innismir.net

It was the ARRL 10 Meter Contest this weekend. Normally contests are a non-starter for me, as I jut really don’t “get” them, however, I thought it was a good opportunity to try my HTX-100 that has been languishing in my shack since I acquired it. Despite the weekend being filled with Christmas shopping and clearing out the soon-to-be nursery, I did manage to carve out a couple of hours to play radio.

I’ve been wanting to test out my HTX-100 since I recieved it. SEMARA has a weekly 10M Ragchew net on Tuesdays and that was the first and only time I’ve talked to someone on it. The signal reports were good, but there is a slight difference in working somene across town, and working someone across the country. So, I strung up the dipole, popped up DXAnywhere on the computer and scanned the bands. I wasn’t interested in scoring points, I just wanted to see if I was “getting out” and everything was working well. I tuned up and down and heard W4SVO calling CQ. I tried calling him a few times but he kept responding to other stations. Finally he came back to me with a 5 by 9, which he gave everyone but I digress. I continued tuning around and heard another Florida station, WD4IXD, calling CQ, so I got ready to work him.

Now, the HTX-100 has a high and low power setting. It puts out 25W on high power and if you pull out a knob, it puts out 5W. After thinking about it for a moment I decided to be adventerous. My other radio, a TS-120, is 100W all the time unless you fiddle with the mic gain and then your max output is a bit of a guessing game. I worked W4SVO with relative ease and I wanted to have some fun. I pulled out the knob and flipped the radio into low power mode. It took slightly longer but after quite a few tries of losing out to other stations, I finally contacted him. I was pleased, it was my first HF QRP contact! I did the math out on the Google Maps Distance Calculator and it came out to be 1099 miles! Thats 219.8 miles/watt. Not bad! I moved lower on the band and came across a 3rd Florida station, but the band seemed to swallow him up before I could get to him. I then unsuccessfully tried to work @dskaggs, N4EA but the band seemed to be closed at that point, and it stayed that way until I packed it in around 7:30PM.

It was a good couple of hours and I’m glad to have my first 10 meter “DX” contact and my first QRP “DX” contact in the logbook. I need to sit down and QSL WD4IXD as I want to get the QSL for posterity. I also need to start looking at getting the HTX-100 into my car, as that was my original objective for it.

Oh, and I think my final score for the 10 meter contest was a whopping 4 points. Go me!

After upgrading to General in December, I could finally join the so-called “real hams” (whatever) on HF. However, since I live in a condo, the antenna situation somewhat limited me. After thinking most of the winter, and silently sneaking a ground plane outside to see if any of my neighbors would complain (they haven’t so far, but we’ll see what happens when more people venture outside during the spring), I decided to go all in and find a antenna that I could set up outside my office.

I knew that a permanent setup was out of the question. I also new that I was rather space limited. I also had a slight issue that I didn’t know anything about antenna design. Thankfully I knew I was more or less out of luck until spring time as I didn’t want to go around stringing up an antenna trudging through a foot of snow. So, I just read up and asked stupid questions in #hamradio and #amsat about what I should be doing. Thankfully, everyone in both channels were extremely helpful.

As April rolled around, I finally decided it was time. I had a few requirements:

1. It had to be cheap
2. It had to be easy to set up and break down
3. It had to be simple
4. It had to not require a tuner

Number 1 and Number 4 basically limited my options severely. I would have likely gotten hit if I approached my wife to buy another thing for my “static box” that cost more then a few dolalrs. So, after doing my research, the only option was to build a resonant dipole.

Last Saturday, my way-more-mechanically-inclined friend Steve, KB1MEH came down and we set out to build and antenna. Steve had some 18AWG wire at his house so all we needed at Home Depot and Radio shack was some PVC for the insulator and T connector, along with soldering supplies (Have I mentioned I never soldered before? I haven’t.), and some PL-259 connectors. My only other investment was a cheap SWR meter for HF, courtesy of eBay.

The afternoon was spent cutting wire (the 18AWG wire was in a three conductor wire, so it had to be cut open and removed), soldering (Hey! This is easy!), drilling holes, and listening to the Scituate repeater.

Finally, around 4PM, the antenna was finished. We strung it up outside and plugged it into the SWR meter. Flipping my TS-120S (who hasn’t transmitted once since I got the thing back in 1996) I saw a S4 noise floor. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Tuning around, I heard two or three signals way down in the noise, but nothing really intelligible. I now braced myself and hope my radio didn’t explode. I IDed myself, calibrated the SWR meter, and checked the SWR. Hmmm… 1:1.4… Not Great, but well within tolerance. We’ll fix it later. Tuning up and down the band there was nothing really on. I had heard the regulars on Scituate mention that the band was dead, but they were also talking about a Beirut station that were all trying to work. I nervously tuned to an open frequency and called a few CQs… No response. Uh Oh…

A few quick diagnostics yielded no amazing results. Disheartened, Steve and I took the antenna down and he left for the day. I hoped that the band was just bad today and that I had not screwed up the antenna somehow.

The next day I had a free afternoon, so I set up the antenna again. I was pleased to see only a S3 noise floor that day, so there may be a small bit of hope. I nervously tuned up and down the band and stumbled across a Georgia station, K4HYB, coming in S9+. Working some kind of contest, I waited him to exchange his information and hear him say:

“This is K4HYB, QRZ?”
I nervously keyed the mic… “November One Whiskey Bravo Victor”
“November One Question Mark, K4HYB”
Holy @#$^!!! Me? Did it work? “November One Whiskey Bravo Victor”
“November One… Again?”
“November One Whiskey Bravo Victor… November One Whiskey Bravo Victor”
“November One Whiskey Bravo Victor. You are 5 by 9 in Spartanville Georgia. Your location?”

I gave my location we parted ways. I was elated that the antenna worked. I quickly tuned around looking for someone, anyone to talk to. After some looking, I was rewarded with EA1JJ calling CQ North America. I worked him my first try rewarded another 5 by 9. After some waiting and trying, I also worked Ken, G0IBS in England and had a brief QSO. Unfortunately, he faded away into the ether, so I had to break it off.

So, the Antenna is a success. I still need to trim to see if I can get better SWR, but I can fold it up into a 1′ round circle for storage, and can have it and functioning in about 5 minutes of work. It also cost me peanuts. So, if you want to work on 20m some day, drop me an e-mail!