The Completed K1

Thanks to Don Wilhelm, W3FPR, and Stan KF4BY, my K1 is complete and making QSOs.  My K1 has the K6XX tuning indicator installed.

Day 38- QRP Challenge - 30 More To Go

Date   /   Time	Call	Country	Bnd	Mode	DXCC
1-Jan-16	K5NOF	USA	40	CW	1
1-Jan-16	S58N	Slovenia	17	CW	2
1-Jan-16	F5IN	France	15	CW	3
1-Jan-16	V25LK	Antigua & Barbuda	17	CW	4
1-Jan-16	EA8/DH2MS	Canary Is.	15	CW	5
2-Jan-16	SP3DOF	Poland	17	CW	6
2-Jan-16	HP1IBF	Panama	20	CW	7
2-Jan-16	PV8ADI	Brazil	20	CW	8
2-Jan-16	WP4L	Puerto Rico	30	CW	9
3-Jan-16	V44KAI	St. Kitts & Nevis	40	CW	10
3-Jan-16	C6ANM	Bahamas	30	CW	11
4-Jan-16	6Y4K	Jamaica	40	CW	12
5-Jan-16	HI3TEJ	Dominican Republic	17	CW	13
6-Jan-16	VA7DX	Canada	30	CW	14
7-Jan-16	YV5IUA	Venezuela	40	CW	15
8-Jan-16	EG4CWO	Spain	40	CW	16
8-Jan-16	FG/UT6UD	Guadeloupe	40	CW	17
8-Jan-16	EW8O	Belarus	17	CW	18
8-Jan-16	EI5DR	Ireland	17	CW	19
8-Jan-16	UA5C	European Russia	20	CW	20
8-Jan-16	DP65HSC	Federal Republic of Germany	15	CW	21
8-Jan-16	3D2AG/P	Rotuma I.	20	CW	22
9-Jan-16	LZ1012SGM	Bulgaria	40	CW	23
15-Jan-16	YU7U	Serbia	40	CW	24
15-Jan-16	J79M	Dominica	20	CW	25
15-Jan-16	CO8LY	Cuba	40	CW	26
15-Jan-16	CT7AEQ	Portugal	20	CW	27
15-Jan-16	PJ2/K8ND	Curacao	12	CW	28
15-Jan-16	ZF2LC	Cayman Is.	30	CW	29
15-Jan-16	CU2DX	Azores	30	CW	30
22-Jan-16	OA1F	Peru	20	CW	31
22-Jan-16	3B9FR	Rodriguez I.	20	CW	32
22-Jan-16	PY0F/PP1CZ	Fernando de Noronha	20	CW	33
22-Jan-16	PJ2/DL9NBJ	Curacao	17	CW	34
22-Jan-16	OM2VL	Slovak Republic	40	CW	35
22-Jan-16	ZB2FK	Gibraltar	40	CW	36
23-Jan-16	HC1MD/HC2	Ecuador	30	CW	37
23-Jan-16	4V1TL	Haiti	17	CW	38
23-Jan-16	GM3YTS	Scotland	15	CW	39
23-Jan-16	I1EIS	Italy	15	CW	40
23-Jan-16	G0ORH	England	15	CW	41
23-Jan-16	FY5KE	French Guiana	15	CW	42
23-Jan-16	OR0OST/P	Belgium	15	CW	43
23-Jan-16	SN5DX	Poland	15	CW	44
23-Jan-16	5Z4/DF3FS	Kenya	17	CW	45
23-Jan-16	K3Y/KL7	Alaska	17	CW	46
23-Jan-16	W3PV/VP9	Bermuda	40	CW	47
24-Jan-16	LA0CX	Norway	20	CW	48
24-Jan-16	C31CT	Andorrra	17	CW	49
24-Jan-16	SM4OTI	Sweden	12	CW	50
24-Jan-16	T77C	San Marino	17	CW	51
24-Jan-16	MI0RRE	Northern Ireland	15	CW	52
24-Jan-16	GU4CHY	Guernsey	15	CW	53
24-Jan-16	EA9EU	Ceuta & Melilla	15	CW	54
24-Jan-16	OZ0JX	Denmark	15	CW	55
24-Jan-16	AH6V	Hawaii	17	CW	54
24-Jan-16	TI5/N3KS	Costa Rica	30	CW	55
27-Jan-16	OE5FBL	Austria	20	CW	56
27-Jan-16	HA3UU	Hungary	20	CW	57
28-Jan-16	P43R	Aruba	40	CW	58
28-Jan-16	SV5BYR	Dodecanese	20	CW	59
28-Jan-16	TF3JB	Iceland	20	CW	60
29-Jan-16	YN7SU	Nicaragua	40	CW	61
2-Feb-16	EK4JJ	Armenia	15	CW	62
2-Feb-16	3A2MW	Monaco	20	CW	63
3-Feb-16	FJ/N9SW	Saint Barthelemy	40	CW	64
3-Feb-16	9A3YT	Croatia	40	CW	65
4-Feb-16	FS/k8EAB	Saint Martin	20	CW	66
5-Feb-16	V31JZ/P	Belize	15	CW	67
6-Feb-16	CP4BT	Bolivia	15	CW	68
6-Feb-16	JM7OLW	Japan	15	CW	69
8-Feb-16	5T0JL	Mauritania	20	CW	70

Snow Weekend - Great Weekend for QRP

This past weekend - winter storm Jonas hammered the east coast with snow and ice.  I was snow bound at home for 3 days.  We lost power for 6 hours on Friday.  The great thing about QRP is that you can run forever on batteries and solar.  I made a big dent in my QRP Challenge QSOs with propagation being good.  I made a total of 26 new DXCC's for a total of 55.  The past three days was equivalent to the first 23 days.  Now that I am back working again, propagation has not been good on 40m with too much QRN in the evenings when I am home.  Notable contacts from the weekend were Hawaii AH6V, and Alaska K3Y/KL7.  I was really surprised at the Alaska station coming back to me on 17m with my measly 5 watts.  Also notable was the contact with Rodriguez Island 3B9FR at over 2000 miles per watt, and Kenya 5Z4/DF3FS.  The last 50 will be tough though.  I have purposefully limited my mode to CW for now.  We will see how far we get with that approach.

Don Wilhelm repaired my K1 and installed the K6XX tuning indicator.  I should have that back by the weekend or Monday at the latest.

Dave Anderson K4SV completed his challenge and Vlad N3CZ is almost there at 93.  My rotor got frozen and would not turn the hexbeam.  Fortunately it was frozen towards South Sandwich for all time new one at #288.  I also received my card from Mount Athos - SV2ASP/A from Monk Apollo.  That was a great moment cherishing that hard fought contact.  Mexico XE2B was on this evening but would not hear my small signal in the QRN - live to fight another day.

Antenna for QRP Portable Operation and CC&R Challenged - NY4G Inverted L

Features

Multi-band coverage 40-6 meters
Near the performance of a dipole on 20m-10m
Better than a ground plane vertical on 30m
Equivalent to a ground plane vertical on 40m
Portable - system weight - about 8 lbs  including tripod and mast
No need for trees
Set up time - 15 minutes or less

Some images from the presentation I made to the South Carolina DX Association.   The reference for comparison is the half wave dipole at half wave length AGL as shown by the slide below:

The first configuration for the inverted L is the one that should be employed near the ocean to take good advantage of the ground characteristics and the ocean's reflectivity.  Theses are the results of my models using EZNRC 5.0

The next configuration is that which should be employed in general away from the ocean - parks, at home, etc.

The following slide shows the schematic arrangement of the antenna for general purpose use.

Detailed instructions

Well the final question is - does it play in real life?

A side by side comparison against conventional antennas - a hexbeam and a full size ZS6BKW at 50 ft in an inverted Vee

The following is a video of a QSO with the Azores with me transmitting at 5 watts on a KX3

How to Build

ZL9A In the Log DXCC #285

Antipode DXpedition ZL9A in the log at 1709 UTC on 14260 SSB.on 1/7/2016

Day 6 of QRP Challenge - 86 to go

QSO with Panamanian Station HP3/VY2SS.  This is not a new one but a dupe of #6.  I am still at DXCC #13.  In the evening, after working on my K1 some, sat down and tuned around 40m and found the Venezuelan station YV5IUA not very busy - but he had a steady stream of stronger stations that he kept answering.  It nearly 5 minutes before he could copy my full call.   Finally made #14.  They sure are hard to come by.

Day 5 - Slim Pickin's Again - 87 to go

Just one QSO today with the Dominican Republic Station HI3TEJ on 17m CW.  This is DXCC #13

Day 4 - Slim Pickin's today - 88 To Go

With QRN high on 40m and me getting home late - my only contact was DXCC #12 6Y4K early in the morning on 40m.   He was a rather strong station and the exchange was quick and short.  I wish they were all like that instead of the knock down drag out ones that take forever to complete.

Day 3 of QRP Challenge - 89 to go

DXCC # 9 was with V44KAI in Saint Kitts.  This was also not an easy and short exchange.   

DXCC #10 was with VE3CX in Canada.  This was during the RTTY Roundup.  There were plenty of DX stations to call but few were able to copy my tiny signal.  The mode was RTTY

DXCC #11 was with C6ANM in the Bahamas, late in the evening on 40m CW

Day 2 - Three More - 92 to Go on QRP Challenge

DXCC #6 was with HP1IBF - and was a long drawn out 8 minute plus attempt at a QSO which finally succeeded at the end.  My fist or my brain finally broke down as I stuttered my way through.

DXCC #7 was with WP4L in Puerto Rico and this was more of a routine QSO

DXCC#8 was with PV8ADI in Brazil.  At first he did not want to do nything with me and just kept saying OK.  20 minutes later - he dug me out of the noise and worked me.

One of the things that one will realize when attempting to DX with QRP is that what is essential are several things that must happen simultaneously (1) Persistence and tenacity on the part of the QRPer (2) patience on the side of the DX to stop, try to dig you out and also be persistent on his end (3) Propagation and signal strength must be sufficient to support the copy of the signals.  If any of the above does not happen, the QSO does not take place.   It takes practice and judgement when the QRPer should give up on the QSO and cut his losses.

Some of these did not count - the one with VE3UTT was with the wrong call sign on my end.  The one with SP3DOF had the wick turned up to 10 watts.

My log as of Day 2

Youtube videos of each QSO is available on my YouTube Channel

Callsign	QSO date	QSO start time	Band	Mode	Country	RST sent	RST rcvd
WP4L	1/2/2016	22:49:42	30m	CW	Puerto Rico	599	599
PV8ADI	1/2/2016	22:25:43	20m	CW	Brazil	599	599
PV8ADI	1/2/2016	21:44:06	20m	CW	Brazil	599	599
VE3UTT	1/2/2016	21:36:13	20m	RTTY	Canada	599	599
HP1IBF	1/2/2016	21:06:32	20m	CW	Panama	579	529
SP3DOF	1/2/2016	15:09:58	17m	CW	Poland	599	339
EA8/DH2MS	1/1/2016	16:42:37	15m	CW	Canary Is.	599	539
V25LK	1/1/2016	16:41:27	17m	CW	Antigua & Barbuda	599	599
F5IN	1/1/2016	16:11:44	15m	CW	France	599	599
S58N	1/1/2016	1:30:15	17m	CW	Slovenia	599	599
K5NOF	1/1/2016	0:54:24	40m	CW	United States	599	599

Day 1 - Five Down and 95 to Go

The QRP Challenge has started for me and 10 others.

Right around 00:00 UTC the geomagnetic storms made for bad conditions and the DX cannot hear my answers to their CQ.  I resorted to calling CQ myself to see who would answer.  The result is K5NOF answering my call. This is DXCC #1

The following morning still on the first day - made DXCC  #2  to Slovenia.  This was an easy exchange as noted by the shortness of the video.

DXCC Number 3 is to France F5IN and was also a rather easy one in the video below:

DXCC Number 4 was with Antigua and Barbuda V25LK and took four minutes before he even acknowledged me.

DXCC Number 5 was with the Canary Islands with a German Operator EA8/DH2MS.  This was a knock down drag out fight.  It took 4 minutes before he even acknowledged me.