Re: [Elecraft] FD W4ZV 1B QRP Single Op
K9YC wrote: Our 100 watt 3A (K9OR) made 1039 Q's on 40 meters alone. You may have missed the point Jim. 100 watts is 13 dB stronger than 5 watts. If most QRP stations like myself found that CQ-ing was simply not effective and did SP only, the universe of stations to work is FAR less. I suspect most stations CQ-ing were 100 watts. Also many guys choose to mainly do SP independent of power. If you cannot effectively CQ, you are going to miss both the QRP guys who are SP only as well as the 100 watt guys who choose not to CQ. You can never do well in any contest (except for the NCJ Sprints) unless you can maintain effective rates CQ-ing. I thought I might be able to CQ on the higher bands well up in the band and out of the way of stronger signals, but that simply would not work on any band for me, even though I tried many times. Such is life with QRP and wire antennas I suspect. As I said before, it was a good lesson in humility but I'm not sure I want to repeat it again! I think I learned this lesson once before in the Stew Perry Topband Challenge but had forgotten it. 73, Bill W4ZV P.S. Anyone have any comments on my K2 questions? QSK thumping, power meter inconsistencies or memory keying timing? ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
[Elecraft] Re: FD W4ZV 1B QRP Single Op
Hi Bill, Congratulations on your excellent showing on Field Day. With that many QSOs, I'm sure you'll do very well in your division. Yes, FD is a bit of work, but it's also a great chance to get outdoors and try your hand at emergency communication setup. I think you'll be back next year ;) ...seemed to me that the CW bands were surprisingly empty. ... Wow -- that wasn't my impression at all. I heard wall-to-wall CW signals on 20 and 40 meters most of the time, and a good number on 15 and 80 meters. Having done FD for some 10 years in a row now, I'd say that CW activity is about the same as ever. When using QRP on Field Day, you need a lot of patience and the best possible antenna. What I usually do is put up at least two antennas (typically, orthogonal long wires that favor N-S and E-W). You can connect both to the KAT2 or KAT100 at the same time, since both ATUs have dual antenna jacks. You can then quickly test both antennas, even on a per-signal basis, using the front panel ANT1/2 switch. QSK... Where did you have T-R set in the menu? At T-R = 0.00, the receiver is unmuted very fast, which can cause a small receive artifact with certain narrow crystal filter and DSP settings. But we recommend using T-R = 0.01 or higher anyway. For casual operation, use T-R = 0.02 to 0.05. The time required to cleanly switch the VCO between RX and TX is around 10-15 ms. We put a high value on completely clickless and chirpless CW keying, and adjusted firmware delays accordingly. Still, wiith TR = 0.01, you should be able to hear between characters (not words) even at 50 WPM. If not, you may have an assembly or component problem somewhere. It's likely that we could improve VCO lock time and obtain between-dits receive at such speeds. This is one item on my list of possible future mods for the K2. Power meter... It's a good idea to adjust POWER when not keying. During transmit, a small additional amount of hysteresis is added to the POWER control to improve noise margin, and this can increase the power-control step size. You can also usually adjust one resistor value in the BFO attenuator to improve power-setting accuracy. Some JFETs (Q24) have much higher transconductance than average, leading to coarser steps from the 8-bit DAC. To compensate, try increasing the value of R98 from 270 to as high as 470-820 ohms. (This experiment is best done with a small trim pot installed; replace the pot with a fixed resistor close to the final pot value.) If you adjust R98's value, make sure that the rig can still reach at least 10 watts on all bands with POWER set to 10.0. CW messages... In order to store the maximum possible characters in the K2's CW message memories, the firmware quantizes your sending into standard-length dots, dashes, and spaces. This is not as forgiving as using a times-8 clock for recording, which is characteristic of some keyers. But such keyers have a much larger EEPROM than the K2 does, or they don't provide as many characters of storage. It's conceivable that we could go to a larger part in the future and use a times-8 or even times-16 sample clock. (Another item on my future mods list) 73, Wayne, N6KR ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: FW: [Elecraft] The Big Four: YETI
Maybe it should be something more along the lines of ... IT YAKS (Icom-TenTec Yaesu-Alinco-Kenwood-SGC) ... what most appliance operators do with their commercial radios or... ITS a YAK (big hairy animal used as a beast of burden - not to be confused with some ham radio operators) or... maybe even ATIYKS (where you're Alinco-TenTec-Icom-Yaesu-Kenwood-SGC radio will end up after you buy an Elecraft). I'm afraid that's the best I can do ;-) and, no, I don't play Scrabble. 72/73, Daniel / AA0NI K2 #3421 (... who REALLY wanted to operate Field Day, but ended up moving in a few essentials to his new home and made good friends with the neighbors instead - but who is itching to put a 175' stealthy longwire NVIS antenna on his wooden backyard fence and a 20' compact loop for 20m in his attic) --- Dan Barker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I disagree. The YaeComWood moniker implies these appliances are interchangeable/indistinguishable. The Elecraft rigs most certainly are not! Dan / WG4S / K2 #2456 snip I suggest a more proper reference might be YETI -- for Yaesu / Elecraft / Tentec / and Icom. /snip ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
[Elecraft] Re: YETI
Maybe it should be something more along the lines of ... IT YAKS (Icom-TenTec Yaesu-Alinco-Kenwood-SGC) ... what most appliance operators do with their commercial radios or... ITS a YAK (big hairy animal used as a beast of burden - not to be confused with some ham radio operators) or... maybe even ATIYKS (where you're Alinco-TenTec-Icom-Yaesu-Kenwood-SGC radio will end up after you buy an Elecraft). I'm afraid that's the best I can do ;-) and, no, I don't play Scrabble. 72/73, Daniel / AA0NI K2 #3421 (... who REALLY wanted to operate Field Day, but ended up moving in a few essentials to his new home and made good friends with the neighbors instead - but who is itching to put a 175' stealthy longwire NVIS antenna on his wooden backyard fence and a 20' compact loop for 20m in his attic) --- Dan Barker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I disagree. The YaeComWood moniker implies these appliances are interchangeable/indistinguishable. The Elecraft rigs most certainly are not! Dan / WG4S / K2 #2456 snip I suggest a more proper reference might be YETI -- for Yaesu / Elecraft / Tentec / and Icom. /snip ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
[Elecraft] New Solar Powered QRP Station on the air!
OK, this is off-topic, so I'll keep it brief. AMSAT-OSCAR Echo was launched from the Baikonur Cosomodrome in Kazakhstan on 2004 June 29 at 0630 UTC, inserted into orbit at 0645, and first communications were established at 1452 when it passed over the US in range of the command station(s). Echo is an Amateur radio communications satellite, supporting simultaneous voice (FM) and digital modes. Details at www.amsat.org You can uplink to Echo once it is commissioned (1 to 3 weeks, probably) using an XV144. Downlink is on 70 cm, so you'll have to wait for the XV430 (no this is not a product announcement!), or on S-band, which can feed into your XV144 (see, I did get it to on-topic :-) Yes, I am excited. I designed the flight computer in this spacecraft, participated in the design of many other subsystems, and was part of the launch integration team at Baikonur just over a week ago. -Lyle KK7P ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: [Elecraft] Re: FD W4ZV 1B QRP Single Op
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 08:08:37 -0700, wayne burdick wrote: What I usually do is put up at least two antennas (typically, orthogonal long wires that favor N-S and E-W). You can connect both to the KAT2 or KAT100 at the same time, since both ATUs have dual antenna jacks. You can then quickly test both antennas, even on a per-signal basis, using the front panel ANT1/2 switch. Strongly agree on all counts. That has proved a winning combo for me. And the switching allows me to make the most of less than ideal antennas. I often switch between them, even in the middle of a contest QSO. It's one of the features that makes the K2 family such a powerful contest radio. I'd like it even better if a third input to the tuners could be added! Jim K9YC ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
RE: [Elecraft] RE: Eurasia ECN 26.06.04
I heard G4DMP on 40m calling me after my qso with LA3ZA , but it was SverreŽs qrg ( he answered someone) , so i did not respond. In fact , i qsyed and called cq myself Well, Martin, it was in fact David, G4DMP's frequency, as I hade responded to his CQ ECN. I must admit I don't really understand how to participate in a net like the ECN, so I ended up 'capturing' his frequency when you called me. Kevin's rules on http://ecn.visionseer.com/ are a bit too complex for me to handle, and I think they are too compliacted for the few people on the net at present, but that may change. -- 73, Sverre -- Sverre Holm, LA3ZA www.qsl.net/la3za ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: [Elecraft] K3WW FD 1E
Hi Chas, Third year in a row with the K2, a deep cycle battery and the home antenna farm. 540 QSOS... all CW in 15 hours of operation. But...your home antenna farm (3 stacked Skyhawks, a 40m Yagi, 3 el SteppIR, etc) must be worth ~10 dB over temporary wire setups. A single 180' wire at 60' fed with ladder line was a MAJOR effort to erect temporarily given our rainy weather just before Field Day. I felt VERY lucky to have gotten it up between showers on Friday afternoon (my XYL helped only with getting the central rope support up and I did everything else myself). Thus you can see 1200 CW QSOs from a 100 watt station and 700 from a QRP station on 40 meters. (note the QRP station ended up with more 40 meter points) of course the QRP station that made 700 Qs on 40 was pretty successful CQing using a 3 el wire beam. Again, compare the gain of W2GD's 3 el wire beam to a single wire. W2GD had one of the strongest signals of anyone on 40 meters other than locals and I was quite surprised to learn they were only running 5 watts. Gain antennas on multiple bands for a temporary operation were simply out of the question for me. Bottom line, you have to call some CQs even when QRP. Bottom bottom line, it doesn't matter how much you call CQ if you don't get answers! If you don't have a signal that commands attention, either through power, antenna gain or location (RF-wise or rarity), CQ-ing does not work in and of itself unless you get ANSWERS. All in all, I suppose I shouldn't feel too bad in having about the same number of QSO's as you in 30% more operating time, given our relative differences in antenna systems. But I've definitely had my quota of weak signal SP-ing for awhile! As I said, I'm now looking forward to being a Bumblebee at the end of July when hopefully people will actually be trying to hear those of us with weak signals! ;-) I left my central support rope up so I can quickly hike up to the same site just after church before the Flight begins at 1 PM EDT. Hope to see all you folks again then! 73, Bill W4ZV ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
[Elecraft] FD: KX1 atop Nevada's highest peak
FYI: KX1 truly portable - a couple of frames of the KX1 in Field Day mode at 13,140 ft: KX1 on Boundary Summit http://www.brianboschma.com/boundarypeak/kx1atsummit.jpg Sierra's to the west http://www.brianboschma.com/boundarypeak/Sierrastowest.jpg Trail back to base http://www.brianboschma.com/boundarypeak/trailhome.jpg brian n6iz ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
[Elecraft] Re: FD W4ZV 1B QRP Single Op
Hi Wayne, At 11:08 AM 6/29/04, wayne burdick wrote: QSK... Where did you have T-R set in the menu? At T-R = 0.00, the receiver is unmuted very fast, which can cause a small receive artifact with certain narrow crystal filter and DSP settings. But we recommend using T-R = 0.01 or higher anyway. For casual operation, use T-R = 0.02 to 0.05. The time required to cleanly switch the VCO between RX and TX is around 10-15 ms. We put a high value on completely clickless and chirpless CW keying, and adjusted firmware delays accordingly. Still, wiith TR = 0.01, you should be able to hear between characters (not words) even at 50 WPM. If not, you may have an assembly or component problem somewhere. It's likely that we could improve VCO lock time and obtain between-dits receive at such speeds. This is one item on my list of possible future mods for the K2. T-R was default at 0.02 and I was normally sending at 25-30 WPM. I'll give 0.01 a try and see if I notice a difference. I strongly applaud your efforts on CW cleanliness. I would much rather live with a few QSK thumps in the receiver than be putting out clicks on transmit! Power meter... It's a good idea to adjust POWER when not keying. During transmit, a small additional amount of hysteresis is added to the POWER control to improve noise margin, and this can increase the power-control step size. You can also usually adjust one resistor value in the BFO attenuator to improve power-setting accuracy. Some JFETs (Q24) have much higher transconductance than average, leading to coarser steps from the 8-bit DAC. To compensate, try increasing the value of R98 from 270 to as high as 470-820 ohms. (This experiment is best done with a small trim pot installed; replace the pot with a fixed resistor close to the final pot value.) If you adjust R98's value, make sure that the rig can still reach at least 10 watts on all bands with POWER set to 10.0. OK. Good to know to adjust it when not keying. I was in the habit of monitoring that I was 5W out key down when adjusting the Emtech ZM-2 (in it's Tune mode) and then readjusting K2 power after switching the ZM-2 out of Tune mode (when an attenuator is switched out of its internal circuit. In general, I've found the K2's meter to be very close to my Mirage MP1 at home, but the coarseness of the adjustment during transmit was my main concern. Now I know to set it when not keying. CW messages... In order to store the maximum possible characters in the K2's CW message memories, the firmware quantizes your sending into standard-length dots, dashes, and spaces. This is not as forgiving as using a times-8 clock for recording, which is characteristic of some keyers. But such keyers have a much larger EEPROM than the K2 does, or they don't provide as many characters of storage. It's conceivable that we could go to a larger part in the future and use a times-8 or even times-16 sample clock. (Another item on my future mods list) As I said, with multiple tries, I could get it to sound OK, but was wondering if I should have been doing something differently. This was actually the first time I've used the K2's memories and Fast Play since I built it. Thanks for a very nice FD transceiver! By the way, it barely made a dent in my 75AH deep cycle battery plus small 180 ma solar panel. At the end of the operation, my battery was reading 12.71 Volts, which indicates nearly a full charge. Since I was relegated to mostly SP-ing, I probably could have used a 7AH battery for the entire contest! I also had the K2 set to LCD - Day all the time since I used a Coleman lantern for lighting at night. By the way, could you explain exactly what the K2's performance tradeoff is when using OPT - BATT? Does this give mainly less sensitivity or less dynamic range? It sounds like sensitivity to my ears so I left it set to OPT - PERF for the entire contest, but would like to know in case I am ever running low on reserve battery power. 73, Bill W4ZV ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
[Elecraft] Re: FD W4ZV 1B QRP Single Op
On Jun 29, 2004, at 10:22 AM, Bill Tippett wrote: By the way, could you explain exactly what the K2's performance tradeoff is when using OPT - BATT? Does this give mainly less sensitivity or less dynamic range? It sounds like sensitivity to my ears so I left it set to OPT - PERF for the entire contest, but would like to know in case I am ever running low on reserve battery power. Hi Bill, OPT BATT has only a very slight impact on receiver sensitivity -- probably 1 dB or so on most bands -- and I'm sure it would not have impacted your FD operation. It reduces current in the IF post-amp by about 50 mA, which can be useful if you're running from a small battery. The tradeoff is several dB of receiver dynamic range. Other current-saving strategies include setting BAR to OFF or DOT, using headphones, reducing TX power, turning off the preamp on the low bands, and (as you discovered) setting LCD to DAY. However, since you were running from a battery 10x the size needed for a FD operation, you did the right thing by leaving it set for OPT PERF ;) I would estimate that you could operate continuously (hunt 'n' pounce) for about 150 hours with a 75 AH battery. The K2 has the lowest current drain of any high-performance transceiver, by far, and was designed specifically with Field Day in mind. 73, Wayne N6KR --- http://www.elecraft.com ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
[Elecraft] K2DI v.III Digital Interface
Hello and greetings from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain To those K2rs that are or may be interested in my project: I have just uploaded a revised version (with some new pictures) of the K2DI and K2DI-PCI Construction Manual to my web site at http://www.qsl.net/ea3blq (Menu - English - Downloads). May I thank you all for your support and gratifying comments I've been receiving. Best 73 Pauli, EA3BLQ K2/100 #1044 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: www.qsl.net/ea3blq ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: [Elecraft] Portable vertical antenna
Hi Ken! Another option is cheap an lightweight. I tried this with my K1. As ground i used 2 wires of 13 feet each and 50 feet as longwire direct to the k1 . I used bnc-UHF adapter and a bananastick in one end of the longwire. The 6-8 feet nearest to the k1 was very little sensitive to nearby objects so it could touch trees and simillare. I worked with this setup very easy from my qth in North Norway down to sentral europe and RI9KM in asia. The antenna could be carried in your pocket and weights under 0,3Kg.. BANG FOR THE BUCK. I think you can make this antenna for under $10. 73 de Tom LA1PHA - Original Message - From: Ken Kirkley [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 3:07 AM Subject: [Elecraft] Portable vertical antenna Thanks to each who sent me a suggestion for a portable vertical antenna for use while camping. I now have several options to choose from. God Bless, Ken/NO4D ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
[Elecraft] K2 with no power
Yes, I finally change Q7 Q8 because I shorten by accident the base and the collector while mesuring with my probe now It's back online and alive But, there is a but, for those who experienced a problem similar to that one also check R50 even with good Q7 Q8 (PA transistor), is R50 in busted, you will not have power output... maybe .1W that's it !!! On Q6's emittor, if you have more that 0.4 VDC when TX tuning for sure R50 is also defective... After changing R50, power online !!! From a beginner who solved is first real problem with signal tracing technic. :-) === Jean-François Ménard / VA2VYZ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Club d'Astronomie Amateur de Sherbrooke Club Radio Amateur de l'Estrie Mon site web personnel : http://homepage.mac.com/jfmenard === ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
Re: [Elecraft] N4BP Guano Reef Bashful Pervert's Field Day
Nice work, Bob (et al)! Thanks for the report. Wayne N6KR On Jun 29, 2004, at 1:23 PM, Bob Patten wrote: TOTAL 1036 QSO's10,295 + 950 bonus points = 11,245 --- http://www.elecraft.com ___ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftHelp: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
