when demonstrations really go well

[wayne burdick]

Eric (WA6HHQ) and I did a talk about Elecraft at Stanford University
recently. Great club, and the talk went fine.

After the talk, we tossed a 30' or so piece of wire through the window
of the conference room into a tree two floors below. A second wire
about 10' long was used inside the classroom as a ground. We then tuned
up the antenna on 40, 30, and 20 meters to roughly 1:1 using the
internal tuner in a KX1. About 10 seconds after turning power on, I
heard a YL2 calling CQ on 20 meters. With one of the club members
listening on one ear bud, and me listening on the other, I called the
YL2 and got an answer immediately. The 339 signal report did nothing to
diminish the thrill of having worked such great DX with a completely
ad-hoc antenna and 2 watts -- on internal batteries.

It doesn't get much better than this!

(Well, OK, we designed the KX1 and could be exaggerating :)

73,
Wayne
N6KR

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[Andrew Moore-4]

> The 339 signal report did nothing to
> diminish the thrill of having worked such great DX with a completely
> ad-hoc antenna and 2 watts -- on internal batteries.
>
> It doesn't get much better than this!

That's exactly the phrase I used recently on two occasions in which, on a whim, I decided to try the KX1 on 40 meters with the antenna strung randomly around the ceiling while operating lying in the hammock in the porch, or tossed into a tree while sitting on the grass outside.  In one case the station I worked was also using a KX1, me on 1 watt and him on 2, with a good 15 minute QSO and no problem copy.

I agree with you that the ad-hoc nature is a large part of the thrill.  The idea of trying to see how much you can do with so little is an enjoyable exercise in itself.  I'm not talking only about the size, amount or weight of the gear here, but ease of setup.  That said, if it were too easy and required hardly any effort, I think the fun would diminish.  There still needs to be some kind of challenge: finding a suitable support for the antenna, straining to hear the weak signal, working with a limited set of controls, etc.  It seems to me that the KX1 has found a great balance of all these parameters.

I've never been much into QRP before but this rig is drawing me in -- I've had more fun lately with it than I've had in around 16 years of radio (except maybe for QRQ CW).  I know that many campers and hikers take a liking to it, but for me it's working in the other direction: I was interested in the radio first, and now the KX1 is sparking a serious interest in camping/hiking.  Now that's a powerful little rig!

--Andrew, NV1B
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[Sandy W5TVW]

Reminds me of the thrill I got working New Zealand on 20 meters with
an old Ten-Tec PM-3A.  It ran about 3 watts out.  Worked them with a simple dipole about 12' high
suspended between the eaves of the house and a clothesline pole!

One evening on the Mississippi river levee, waiting for a ship to arrive, I worked a
scad of Pacific stations at the tail end of a net on 15 meters. (Kwajalien, Guam,
E. Carolines, Hawaii and American Samoa), all with a 3 watt PEP TenTec "Argonaut"
and a Hustler mobile whip on my truck on SSB!

Haven't been that excited in years!  Well, no maybe working DX on my K1 and random wire
indoors a year or so ago.  But the best thrill was the first long haul QRP with the ZL!
73,
Sandy W5TVW
K1 #1178
----- Original Message -----
From: "wayne burdick" <[hidden email]>
To: "Elecraft Reflector" <[hidden email]>; "QRP-L" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 4:49 PM
Subject: [Elecraft] when demonstrations really go well


| Eric (WA6HHQ) and I did a talk about Elecraft at Stanford University
| recently. Great club, and the talk went fine.
|
| After the talk, we tossed a 30' or so piece of wire through the window
| of the conference room into a tree two floors below. A second wire
| about 10' long was used inside the classroom as a ground. We then tuned
| up the antenna on 40, 30, and 20 meters to roughly 1:1 using the
| internal tuner in a KX1. About 10 seconds after turning power on, I
| heard a YL2 calling CQ on 20 meters. With one of the club members
| listening on one ear bud, and me listening on the other, I called the
| YL2 and got an answer immediately. The 339 signal report did nothing to
| diminish the thrill of having worked such great DX with a completely
| ad-hoc antenna and 2 watts -- on internal batteries.
|
| It doesn't get much better than this!
|
| (Well, OK, we designed the KX1 and could be exaggerating :)
|
| 73,
| Wayne
| N6KR
|
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| Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.):
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|
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|
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[Jim Brown-10]

On Tue, 17 May 2005 14:49:13 -0700, wayne burdick wrote:

>After the talk, we tossed a 30' or so piece of wire through the window
>of the conference room into a tree two floors below.

I did something similar at our club's annual QRP nite last fall. K2 and
auto tuner, 5 watts to a piece of wire taped to that nice DK9 pole, more
wire as a counterpoise sort of laying on the ground. As many Q's on 30m at
5 watts as I wanted, but I let the radio rest while others with inferior
receivers could have stab at it.

A bit later, I heard a pileup for someone sort of rare in the Carribean,
and worked him after about a dozen calls.

Jim Brown  K9YC


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[Geoffrey Mackenzie-Kennedy-2]

You wrote on May 17, 2005 10:49 PM

> (Well, OK, we designed the KX1 and could be exaggerating :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are forgiven if you were!!  There is a Continental station some 1000
miles from here that I chat with from time to time on 40m CW, who runs 100
milliwatts into a dipole. I believe that his Tx is built around a 7400 Quad
NAND Gate or something of that ilk. I left an invitation for him to break in
if he heard me ragchewing with a DX station, and he would like a report.
This he did one morning near the bottom end of 40m (a year or more ago)
while I was ragchewing via long path with a very old VK friend who gives out
real reports - not "599 what's your call? What's my report?"  The VK copied
the 100mW at 339 which would have been 539 if in the clear without Far
Eastern QRM. But they had a solid exchange of reports etc. The VK and I had
exchanged 589 reports, but we were both running 100 watts and both using
beams. Conditions were not exceptional, and it was a lot of fun to hear the
100mW make the trip.

73,
Geoff.
GM4ESD

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