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Productive weekend

✇W2LJ QRP - When you care to send the very least!
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

It was busy, but at the same time productive. Saturday started off with the monthly ETS of NJ VE Session. We had three candidates and only three VEs. I can't tell you the last time that happened as the number of VEs that show up usually way outnumbers the candidates! In fact, I was sweating it out for a while worrying that I would have to tell the candidates that for lack of VEs, they'd have to go home.. Fortunately, a third showed up and we were fine.

We brought one new Tech into the fold and another Tech upgraded to General. The third candidate walked away with nothing, which was extremely disappointing to both him and us. He was a Tech who let his license lapse in 2012. He took the exam and I don't know if it was a case of overconfidence or if he just hurried too fast through the last 10 - 15 questions. He was going great guns, but in that last set of questions, he got enough wrong to put him two over.

I hate when that happens! I offered him the chance to take another version, but he declined. Hopefully, we'll see him again next month after a bit more study. He was so close, I'd hate to see him give up in disgust!

The rest of Saturday was spent doing house chores as on Sunday morning, we had a guest arrive for a visit for this week:

My sister and brother-in-law went down to the Jersey Shore for the week and the AirBnB they are staying at does not allow pets, so Jessie (Harold's "cousin", and also a rescue) has come to stay with us for the week. She took an immediate liking to our son, Joseph as you can see in the photo. She's a good girl, very quiet and very friendly - she loves to be held. A real Momma's girl. She's a demon with her food, though! I put the kibble she eats in her bowl and all I did was blink and it was gone! LOL! Maybe my sister should have named her Hoover!

That reminds me of a story. When I was young, one of the first "real" jobs I had (not working at my Dad's store) was working at a camera store. If you've ever worked retail, you know that when it comes to lunch and eating - you eat fast; or you don't eat at all. It got to be such a bad habit, that when I was eating a meal at home, my Mom would always say, "Larry, take human bites!"

Anyway, getting back on track, in between grocery shopping and cleaning, I did manage to get down to the shack to sneak in a few POTA stations. Geomagnetic activity was quite high on Saturday with the K index getting up to 5 for a bit, but I still managed to work a couple, even though signals were down in the mud.

On Sunday, I finally managed to do something that I've been wanting to do the past few weekends. I finally got the chance to try out my KM4CFT EFRW antenna. I wanted to give it a workout before I put the heat shrink over the UNUN circuit board. Again, due to a prior obligation in the afternoon, I only got a few hours in, but I have to say that I am pleased with its performance.

For starters I called CQ on both 40 and 20 Meters - about maybe a 1/2 dozen times on each band, just to see where the Reverse Beacon Network would pick me up:


Not too shabby! Not the greatest signal strengths on 20 Meters, but I was having a hard time getting the Emtech ZM-2's red LED to go out. So later in the afternoon, I switched it out for my 4 States NM0S tuner.


This little guy worked like a champ! I was able to get the red LED to go out completely and the green LED to glow like there was no tomorrow. I promptly worked several POTA stations, including Dan KB6NU - fellow blogger, who you see on the blog roll to the right so often.

I think I'm going to have to open and inspect the connections inside the ZM-2. as it has always worked reliably for me in the past. Even so, this was the tuner I keep in the shack for when I fire up my HW-8. I may purchase another of these to keep in the QMX bag. And speaking of the QMX, I'm getting to the point where it's becoming more routine to operate without having to pause to think what do I have to press in order to............... It's slowly becoming second nature but I still have a ways to go.

I was happy with the KM4CFT, and I was happy with the 4 States tuner and the QMX. Like I said, it was a productive weekend.

Last thing - something I saw on Facebook on the EFHW Antenna page that was posted by K4IVN. I am guessing he fabricated this via his 3D printer:



This will hold his UNUN and at the same time it has a spool for the wire of his EFHW or EFRW. How neat is this? I don't know if he fabricated a cover to keep the UNUN safe from the elements, but I'm guessing he either has, or will do do.  

Another project for me - to make one of those daisy wire spools like the ones Dave KD2FSI made for me so I can better store the KM4CFT EFRW.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

FOBB - A comedy of errors

✇W2LJ QRP - When you care to send the very least!
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
I am almost embarassed to write this post. My goodness, you would think that this was my first ever attempt at a portable operation.

I got to Cotton Street Park an hour early 12:00 PM - 16:00 UTC. Plenty of time, right? As it turned out nothing could be farther from tbe truth. First off, let me introduce you to the spud eating tree.


I need to buy a yellow shirt with a black zig-zag stripe on it.



You've heard of Charlie Brown's kite eating tree, right? That tree right there, the one behind my car ate two of my antenna launcher bullets, or spuds if you will. Getting them up high and over a branch was no problem. Getting them to come down was another. No amount of jiggling and finagling the fishing line worked. In both cases, the fishing line ended up breaking with the spud still up in the tree. I only brought two with me, so it was on to another solution.

Next I tried putting up the Jackite in my PVC holder. I've done that literally dozens of times without a problem. Not today, my friends! I put it up twice ..... twice it fell down. The difference today was that I learned something. Wanting to keep the bottom of the Jackite as clean as possible, I put a cap on the bottom of the PVC so the Jackite would not touch dirt. The problem with that, I eventually figured out, is that the cap is rounded, and is thus, slippery The pipe needs to be uncapped at the bottom so the hard edge of the PVC can actually "bite" into the soil, creating a firm grip. Once I took the cap off the Jackite stayed up and stable with no problem.

In between that discovery and the failed attempts, I tried using my drive on mast holder to hold the Jackite upright. What a piece of garbage! It is so flimsy that the Jackite was actually causing the metal of the drive on part to bend! The next stop for that thing is a dumpster.

I eventually got everything set up and I was about to get on the air when another unwelcome surprise reared its nasty head. I got the chair, table, radio, key and earbuds all plugged in. All I had left to do was connect to the battery. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was going to use the big deep cycle battery to see how long it would last.


The medium sized battery is a 7 Ah. Underneath the plastic tub is another smaller 5 Ah. 

From the photo you can see I ended up using one of my smaller batteries because the big battery was reading 0 Volts! It was just at 13.8V the other day and has not been hooked up to anything in the mean time. How a battery can lose all of its charge like that without blowing up or catching on fire is beyond me. This one did and is going to the metal recycling center in town next Saturday.

After all these fits and starts, I finally got on the air at 17:54 UTC and made contact with Dave AB9CA in Indiana. Scouring the 20 Meter band, it became apparent that signals were sparse and the signals that were present were way down in the mud. Even when I heard a station with a relatively strong signal, QSB made them disappear in a matter of seconds. I made four contacts in my first hour.  I was shaking my head, because I thought that for all the trouble I went through, THIS is what my day is going to be like? I started the day with a personal goal of 40 QSOs. HAH! Put a pin in that balloon, baby!

However, at 19:00 UTC, it was like someone turned a switch on and propagation returned! The signals weren't terrific, but at least I was hearing and working people. At about 20:00 UTC, I switched over to 40 Meters and worked some stations there. Signals were much louder on 40 Meters and QSB wasn't quite so deep.

I shut down with about 20 minutes to go as I wasn't hearing anyone new and my CQs on 40 Meters dried up. I worked 21 stations in all. 18 Bees and 3  Five Watt stations. And I learned some things.

1: You can never have too much time to set up.
2: If it ain't broke don't fix it - me putting that bottom cap on my PVC mast holder caused much unnecessary aggravation.
3: You can never have enough juice. By the way, that smaller battery started the day at 13.2 Volts and I checked it again at the end and it was down to only 12.8 Volts. This one is a good one.
4: The EFRW antenna with 9:1 UNUN and the 41 foot radiator was the bomb! The KX3's autotuner had no problems providing a match on any band, 40 through 10 Meters. I would not hesitate to deploy it again as it gives me a few more band options than the PAR ENDFEDZ 40-20-10 can.

About 3:30 PM or 19:30 UTC, I heard a "thunk" off in the distance. The spud eating tree must have had too much to eat and puked up one of the spuds, either that, or maybe a squirrel knocked it down. Whatever, I'm minus only one spud. I'll have to go to Home Depot for some PVC and end caps in order to fabricate a few more spares.

Some photos from the day:


PVC with bottom end cap = bad. PVC without bottom end cap = good.


A panoramic shot of my Cotton Street Park location.



Two views of the set up. Nothing complicated here, unless I make it complicated!


Cant' see it well, but the EFRW went from the tree to the Jackite pole. I highlighted the Jackite in blue, the EFRW in red


Hey Moe! Hey Curly! Thanks for the help in setting up!


Where RBN spotters heard me. Colorado and Wisconsin were about as far west as I got for QSOs.


It got up to 90F, even in the shade. This Summer has been a hot one!

The neck fan got delivered yesterday and performed superbly. Between the fan and a thermal bottle of ice water, I was quite comfortable.

I sure hope the Skeeter Hunt goes more smoothly!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

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