Tuning through some CW using my QRP rig in the truck.

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Trucking with QRP CW

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Last week I finally got my QRP CW rig set up from the truck while out on the road. These pics were taken in Iowa. I could hear code immediately on 40m, and I called CQ a few times later on a quiet freq, but was unheard that night. I have made a lot of QSO's with this rig from home, so I'm really looking forward to making some contacts while out gallivanting around the country.

 

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FEB 2016 QSO's

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Greeley, CO to Lexington, TX

 above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 19 FEB 2016 / Approx: 0358hrs UTC
Per N9SSA Distance and Miles Per Watt Calculator:

Dist: Approx 816 miles - Pwr = 3w PEP

Dist Per Watt =  204 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole w/ MFJ-971 Tuner
Freq: 7.053 MHz

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Greeley, CO to Harwinton, CT
The farthest my QRP rig has reached yet!

 above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 11 FEB 2016 / Approx: 2300hrs UTC
Per N9SSA Distance and Miles Per Watt Calculator:

Dist: Approx 1641 miles - Pwr = 3w PEP

Dist Per Watt =  547 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole w/ MFJ-971 Tuner
Freq: 21.050 MHz

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Greeley, CO to Choccolocco, AL

 above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 11 FEB 2016 / 2144hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 1146 miles - Pwr = 3w PEP

Dist Per Watt =  381 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole w/ MFJ-971 Tuner
Freq: 21.050 MHz

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Greeley, CO to Portland, OR
Made initial contact but lost to QSB

 above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 11 FEB 2016 / 2054hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 973 miles - Pwr = 3w PEP

Dist Per Watt =  324 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole w/ MFJ-971 Tuner
Freq: 21.050 MHz

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Greeley, CO to Corpus Christi, TX
My first ever 15m QSO! Thanks Mike!

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 11 FEB 2016 / 1747hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 967 miles - Pwr < 4w PEP

Dist Per Watt > 239 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole w/ MFJ-971 Tuner
Freq: 21.048 MHz

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Greeley, CO to Cincinnati, OH

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 10 FEB 2016 / 0539hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 1066 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 213 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.053 MHz

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Greeley, CO to  Kent, WA

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 10 FEB 2016 / 0129hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 994 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 199 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.116 MHz

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Greeley, CO to Houston, TX

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 09 FEB 2016 / 0021hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 906 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 185 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.114 MHz

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QSO Feb. 7th, 2016

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2nd QSO from Greeley, CO to Farmersville, TX

Thanks for the great chat!

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 07 FEB 2016 / 0233hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 682 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 137 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.111 MHz

QSO's Feb. 6th, 2016

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Greeley, CO to Farmersville, TX

Another good CW QSO tonight. I've been lucky with my QRP rig the last few days. 

Hope this keeps up! Thanks Jon.

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 06 FEB 2016 / 0225hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 682 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 137 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.1083 MHz


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Greeley, CO to Seguin, TX

Tonight was apparently destined to be a Texas night. This QSO was great for a few minutes before the QRN took over on my end unfortunately. Hopefully the airwaves will be more cooperative on the next go round. Thanks Art!

 above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 06 FEB 2016 / 0529hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 842 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 168 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.053 MHz


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QSO Feb. 5th, 2016

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It is always a pleasure to copy crystal clear code with a super strong signal. My first QSO from the state that I called home for 8 years. Thanks Tony!

Greeley, CO to Oxnard, CA

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

  QSO: CW QRP / QRS

Date/Time: 05 FEB 2016 / 0341hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 903 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 181 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.114 MHz

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5th CW QRP QSO

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Tonight's QSO was easily the easiest CW to copy (mostly due to excellent signal strength) that I've experienced yet as a ham. It was also the first time that I'd ever heard someone calling my callsign on the air when I wasn't expecting it. That was fun to hear! My radio's battery cut out during my initial response, so I had to quickly fumble around to get the AC/DC power supply up and running. Many thanks go out to Larry in Ohio for waiting around for me to get back on the air, and then for being patient with my QRS/QRP CW as well.

Greeley, CO to Wapakoneta, OH

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

Date/Time: 02 FEB 2016 / 0418hrs UTC

Dist: Approx 1076 miles - Pwr < 5w

Dist Per Watt > 218 miles per watt

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole
Freq: 7.053 MHz 

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CWops CW Test (CWT) Wednesday Nights

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I was surprised by how much CW I was hearing from 7.120-7.140MHz this evening, so I had to investigate. Turns out that I ran across the weekly Wednesday night CWT contest. Details can be found here: http://www.cwops.org/cwt.html

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4th CW Contact

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This afternoon's QSO came thanks to SKCC's "Elmer" Program.

Thanks SKCC and thanks Dale!

Greeley, CO to Green River WY - Great QSO!

above map courtesy of "As The Crow Flies" Distance Calculator

Date/Time: 26 Jan 2016 / 2233UTC

Dist: Approx 260 miles. 

Freq: 7.110MHz 

Rig: KD1JV Tri-Bander

Pwr < 5w

Ant. 40m Wire Dipole

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First Ever CW QSO!

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I just made my first ever CW QSO: approximately 647 mile contact (Greeley, CO to Fayetteville, AR) using a KD1JV Tri-Bander and a straight key, transmitting less than 5w through a 40m dipole spanning the back yard. Ready now for Straight Key Night.

Greeley, CO to Fayetteville, AR

Map created using: http://tjpeiffer.com/crowflies.html

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HB-1B Christmas Antenna Lessons

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First off, Merry Christmas!

Here is a classic novice (officially a technician who feels like a novice) story for your Christmas day. 

I purchased my HB-1B and a 40/20m wire dipole antenna together a while back. At that time, I used an old, clunky antenna tuner (with sticky knobs that are very difficult to adjust) to test the transceiver/antenna combo. Since the SWR seemed to be within good parameters from the start, and because that tuner is such a pain to use (it will be trashed or sold for parts once I get my new smaller version in the mail), I put the tuner back on its shelf in the garage and have been assuming that the dipole was good to go. As it turns out, it might have been a really good idea to do some more research. 

I am away from my normal QTH for the holiday, so I don't have access to that antenna tuner in the garage. I fired up the HB-1B at my sister-in-law's house in Golden, CO to see what kind of luck I'd have trying to make contacts from here. I noticed that the power output decreased over time, even though the input voltage remained unchanged. I charged the HB-1B's battery overnight to maximize the power input, and see how that affected things. This morning when I plugged it back in and started transmitting, the HB-1B's output was increased slightly over last night, but after sending out a few CQ's, the transmit power basically dropped to zero.

My hypothesis at this point is that maybe the RF energy is building up, and that I hadn't noticed it before because I was doing a lot more listening than sending. Now that I'm transmitting more, perhaps the reflected RF energy is building up and causing the transmit power to decrease. I could be wrong about all of this, but I'm going to have to investigate, as I don't want to damage the rig (if I haven't already) and I don't want to be faced with a sudden unannounced power out decrease when I'm out trying to make contacts. 

I obviously need to learn more about how antennas work. I had been under the impression that if my dipole was cut to a certain band (in this case 40m) and seemed to be matched on one day, then I really didn't need to worry about using an antenna tuner at all. Perhaps that line of thought was flawed.

Anyway... I have a new MFJ-971 Manual Tuner ordered. It should arrive sometime before January 1st, 2016. I think I'll wait to try to send out more CW until it arrives just to make sure I'm not doing harm to my rig.

Any thoughts are appreciated. I'm learning slowly but surely. Hopefully I'll find that a good antenna tuner does the trick.

UPDATE:

So I think that I blew out the final amplifier. This is a real lesson. Despite the fact that the dipole was tuned, I think that the coax connection wasn't tight, therefore the transmitter was basically just transmitting into the coax with no antenna connected. Had I connected an antenna tuner, I probably would have noticed a high SWR right from the start. Teach me to be impatient and take short cuts. Tough lesson to learn. Luckily it seems that the part will probably be a relatively inexpensive fix.

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HB-1B QRP Rig Update

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My HB-1B QRP CW Transceiver with external 12v 6800mAH Rechargeable Li-ion Battery, DJG-K4 Morse Code Key, and an iHip speaker - connected to a 40meter simple wire-dipole antenna. Now it just needs an antenna tuner. Today I've been trying to make contacts on 7114.0MHz and 7110.0MHz, no joy so far. I was offered help today from KC4YLV & KB6NU (whose blog I've looked at several times over the last several months, as it turns out) after they saw that I'd be on the air on my Twitter ham feed. I am very thankful for the generous offer to help me try to make my first CW contact. The airwaves (or perhaps my antenna setup?) were not as generous. Maybe next time. We'll get it figured out soon I'm sure, especially with great folks out there who are willing to help a newb out.

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