Recently (at least for me) the bands have not been the best (understatement) and so rather than tell you about the contacts I have (or not) made …. Here is a bit on a new radio coming that if it lives up to its hype might wake up the QRP market a bit.
DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING POST IS NOT A ENDORSEMENT OF THE PRODUCT LISTED BELOW. IN THE PAST WE ALL OF HEARD ABOUT GOOD THINGS AND BAD THINGS ABOUT 1ST ATTEMPTS OF A NEW RADIO.
If the early info give to us by XIEGU is accurate this could be a welcome addition to the QRP part of the hobby.
Draw your own conclusions from the post and then make your own decisions….Buyer Beware
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The radio is the Xiegu 6200 which is from the company that has given us the G90 and the X5105 both of which are excellent radios once the “gremlins” were removed from the firmware.
Although I never operated a G90 I know quite a few operators from the POTA world who did (and still do) and they never complained about it (at least to me) and their signals always sounded great
I did operate a X5105 as my POTA radio for a while and foolishly sold it.
Xiegu X6200 – A new generation flagship ultra-portable transceiver that uses a high-performance DRFS platform architecture and offers a convenient user experience for amateur radio enthusiasts.
It has a 4-inch color screen, a built-in battery pack, an automatic antenna tuner, a microphone, and a recorder. It also supports various SDR features, such as digital filters, noise reduction, pulse interference elimination, and spectrum/waterfall display. It has two USB interfaces, an ACC interface, a 3.5mmKEY interface, and an S/P interface. It has two external expansion component slots for additional applications and peripherals.
Xiegu X6200 Sneak Peek on March 21, 2024 1. The images currently displayed are only of the engineering prototype, they do not represent the final form of the product. 2. For more latest news, please subscribe to the Radioddity newsletter. 3. Please credit the source when reposting the images.
All the data used in this blog posting has been provided by the Radioditty Website and or the groups i/o site via a link on the above mentioned website and I thank them for it
My comments follow:
Yes…. its output is 5w….. but it is a QRP radio so….
From what I see so far this radio could/might be a contender against the IC705 and the KX3 from the expected price point. How will the 6200 perform? This depends on the firmware and has yet to be seen.
DISCLAIMER: THE ABOVE POST IS NOT A ENDORSEMENT OF THE PRODUCT(s) LISTED ABOVE . IN THE PAST WE ALL OF HEARD ABOUT GOOD THINGS AND BAD THINGS ABOUT 1ST ATTEMPTS OF A NEW RADIO.
If the early info give to us by XIEGU is accurate this could be a welcome addition to the QRP part of the hobby.
Draw your own conclusions from the post and then make your own decisions….Buyer Beware
Am I rushing out to buy one? NO!!! but it does have my attention and I will be following the reviews and if they are good…. you never know it might make it into my radio kit
The good news about this point in the sunspot cycle is that the sun is more active, meaning that in general, band conditions are pretty good. Except when they’re not.
There are several types of space weather that can impact HF radio communication. In a typical sequence of space weather storms, the first impacts are felt during the solar flare itself. The solar x-rays from the sun penetrate to the bottom of the ionosphere (to around 80 km). There the x-ray photons ionize the atmosphere and create an enhancement of the D layer of the ionosphere. This enhanced D-layer acts both as a reflector of radio waves at some frequencies and an absorber of waves at other frequencies. The Radio Blackout associated with solar flares occurs on the dayside region of Earth and is most intense when the sun is directly overhead.
This seems to be happening frequently in the last week or so. You can go to the NOAA site or SolarHam to learn more than you probably want to know about this.
Radio blackouts are no fun, but they’re especially disappointing if you’ve hauled your gear out for a POTA activation. I went up to the Island Lake Recreation Area (US-3315) on Saturday afternoon and fought the conditions for a while. I was also competing for calls from the Indiana, New England, and 7th Call Area QSO parties.
I started out on 20 meters, but after making only five contacts, I decided to try 17 meters, where I was able to scratch out a couple more. I then tried 15 meters, but had absolutely non success there, so I went back to 20 meters.
By hunting around for some park-to-park contacts, I was able to make 20 contacts overall, but it took me two and a half hours to do it. I’m not sure if the conditions or the contest competition was the main culprit, but activating on a big contest weekend was probably not the smartest thing to do.
Activating the AACME
Conditions weren’t all that much better Sunday morning, when three of us—Joe AC8ES, James AE8JF, and yours truly—set up to demo amateur radio at the Ann Arbor Creativity and Making Expo (AACME). Joe had brought his Xiegu G90 and Alex Loop, but we were barely able to hear anything.
Joe, AC8ES, and Dan, KB6NU, at the 2024 Ann Arbor Creativity and Making Expo. Photo: James, AE8JF.
We attributed this to two factors. First, we were trying to operate the loop inside the building. Second, there had been reports of solar flares that morning that were adversely affecting HF propagation.
Despite that, we had a great time. Joe had brought his latest project—a QRP dummy load/wattmeter—that’s going to be our club’s next build project. And, I brought various keys and code oscillators to demonstrate Morse Code and get kids (and adults) to send their names in Morse Code.
A little after 1 pm, I decided to set up my KX-3 and see what I could do with it. Before the event started, I had set up my 66-ft. doublet in the courtyard just outside where our table was located. Over the next hour and a half, I managed to scratch out eight contacts, all on 20 meters, and all with participants in the New England QSO Party.
Overall, I think our participation in the AACME was a success. We were able to spread the word about amateur radio and our club. I passed out some flyers for my June 1 Tech class, and met some other interesting people.
For a little while, the Matrix Radio group have been talking about a HF net at some stage. I think I offered to do something, but have yet to do so! Steve, M0XVT, raised that he joins a 60m net and we all thought that sounded like a good idea to try. We’d agreed to join at 9pm on 5.3985 MHz. This would be my first attempts on the 60 m / 5 MHz band.
My HF antenna is a EFHW for 40m, and it’s not naturally resonant on 60m, but I suspected my Xiegu G90 would be able to tune it up as it’s pretty decent at matching anything to anything!
My only experience with the 5 MHz band is from my full licence exam. The UK band plan is probably the most complex band plan there is for amateur radio. It makes it ideal for writing exam questions! The amount of warnings about transmitting outside the band plan due to the other user of the frequecy, aka the military, does make for careful planning. The RSGB page has lots of info on it, but it’s not the sort of thing you just quickly tune to and call CQ or even respond to others.
The 60m net, 5.3985 MHz, is on Sunday mornings at 0700 UTC, but I’ve not joined in as I’m still between shacks.
I also learnt of the trick of using a WebSDR to listen to a net you’re in. Sometimes they can hear you but not vice-versa, and so at least this helps with the flow of the net. You can get some software to sync your SDR and rig (or write your own with NodeRed) but for a net, when you’re not moving about, manually setting is good enough.
Shortly after getting on the air with my Xiegu G90, I became intrigued by FT8. After some initial experimentation, I managed to set it up and began making QSOs. Initially, I was thrilled to hear stations from all over the world – Australia, Japan, South America, and various other places. At first, I believed I could establish contact with all of them. However, after numerous attempts to connect with different stations, I discovered pskreporter. This tool allowed me to determine who could hear me. While it was disappointing to realize that hearing a station didn’t guarantee they could hear me, seeing the immediate feedback on pskreporter was just as enjoyable as making an actual contact, especially on days when distant countries could receive my signals.
Who’s listening?
The information provided by pskreporter makes FT8 interesting, especially when testing new antennas or different power levels. However, excessive usage of it can become somewhat monotonous. It’s convenient when used alongside other activities, but sitting in front of it for prolonged periods without any other engagement is not advisable. Depending on your antenna setup, you may find that you’re only able to reach specific parts of the world, making it nearly impossible to make new connections. While I occasionally manage to contact a few new countries with my horizontal EFHW antenna, it’s not as effective as a vertical, such as this one described by M0AWS.
I found the user interface of WSJT-X somewhat lacking and soon discovered GridTracker. As it says on the website “GridTracker listens to traffic from WSJT-X and displays it on a map“. While it offers more functionality, that’s the core idea. I use its call roster to identify who’s calling or communicating, making my contacts based on that information. Only recently did I delve into the manual on the website and decide to pursue grid square chasing.
A conversation in the Ham radio matrix chat about gamifying FT8 caught my attention. This intrigued me, as it seemed like a way to inject more interest into FT8. The most apparent approach was to start collecting grid squares from different countries. Now, I had a reason to contact those Italian and German stations. GridTracker proved to be highly useful for this purpose.
Useful GridTracker Settings
I encourage you to read the full manual, it’s not that long and you’ll then understand the whole software much better. Here are the settings I’ve discovered that simplify the process of collecting grid squares using the software.
Call Roster
I hardly ever use the map view in GridTracker. While it does display pskreport spots along with grids, the map can become cluttered, making it challenging to discern the information. I might briefly glance at the spot heatmap or switch to pskreporter for my spotters. My primary focus is on the call roster. This window is positioned next to WSJT-X’s main window and waterfall display. The call roster streamlines the substantial amount of information from WSJT-X into a concise, organized format. It allows for various filters, but I generally keep the filters quite open, toggling between all activity and CQ calls only.
The standout feature is the color coding of cells. A black background signifies a confirmed contact, a black-blue gradient indicates an unconfirmed contact, and a blue background represents a new grid. This arrangement allows me to quickly identify areas I still need to reach. With the CQ Only filter activated, it becomes easy to determine whom to respond to. Another setting I find useful is marking RR73 as a CQ. This way, I can spot stations just finishing up their last QSO, and I might have a chance to catch them as they start calling CQ.
To open the call roster, click on the Clipboard/Medal button in the menu.
Map View
Although I seldom use the map view, it serves as a useful tool to track your progress with grids. The heatmap of spots can also provide valuable insights. Ensure that you have the bands set to “Mixed” rather than the default “Auto.” The Auto setting uses the band you’re currently on, which limts what you see, and unless your trying to get all the grids by band you probably want Mixed. Mixed displays all bands.
Mixed shows all bands
Log data
Grid Tracker is only useful if it knows all your logs. By default it’ll read the wsjt-x log file on your computer but that won’t always have everything, and if you want to include voice or other modes that won’t help. The way I’ve found to work best is to use its ability to import log data from elsewhere. There are a few options and you can set them in the Logging page of the settings.
All the logs
Grid Tracker can pull and push log data. The Startup? and Menu? settings show the options for pulling log data, with startup meaning it queries it when you open Grid Tracker, and Menu meaning it adds a button to the menu for you to trigger a download. As you can see above the options are local files, psk-reporter, qrz, clublog and LoTW. I decided to go with LoTW as that seems to be the most commonly used central logging database. This means that wherever I capture my QSOs, as long as they get into LoTW, Grid Tracker will know about them. I could just add all of the others too.
For longer operating sessions with numerous QSOs, clicking the LoTW button in the menu will pull in confirmations. GridTracker maintains its own log, providing a record of your contacts.
I also use GridTracker to send my WSJT-X logs to Cloudlog, my primary logbook. This process subsequently uploads all my logs to platforms like LoTW, Clublog, and eQSL. As indicated in the Log? column, GridTracker interfaces with various popular logging tools.
In essence, GridTracker’s configuration is straightforward and quick, enhancing the appeal of WSJT-X data and simplifying the tracking of contacts.
Appreciating FT8
While I’ve been licensed for a relatively short time, I’ve encountered strong opinions about FT8, including some negative viewpoints. I don’t enjoy coffee, but I wouldn’t tell coffee enthusiasts that they’re consuming it incorrectly. I won’t speculate on the reasons people dislike FT8, but instead, I’ll share some observations that might not be immediately apparent.
These days, it’s common for unique locations to incorporate FT8 into their setups. Therefore, if you’re aiming to access new DX locations, FT8 offers a viable method. I also appreciate that it levels the playing field to some extent, unlike SSB or even CW. How often have I heard a VK or JA station (not incredibly rare DX, just less common), only to be faced with an overwhelming pileup as European countries with 2 kW power outputs drown out smaller stations like mine, operating at 100 W? Breaking through is nearly impossible. While CW might provide slightly better odds due to fewer operators compared to SSB, the challenge for QRP stations remains. With FT8, if your signal reaches them with 10W or 50W, your presence is acknowledged, significantly improving your chances. While there may be techniques for gaining an edge when working a pileup station on FT8, such as adjusting transmit settings or clock settings, the gap is much smaller. Skill is required here as well.
When engaging with a popular station on SSB or CW, conversations are often minimal. Regular HF QSOs frequently consist of a brief exchange involving callsigns, RST, and possibly a name or location. This is not drastically different from an FT8 QSO. If your goal is to accumulate numerous contacts, reach various locations, or connect with rare stations, FT8 offers similar dynamics. If you seek in-depth discussions, FT8 isn’t the appropriate choice; it’s not a direct comparison. For that purpose, you might explore JS8Call.
In closing, while I risk getting sidetracked into an argument, I emphasize that the beauty of amateur radio as a hobby is rooted in personal enjoyment. If you find it enjoyable, that’s fantastic! If not, then there’s no obligation to pursue it; everyone’s preferences differ.
Gotta catch em all!
Now, back to the quilt! I initially thought the UK would be an easy starting point!
My first radio was the Xiegu G90, and when I bought my Yaesu FT-DX10 I decided I’d keep the G90 for portable operations. It’s pretty small, 20W, and I already have it and know how it works. With a few days planned to stay near Aviemore in the summer holidays I thought it was the perfect time to try it out.
A converted church was our accommodation for the trip. Very fancy!
I have a 6m telescopic pole and decided to make a vertical antenna with it. In an effort to keep it simple, I went for a 1/4 wave for 20m with some radials and a 1:1 choke wrapping the coax around a toroid.
I’d left making the antenna until the night before we were due to go and so it was a bit of a rush to make it! I cut the wire considerably longer as I didn’t want to try and be too smart on my first attempt, and would use the NanoVNA to cut it to the right length.
Somewhat too long!
I think this worked against me as I ended up cutting it many times and then got sloppy and rushed, which meant I went from a 1.1 SWR at 14.035 MHz to 1.07 at 14.385 MHz..oops! By this time it was 9pm and I was meant to be packing other things. So I took the bit of wire I cut off and figured I’d reattach it later. I had also cut 5x 5m ish radials, and was using a dipole connector I had for the coax to wire connections.
We were staying with friends who were interested in hearing about amateur radio and why I was doing it, particularly when I set everything up outside. I tried not to blah on too much…
Our house backed onto the forest and there was no boundary between the garden ending and the forest starting, so I just setup near the bench and had the antenna towards the trees and out the way of running kids.
Setup at the holiday house
As well as my first time portable, it was my first time with a vertical and I was interested in how it performed compared to my horizontal EFHW I have at home. This is where I really like FT8 and pskreporter. Regardless of QSOs I make, I can see who hears me and I can obviously see who I hear.
I immediately noticed how many ZL stations I could hear, far more than I’ve ever had before. I think at home I’ve maybe seen one very briefly, but now I was seeing 5-8 stations for several hours in the morning. In fact I saw countries from all over the world that I’ve rarely heard before, it was like a deluxe buffet of locations!
My hastily cut and then reattached wire wasn’t the greatest, the G90 could tune it on 20m and several other bands but I kept it on 20m as I didn’t have that long to play in the radio and this should be the least worst band for it! Nevertheless, it worked and I was heard all around the world.
Who’s listening?
I made about 17 contacts that day, in the morning and then a little in the afternoon. A variety of European countries, including a couple of portable stations in Slovenia and Belgium, and also a contact in Oklahoma state. I listened in on SSB but didn’t get round to making any contacts on voice.
All in all, I was pleased with my first go, plenty of things to improve on next time and maybe try a different vertical, perhaps an end fed or just a better job cutting it! I do also want to get a bigger pole to move up to half wave territory. I’m not hiking up mountains so weight isn’t a huge factor, and I’m thinking of taking it down to the sea one time and seeing if the salt water helps me reach the exotic locations!
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