wind any!

I had scheduled some time with Rod, K0DAS, to help me drill and tap the heatsink for the board but he wasn't available right away so I put together the 20m filter while I waited.

20m Low Pass filter

It didn't take long for Rod to get back with me and I took the parts over to his QTH and we worked on drilling the holes for the amp. It went fairly well and we got everything looking nice. Only mistake we made was drilling the board mounting holes for 6-32 screws. No big deal, we got the important ones right (the ones for the transistor tabs). We just drilled out the other holes to fit the bigger screws. I forgot to take a picture of the bare board mounted on the heatsink...oops!

Next, to start on the amp itself. The "build notes" from CCI are little more than just that, notes. These are not really "kits" in the traditional sense. The build notes do outline generally how to assemble key parts of the board but do leave out some of the common details that might be included in a detailed, polished manual for example. Keep that in mind if you are considering this journey in the future! The initial assembly goes through the whole board minus the actual final transistors. The last step before their installation is setting the bias current (and voltage). It is very critical to set this correctly or else you will run a very serious risk of damaging the finals and they're $90 a pair so, play safe!

The assembly was pretty straightforward but the instructions did leave out a couple parts near the end - namely a couple of surface mount caps that go on the bottom of the board. Once I figured out where they belonged, it was no problem.

Board populated and ready for first smoke test

So with great trepidation, I applied power for the first time, monitoring the bias voltage across a 50 ohm resistor as requested in the build notes. For some reason I was not getting anywhere close to the expected voltage. Looking around I quickly found that the transistor and resistor in the bottom right of the board were getting very, very hot. Something was clearly not right. I inspected all the joints and part values and didn't find any issues. Then just as I was getting frustrated, I spotted it, a tiny pinhead solder splash that crossed the bare board and must have been shorting the power rail to ground. Once I flicked that off, the bias voltage came right into spec and the aforementioned parts were nice and cool too.

I applied thermal grease to the underside of the transistors and the thermal reference transistor (used as a PN junction) and bolted it all together. Remember, a little bit of this stuff goes a long way and I bought a big jar (a couple ounces) which is enough for 50 amps. Since my band switch is coming from China, it isn't here yet so I decided to just wire up the 20m filter directly to the amp for now. Also, not having a chassis, I used the standoffs I had and threw it together like this:

Doesn't look pretty but sure works doesn't it?!

I timidly applied some RF while watching the output on an old MFJ tuner just to get a reference and sure enough, it was amplifying! I also had the voltage meter on the KX3 up so I could see the supply during keydown. I was surprised to see the voltage dipping quite a bit even though the power supply I'm borrowing is supposed to do 23 Amps continuous. I'm thinking that spec is a bit generous. Anyway, after some more testing and hooking it up to the scope, it looks like I'm putting out about 75+ watts with 5W of drive, maybe more. I ordered a Powerwerx SS-30VD so hopefully it will be able to run a bit higher output with that. Even if not, 75W is a big improvement over 5W, and the RBN spots prove it

40dB SNR?! Haven't seen that before!

I ran the amp like this a bit but it became pretty clear that this was a pretty poor setup for heat dissipation (the worst case one in fact) so the next day I decided to flip it over somehow. I don't have a good case for it yet but luckily I did have the aluminum box from the antenna tuner I picked up at the junk in the trunk event in the Spring (see post about that here). I have been working on getting that tuner cleaned up and serviceable but it'll have to wait for now. Now, let me tell you, this chassis really makes the amp. It looked pretty bad before, but now it looks like a real homebrew project!

Figuring out how to put all of it in the box

Wired up and ready for another test run

Power on - ready for QSOs!

Way cool right?! Yeah, its not as streamlined or sexy as the KX3 but I'll be darned if it doesn't look like a real homebrew piece of artwork! Ok, there's more work to be done, but this is going to work great for the short term, at least until the band switch arrives. Until then, I have some more filter boards to wire up and QSOs to make!

PS: I intended to do a little video but my camera(s) were not cooperating last night so this will have to do! Watch Twitter (@w0ea) and subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep an eye out for the video which I will post later!

QROOO! Part 2: The Keying Circuit

2012-12-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in Part 1, the keying circuit parts arrived first.

Keying circuit

I ordered some small prototyping boards for this circuit on eBay, assuming they'd be way cheaper than Radio Shack only to find that Radio Shack's boards are actually priced pretty well. So rather than wait on those (could be days!) I went and picked up a couple before heading home for the day.

Here's all the key (hehe) components for this part of the build. The relay I chose is Digikey part number Z147-ND, a DPDT, 8A, 12V relay. This is the same relay that CCI uses in one of their other amplifiers that includes the keying circuit, so I knew it would work in this application. The rest of the parts are generally generic parts and 1/4W resistors. The 2n4401 and 1n4007 are staples in the junk box so I got several of both. Resistors came from the junk box. Most amplifiers use an RCA jack for the keyline input but LA3PNA suggested I just use a 3.5mm stereo phone jack instead since I have some on hand already and panel mount RCA jacks are at least a couple dollars. Finally, I had to piece together a cable with 2.5mm plug on one end and 3.5mm on the other. The 2.5mm plug was a calculator cloning cable in a previous life and the other end of it serves as the KX3 I/Q output cable. So this should be enough to get this piece of the amp running.

Here's the board all wired up. Proto boards are much nicer than trying to smash everything ugly style on a piece of copper!

I made a little video showing the relay switching when I hit the TX button on the KX3. It works!

I also got lucky and another helpful ham you may remember, NM0S, Dave, found a heatsink for me to use. He thinks its a bit big but it looks perfect to me. I don't plan on cutting it down or anything. I think its about 8 inches square and the fins are about 2 inches tall. I could probably run RTTY at 100w for a while with this one!

Next step: build the amp board, which hopefully will be here on Saturday. Check back for that! Unfortunately I won't be able to complete the build on the amp board until I drill and tap the heatsink, so no on air testing this weekend.

QROOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (Part 1)

2012-12-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, you read that right. Me, a QRP evangelist if there ever was one, is getting an amp. Well, not so much getting as building.

LA3PNA, Thomas, over in Norway tipped me off to a small mom & pop shop called Communication Concepts, Inc. near the venerable city of Dayton, OH. They have a number of simple solid state amplifier kits for sale based off of old Motorola application notes. After looking around, I settled on the AN762-140 model. The AN762 is a 140 watt amplifier for 1.6-30 MHz.

The AN762 140 watt RF Amplifier (stock photo)

This is a pretty big step for me - I've built tons of kits now but this is a bit more than just a kit. As you may notice, there's no enclosure, there's no keying circuit, there's no bandpass filters... this is really barebones. Luckily CCI also has band filters for a mere $15 so I purchased filters for 5 HF bands 10m through 80m but the filters can probably be pressed into service on the nearby WARC bands in a pinch. Filters will be switched by hand of course, a simple DP5T rotary switch direct from Hong Kong is on the way for that task.

All that is left is T/R switching. I would have loved to use PIN diodes, but I looked at some of the designs and they're all a bit more complex than I really need and since this is all homebrew, I can always upgrade in the future! The design for the switch is nothing spectacular and is just a simple bipolar relay driver. Initially I had thought the keyline on the KX3 produced a 3V output on keydown so I designed the switch using a single 2n4401 NPN only to find later that its just a logic zero (ground) output during keydown. With LA3PNA's help (my analog skills are a bit rusty) we put together this circuit which "inverts" the NPN and switches the relay when the keyline is low since I had already ordered the NPNs.

Keying circuit

The value of R1 is kind of arbitrary but you want to limit the current dumping through the KX3's keyline so chose something big-ish. I've successfully simulated the design with resistors as big as 1M Ohm so take that for what it is.

So save for a bit of coax, a chassis, and some connectors, that's pretty much the hole concept of the amp. It does require a heatsink of course, and I'm still trying to dig one up on the cheap. I'm sure it will come together when I finally have all the electrical parts in hand and can figure out how I want to lay everything out inside the case I still don't have either!

Since I ordered from multiple vendors, I will be receiving parts in stages, with the keying circuit parts arriving first so my next post will be about constructing and testing that. I'll be sure to include pictures. Keep an eye out for part 2!

How I Build

2012-11-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

I asked on Twitter what folks might like to read next here on my blog and a couple people suggested I discuss the tools I use to build kits and other various stuff on my bench that helps me with that process. I thought that'd be a good topic so here it is!

First off I have my set of Stanley screwdrivers. I use these a lot more than one would think but since they're all kinds of sizes including really small regular and philips drivers, I find myself using them to pry lots of stuff off of boards or shim something temporarily. A good set of small screwdrivers come in really handy on the bench.

Next, my pliers. From left to right: a pair of cheap edge cutters, a wire stripper, and a Letherman. The edge cutters I think I just got at Radio Shack but a high quality pair with a very strong cutting edge is essential for kit builders. This pair has been worn quite a bit and the cutting edges are nicked up. I'm due for a new set. I'll skip the wire strippers for now and go to the Letherman. This one I got from my Dad ages ago probably when I was still in Boy Scouts. It's your typical multi-tool with all the fixings but I mostly use them for the needle nose pliers and for the straight edge knife. Of course a separate needle nose plier would be OK but I had this on hand so I use it. The knife gets all kinds of use from cutting rope to stripping coax. Again, this particular tool is getting a bit long in the tooth and deserves a retirement. Always keep in mind, a very sharp knife is safer than a dull one! As promised, to the wire strippers. I got this particular one at a garage sale in Indiana, but I think you can still find them at the hardware store. It is really great for chopping off coax in one cut (see the cutting edges below the head) and quickly stripping small hookup wire. It does not fare too well with stripping coax and when you get too small of wires in there, it just eats them up. It does, however save a ton of time so I use it when I can.

Next up: needle files. I got this set at Harbor Freight for a few dollars and while they are typical Chinese junk, they will certainly get any job done in the shack that I need. I used them on my Firefly SDR case and they really helped make the finish look great. I had been holding out on getting a set but I think they will really change the way I do enclosures so they finally look nice.

Of course, everybody needs a good soldering station. Mine is a Hakko FX-888. It is an a outstanding station and I highly, highly recommend it. For less than $100 US you can have a quick heating, variable temperature iron and the brand is well known. We use Hakko stuff in the factory at work so they're no slouch! This iron gets so hot you wont have any problems soldering PL-259s on anything. Also photographed is a bottle of water. This is for the sponge. There's some "professional" type bottle holders with the little straw thing that goes down and all you have to do is squeeze the bottle and all that but someone somewhere suggested once to just use a soda bottle and drill a small hole in the lid. So that is what I did and it works darn well. Again: if you don't have a soldering iron that has adjustable temperature control, get one of these Hakkos. You will NOT be sorry.

And there's test equipment. The most used piece of equipment in this category is my Extech multimeter. My lovely wife got me this for our anniversary this year (the Hakko was last year's gift!). It is a great little meter and only $50 on Amazon.

Here's some other miscellaneous stuff. Obviously you need solder. This is just some Radio Shack stuff which is fine but it is a bit too heavy for surface mount jobs. I need to get some thinner wire. Also pictured is a roll of Radio Shack desoldering braid for cleaning up those little accidents you have along the way. Ubiquitous electrical tape of course. And a "helping hands" style clip thing I also got at Harbor Freight for a couple bucks. The magnifying glass comes in handy when dealing with the surface mount stuff though I would love to have a stereo microscope someday.

And finally, SAFETY. Well I guess they say "Safety First." A pair of DeWalt safety glasses. Honestly, I don't wear them all the time but I do try to remember to put them on when starting a project. Not only can solder or flux pop up and hit you in the eye but when cutting leads or wires or anything else, you are prone to have something fly into your eye. Definitely have a pair in your shack.

Here's the whole bench. The bench was purchased from a guy at work and is a real industrial modular work bench. It is height adjustable and probably weighs about 200 lbs. Of course you don't need a fancy bench but it certainly does help to have something you can customize to fit your style and needs.

So that pretty much covers all of the stuff I use the most. There's lots of other stuff I use too but much less frequently. What I have listed is really a good start for the budding kit builder.

Just a few things to think about before you go outfit your new shack workbench. While there's plenty of things you can get really cheap, a few things you should focus your budget on are a good soldering iron and a multimeter. Those two things alone will make your building experience so much more successful and rewarding.

Good luck, and to steal a line from one of my heros, see you in the soldersmoke!

Firefly SDR and other ham happenings

2012-10-31T18:04:00.002-07:00

Firefly SDR -
A nice surprise arrived in my mailbox last week from GB, KG4GVL. He had an older retired kit known as the Firefly SDR that had been sitting unbuilt and he wanted me to build it to pass on to the ham community in the future. Of course I did not hesitate to take him up on the offer! The kit is a 20m Software Defined Radio (SDR) and features a 2.5 to 3.5w CW only transmitter with a built in keyer.

I'm not sure why QRP Kits decided to drop the Firefly because it is a pretty unique kit and I don't know of any other SDRs like this one. No less, I set to build this kit as fast as humanly possible as I do all my kits because I just can't stop myself! Typically I'd do all the testing in between steps but I was feeling adventurous and went ahead without any stopping. Well no stopping until I found that I was missing a part which was quickly supplied by Glenn, AC7ZN, free of charge! Thanks Glenn!!

My luck paid in gold when the first power on let out no magic smoke and the waterfall erupted with signals from the I/Q output!

GB was kind enough to send along all the hardware required for the kit including a really nice case. I've not had a ton of luck casing up kits just because I don't have a lot of tools at my disposal to drill holes and such so this time I decided to really do this kit justice and hit my local Harbor Freight to pick up some step drills. These things make drilling holes in sheet metal really easy. I also got a set of needle files too while I was there.

End result: pretty darn nice!

The controls of the Firefly are a bit different from your traditional CW transceiver for obvious reasons. The flip switch on the top left of the front panel is the Spot/Operate switch. Flip it up, and a tone is fed into the I/Q output that shows up on the waterfall so you can put your transmitter in the passband of your receiver. You do that with the bigger silver knob. The knob on the right controls the keyer speed, the green button is the keyer control button and the jack is for the paddle. The Firefly does not originally have a power on LED but since I added a power switch to the back of the radio, I added a power on LED to the front.

The back (not pictured) has jacks for power, I/Q output and the keyer sidetone. The keyer needs its own sidetone since the SDR application simply "thumps" when you transmit (the I/Q stream basically goes all fuzzy and all you hear in the computer speakers is a hum). As I mentioned, I also added a power on switch to the back of the case.

The radio does a fine job. I measured the output at about 3w on my QRPometer and had no problem making a few contacts. All in all, it is a fun little radio and if you see one for sale sometime, don't be afraid to pick one up even just to play with a bit.

Other happenings -
I purchased a UV-5RA from Amazon on a whim thinking maybe I'd get into trying some satellite ops. I had some money burning a hole in my pocket so I figured, why not! I used this article to build a hand held Arrow style dual-band antenna. My first iteration used a 1 inch square wooden dowel for the boom which worked pretty well but proved to be a bit heavier than I would like and even though I'm no weakling, after a 10 minute pass, your arms will get a bit tired. I also had a lot of trouble keeping the downlink since I only had 4 elements on 70cm. So based on the recommendation from Bob, AD7BP, I rebuilt my little beam using a boom made out of laminated foam core poster board. This one has 6 elements on 70cm and 3 elements on 2m. The first test showed that it certainly helped! I worked K9ZMU up in Wisconsin on Saudisat 1-C a.k.a SO-50. Wee! I'll be looking forward to much more satellite work but with the weather getting cold, it may be a while before I do much more.

Batteries for the KX3?

2012-10-10T10:45:00.001-07:00

Looking through the stats for the blog, I noticed a couple of Google searches that lead people to my blog were regarding what the best batteries for the KX3 are. I am by no means a battery hoarder or expert but I can certainly talk about what I have used.

In the lead up to the deliver of my KX3, I was pretty sure I wanted something cheap but with enough power to provide a couple hours of operation at the park. Rarely would I need anything more substantial than that and I already had a 7aH SLA if I needed it. The obvious options were NiMH rechargables which could be used internally with the KX3 or a LiFe (Lithium Iron polymer).

A set of 8 Sanyo Eneloop "Low Self Discharge" NiMH batteries that provide 2100mAh of power run about $20 and can (or will be able to be) charged with the KX3's internal charger. You probably already have a battery charger that will charge them until the KX3's ships. I also ended up buying one of the fancy individual cell chargers since I did not have any "slow" chargers which you should use when charging any NiMH battery to prevent overheating and excessive stress on the cells. So total cost was about $40 and I get some 1,000 charges out of these batteries. The 8 cells weigh about 250 grams (not verified) and based on actual usage in the field, provide 2+ hours of casual portable operation at 5w (not talking contesting here). It is important to note that the 8 cell pack does NOT allow you to operate at the KX3's full power output of 12w due to the supply voltage being below 12 VDC. This was not a problem for me as I am a QRP purist but it may be to you. Be warned!

In summary - I think the Eneloop batteries work great for my particular use scenario.

Now I began looking at LiFe batteries lately as well. LiFe batteries provide a much flatter discharge curve which means they can generally be used for longer period of time at the same current discharge than NiMH batteries. Since I had been happy with the power and weight that the Eneloops have provided, I decided to look for a comparable LiFe battery. The closest comparison is the 3s2p configuration which provides about 9.9VDC. A 2100 mAh size runs about $14 from various RC hobby shops, however you will absolutely need a special charger for these types of batteries, which runs about $20 depending on which one you get. So in total, the cost is very comparable. Now the part that surprised me was the weight. I had always been under the impression that Li batteries were much lighter than their counterparts but at this smaller capacity, this is not the case. the 2100mAh LiFe battery runs about the same weight as the 8 NiMH cells I already have. The power density savings does, however, come into effect at the next step up, the 4s2p battery which provides 13.2VDC (i.e. 12w output!). A 4200mAh 4s2p battery weighs only 500 grams and would provide a lot more operating time, at a higher power, than the 3s2p. But then, I don't really need that much power or time to operate and the cost is 2x as much than the 3s2p so I've passed on that one.

In summary - If you need the higher power operating options, LiFe is a no brainer. For me, LiFe batteries provide nothing I don't already have in my NiMH set, except maybe extended operation but even then, I have yet to operate long enough to run my NiMH batteries out.

So I hope this helps a few folks who stumble across my blog get an idea of what the options are. I'm sticking with my Eneloops.

KX3 Stand and Skip, Skip to my Lou!

2012-10-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

There's not been a whole lot going on in the W0EA shack lately but I thought it was time for an update of sorts. I've been doing a lot of building kits for folks and I'm still really enjoying it. It is turning out to be a great way to fund my little radio projects. Currently I have another MTR in the works, which will go in a classic Altoids tin this time, so I'll have a post with photos of that when it is done. I've got a softrock receiver on its way as well.

The latest addition to the shack is a nice stand for my KX3. It is inspired by WG0AT's stand and born of a desire to have the KX3 in a more comfortable position in the shack. My stand's features are very similar to Steve's but with a little improvement which makes it stable without any additional weighting. It was designed with Dave Cripe, NM0S, who cut the wood and assembled it for me since I don't have a table saw. Its made out of oak and finished in Minwax water based stain. It turned out great and I'm really happy with it! It fits into my shack perfectly and the angle is spot on (went with 45 degrees).

View from operating position

Stand empty - note captive holes like Steve's

In other news, I also worked on my digital interface (if you can call it that). The KX3 makes it very easy to interface with a computer and I was just using straight audio cables for the most part. I used a piece of CAT5 Ethernet cable to splice them all together so I have a single bundle with some connectors dangling off the ends. Really best described by a photo:

My interface cable: computer on left (audio in and out), rig on left (mic, audio out, I/Q audio) Seen here with Skip Teller device in the film canister and a large ferrite choke installed.

I was just using VOX to key the transmitter and sometimes I could get it to key pretty reliably only to come back later, or change bands or something and no longer get it to key and unkey when I wanted it to. Enter: Skip Teller (KH6TY) interface The Skip Teller digital interface has been published in QST a couple times and there was even a nice professional printed circuit board you could buy, but it has since sold out. Basically it creates a separate VOX circuit using a simple transistor and a few other parts, but boy does it work!

The latest version requires no DC power!

Here's what mine looked like after I put it all together in a fairly ugly style. Small enough to fit in a film canister! Also note that the diodes and capacitor values are non-critical. In mine the smaller cap is a 2.2 uF and the big one is a 100uF. The bigger cap (C2 in the schematic) does give you control over how long the TX/RX delay is so the smaller the cap, the shorter delay (or smaller the resistor...). With the 100uF cap in there, my delay is about 500 milliseconds which is fine for any of the stuff I'm doing.

You may notice only one transformer. I did not build the receive side of the interface since I don't have enough wires in the bundle to isolate everything and of course it was brought to my attention later that unless I isolate both sides, its not really isolated. I have since removed the transformer and it still works!

So far, I'm really happy with it. I don't have any keying problems now and I don't have to worry about the VOX getting stuck open if I'm operating digital modes remotely or something like that. It is really a win-win!

I was also pleased to find another new addition to the shack:

How cool is that?! Last year I operated the Sweepstakes at N0MA and participated in the group's first clean sweep on CW then left and worked the Sweeps' from my home QTH which I guess worked out pretty dang well! The next contest is only a few weeks away so I do hope to hear you on the air then!

AA5TB End Fed Half Wave Tuner

2012-08-29T05:27:00.002-07:00

End Fed Half Wave antennas have been all the rage in QRP the last few years, and rightfully so, they are high efficiency, easy to deploy, and the simplest and lightest antenna you can pack. Many of us have been using the PAR EndFedz line (originally created by Dale Parfit, W4OP, now carried by LNR Precision) with great success. I have one of Dale's older QRP 10/20/40m models and it worked great for a long time but lately, for some reason, it does not want to tune up on 40 so I've been sticking to a random wire instead when in the field. I'd like to go back to the EFHW and I've always wanted to build one of those fancy EFHW tuners so I set off to do that yesterday. The missing link has always been the polyvaricon - a small variable capacitor often found in old transistor radios and the like. You can buy a set of 4 off of QRP Kits but they are pretty pricy. Luckily, a friend of mine gave me an old Sanyo shortwave receiver a while back that was not working too well so I tore into it and was pleased to find a nice dual section polyvaricon, ripe for the taking.

There are a bunch of other parts on that board that might be nice to have too: lots of can inductors, good looking caps etc. May have to rip this thing down further yet.

So now with the key component in hand, I could really get this thing going. The design I used was featured on AD7BP's blog. It was originally designed by AA5TB.

As you can see, the design and construction are pretty foolproof. Here's my hacked together job:

I've got a 4.7kOhm resistor across the output for testing purposes and was pleased to find that I could get 1.3:1 SWR on 15-40m. Not too shabby! So I went ahead and boxed it all up nice and pretty and here's the end result:

Looks pretty sharp! I have not yet tried it on a real EFHW antenna but it does tune my doublet really well on 40m so apparently that is a pretty high impedance antenna there!

You might note that there is no SWR indicator on this tuner. After chatting with AD7BP, he said he didn't think you really need one and he's probably right. His argument is that the peak is so sharp that it is pretty easy to hear the SWR null and if you can get close enough, it will be within the tolerable range for most radios. In my brief testing, I found that to be the case but we'll see once we are using real wire!

Look for an update on the next portable outing!

Steve Weber's MTR

2012-08-03T18:49:00.000-07:00

Today's blog entry will focus on Steve "Melt Solder" Weber's new Mountain Topper Radio (MTR for short). The MTR is another fine radio in the AT_Sprint lineage and I've seen it described as a sort of "ATS3c". It is a 2 band - any pair from 80, 40, 30, or 20 - 5w Altoids tin transceiver with RIT, a DDS VFO, 3 keyer memories, and even the capability to do PSK (with external hardware). Of course this is a surface mount kit but don't let that put you off! I was a bit aprehensive myself but found the assembly to be very enjoyable, though it was somewhat challenging. You don't improve if you don't try new things!

The radio took me about 8 hours to build I think, but that sounds like a lot. I did not use tweezers so it made placing the parts a bit difficult and I think that made it take longer. No less, I enjoyed every minute of the build and had absolutely no problems following the instructions. This is something you CANNOT do without a maginfying glass or microscope though! I would have been lost without one.

So after the build process, the calibration and setup is pretty straightforward. A second receiver (a KX3 in my case) is all you need really, though some other equipment comes in handy peaking the receive filters. On first power on, the DDS was already within 100Hz of the desired frequency and once I calibrated it, RBN spots showed me right on frequency, which is always nice. I hooked it up to my 4SQRP QRPometer and my 8 NiMH cell pack at 10.1v and read 4w on 20m. Really stellar performance for a radio that fits in an Altoids tin!

About that Altoids tin... They're great for QRP rigs, sure, but pretty ugly and I wanted something more fitting of the classiness of this radio! On a whim, while my wife was at the grocery store, I went to Lowe's to look around and I quickly found the ideal case. It was a gift card holder with a plastic window in the top. Its a bit bigger than an Altoids tin but that gives you a little more room for the connectors and stuff. Well, lets just get to the good stuff:

So it looks great, but how does it perform? This is a real radio! It is a little strange to say but I really have not touched my KX3 since the MTR came to the shack! Obviously it doesn't replace it but it certainly performs better than I imagined it would. Steve is supposed to be putting out another run of the kit in the fall so join the AT_Sprint Yahoo group to be the first to know about it! The first run was just $110 but I think this is a great radio at $200 so who knows if he'll raise the price. I put the manual with all the details on my dropbox http://db.tt/dO9Qp6ne

I'm Building Kits!

2012-07-25T08:02:00.003-07:00

Lately I've been really infected with a bit of a bug... I am becoming a kit building machine.

Last week I posted a little note on the QRP-L mailing list notifying folks that I was interested in building a kit for someone. I was quickly greeted with an opportunity to finish another K1 and its owner was happy to compensate me for my efforts. Never have I been able to make money doing something I enjoy so much! Needless to say, I finished the kit quickly last Saturday and was happy to use it a bit. Quite neat seeing the results of my handiwork.

So I posted again that I was available and particularly interested in building a KX1. I've only seen 1 KX1 in my life and thought it was quite an engineering marvel so I am very excited that I will be building one this weekend! Look for another post talking about that!

Along with these two projects, I sold my old Speed-X/EF Johnson bug last week as well. I had not used it in months so it was time to pass it on. With all this selling and kit building, I amassed a nice pot of gold in my paypall account so I decided I wanted to treat myself to some goodies. I do plan to build many more kits for folks so I figured I should get a good piece of test equipment I have needed for quite some time: a watt meter! I put in my order for the 4SQRP QRP-ometer just as they announced the release of the 3rd run of the kit. I'm hoping it arrives soon.

I had several people inquire about having me build their softrock kits as well. At present, I have almost no SMT experience so I had to defer these requests. I would like to get more SMT work under my belt so I decided to seek out one of Steve Webber's new MTR radios (Mountain Topper Radio....radios). Luckily someone on the AT_Sprint Yahoo group offered one to me at cost and it is on its way here now! This is a neat radio and there isn't much out there on them yet, but it is an Altoids tin rig for 2 bands (I'll build mine for 40 and 20) capable of 5w output with just 9v on the input. Will be taking photos of this one for sure.

So that's what's been up lately. Keep eyes peeled for posts this weekend!

Ham Radio Mobile

2012-07-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

Today I started piecing together my first mobile radio setup. I've been dreaming of a mobile setup since forever but could never convince myself to spend the money on a good antenna mount. Well, that time has finally come. I decided this all kind of last minute since I'll be leaving for family vacation - and a 13 hour drive - on Wednesday July 11th.

Trip to Ft. Robinson, NE

I decided on the Diamond K400-3/8C hatchback/lip mount for my hamstick style antennas. It wasn't cheap at $80 including shipping but quality trumps price here as I would hate the thing to break and send my antenna into another car while going 80 mph on the highway! I got the mount from Walcott CB in Walcott, IA (home of the famous I-80 Truckstop) and it arrived in 1 day with USPS priority mail shipping! Walcott is only about 60 minutes away but with gas prices the way they are, it would have cost more to go pick it up.

Short hop and skip to Walcott

Diamond suggests mounting the antenna on the drivers side to make best use of the higher areas above the roadways (and fewer trees) so I did that, placing the mount near the top of the tailgate on the driver side. I checked the bonding between the gate and the main body of the car and it seemed to be pretty low resistance so hopefully I won't need to add anymore bonding wire between the gate and the body.

Looking good!

The antennas are hamstick type that I got in Dayton in 2011. I have sticks for 20, 40 and 80, though for this trip I will probably just stay on 20. I've used the 20m antenna attached to my grill on my deck with great success so I'm very eager to see how it works in the true mobile fashion.

Tuning the 20m stick

I didn't try to get fancy with routing cable through the cabin so it just runs along the floorboards on the drivers side. The power cable comes through the firewall through the built in grommet. This was REALLY easy to do and I thank Toyota for providing me the easy install! I don't have any pictures of the install here because I ran this wire ages ago when I had a mobile 2m radio in the truck that I borrowed from the club at work. I did put some power poles on it this time now that all my power cables are equipped with them.

I had a lot of wild ideas for mounting the radio but I really hit the jackpot when I actually put the radio in the car. The 2005 model 4Runner has something which in the Toyota circles is known as the "burger tray." It is a small flip out "table" in the front part of the arm rest and...well pictures are worth a thousand words:

With the legs deployed, it they rest perfectly in the notches so that the radio sits securely at my fingertips. It could be a bit further out so I would not have to look down to see the frequency but I can deal with it given the incredible ease of use.

I took the truck up to the hill where I like to operate portable and fired it up. As luck would have it, the very first QSO as W0EA/M was with TG4 in Guatemala! I then worked a couple of the 13 Colonies special event stations, all with 10w on voice. Color me impressed! Quite happy so far. I'll play a lot more this weekend and get the 40m stick tuned up. Keep an ear out for me next week and here's a bunch more pictures just for fun!

CQ FD DE KQ0RP

2012-06-28T16:39:00.005-07:00

Field Day! Probably my favorite contest/operating event of the year. Its no surprise of course, I love portable ops!

This year we managed to pull together an operation for the reformed Iowa QRP Club, KQ0RP, just in the nick of time! I planned for a 2A operation but once we got it all set up, it didn't look very feasible so we just did one transmitter but kept the option open to add one later (we never did).

We set up at the N0MA Radio Farm south of Central City, IA - about 10 miles north east of Cedar Rapids. N0MA had their own 100 watt 2A operation going complete with a free VHF station and GOTA. This is where the KX3 comes in. I've heard about all the great features designed for multi-op setups like the ability to block the receiver from extremely strong on-frequency signals, RX shift and many more. Well I have to say, the stories are true, they work so darn well! We were set up only 100 yards or so from the N0MA CW station with identical antenna oriented perpendicular to theirs (running a K3 by the way). Ideally we'd have been in line but the trees we used did not support that configuration. So needless to say, the interference we were subject to was about as bad as it gets. Yet, rarely was my receiver overloaded to the point that operation was impossible. In fact, when using the RX Shift, it pretty much eliminated any interference. Long story short, I was incredibly impressed with the results. Couldn't have asked for more!

I treated the event as a trial by fire for the battery consumption too. I have a couple battery options and I wasn't sure how well they'd work with the KX3 for a long term operation. It turns out that my 7Ah SLA was plenty of battery for the whole event probably but I used it until about midnight on Saturday - 11 hours straight and it was at about 12.1v, still a fair amount of use left. I knew it'd last a long time, but it weighs a ton and what I really wanted to know was how long the internal batteries would last in a high TX environment like a contest, so after the early morning storms that passed through the area Sunday, I got back on the air at about 9 AM with the 8 - 2100 mAh Eneloop AA batteries. Fully charged, the KX3 read them at 10.5v when I started. I set the KX3 output power to 3 watts to take advantage of the reduced current draw and went at it. For the next 3.5 hours I managed to work 76 contacts before I pulled the plug to get my solar charged battery for my alternative energy bonus. There was still some life left in the batteries, they were at 9.1v and the Batt Low warning had not yet popped up (set at 8.5v). This is good news for your normal /P operation. Not many /P operations that I intend to work 76 contacts so I suspect one could go for 6 hours or so listening more. Pretty dang awesome! I can't wait for the internal charger, that's going to make it perfect.

All in all, a great experience as usual! We ended up having several IA QRP club guys stop by and help out, for which I am grateful. I think we've got a real nice club ready to bloom. I ended up with 170 contacts, all but 3 on CW. Special thanks to the many stations who pulled us out of the mud! Until next year!

Lowepro Traveler 150 Update!

2012-06-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

After my /P outing on Monday, I grabbed a little video of the KX3 in the Lowepro Photo Traveler 150 camera bag. I previously made a video showcasing the bag with the K1, but let me tell you, this bag was MADE for the KX3. See how so in the video:

Portable Ops - 11 June 2012

2012-06-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

This post is the first of a series of posts to expect this summer. I operate portable A LOT. It is by far my favorite thing to do in radio. There's something about being outside, in the sun, with the birds chirping and the breeze blowing. Can't be beat.

Yesterday was no different. I had a busy weekend attending the "new student weekend" for the Herbert Hoover Uncommon Student Award  (I am an executive board member of the program's Alumni Association) so while the weather was nice, I did not have a chance to get the KX3 out for its inaugural portable op. I did take it with and tried to get on the air from the grounds of the Presidential Library in West Branch, IA, but did not have much luck so I didn't count that as the official launch of the KX3 ;)

So back to yesterday. I decided on Monday morning that I'd take the day off from work - there was a lot to do in the house and the weather was going to be prime. After my house chores were done, I was pleased to find the bands were doing fairly good compared to the weekend. Still, I waited until about 3:30 PM to head to the park with the dog. Temp was in the low 80s I think and not a cloud in the sky. With a medium breeze, in the shade it was perfect.

My new favorite operating position is atop the highest hill in the area, known as Zoo Hill. It is inside Bever [sic] Park in South East Cedar Rapids, IA and is a quick 5 minute walk from my home. There's a large pavilion on the hill and lately has been pretty busy with birthday and graduation parties but on a Monday afternoon, it was completely vacant.

On to the setup - lately I've been bringing a 52' "random wire" for my antenna. It works pretty well and I used it for QRPTTF in April since I had been having problems with my older standby antenna - the Par End Fed 10-20-40. It seemed to be not tuned on 40m with the K1 I have on loan and I suspected a problem with the K1 but it now is clear that the problem lies with the antenna. There's not a ton of activity on 40 during the day now anyway so since 20m was working on the antenna, I put it into service.

With a little effort - I really need one of those arborist line things - I got the end up in the tree enough and started tuning around 20m. I was pleased to find the band was alive with some relatively strong signals, it was looking positive for an enjoyable time! Since I had not really proven the internal battery pack (which is stuffed with 8 NiMH Eneloop batteries for about 2Ah of power) I set the output to 3 watts to take advantage of the KX3's reduced current mode. When I operate portable, I make extensive use of the Reverse Beacon Network to help me decide if I need more power. I was easily getting 10dB+ spots which means I should be easily readable by quite a few people and I was not mistaken. I was able to make several nice contacts on CW pretty quickly.

I plugged in the MH3 hand mic and started looking around on the voice portion of the band too. Much to my surprise, there were no SOTA activations yesterday so I was unable to work them on voice but I did stumble across Tom, AB6Z, who was testing his new K3 on voice for the first time. Tom was on the list for a KX3 but when his station suffered a direct lightning strike, changed his order to a K3. We had a really nice chat, me at 5w the whole time. Tom made a funny note that he recognized my call from something, he figured we had worked in a contest or something, forgetting that I am the "KX3 tracking sheet guy." I guess I'm getting famous (infamous??) :)

That pretty much wraps up the day's portable operation. The contacts, weather, and the radio all combined, couldn't have been better. I was out for about 2 hours and the KX3 batteries started at about 10.4V and were at 9.9V when I left. Still plenty of operating in them and I had been on SSB for a fair amount of time, which draws a lot more current on TX than CW. I was very impressed by everything on the KX3. With time, the software will even improve and impress me more. It was well worth the wait!

A quick log of the contacts made is below:

Time Call Band/Freq Mode S R QTH Name

2059 WB1HGA 20m 14060.0 CW 529 539 MA Ron
2146 AB6Z   20m 14197.0 SSB 54 55 MS Tom
2158 CO6LC   20m 14220.0 SSB 59 59 CO
2216 K7ZYV 20m 14062.0 CW   559 339 MS Carl
2216 K2PC   20m 14275.0 SSB 55 55

My KX3 Build

2012-06-12T12:47:00.003-07:00

As you can see above, KX3 SN 288 lives! The build was a sucess as was the video stream. I was very honored and pleased to see Eric, WA6HHQ (Elecraft Co-Owner) along for the ride. I also got a note from the test techs at Elecraft who were also watching. The kit went together very easily with the exception of one thing: they forgot to send the BNC assembly. Eric graciously shipped it to me overnight and it was received at 7:15 AM the next day, in time for me to show off the radio to my QRP club.

My first QSO was with Guy, N7UN, who was also watching the feed. I was on battery power and had not set the battery alarm to 8.5V as suggested so I was getting the BATT LOW note and turned the power down to just 2 watts. Was nice to have the first QSO be 2xKX3!

You can watch the entire video of the build below (the action starts at 8 minutes). The entire video is 3 hours and the calibration step is cut off at the end. Calibration is really simple though. I would say that the build should take no longer than 3 hours. I was taking my time and I did have to stop and solder together a BNC connector to replace the one that was not sent so that took some time.

The radio really is a gem. I'll write a full review when I've had more time with it but so far, not much to complain about. More to come.

Coming Tomorrow! Watch my KX3 Kit build LIVE

2012-06-05T10:22:00.001-07:00

My KX3 will arrive from the friendly USPS carrier around 1:30 PM local time tomorrow. I'll be leaving work early and plan to begin building as soon as possible. I suspect it will be around 3 PM (20:00z) or so. I will be streaming video of the build process here: www.ustream.tv/channel/w0ea-s-kx3-kit-build

Please tune in and follow along! Questions can be directed to my twitter account (@w0ea).

Enjoy the ride!

The End Is Near!

2012-05-30T19:39:00.000-07:00

No, not the end of the world, we still have a few months for that. I'm talking about the confirmation and eventual shipment of my KX3! I received a calming message on twitter from Eric Swartz, WA6HHQ, from Elecraft:

@W0EA You are in the next group to be notified. My guess is that you will get notified either this week or next week. We emailed a lot today

Eric has been on twitter for a couple weeks and has been very forthcoming in replying to my questions and concerns. Sure is nice!

Man am I ready for this...

Shack Overhaul!

2012-05-21T07:16:00.002-07:00

For a few months, I have been thinking about a future project to overhaul my shack. In our new house, I'm in a great sized room for a radio shack and it was appropriately covered in a map motif. As nice as it was, the carpet was bulging in the middle of the room which made it impossible to roll over and the wallpaper was not well applied so the edges were peeling up here and there.

As luck would have it, my XYL found a super deal on some used carpet tiles, $100 for about 500 square feet! They're a nice low pile green with built in pad so they're not bad to stand on but still stiff enough that the office chair rolls very easily. Last night, after picking up the tiles, I quickly got to work tearing out the carpet and removing the wallpaper (ugh!). Remind me to never put up wallpaper!

After about 6 hours of work, at 12 AM, I had finally removed all the wallpaper and the carpet and pad was gone. All I needed to do was patch up the walls which were pretty scarred from the walpaper ordeal and pull up the tack strips from the original carpet.

I awoke at my normal time of 5:30 AM and wrestled myself out of bed for some breakfast and then patched the walls. By the time I was done, it was late enough to get to the home improvement store for a crowbar to get the tack strips up. (It is always nice to buy a new tool when you've got a rather small tool collection as a new home owner!)

Then came the paint. I hate painting. I never seem to do a good job even though it looks spot on when its wet. I always miss something. This was no exception. We just painted our living room a light green color called "Lion" and I figured it'd fit the tiles pretty well so I just used the leftover for my shack. It needs another coat but it does really go well with the new tiles. Whether it be out of laziness or fear of being off the air for more than a few hours on the weekend, I just moved everything back into the room and I'll do the 2nd coat of paint someday in the future.

I also took the opportunity to rearrange my built in shelves a bit, giving my 2 vintage rigs a bit more of a "showcase" feel. I have already listed my HW-16 for sale and I will likely part with the Century 21 before too long, I really don't have a use for big clunky radios especially when I get my KX3 (or should that be if).

I need to get some frames so I can put up some certificates I've earned and save a space for my QRP DXCC award which I should be completing in the next few weeks if all goes well, I think I'm only down to 4 more entities.

New QRP Portable Bag

2012-05-21T07:15:00.001-07:00

As many of us are waiting for our KX3s to arrive, we're doing everything we can to accessorize! Many folks have been picking up the Lowepro Edit 140 camcorder bags which were first pointed out by Wayne, N6KR, as being a perfect fit for the KX3. I had been reluctant to get a specific bag before I got my KX3 and had planned to go to the local surplus shop to see if I could find a nice canvas bag for cheap.

As luck would have it though, this weekend I stumbled across the Lowepro Photo Traveler 150. It is a SLR system camera bag designed to hold a body and several lenses/accessories in a backpack style. I prefer the backpack since it evenly distributes the weight and I feel I can hike further that way.

Anyhow, it is quite roomy and very adjustable with many dividers and lots of places to attach them. Here's a quick video I did showcasing the new bag loaded up with a K1. (sorry for the shaky cam!)

My First Magnetic Loop

2012-05-15T06:41:00.000-07:00

So you guys saw the tuner I got at the hamfest this weekend right? Well I knew right away what I wanted to do with it: build an L network tuner, and a magnetic loop antenna. Today, I started working on the antenna.

I have a few pieces of RG-213U that I never use since it is so dang heavy and I don't use coax in my shack for hardly anything. So I found a 20' piece and cut it down to 10 feet which by way of the online loop calculator, should be enough for 20-10m with reasonable efficiency. I cut out the bigger of the 2 caps in the tuner and just soldered the coax braid to one gang of the capacitor. For the feed, I used a ferrite toroid and just looped a couple turns of hookup wire for the coupling. (see pictures)

Whole thing - notice, I'm in the basement!

Tuning Cap - just using the upper gang, need to get a longer shaft to avoid hand capacitance

A few turns of hookup wire, still need to find the optimal number here

I fired up the K1 and sure enough, I could tune for maximum receive noise, and as expected, the tune peak is very sharp but not terribly hard to identify. I hit the tune button with the ATU in bypass mode, and voila, a 1.5:1 SWR on 20m on the first shot! I tuned around the band a bit and actually could hear signals. Now, mind you, this was all done in my basement shack, close to the outer walls so I was quite impressed to hear anything! I turned the antenna around to see how good the nulling worked and was surprised that it did indeed null out some noise in one particular direction. Cool!

There were a couple CQs that I attempted to reply to but I did not get any replies so instead I called CQ a few times. And remember, this is in my basement with only 5 watts...

Holy cow!!! I got spotted on the Reverse Beacon Network! How cool is that?!

Clearly, some more work to be done with the setup but at first glance, this is going to be a good back yard antenna. Unfortunately it is a little too heavy to be pack worthy.

Next step: mount the capacitor to something and add some connectors to the coax so I can pack it all up. Then build a better support structure. I wasn't able to get a good tune on 15 meters for some reason, so I'll have to keep tweaking the turns on the toroid and stuff. Need to try it out on some other bands too! I'll keep you updated!

The Collins Amateur Radio Club "Junk in the Trunk!"

2012-05-12T19:37:00.002-07:00

Every year there's a Pre-Dayton swap meet held in the parking lot of one of the the Rockwell Collins buildings here in town and it is the first chance most locals get a taste of "hamfest season." Usually there's about 20 or 30 people in attendance with maybe 10 or 15 with something for sale. The goods are usually not all that good but it is fun to see everybody and you can usually find some deals or someone willing to give something away.

Today's meet was no different. Weather was good, cool, but dry. I brought along my HW-16 and VF-1 hoping to sell just to have some more radio cash handy but while I had many lookers, there were no takers. I'm told I could sell it on eBay pretty easily for what I was asking, and I have no doubt. We'll see if I do list it or not.

Now for the fun part! I got there on time so that I could scope out the goods first and I was rewarded greatly for my effort! I picked up a homebrew balanced antenna tuner that looked like it was just parts, but when I came home and hooked it up, it actually tuned! I'll still take it apart and re-build it, making sure everything is working correctly. It is in PI configuration now but I think I'll try an L configuration so I can use one of the air variables for a magnetic loop. Yet another project to add to the pile, but hey, the price is right!

So like I said, I was going to sell my HW-16 and of course, some genius parks across from me with a deal I could hardly refuse. A nice Ten Tec Century 21, working with a manual, only $75. Not a bad price for a radio, especially one with a power supply built in. For those of you unfamiliar with the C21, it is a "QRP" radio simply by the fact that it is not 100w but rather about 70w INPUT which equates to between 20 and 30w output, depending on the band. The seller creatively put a short list of recently completed eBay auctions just to show how good a deal it was, all were over $100 + shipping. Oh great... So I hemmed and hawed over this rig and walked around and stared and stared.... And it came home with me! I talked him down to $50 so I figured why not.

It is a bit bigger than the K3 so it takes up a bit more real estate on the desk but when the KX3 arrives, I should be good as far as that goes.

The C21 is a Direct Conversion transceiver for 80-10 (no WARC back then mind you). As I mentioned, its a "low power" radio. It has selectable crystal filters for 2.5 KHz, 1 KHz and 500 Hz and they work pretty well. I took some video but the shack is kind of dark and it did not capture the audio as well as I had hoped but here it is anyhow!

I'm still here! (KX3s, Macs, Buddisticks, Dogs)

2012-05-09T17:49:00.001-07:00

Mozzie chilling on the K3

I made a goal for 2012 to blog more, well look how that has turned out!

I have been pretty busy building, playing, cleaning, fixing, updating, etc. so have not put the time I need to into the blog. Consider it a "stretch" goal! (more after the break)

So to update: I'm still awaiting the delivery of my new KX3 kit. It has been a long and arduous process which I do not suggest or desire for anyone. Elecraft makes a great product that is unmatched but they really need a PR person. Current status shows kits will begin shipping en masse on Friday, May 11th so we'll see. That may mean my KX3 will be here before the end of May.

Luckily, the QRP evangelist wG0AT, Steve, was the first to receive and build a KX3 kit and arduously posted photos of his build to his Google+ account. Looks like it'll be a great build and Wayne, N6KR (the designer) suggest it should be about a 2 hour build.

Steve's KX3 build

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a super deal on a used iMac at work that had a broken DVD drive which I picked up for a steal. It has been relegated to use by the wife and I have re-claimed my 1 year newer iMac for use in the shack. It has been a really pleasant addition to have a full time computer at the operating position. Formerly, I was taking my 13" MacBook up and down and sometimes would forget it or the battery would be dead. This addition has also helped me move away from my paper log. While I really enjoyed writing the contacts in the log, translating them onto the computer for upload to LoTW and eQSL was a major pain. Now with automatic frequency, date, and time entry in the logger, this has all become very simple. The application I've found to work best with my operating style is called RumLog (available here). It even has a nice K3 (and presumably KX3) control window with which you can control many of the front panel features. It also has lots of built in features for award tracking, DX spotting, greyline, propagation reports and so on. Of course on the logging front, it supports LoTW and eQSL direct uploads and downloads so now I can update both daily in about 30 seconds vs the 30 minutes I usually had to devote to typing in contacts by hand. It also has a sister application called RumPed which is a contest logger. I've used a few contest loggers including N1MM and WriteLog and I much prefer N1MM in this case. I did use RumPed for one contest last year and it worked fairly well but its user interface is not as simple to understand or use when compared to N1MM. I have not tried to see if N1MM could run in CrossOver or another visualization software yet, but I'll have to do that sometime.

As is customary in April, there was another running of QRP To The Field (QRPTTF). I had planned on using my KX3 for this contest but since it had not arrived yet, I sarted to get a bit panicked! Luckily I was able to do even better (sorta): NZ0R, Craig, let me finish a K1 kit he had purchased partially built. So not only did I get to operate in the contest, I got to melt some solder too! SWEET!

Working on the K1 Main Board

The rest of the kit came together without any problems and I had it on the air within a couple hours then started to gather up my kit for the contest, which I captured in video:

My trip to Bever Park was a quick walk from the home QTH. The goal of this year's QRPTTF was to "get high," as in get up in elevation and was teamed with Summits on the Air (SOTA) so I went to the highest point in the park, aptly named Zoo Hill and set up shop. I honestly forget what I used for an antenna but I think I hooked up the Par End fed 40/20/10 for this one. I've been having problems with that antenna on 40m for some reason so I have since tried a 42' long wire which seems to be working much better for just about all bands 40-10. I walked home with 5 contacts after about an hour and a half of operating. It was only in the 50s and was damp so I got chilled pretty quick. I was even using my gloves! Still was a fun time to get out and operate some portable!

Which brings me to the next topic, the homebrew Buddistick! When I first started working in Cedar Rapids during my first co-op session at Rockwell, I lived in a 3rd floor apartment and I worked with Budd, W3FF, to build my own homebrew Buddistick for my balcony. The one I built worked pretty well, but didn't look too hot and was not exactly built to be very portable since I had not yet discovered the joy of such operation - nor did I have a rig that would really support it. Eventually it fell into disrepair and eventually I found other means of getting on the air and wires became my main focus. When I got the End Fed, it became my default portable antenna but lately I have found getting it into a tree is more difficult than it is worth due to that huge coil two thirds of the way down the wire, it always gets stuck somewhere. This left me looking for another option. About that time, I stumbled across the decrepit Buddistick in the garage and decided it was time to update that design. Well since I built mine, Budd has updated the homebrew instructions and included a few more pointers. Still, it wasn't quite exactly what I wanted. I envied the commercial product because of its tapped coils and slick look but for $140, one can buy a lot of other ham radio stuff so I have passed. Luckily, I devised a homebrew version that would work equally well, yet not look like a hunk of junk! Below are the fruits of my labor:

All the parts (2 30" arms and coil/whip, first arm is mounted to a photo light stand with tape)

Coil detail - taps for 20, 30 and 40. Made by cutting the wire and soldering it back together

How the coil tap works with aligator clip on 2nd arm

Feedpoint Detail - black plug takes the radial

I have not got it out to use in the field yet but a bit of playing in the back yard showed significant promise, showing <2:1 SWR on all the bands the K1 has (40m, 30m, 20m, 17m). I'll be sure to report results when I get it on the air.

Yet another development since my last post, my wife and I got a puppy! His name is Marty and he's a Chinese Crested Powder Puff. These are the dogs you typically see that are hairless. Turns out the hairless gene is the dominant gene in a pair, with the powder puff variety being the recessive one. He's about 7 months old now and still getting used to everything, and so are we! He's come with a couple times to the park to radio and he'll continue to be a good companion on my radio outings. He most enjoys sleeping under my chair when I'm in the shack, which is where he is right now in fact!

Marty the day we got him

And now a bit older with a hair cut!

Ok, I think that is more than enough for one post! I hope to have another one sooner than later. Keep an eye out! Hope to hear you on the bands.

-73-