response 1 of 27:

Jun 16 15:25 UTC 1998

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!

response 3 of 27:

Mar 22 22:45 UTC 1999

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.

response 5 of 27:

Sep 9 11:09 UTC 2002

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.

response 7 of 27:

Sep 17 13:07 UTC 2002

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.

response 9 of 27:

Dec 1 02:06 UTC 2002

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.

response 11 of 27:

Dec 1 02:15 UTC 2002

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.

response 13 of 27:

Dec 1 22:31 UTC 2002

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.

response 15 of 27:

Dec 1 23:35 UTC 2002

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?

response 17 of 27:

Dec 11 23:45 UTC 2002

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.

response 19 of 27:

Dec 12 14:35 UTC 2002

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.

response 21 of 27:

Dec 13 04:27 UTC 2002

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.

response 23 of 27:

Dec 14 00:43 UTC 2002

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. ;)