M0TEF - QRP and Amateur Radio

My wife suggested we have a family trip to the local beach and I took that as an opportunity to put the new rig in my rucksack and see how it worked portable. I took the HB1B, Palm mini paddle, 12v SLA battery, a multi band 40m EFHW design antenna and a 6m pole as well as all of the family picnic related kit.  It was easy to find a spot out of the wind and set up, initially I thought something was wrong because of the lack of noise but it wasn't long before the signals on the band gave me confidence. I put out a CQ call at the 14.060 QRP watering hole and was answered by OH5LP and also worked HA0HH further down the band who was calling CQ and a decent signal to me. I didn't spend much time playing radio with having the family but did try the new station and work a few contacts.  I took some video that I will try and edit together for YouTube but my early findings on this rig is that it is certainly a FB radio and just perfect for what I needed. I hope to get a...

My new toy arrived today, I spotted an eBay bargain at the weekend and accidentally hit the buy it now button (well that's what I told my XYL)  Early indications and quick tests including a couple of quick QSOs tell me I'm going to love the basic simplicity of this radio. Tomorrow I have even negotiated a trip to the beach so I can check it out by the sea.  I hope to make a few videos of this and the pixie kits soon and get them on YouTube and linked to the blog.  Please listen out for me and excuse my terrible CW skills.  73 DE M0TEF

I finally got going on another pixie, this time on 20m. It needs the experimental touch but for now I was happy having the two frequencies on a switch adding In capacitance to shift by about 4kHz.  In an unusual twist for me I even made some effort to make it neat and tidy by putting it in a box I had laying around, it had enough room for internal batteries too.  I was tempted to build in a VXO but with a youkits HB1B due here in the morning I might save the efforts and stick with two frequencies for the fun and simplicity of it.  By the time I finished the build the band had started to close and certainly wasn't up to much on low power levels obtained from a 9v battery. Tomorrow I will give it a whirl and see where I'm spotted on the RBN and hopefully have some calls reyurned.  73 for now M0TEF

I have had a wee break from radio related activities and blogging. Work has had large demands and my young family have taken up the rest of my time, I also had my FT-817 stop working as it should do and left without a decent QRP setup. I wanted to play radio as QRP again and bought the frog sounds QRP TRX as shown in previous posts but it spent much of its time sat in a drawer as I felt my CW was too rusty to get on air and make contacts. Well I bit the bullet and got the frog on the air from home using my CG keyer and palm mini paddles to save the world from my bad straight key skills, or lack of skills should I say. The evenings have been kind to me and the kids climbed into bed early giving me some time in the shack, I unplugged the FT-1000mp Mrk V and plugged in my bargain crystal controlled Frog. I never made any contacts after 30 minutes of CQ calls but the reverse beacon network managed to report me as being heard as far away as Estonia at just over 1000 miles. I was...

This year I promised Simon M0SIY I would join him at his station to run the M9K contest call for the IOTA contest. We had a great time running in the 100w section with two stations and basic antennas. We hope we have done a reasonable performance this year.  http://youtu.be/y_D8pwJlnGo

My career as a lecturer means I have huge busy periods in my life but I do have a nice time during my summer break. This year I took the family with me to visit my favourite place, North units in the Outer Hebredies. It was a nice chance to do some portable operating and some fishing too. I must admit the QRP did not get  a chance with the poor conditions experienced at the time but I did have radio fun in SSB and CW.  The sunset above was the view from the temporary shack window. What a great location with virtually no noise on the bands.  I worked a fair few stations on 40m and proved popular with my worked all Britain WAB square. Thanks to all those that called me as MM0TEF from North Uist. 

I was asked to put a video of the small TRX online and here it is. I am sure many of you will be interested to hear what it sounds like on RX but I must apologise in advance for the recording from headphones. I do not have an amplified speaker to record from at the moment but I am looking into this and should have one soon to get better results. I will detail the portable setup soon. 73 for now. DE M0TEF