Fred, KT5X – AKA WS0TA, recently put together this document with a lot of antenna ideas (and what led him there). I’ve used information Fred shared with me to make the antenna traps for my tri-band EFHW antenna (I really gotta write about that sometime!). Fred asked me to post this PDF so he can share this info for anyone that might need it.
One of the particularly intriguing (to me) ideas in this PDF is the “beam” antenna on page 4. Enjoy!
How do you quickly, easily, and inexpensively get your antenna wire up in the air? This is one of the first things I wanted to solve when I first set out to do portable operations.
There were several options that were easy to find, but didn’t quite fully fit what I had in mind — most notably from SOTABeams. They have some great masts, but the weight and cost weren’t quite in the range I had in mind.
Back in January of this year (2019), QRPGuys announced a new kit: the EZ-WSPR Pi, based on a public-domain circuit by HA7DCD. TAPR also has a fully-assembled surface-mount version. Both are “simply” a combo LPF (low-pass filter) and BPF (band-pass filter) with a buffer (and amplifier) for the clock output of the Raspberry Pi, which is what creates the WSPR signal.
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Yeah, that title is a mouthful! And for something with such a long name, it sure is a tiny little kit. Several weeks ago, Doug Hendricks from QRPGuys handed me a prototype kit to try. It’s now available for sale on their site. The QRPGuys Mini 80m-10m No-Tune End Fed Half Wave Antenna.
Continue reading →There are a lot of different types of SOTA operators out there. Some like to bring a lot of equipment, some like to bring very little. For most, it depends on the type of activation they’re doing, or perhaps what equipment they have. Personally, I like to do a little bit of everything, including lightweight minimal equipment.
I’ve conversed with Fred Maas, KT5X, a number of times on some of the incredible things he’s doing to minimize his SOTA setup. He has a great trapped end-fed half-wave (EFHW) setup he’s come up with for an antenna. It uses two small traps to get multi-band function out of a single wire. Traps certainly aren’t a new thing in the ham world, but tiny traps like his are certainly an original concept. After getting info on how to build my own, I collaborated with him to design tiny PCBs for the traps. After feedback from him and a couple of revisions, we had a functional WS0TA trap PCB. And this thing is tiny!
It’s been a few weeks (or maybe more) now, but I’m catching up on my blog posts! I sold my trusty and beloved FT-817 so I could get a non-QRP rig! This isn’t about “life is too short for QRP.” I’m not a believer of that statement. I love the challenge and magic of QRP. I’ve been pretty much solely QRP for quite a while. Not because of a love of the challenge primarily, but because of the many other benefits. Nonetheless, I decided to get a 100-watt rig. But there’s more to it than just the power.
When I started my amateur radio life as KK6VSI in August of 2015, I wish I could have had the information I’m about to lay out here. Of course, most of the equipment didn’t yet exist. So another way of looking at it is that my entry into amateur radio was perfectly timed for a modern Golden Age of Ham Radio. Part of this Golden Age means you can get a QRP Labs QCX or BITX40, and a QRPGuys Antenna, plus a few other components, and you’re on the air! Stick with me here, and we’ll get to the details.
Even though I’m in the middle of figuring out the build of a shortened end-fed half-wave antenna, an improvement on my current EFHW setup, I’d had my eyes on various vertical antenna solutions for a while, even though they’re not as efficient as a full-size antenna. Recently, QRPGuys released a new vertical antenna kit for portable ops, and I couldn’t resist trying it out.
I’ve had the Mountain Topper for a couple of weeks now, after having wanted it for a long time. I’ve been really happy with it, and I’ve even already done three SOTA activations with it and lots of SOTA chasing from my back yard. One thing I noticed when doing my pre-purchase research is that not many people report on the power output (probably because it doesn’t matter that much). Well, I got curious! Here’s my extremely inaccurate and non-scientific report.
I’ve been wanting to get a good CW-only lightweight rig since I started really getting into SOTA. Especially trying to do HF summit activations while trail running! I saw a good deal for this used Mountain Topper QRP transceiver, and I went out of my way to get it! I actually even sold my LDG Z-817 tuner to help provide the funds, making my home station temporarily non-functional.