7276

Yep,
More numbers.
Ham radio club members are obsessed with trading numbers with each other. Every club has numbers it seems, even some of the ones of who don't have dues or officers!
0
here's some of mine:
QRPARCI (the first number I ever got) 10774
Flying Pigs: 2359
SKCC: 6161
4SQRP: 473
SOUTHCARS: 10360
QRP-L Zombie: 1059

and most recently:

the NAQCC : 7276, the number featured as the title of this blog.

On Wednesday night, May 21 (22 May 0200 UTC) I decided to get a lil QRV in an effort to practice my rapid radio deployment skills.
Here's a short video I made when I got to work:

I moved the vehicle once the parking lot cleared out some, and stretched my antenna up and across the parking lot. It was about 6 inches higher than my upstretched hand at the middle. 10-15 feet at the highest. Not exactly the best placement, but I know from experience that this height will get me a good match on 40m, so a tuner isn't necessary.  There's a decent number of QRP operators between FL and GA so I figured someone would hear me if I could hear them.

When I'm at work, I don't really have much time to operate. I get a 15 minute break and a 30 minute lunch break. During my 15min break, I worked like mad to get the antenna fully deployed, and then started calling CQ just to see if I could get a reverse beacon spot, and figure out where in the band I was transmitting. Lo and behold, after the second round of calling CQ, I get a station come back to me! It was Jim, W3GYM, just down the road in "The Villages" FL. We had a short QSO, then I had to head back inside to work.

I copied Jim! W3GYM.

About forty five minutes after my QSO with Jim, things at the work front slowed down enough so that I felt comfortable clocking out and taking a "lunch break". The action began when I plugged the radio in, and tuned up and down the band.

Knowing where you are with "The Killer Watt Radio" is an exercise is best-guestimation. I know that at the bottom of the tuning range, I'm around 7005 KHz, and the top, 7070KHz. I had plans on building a freq mite, still might, but not sure if I want to do that, or just do something with a digital display. I go back and forth. Probably should do a freq mite. When Dave retired the Small Wonder Labs business, he gave the design to the 4SQRP club and they gave me a number, so I should support them.

I tuned up the band, trying to guess where 7030 was, and then down the band, trying to guess the same. Finally, a lound "CQ NA" came on the air, and I worked K4BAI. He's not a stranger in my log, and it is always a pleasure to work him. I tuned around a little more, and heard some more CQ's, but QSB and QRN fought to keep me from catching the whole call. Finally, I copied N5GW, and added DX to the log. Hey, when your antenna is between 8 and 15 feet off the ground, outside of your home call area is DX! I tried to call CQ NA on a clear frequency between these two FB OP, but no luck, only two contacts for me. I took the antenna down and packed up my station when I clocked out to go home that night.

key on my leg, gettin' 'er done!

The important thing about this little excursion was not that I scored well, or that I have a new antenna to share about, or even that I now have all kinds of nice numbers to trade with other people. Happily I got on the air, and made some contacts. Didn't need to make many, just needed to have one.
Mission accomplished.
Now to find another club I can join who will give me a number that I can trade...

Sometimes it Pays to Check the Power Output!

The QRPARCI Fall QSO Party took place second weekend in October. I took an oppurtunity to participate in it albeit in a limited fashion. Mainly I wanted to test deploy my End Fed Half Wave antenna, and have some fun slingin' some dits and dahs.

20m Portable Operation, QRPARCI Fall QSO Party

 

Saturdays I work a monster 12 hour shift beginning at noon. After I got done doing some UI testing, and before the next batch of jobs I have to monitor began, I decided to take a half hour lunch break to feed my brain using ham radio, specifically the QSO Party. I sprinted out to "El Toro" (our red Mazda Tribute) after clocking out for lunch, and got to my station. This is the third time I've deployed in the parking lot using a wire antenna like this, and it was the first time I've used the EFHW to make a QSO from the parking lot. I made exactly one QSO, with NM4T on 20m. The EFHW did well over all, lots of signals, some were VERY loud, especially the SKCC WES stations near the QRP watering hole. I did make a couple of mistakes though.

 

1. I assumed I had everything I needed in my box. when I got out there, I realized I didn't have the connector for my 7AH gel cell battery. I did have the end that plugged into the radio, but not the end that plugged into the battery.

 

2. I could have used a second roll of fishing line. The EFHW works well on 20m with 33' or 66' of line deployed. I used 33' because I didn't have a way of stretching the second 33' section out, and time was too short to attempt a redeploy of the antenna. I didn't want to cut the line because I felt that would have been a waste of string.

 

3. I intentionally left my NoGAwatt at home, and I missed it. I like having the reassurance that my forward power is good to go. I would have checked, and then removed it from the line. I've discovered that it does add some non-trivial at QRP levels loss in the line, so I left it home.

 

Sunday I try to limit my "on the air" time in favor for some "play with the kids time" but I did take a little time to play radio at my in-laws from their driveway. We went over there to eat hamburgers, and the kids were playing as the sun was setting. This time I deployed on 40m, and confirmed my issue number 2: when setting up an EFHW on 40m as an inverted vee (It kinda looks more like a caret (^)to me) It helps to have two separate lines, one to support the middle, and one to support the far end. I keep a piece of paracord handy in the box to tie down the end where the RF goes.

 

Best Pic I have of my Sunday Night Setup

This time instead of using 20m I decided to go with 40, using "The Killer Watt Radio." It's supposed to be calibrated to transmit at one watt with the little 8 cell AA battery pack I use. That's with a fresh battery pack. I did take a better picture of my setup, but right when I snapped the pictured, my phone's battery died and it was lost :(. I did managed to get two QSO's on 40 before the skeeters got bad, and about carried me off. The first QSO was with WB4MNK, he was so loud, I had to turn the gain down to be able to hear anyone but him when tuning to people calling on nearby frequencies.
The second QSO was with N0WL. I had hoped that I could stay around and work him during the 4SQRP SS after the ARCI Party, but I could not stand the skeeters.

Monday morning I decided to check out my power levels and I discovered something interesting. The open circuit voltage on the battery pack was down to about 11.7 volts, and I was transmitting about .689 watts on both radios! This makes my Fall QSO party power multiplier a 10. Heh! that's one way to boost your score.


Here's what I learned:
66' of wire can be tough to quickly deploy without two support lines. I could have gone for a single support on the far end as High as I can get it, but I think I get some benefit from having the high current portion of the antenna (on 40m at least) at the apex. Might be worth modeling, if I can ever get a computer that will successfully run software.

• Check and double check your kit, and make sure you have power redundancy. That saved my bacon both days, because I forgot the part that hooks up to my battery the first night, and then I forgot the part that hooks up to the radio the second night!
• If you think you'll use it, bring it. I didn't technically "Need" my NoGAWatt, but I missed having it.
• Bugspray is your friend, but having a layered strategy is better. Wish I had long sleeves, bugspray, and some sort of "area skeeter control" gadget with me instead of just bugspray. Them things are meaner now than when I was a kid!

73,
GB Hoyt
KG4GVL