I have held an amateur radio license for more than 25 years, but I've 
never been very active.  For example, I can't really recall the last 
time I made a contact on the shortwave bands.

I'm getting the bug again, though. Part of it, I guess, is the 
incredible amount of information about the hobby that's available on the 
Internet. Visiting some of the ham radio web sites has gotten my juices 
flowing again.

In particular, I'm interested in combining my love of bicycling with the 
hobby of amateur radio. I am going to build a battery-powered, low-power 
(QRP, in ham parlance) radio that I can take with me on bike tours.

So, what I plan on doing is add to this item as I go along, chronicling 
what I've done and what I plan to do.  Feel free to ask questions and 
make comments.  I'm certainly not an expert when it comes to ham radio, 
and I could use all the help I can get.

27 responses total.

Internet Resources

First, let me list some of the Internet resources that I've found 
helpful.

QRP-L.  This active mailing list covers nearly all aspects of QRP 
operation, including rigs, antennas, accessories, etc.  The hams who 
subscribe to this list are not shy about sharing personal experiences 
and asking questions.  You can subscribe to the list by visiting their 
web page at http://qrp.cc.nd.edu/qrp-l/, which also has links to a lot 
of other QRP info.

Wilderness Radio (http://www.fix.net/jparker/wild.html): This company 
makes a series of QRP transceivers and accessories, such as keyers and 
frequency counters.  I am buying one of their SST models for 20 meters.

Small Wonder Labs (http://www.fix.net/~jparker/sml.html): Small Wonder 
makes a series of QRP rigs and accessories similar to the Wilderness 
Radio gear.  I almost bought one of their GM20 transceivers.

Emtech (http://pages.prodigy.net/roygregson/index.htm): Emtech also 
makes a series of transceivers and accessories.  Their ZM-2 antenna 
tuner seems to be one of the most popular among the hams on the QRP-L 
mailing list.  I have one of their "Ladder Grabbers" with is a center 
insulator for connecting ladder line to dipole elements.

Adverture Radio Society (http://www.natworld.com/ars/): The ARS is a 
club devoted to combining ham radio with outdoor recreation, such as 
hiking and biking. Their newsletter, the ARS Sojourner, is online here.

QRP World (http://qrpworld.com): Another site with many links to 
information about QRP operation.

There are many others, but I haven't had time to visit them all yet!

Unless you're poor or afraid of being robbed by an Appalachian Trail Rural
Southern Psychopath I do not recommend HF QRP, especially given the
limitations presented by antennas designed for travel and/ort ease of
deployment in the field, with the general exception of a horizontally
polarized halfwave dipole for ten meters, seven decibels better than a
vertical.  Maybe fifteen or, better, seventeen meters would work.  Seventeen
because it's a lot less crowded than twenty.  If you're a codehead who thinks
it's cool to CW the fat with people fine, but you're better with a j-pole and
a five or seven watt 2-meter unit.  Just listen to twenty sometime and see
for yourself what kind of power people are running to achieve a given signal
delivery to your QTH from various places and distances and you'll immediately
see what I mean.  The batteries alone would give you a hernia to transmit more
than ten watts for more than ten minutes.  For QRP to work at all given the
generally crowded band conditions you have to have the perfectly tuned and
installed antenna with a run of macho RG-8.  You can only be heard on the best
of propagation days from the quietest of monitoring sites.  Hobby fanatics
and QRP equipment catalogs generally overstate the feasability of portable
qrp ops.  DE KB8UYJ, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

You're missing the point.  The idea is to run low power with simple equipment. 
If you're in the boonies on a bike or backpacking, I don't think you're going
to be able to work many other hams with 2m equipment. I'd suggest that you
subscribe to the qrp-l mailing list and check out the Adverture Radio Society
web site.  There are lots of guys having a lot of fun with this stuff.

You are generally right about two meters, especially in uneven terrain, but
I am frequently surprised how much of the country is covered by the footprints
of two meter repeaters.  For HF mobile bike operation I would recommend a
standard quarter-wave whip driven by ten or twenty watts of ten-meter
sideband.  That should work, even though the size of the bike is not quite
right to serve as a proper counterpoise.  I am hoping and imagining that
someone should build handheld ten meter sideband units for portable
operations.  As much as twenty watts PEP should be achievable without its
being too large and heavy.

Here's the latest in my saga to get back on the air. This is an article 
I wrote for the next issue of the ARRROW newsletter.

=====================================

Getting Back on the Low Bands

I really hate to admit this, but I haven't been a very good ham.

I've been licensed for 31 years now (my first ticket was dated July 16, 
1971-my sixteenth birthday), but I've never been that active, 
especially on the low bands.

Back in my Novice days, I operated a lot of 40m CW. You had to operate 
a lot back then because you were required to upgrade within a year or 
lose your license. That was enough motivation for me. I was always 
pretty good with CW, and I easily passed the General exam about eight 
months later.

Throughout the rest of my high school days, I would get on from time to 
time, firing up the Heathkit HW-101 into a vertical antenna, but I was 
never a regular. At one point, I'd even gotten my CW speed up close to 
20 wpm and flirted with the idea of going for my Extra. Alas, I never 
was motivated to actually do it.
When I got into college, I didn't have a place to set up a station, so 
the rig languished in my parents' basement. I'd operate once in a 
while, but certainly not enough to keep up my code speed.

The situation only got worse after I graduated and moved into a series 
of apartments and condos. I was never very good with antennas to begin 
with and I just couldn't get anything up that would work very well.

At one point, I was living in a two-story condo, and there was just 
enough space to string a 10m dipole from the windowsill of the second-
floor bedroom, where I had the rig to the floor of the deck below. I 
worked a fair amount of DX from that location, but hams do not live by 
10m alone. Besides, my wife didn't like dodging the dipole whenever she 
went out to sit on the deck.

At some hamfest or another, I bought a 2m handheld and played with that 
for a while. I also purchased a higher-power mobile rig and 
participated in some public service events. That was fun-and I know I'm 
going to catch some heat for saying this-but that's not really ham 
radio.

When I moved to Ann Arbor, I went so far as to purchase an Icom IC-735 
HF transceiver. But my lack of antenna skills, as well as a lack of 
motivation, prevented me from ever really putting it on the air. It 
became an expensive general coverage receiver. When I moved to my 
current QTH, I put it into a closet, where languished for a little more 
than two years.

Field Day 2002
All that's changed now, and I have the ARROW to thank for it. Earlier 
this summer, I participated in Field Day, and got the bug for ham radio 
again.
I wasn't even going to go. I didn't participate at all in the FD setup, 
and to be honest, was a little embarrassed about that, and I usually go 
biking on Sundays with the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society. Sunday 
morning was really hot, though, and I don't ride very well in hot 
weather. So about ten in the morning, I decided to go check out Field 
Day.

As I pulled into Domino's Farms that morning, I could see that the boys 
had been hard at work. There was an array of antennas, including a 6m 
beam, a folded dipole they were using on 20m, and a G5RV. All in all, 
they had five stations set up, including one for digital modes.

The first person I ran into was Mark, W8FSA, our president. He was 
grabbing a bite to eat, so I joined him. After downing a bagel and 
coffee, he asked if I wanted to do a little operating. "Sure," I 
said, "Let's go."

He had his rig connected to the G5RV antenna. He told me he wasn't sure 
how well it was going to work as they'd been having some problems with 
the antenna. He had lent his antenna tuner to Tim KT8K for use on the 
20m CW station, so that wasn't available, either. After playing around 
with it for a little while, however, he got it to load up on the 20m 
phone band. 

As you know, however, low SWR does not mean that you're putting out a 
good signal. We made a few contacts, but for the most part, it seemed 
as though the stations calling CQ Field Day just couldn't hear us. 
After a particularly frustrating attempt to make contact, I suggested 
we try CW.

Now neither of us had had much recent CW experience, nor were either of 
us the most experienced contesters. I figured, though, that we'd 
probably do a lot better on CW with our bum antenna than we were doing 
on SSB, and we were there to have fun, right? After a little pleading, 
Mark relented and tuned up on 15m CW, while I went off in search of a 
key. By this time, it was already noon, and we only had two more hours 
to operate in FD 2002.
After some futzing, we finally got the key connected to the 
transceiver, and with Mark at the controls, we tuned around and soon 
heard a station calling CQ FD. I looked at Mark and said, "Go ahead. 
Call him." Mark pushed the key over to me and said, "You go first."

I returned the call, and what do you know, he came right back! How 
cool! Our first FD CW contact and my first CW contact, period, in 
years. Mark logged the contact, and I told him, "OK, let's find another 
one." I was hooked.
Over the next hour and 45 minutes, we logged 23 more contacts, 
including several Puerto Ricans. Several times we had to listen to a 
station we'd just contacted to make sure we had his information down 
right. As I said, we aren't the best contesters in ham radio, but we 
sure did have fun, and we contributed 48 points to our cause.

Back on the Low Bands
That experience galvanized me. I had to get back on the low bands.
I finally unpacked the IC-735, and literally threw a 20m dipole up into 
the trees in my backyard. I'm certainly no genius when it comes to 
antennas, but I can at least put up a dipole. I even got pretty close 
the first time around. The SWR was about 1.6:1 at 14050 kHz.

I was a little nervous when I first keyed the transmitter. Even though 
I'd had it for more than fifteen years, I'd never really run the 
transmitter. I'd run it into a dummy load a couple of times, but rarely 
into an antenna.

As it happens, the first station I heard calling CQ was XE2AHN. With my 
fingers shaking a little, I called him back. Not only did he return the 
call, but he gave me a 589 report! Too cool! I was hooked all over 
again.

In the past month, I've worked a combination of US and DX stations, all 
on 20m CW. I'm at about 20 countries and counting. My code speed is 
back up to more than 15 wpm, and I think with more practice, I can 
crack the 20 wpm barrier.

Working out the Kinks
I still have some kinks to work out. Right now, for example, I'm 
running the coax into the shack through a basement window. That's going 
to have to change before the weather gets colder.

My wife is also reporting that I'm generating some TVI. This is odd 
because everything was fine up until the big rain storm we had a week 
and a half ago. I'm not sure what to make of this.

I also want to put up a 40m dipole before the snow begins to fall. 
While 20m has been fun, I think 40m is going to be a more consistent 
band as the sunspot cycles continues its decline.

I definitely have my work cut out for me, but that's half the fun, 
isn't it? It's been a blast getting back on the low bands, and who 
knows, I may actually learn something about antennas after all.

Great post Dan!

As for the TVI after the rain, check your antenna leads.  I'm going to
guess you've gotten water in them, and/or have had corrosion form on part
of the path.

Yeah. That's my guess, too.

Well, since I lasted posted, I've done more playing around, errrrr 
experimenting. I'll describe two projects: EchoLink and my 20m vertical 
antenna.

EchoLink is a program that allows hams to connect repeaters to the 
Internet. It uses Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) to send audio 
over the Net. Using the program, two people can easily talk to one 
another.

That part's no big deal, actually. What's very cool about this program 
is that it also has a mode that lets you control a repeater or a radio 
that will link you to a repeater. Via the EchoLink network, I can 
connect to repeaters all over the world and talk to stations that are 
using that repeater. I've mostly talked to US stations, but I did make 
a contact through a repeater in Rome. You can find out more by going to 
www.echolink.org.

The next thing I plan to do is to set up a link here to the 2m ARROW 
repeater. I've already purchased the sound card interface board (a kit 
I purchased for $45) and put it together. Next, I have to build the 
cables and hook it all up.

One slight hitch is that the software needed to run the link is 
currently running only on Windows, and the computer I've designated as 
the link computer is running Linux. There are a couple of guys who are 
working on Linux link software, but it's not quite available yet. I'd 
really hate to have to re-install Windows95 on this computer, but I may 
have to.

I hope to get this all together in the next week or two. I'll report 
back here when it's up and running.

My next project was something a little more mundane.

I've been goofing around with antennas here, and one project caught my 
eye in the latest ARRL Handbook. It's a 20m ground plane antenna made 
entirely from wire. The Handbook suggests hanging it from a tree 
branch, and I have just the perfect tree in my backyard. 

Over the week, I cut and soldered the antenna, and despite the snowy 
conditions today, I put it up and adjusted it. As I think I adjusted it 
a little too short, though, as the low-SWR point seems to be about 
14.150. Even so, the SWR is only about 1.3 at 14.050, around which I 
intend to operate mostly. 

The antenna's bandwidth seems to be quite wide. It's less than 1.5:1 
across the entire band. Who knows? I may even try to work a little SSB 
with it.

The jury's still out on how well the thing is actually working. (We all 
know that low SWR does not equal good performance, don't we?) The first 
contact was with a K0 in Missouri. I gave him a 589, while he only gave 
me a 559. After we said our 73s, though, a KB4 in NC called and we were 
both 599. I didn't hear any DX on the band this afternoon. Its position 
so close to the tree has got to be having some effect on the radiation 
pattern, too, I'd guess.

I did the coax balun thing by looping the coax three times just below 
the feedpoint. I don't know if that's helping reduce the RFI or not. I 
didn't have any problems with RFI on 20m before--just 40 and 10.

For my next trick, I'm thinking of building a 17m/10m dual-band dipole 
out of some 450-ohm coax I have laying around. It would be nice to be 
able to have the ability to get on at least two different HF bands. 
Also, I've never worked 17m, so that would be something cool to do.

One more thing--I'm now selling ham radio books through my Internet 
books store, Quality Technical Books (http://qtb.com/hamradio/). I have 
books from all the major publishers, and I'm selling them at 5% off 
list price, 10% if you're an ARROW member. Sorry about the shameless 
plug, but if you are planning to buy a book soon--such as the new 
handbook, which is a pretty cool book--you can save a few bucks by 
buying it from me.

I'm considering putting up a 10m antenna.  I've figured out that if I
run wire across the top of the balcony above mine, down the walls, and
across the bottom of my own balcony, it'll come out roughly the right
length for a 10m loop.  I have to measure to be sure, but I think it's
pretty close.  Efficiency will suck (steel-reinforced building, nearby
steel balcony railing) but it should work, and it'll be nicely discreet
if I use light-gauge wire.  I'm planning to pick up a 25W 10m mobile rig
from a friend who's trying to get rid of one -- it'll be nice to have in
my camper van, too.

Keep in mind that the impedance will vary depending on the shape of the 
loop. A square loop has an impedance of approximately 100 ohms. The one 
I'm build has an approximately 2:1 aspect ration with the horizontal 
elemnents about 6' and the vertical elements about 12'. This is 
supposed to yield an impedance of close to 50 ohms, which is, of course 
perfect for feeding with coax.

I carted a stock of books down to the L'Anse Creuse Amateur Radio Club 
swap this morning. I had to get up at 5:30 am to get over there in time 
to set up for the 8 am start. Ugggh.

The traffic was not very brisk. In fact, it was downright 
disappointing. I remember attending this same swap back in the 70s, and 
there were many more people there. I made some sales, but most 
attendees looked like they were after cheap radio hardware, not books.

The vendor next to me was selling tubes. He wasn't having much more 
luck than I was and he drove in from somewhere in Ohio. At least I 
didn't have to drive that far.

Re #13: By pure blind luck, the aspect ratio of mine will be very close
to 2:1.  My balcony is about 12' wide, so I'll let the width define the
horizontal size of the loop and set the height to make the proper
length.    It's almost like they designed the balcony with 10m loop
antennas in mind. ;)  I assume I'd tune this by trimming, like I would a
wire dipole?

I feel silly about asking this, but...

Will a VHF-UHF SWR/wattmeter give reasonably accurate SWR readings on
10m?  I understand the power readings probably won't be correct, but I'm
only interested in the SWR.

That's a good question. I'm sorry I don't have an answer for it. My 
first guess would be no, but I'm not sure.

I have an impedance meter that I'd be happy to bring over and we could 
take some measurements.

Despite the snowy conditions a couple weeks ago, I put up a 20m ground 
plane antenna up and adjusted it. As suggested in the Handbook, it's 
hanging from a tree branch. I think I adjusted it a little too short, 
though, as the low-SWR point seems to be about 14.150. Even so, the SWR 
is only about 1.3 at 14.050. 

The antenna's bandwidth seems to be quite wide. It's less than 1.5:1 
across the entire band. Who knows? I may even try to work a little SSB 
with it.

I did the coax balun thing by looping the coax three times just below 
the feedpoint. I don't know if that's helping reduce the RFI or not. I 
didn't have any problems with RFI on 20m before--just 40 and 10.

The jury's still out on how well the thing is actually working. (We all 
know that low SWR does not equal good performance, don't we?) The first 
contact was with a K0 in Missouri. I gave him a 589, while he only gave 
me a 559. After we said our 73s, though, a KB4 in NC called and we were 
both 599. I didn't hear any DX on the band this afternoon. Its position 
so close to the tree has got to be having some effect on the radiation 
pattern, too, I'd guess.

I have worked one DX station so far in limited operation--EA8DA in the 
Canary Islands.

Re #17: I'll compare the readings I get on the VHF/UHF SWR meter to the
ones that the built-in (but uncalibrated) SWR meter on the radio gives.
 If they don't seem to agree, I'll see about borrowing your impedance
meter.  I have absolutely no idea where this antenna will end up
resonating, because it's very close to a steel balcony railing.  I cut
it long, with the idea of trimming if necessary, and I'm hoping for the
best.

Right now I have the antenna assembled, but I'm waiting for the power
supply I ordered to arrive.  My bench supply doesn't put out enough
current to transmit.

That's too bad. The ARRL 10m Contest is this weekend.

Come to think of it, I don't have a 10m antenna up now, either. :( 
Maybe I can put something up on Saturday, though.

My latest little project is learning how to use a paddle and keyer.

At the L'Anse Creuse Swap a couple of weeks ago I bought a Bencher 
paddle for $60. It looks like I got a pretty good deal, too. It looked 
to be new in the box and never used. The current list price is $120, 
and I paid $60 for it.

At any rate, my initial thinking was to use it as a "sideswiper." That 
is, tie the two sides together and manually make dots and dashes, dots 
on one side, dashes on the other. After playing around a litte with 
that arrangement, though, I decided against doing that.

Instead, I'm going to connect it to the old Heathkit keyer I bought and 
built 20 years ago. Unfortunately, I have a problem with the Heathkit 
in that the output doesn't seem to be switching correctly. I'll have to 
dig out the schematics and see if I can figure out what's wrong with 
it. I took it apart earlier this evening, but the way the thing is 
designed, it's not real easy to troubleshoot.

My power supply arrived last night, so maybe I'll get on the air this
weekend.

The VHF/UHF SWR meter turned out to be too insensitive on 10m. (Couldn't
get full scale in calibrate mode.)  However, Radio Shack was having a
clearance on their SWR/field strength meters, so I bought the last one
they had for $10.

After an hour of careful cutting and testing, I now have an antenna
which is...too short.  Oops.  It looks like it will work, though, once I
splice a few inches back in.

Incidentally, did you know you can trip a GFCI breaker with RF?  Neither
did I. ;)

Well, I finished adjusting the antenna, today, and tried making a few
contast contacts to test it.  I worked Colorado, California, and Utah,
so it seems to be working.  It's interesting that the contacts were to
the west; the bulk of the building is 'in the way' in that direction, so
I wouldn't have expected it to work very well.

A tip for anyone else who's thinking of making a full-wave loop:  Every
time you trim the antenna, make sure to square it up again.  If it
starts to get lopsided, the feedpoint impedance changes and it's hard to
tell what you're doing.  I think this is what fooled me into cutting it
too short, originally.

That's a good tip!

I finally got the keyer working (more about this on my ham radio blog 
at http://www.w8pgw.org/module.php?mod=blog) and have been practicing. 
I think I'm to the point where I make just about as many mistakes with 
the keyer as I do with the straight key. I just gotta keep practicing.

re 24
Maybe you're just the right length from the building to use the steel frame
as your actual radiator?  (I suppose you could be using it as a hellishly
large directive element.)

Either way it's a pretty lossy thing to have in the near field of an
antenna.

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