M0TEF - QRP and Amateur Radio

Here I am again with a little bit of spare time and a love of radio. Yesterday I was dreaming up solutions for a portable paddle morse key and thinking about how much it might cost me to buy a new one. My solution was to have a go at making my own. I followed one simple rule copy the basics of something that works, my palm mini paddle uses PCB material to make the arms for its paddle and I knew I had some stuff in the junk box that would allow me to experiment before shelling out any money on a new key. The result was what you see in the picture below and on the video linked to this blog post. I am really happy with the simplicity and ease of use for what is essentially made from scrap materials and costing me nothing more than my time and effort. I have made a few contacts on the key connected up to the FT-1000MP Mrk V and to the HB-1A you kits radio. I had no problems other than a few errors due to my lack of familiarity with a new key. My results show its always worth havi...

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...

I have been enjoying my festive break from my work and spending a couple of weeks sorting out some projects and radio related experiments. I have fired up the little QRP rigs to work a handful of stations on CW. I never managed to work anything on the SW-20 rig with 2.5w into the butternut HF-9v antenna so moved onto the 40m band using the doublet antenna. It always seem more fun to me to work with the basic kit than with the big station and I seem to get a bigger kick out of working stations from the simple rigs, battery power and wire antennas. I did work a few stations around Europe but it was at this stage I felt the need to seek out the noise on the 40m band. You can see below the SW-20 with my spare HyMound Key and world map on the bench in the shack. I promised myself I would get to the bottom of some QRM that I was experiencing on 40m and causing issues to RX of weak signals on the 40m Band. I used my trusty little HB1B with a small telescopic antenna to check w...