QRP, Camping and lots of rain.

I haven't posted for a few days because I took a few days out to go camping, to enjoy the outdoors and reset my brain after a first term of chaos at the college I work at.

I met my brother at Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire to take a few days off. I am trying my best to get him licensed for Amateur radio, so far he hasn't given in but I will be delivering an Old FT-101 that has no output but still an active RX. I hope he can start to listen and pick up the bug.

First off the weather was awful, it rained on and off for most of our stay with the exception of a few hours of nice weather in between. The tent, Jetboil stove and radio provided the entertainment when the weather was not good enough to get out walking comfortably. 




I planned to take my ft-847 and large battery with me but changed my mind last minute to take only the ft-817 and QRP kit only. I took my portable vertical antenna and my HF 9-band multiranger antenna. I had very little luck with the vertical but more with the mobile whip. I think this was down to the radials I had made up for the vertical, I really need more tuned radials and to get the whole thing elevated. 

The best results for me came on 10m working into Turkey and Romania on 2.5w with the mobile whip on the car.

The real shock was what could be heard on 40m late into the evening. I was hearing lots of JA stations booming in, this is not a thing I am used to hearing and wished I had my larger Butternut vertical and one of my other radios to take advantage of the cliff side location looking out over the sea.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Modifying the FT-897 to get the best from it.

Image
I have been using my ft-897 for a while now, the main rig has a fault and I have been far too busy to get it sorted and repaired. I found it was not quite right, I have been spoiled by using quality receivers over the last few years and I couldn't quite put my finger on what was missing. Some reading online and some tests quickly helped me identify what it was, the AGC was a little too fast and the audio amplifier adds a certain hiss and noise to a signal. I found two fixes online, the first one was to add a capacitor in parallel to modify the AGC hang time adding it to C1503 - mod to be found on DG2IAQ modification sheet, a great source of information for any 897 owner. found here. http://www.ok1kng.netcontrol.cz/rs/download.php?soubor=25 The other fix was to reduce white noise, the info can be found here. http://ok1fig.nagano.cz/FT897D/FT-897D_LessWhiteNoise.htm By adding two capacitors to make up the 0.75uF and a resistor of 68 Ohm between pins 2 and 4 on the IC the TDA200
Read more

Improving the FT-1000mp Mark V RX

Image
I have been on a mission to make the most of the equipment in my shack, I didn't want to get sucked into buying more radios or very expensive new models to chase a very small improvement. I decided the next best thing was to squeeze every improvement I could out of my existing equipment. I have been really pleased with the RX on the FT-1000MP Mark V and wanted to get all of the filters loaded into it. It has taken me some time but I have finally tracked down the full set of Yaesu filters to install in the radio and improve the way the RX performs when using narrow filters. I have already done the NB mod that is documented earlier on my blog. I have now managed to add the 2.0kHz SSB 500Hz and 250Hz in both the 8.2MHz IF and the 455Kz IF. I can assure you that having two 250Hz filters inline can really help improve the signal to noise for CW and for RTTY/Digital modes. The 2.0kHz filters in line really help with SSB but it does make the signal less pleasing to the ear and require
Read more

Laserbeam delights - Audio DSP filter for CW

Image
Last Monday I had a bit of free time and I have been planning to help Keith G0RQQ put his new audio CW filter into a box for some time. It made sense to use the bench in the workshop here because everything is set up and read to go, Keith preferred that option to destroying the dining table at his place. He has a Laserbeam dual band filter module from Sotabeams http://www.sotabeams.co.uk/dual-bandwidth-filter-modules-ssb-cw/ and I have to say it is a great bit of kit for something so small. Well worth the money to add a new level to older or wider receivers. In the classic QRP style Keith wanted to fit the board into an Altoids tin to be the ideal companion to his Frog sounds QRP single band 40m rig. Keith did add on the additional filter integration kit from Sotabeams for an additional £5.50. VK3YE has done a great look at this and has a video demonstrating its use on home-brew kit. Have a look at the video to get a really good idea of how this works. We really were b
Read more