What did you do in the shack today?

I pulled the trigger on a QCX Mini kit plus the 50w amp kit. By the time I added the extras and cases and shipping it really added up, but it'll be fun to build and play with.

I didn't really need the amp, but I wanted to try my hand at amplifiers so this is a good way to tiptoe into that. I got the 17m version to fill a gap in my QRP stable.

I think it comes from Germany so I bet it'll count toward '24 radio purchases. I'm off work the first week in January so it'd be nice to have it to build then, but I'm not betting on it.
 
ToddDubya said:
I pulled the trigger on a QCX Mini kit plus the 50w amp kit. By the time I added the extras and cases and shipping it really added up, but it'll be fun to build and play with.

I didn't really need the amp, but I wanted to try my hand at amplifiers so this is a good way to tiptoe into that. I got the 17m version to fill a gap in my QRP stable.

I think it comes from Germany so I bet it'll count toward '24 radio purchases. I'm off work the first week in January so it'd be nice to have it to build then, but I'm not betting on it.
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My QDX kit came in about 2 weeks from placing the order.
 
DarkNet said:
Picked up the two Kenwoods, a TS-440S and a TS-130SE, that Junior314 had as a karma this morning. Gave them both a smoke test, and both powered up without any problems. Although I gave both of them a checkout, I focused more on the TS-440S, and tried everything (wasn't extensive or exhaustive), but did try all the buttons, knobs and functions. Everything seemed to work. Opened it up, and it had both a SSB and a CW filter installed as well as an automatic ATU. Does have the glue in it, so I want to run a few tests, but doesn't seem to be impacting anything right now. So might leave it alone if it's not hurting anything. Battery must be good, it still had memory channels configured.
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Cool. Congratulations on your new equipment. I feel like I'll be forever stuck on 2 meter. That said, still learning and expanding with that anyhow. Met some great people at CMARA and QVARC.
 
CatSnoutSoup said:
I have for years dealt exclusively with David R.F. (Orion Wire) in NH.

i have a lot of their “Bury Flex’ on the property.

Their DRF-400 (LMR-400 equivalent) is US made and about $1.00 per foot.



🐯
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It's been pretty chilly here the past week during the day, mid to high 40's, so I was afraid I wasn't going to get this ABR-400 connected to my OCFD until spring but today's temps went to near 60 so, taking advantage of the relative warmth, I stretched it out on my lawn and worked the curls and bends out as best as I could without actually kinking the coax. It has a black jacket on it which absorbed a bit of heat from the sun so it didn't take long for it to soften up a bit to make it easier to work with.

I ran my AA-230 analyzer on it with a 50Ω load on the far end and it was virtually flat, 1:1, from 1.8-54 MHz. More than anything, it will handle 1.5KW easily....something I was worried about when I was running RG-8X to the OCFD previously.
 
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I finally got my Wolf River Coils coil today. It got lost in the mail for a few weeks, but it finally made it. Fortunately it's cold and windy out today, so it's perfect for experimenting with antennas.

I guess guys were melting these running FT8 at 100W so they've downgraded the power ratings to 100W SSB, 50W CW, and 25W digital. For my intended use case I don't have a problem with any of those ratings. My home antenna is rated to 1500W key down forever, and I usually limit CW to 69W (but often drop to 20W which is usually plenty).

1704207706118.jpeg
 
ToddDubya said:
I finally got my Wolf River Coils coil today. It got lost in the mail for a few weeks, but it finally made it. Fortunately it's cold and windy out today, so it's perfect for experimenting with antennas.

I guess guys were melting these running FT8 at 100W so they've downgraded the power ratings to 100W SSB, 50W CW, and 25W digital. For my intended use case I don't have a problem with any of those ratings. My home antenna is rated to 1500W key down forever, and I usually limit CW to 69W (but often drop to 20W which is usually plenty).

View attachment 834401
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First off - who the hell runs 100 watts with FT8, shame, the whole nature of the thing is supposed to be low power signals below the noise floor.

And secondly - I too have jackets and flannel shirts hanging on the back of nearly every chair in the house, much to my wife's chagrin. :p

🐯
 
^ Something needs more smoke in it.

Yeah, the old stack o' flannels, and just to the side is another chair with another sweatshirt on the back. I knew I should have cropped that picture.

I took my Mountain Topper out for a spin today. I racked up 30 QSOs in about an hour, despite the paddle/keyer acting up. I'm hoping a snap-on choke on the cable will help; I couldn't for the life of me send an L or F. Every L was an F with a dit at the end and every F was an F with an extra dah-dit at the end. Frustrating as hell.

One thing I hadn't noticed about it before is the QSK is slow. I would often miss the first character if someone started sending too soon. The manual doesn't mention a setting for that, and others say it's PIN diode switched, so it should be full break-in but I wasn't finding that to be the case. Maybe that's related to the problems I was having with the paddle? I just watched a few videos of people using the MTR4B and theirs switch instantly, which is how I remember it working.

I'll have to hook it up to a dummy load later and see if it still does it.
 
I fooled around with the Mtn Topper for a bit tonight. Slow QSK at first, but then behaved normally. I have no idea what that was about. The only thing I can think of is it was cold today. The manufacturer mentions that if it starts behaving weird, the internal battery may need replacing. It's a little coin cell that basically maintains the clock and some RAM. I wouldn't say it's "behaving unreliably" and it certainly isn't locking up, so this is probably not it.

The paddle was still being an a**h*** so I tried it on the 818 with similar results. Next step was to polish the contact screws. I put a little dielectric grease on the threads, reassembled, and it seems better. I also added a little more spring tension which helped but doesn't really make sense.

Next on the agenda is to make some counterpoises for 40/75/80m so I can try out the Wolf River Coils coil.
 
I tried out the coil on 40m with minimal success. I think it was still too early/light for 40m. Tuning it was weird. I'd get two dips on the analyzer; I think one was the counterpoise and one was the vertical. Eventually they converged. I think SWR was a bit high, but the radio's SWR "meter" barely flinched.

Since I was already out in the cold and setup I switched to 17m with the vertical whip and single raised counterpoise and got all over the US, up and down the east coast, west coast, south coast, Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, Tobago, Panama, Puerto Rico.
 
My QCX Mini kits may get delivered tomorrow, so I'm getting antsy. I was searching around for monoband end fed antennas and found a few sites/videos where they tested different toroid ratios and found the 81:1 to be better than the 49:1 that everyone uses. A 64:1 was also pretty good, which is really just a couple turns less. So I made up a tiny, tiny little 81:1 toroid and soldered it directly to the pins on the back of a BNC and stuck them together with some foam 3M tape.

I cut up a little plastic box to make some minor protection and strain relief and mounted it to that. I didn't get a picture of that, but rest assured it's not pretty. I put some holes in it to thread PolyStealth wire through and soldered it onto that little lead of magnet wire. Next will be some testing and trimming to get it resonant on 17m (hopefully).

For scale, the grid on the mat is 1/2" squares. That's a FT50-43 toroid (1/2" diameter) with 3 primary, 27 total turns with whatever tiny magnet wire that is.

1704339477494.jpeg

One of my dreams for this QCX is to be able to carry the whole station into the woods in my pockets. Add to it that the place I've been hiking in to is not great for dipoles, and this little guy should make life that much easier.
 
Since it was cold and snowing, I decided to go out and see how that antenna performed. I got the SWR down to about 1.25:1, with an impedance of about Z=55-j11. It seems somewhat sensitive to the height of the feedpoint above ground, but in general it doesn't seem to go above 1.5:1 with the wire sloping up at about 45 degrees. I'm sure I could science this thing and make it better, but I don't think I will.

Now that I got everything put away, I probably should have put a radio to it to see if I could make a contact or two. Oh well, now to see if I can do something better to protect it and provide strain relief.

And the QCX Mini is out for delivery!
 
Got my QCX Mini and amp kits today. I was going through the parts, making sure I had everything, and taping them to sheets of paper so they're easier to identify during the build when I noticed the band specific parts for the amp didn't mention 17m. At first I thought maybe it was the base band, and everything else modified it. Nope, the amp doesn't do 17m. If you read carefully they list every other band BUT 17m, so that stinks. I can use it for another band with another radio, but I really wanted to pair it with this since they go together so well.

I started the build this afternoon and the first step is to break all these parts off one of the PCBs. It went fine, but I had visions of snapping something important. Pro tip, you have to file down the edges where you separated the boards and your wife's or ex girlfriend's nail file is perfect for the job.

Next step is a transformer with a primary and three secondaries. I wound it beautifully only to find out I did it backwards and I had to start over so the wires would come off the correct side. It still came out okay, but that was unfortunate. I never have good luck burning the enamel off magnet wire, and this was no exception. It took forever with the iron at 850 to get continuity through the coils.

With that done things picked up a little. I've got maybe half the main board done now.

1704426232564.png
 
I can build the amp for 20, 30, 40, or 80m. Conveniently that's what my Mountain Topper does. Which band should I do? I'm leaning towards 30m but I don't know why. It's for CW only. It "can" do 50w, but only with a 20v supply. So I'm expecting more like 25-30.
 
timbo said:
I had an almost brand new looking Kenwood MC-60a mic given to me that didn't work. All I had to do was pay the $15 shipping fee. I received in the mail yesterday and had it working in 10 minutes. The impedance switch underneath was intermittent...a squirt of D5 and I was off to the races. Works and sounds great! Even came in the original box!

I emailed the previous owner back, offered to send it back to him working (as long as he covered the shipping fee) and he told me he had gotten rid of most of his Kenwood gear and gone the Yaesu route.

Most of my HF gear is Kenwood and this matches perfectly with it.

Voila!

View attachment 767574
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I loved those mics back when I ran my 440 then an 850SAT. They actually drive the radios correctly.
 
ToddDubya said:
I can build the amp for 20, 30, 40, or 80m. Conveniently that's what my Mountain Topper does. Which band should I do? I'm leaning towards 30m but I don't know why. It's for CW only. It "can" do 50w, but only with a 20v supply. So I'm expecting more like 25-30.
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Not knowing much at all about this, being that it is a "mountain topper", I'd say that implies hiking, so if any one is smaller than the others, that is what I think I would consider.
 
drgrant said:
I loved those mics back when I ran my 440 then an 850SAT. They actually drive the radios correctly.
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I totally agree. I also found an MC-50 for my TS-520s that I get great audio report with though the MC-60 will also work with the TS-520s...just change the impedance switch on it.
 
I have an office upstairs that I going to put my old IC-706 in. It hasn't been used in about 3 years but should still be fine. It'll just be a compact station either in one of my book shelves or maybe even on my desk....not sure yet. I would like to find an SSB narrow filter for it though.

I have an end fed half wave antenna, 80-6 meters that has a 9:1 un-un on it and it has worked well in the past. My only issue is going to be getting on the roof without my wife seeing me :cool:. With my hip/back issues, I'm not as steady as I was even a year or two ago. I'll need to do it when she's at work.
 
Hooo lordy, I was reading the QCX amp instructions and at the end he goes into the design process, circuit theory, etc. It's a good read and I'll probably have to revisit it and not skip around. But there's a PTT line that comes from the QCX that I think biases the PIN diodes to enable transmit. So while you "could" use it with something else, I probably can't. Not easily anyway. I really wish I'd noticed this thing didn't work for 17m when I bought it; I would have bought it for a different band.
 
I finished soldering up the QCX tonight. Installing the optional AGC wasn't included in the directions so I still have to figure that out, but I found those directions. Next step is to run through the calibration and alignment steps, which says to turn off the AGC if you've installed it, so I'll just wait until I'm done with that part before installing it.

I saw where some people claim to have put these together in 4 hours. They're liars. There are so many zany thing you have to do like use cutoff component leads to make pins for other components. Or trim things so the boards will fit together. Alignment is tight, and there are a few places you can get into trouble quick if you don't check your alignment after tacking a part in place on just one lead. Getting the BNC and headphone jacks on the right to line up with the holes in the case was touch and go.

Here's a pic of the main board with everything on it. I guess there will be some tweaking of a couple of transformer windings, so they said to wind them tight so you can loosen them later if need be. The headphone jacks and BNC connector look crooked in the pic, but rest assured they are not.

I'm psyched to get this on the air.

1704517657932.jpeg
 
I think I've got it as good as I can get it for now. I don't have a power meter so I can't tell what I am putting out and therefore can't adjust the spacing of the turns on the inductors. Transmitting into a dummy load, my home rig can hear it. And the reverse works. So that's a good sign. My buddy has a meter he's gonna lend me. I don't know how I've made it this long without one.
 
Developing story: I just worked Florida. Still no idea how much power but I got a 599. Doubtful, but maybe. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm putting out 1w.
 
Last update. I figured out how to use the internal RF power meter and got the inductors all dialed in for >5w from a LiFePO4 battery. That contact I got in FL was at 0.35w! Google tells me that was 988 miles, so that's 2823 miles per watt. f***in A.

Last piece was the AGC board which went in pretty easily. I got that adjusted after some trouble. When I actually read the directions it was very easy.

Finally time to put it in the case. Nope. Something was interfering. One cap was hitting, and I ended up using a nail file to take a couple pots down just a hair and then everything fit.

She's a beaut, Clark.

1704581655935.png

I already want to build another.
 
I needed to buy some small machine screws to replace the one I stupidly lost earlier today. I needed to spend $10 more to get free shipping, so I ordered a Siglent oscilloscope.

Most expensive screw I've ever bought.

2 channel, 200 MHz. Should be plenty for my needs, which currently is none. But I know once I have one I'll use it.
 
After I went out to straighten my antenna (hehe) I found the new screws in the mailbox. In my cheapness I ordered a set that didn't include the size I needed, so I had to file down a 1/4" to 3/16", but that just took a few minutes. This time I held it the entire time in a pair of vise grips. A little work at the diamond plates and a strop to get it nice and shiny and my portable key is back in action.
 
In the shack I played with guns not radios all day Saturday.
Eventually got on 80m for like the last 10 minutes of the NAQP CW and made five contacts [laugh]

I then switched over to FT8, a mode I seldom use because I find it kind of boring, at least for a home station, I could see where it would be fun portable.

Anyway my goal was to get WSJT-X, Grid Tracker, and N3FJP ACLog talking together politely. I previously had only paired WSJT-X and ACLog.

🐯
 

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