RTL-SDR R820T Tuner 10m band

 

I wrote that I have been tinkering with RTL-SDR to enable wide band receiving capability. I have a couple of different RTL-SDR variants:

One is equipped with Elonics EL4000 tuner, and the other one is based on R820T chip. Both work very nicely in Win7 with sdrsharp software. The difference between the two tuners is that the R820T should go down to 24MHz enabling receive on 12 and 10 meters without the need of upconverter.

The following is the screenshot from 10m band during the ARRL 10m contest last weekend.

Not much happening, but band conditions were terrible. Some signals coming through. I compared the receive capability with my Flex 1500. Same signals came through on both receivers. The benefit of using TV receiver USB stick is really the 2MHz pan-adapter. Based in initial experiments a band filter before the tuner is a must. Too much interference coming through from local FM stations.

I user my ole TS-2000 (modified) by transmitting 5W CW to a dummy load below 24MHz (low spec limit of R820T) and checked how low the receiver can actually go. And specs hold true. The R820T tuned at 24MHz with the low end of receive frequency at 23MHz. The tests confirm that R820T based TV tuner can receive 12 and 28m HAM bands without the need for upconverter.

Upconverter Tests to Follow

I do have two different upconverters. I did some tests with E4000 stick and the DxPatrol.com v4.0 upconverter earlier. I will report when I have time to compare DxPatrol kit to one that nooelec.com has in sale. I got my Nooelec.com upconverter just two days ago.

First Snow of The Season

Preparing for Winter

It is that time of the year again. All the old antenna projects that are laying in the garden needs to be dismantled. Garage needs cleaning from the aluminium and copper pieces, not to mention a random pile of several hundred meters of "official Finnish antenna wire" i.e "Killu".

So basically the time between this post and the previous has been cleaning. Very little radio time.

Lots of time in the shack though.. preparing for the winter. Got my KX3 delivered by QRP Project guys. I definitely can recommend their great service. I also got the milliwatt WSPR beacon for 30m band from QRSS specialist Hans Summers http://www.hanssummers.com/ I already have constructed their QRSS CW kit, but wanted the "ultimate" version for 30m WSPR work. For the RX side I constructed and tested the SoftRock Ensemble rx ii kit. I have a couple more of the SoftRocks in pieces and during the winter the plan is to put these online to serve the ham community.

The low band antenna upgrade took a leap forward. Last weekend I were on the road and transferred the tower #2 pieces from eastern Finland to my QTH. The plan is to construct 160m 1/4 lambda vertical and 80m four square to complement the antenna setup. The 160m plan is still in flux.

Radio Time

As said earlier very little time with the radios in QSO mode, but of course some qsos in the log.

Three new IOTAs from P29 IOTA island hopping pedition P29NI. The band conditions have been reasonable and thaks to SM6CVX in the team they have been on the right bands at the right time to provide the new IOTAs to Scandinavia. Big Thank You for remembering us up here! Unfortunately, due to travelling I missed the Lihir OC-069.

Vatican

On Sunday when I got back home with the tower #2 I turned on the radio and noticed a big pileup on 15m band. That was HV0A, Francesco from Vatican. I do have Vatican in the log but not for this year so this was definitely must to work. Since it was SSB I decided to go QRO and heat up my amp. The split was running 10k wide. While the amp was heating I tried to listen the pileup. His antenna was beaming stateside and he was taking lots of Gs, DLs, and of course Ws and VEs. The Ws were coming from the back of my beam so when the amp was ready I was still with no clue where he was actually listening. He was +20 on my S-meter so my guess was that if I hit to his passband I will be at least +20 and getting through. I set the XIT to about 4 up, gave my call once and he came back "OH3 59". I repeated my call and we exchanged the reports. That was a lucky catch.

T30PY Aftermath

T30PY pedition is over. Total number of QSOs exceeds 40k according to their website..

The band conditions have been reasonably good, but the produced signal to OH has been quite disappointing. The unusually thin OH participation in the Clublog charts tells the sad story.

So I think some aftermath from the "customer" point of view is in place.

First I want to stress this is not a complaint. I had my QSO with the pedition and got T30PY to my log and my call is listed in the clublog. I was looking forward the QRP qso, but there was no opportunity to even try.

1. Band conditions

As I already wrote the band conditions were reasonable. SFI was in steady raise (120+) and K stayed low during the pedition. So the conditions were reasonable.

K indexes for the period of the pedition (source NOAA):

day16  17  17  18  20  21  22  23  24
K*  1    2    1    1    0    0    0    2    1 

*)Daily K average calculated from 3 hour average by me

The VOACAP calculation that I did earlier was for QRP assuming the optimal placement of their VDAs. I redid the calculation with the more recent knowledge about the antenna placement and the picture did not get any better. The best opportunity was on 15m between 8z-11z and propability 50%. In a pileup situation this is pretty much hopeless.

The best propagation between OH and T30 is during the normal office hours, when people are at work. Looking back the calendar there was only one weekend during the pedition (Sat 20, Sun 21). I think this had a significant impact to OH land participation.

    2. Antenna placement

The common agreement is that on island DX the VDAs are the way to go. 9M4SLL (Spratly) did outstanding job with simple multiband verticals placed very close to the ocean so expectation for T30 was al
The T30PY main antenna according to their website was:

• Big IR SteppIR 6-80m mounted near the water

There is good deal of wisdom available about what that "near water" must be for saltwater vertical to really come alive. Team Vertical has done numerous studies what is the right placement for verticals near salt water. The empirical result is 1/4 wave lenght or closer to the ocean! Very interesting reading is the study they conducted in 1998(!!) Quote from their study (appeared in CQ): "As the vertical was moved back from the water, there was little change until we came close to 1/4 wavelength from the water. At that point there was a 3 dB increase in signal level!"

So I take that the antenna selection was the right one.

The placement what I see from the pictures from their website was not optimal shoreline 1/4 lambda, but further inland, so this may have impacted the signal strength both ways.

3. Pedition focus

Cross review of band activity and propagation to OH based on cluster spots found from DX Summit archives.

As can be found from Voacap forecast the best propagation is between 6am-12 on the high bands, so lets see where they were and for QRP it had to be CW.

T30YP: 6am - 12am band activity

Oct 16 Tue
30m
17m SSB

Oct 17 Wed
40
30
20 SSB+CW
17 CW

Oct 18 Thu
80
40
30
20 SSB

Oct 19 Fri
160
80
40
20 SSB (lots of EU spots on cluster)

Oct 20 Sat
160
80
40
20 SSB

Oct 21 Sun
160
80
40
30
20 CW

Oct 22 Mon
80
40
30
20 CW + SSB
17 CW
12

Oct 23 Tue
80
40
30
20
17
12
20 CW

Oct 24 Wed
40
20 RTTY :), CW

Summary

Great job on low bands. Lots of activity on 30m, which is very good.

OH-wise the most optimal frequencies and times were not utilized by the T30PY team, which indicates that the Northern Europe was not high in their priority list.

Basically for QRP we can forget all SSB openings. The only viable option would have been Monday to try the QRP qso, but as said that was a work day and I was traveling. So no QRP this time.

I think the ops made good effort asking JA/SA/NA to QRX when working EU.

T30 Propagation Charts QRP

Decided to calculate some propagation maps from EU to T30. T30PY is on air so I wanted to make some preditions on when to watch them. Looking the propagation maps is something I do on regular basis before contests and when DX comes on air.

My main tool for calculating propagations is excellent tool developed by a fellow Finn Jari Perkiömäki OH6BG. The latest propagation indexes are automatically taken into account by this online tool so it is very user friendly to use. Please check it and calculate your own propagation charts!

VOACAP Online Tool

Prediction short path from my QTH to T30.

I did not find antenna information from T30PY team so I calculated with 3 el yagi on their end, which approximates reasonably well to VDA that is commonly used on DX peditions. The tx antenna is 3 el yagi and power is 5 watts QRP with CW as mode. So basically the prediction says that I should be able to make contact with T30PY on 15m beween noon and 3pm my time, with opportunity between 10am to noon as well on that band. Also 17m is potential between 11am till 5pm and short opening on 20m is also possible later in the afternoon.

For comparison I calculated charts for Italy and UK as well (UK left, Italy right).

 

In this particular case UK is fairly close to Finland compared to propagation, but Italy and Balkan region and Russia is significantly better especially on high bands.

Please check the VOACAP Online tool and do your own predictions! 

Lame Duck Antenna

Getting Cold

Last weekend we had Scandinavian Activity Contest (SAC) SSB, where I was planning to participate in QRP category. For the contest I decided to improve my station 80m performance. Everything did not go as planned, especially since all the work had to be done in the evenings when the outdoor temperature was below 5 degrees.

The 80m phased array with two end-fed dipoles was ready on Thursday without remote relay controls. I did on-air tests on Thursday evening and everything was fine. I installed the remote control cables on early Friday morning before leaving for work.

Unfortunately, I started feeling ill during the day, got fever in the afternoon and lost my voice in the evening. What a bummer! Needless to say that I was forced to skip the SSB contest.

I will detail the antenna construction step by step, lessons learned, and the system setup I was using to cosntruct the phased array.

I named the antenna based on the radiation pattern that resembles a duck (at least remotely):

This picture was generated with EZNEC+ v. 5.0.

The "lame" part of the name I return in my later posts.

QRP: 4U1VIC by DxCoffee

4U1VIC on air DxCoffee style

Team DXCoffee activated UN building in Vienna from 4U1VIC (Vienna International Center). For DXCC this counts as Austria, but this is a separate entity for WAE award by DARC.

The band conditions were absolutely horrible. At the times the station was below the noise and barely audible. They were running SSB and callign CQ lonely when I found them. Working the station with 5 watts seemed to be impossible, but I left my radio on the frequency. Suddenly, the band opened and the station was coming S9+10. I gave all out effort with the voice that I had left and used the QRP as part of the call to get their attention. It worked. Giving my call a few times with different ways they finally managed to copy it correctly from the noise. New WAE entity was in the log in QRP style. Congratulations for the DxCoffee team for the activation and making this possible. Great ears, hi!

QRP: Rodrigues Island by HB9FR Radio 7 Team

The pedition came on air on Monday afternoon.

HB9ICC         14145.0 3B9SP       Start operation !  up 5            1720 15 Oct   Rodriguez Island

I tried to work them late in the evening on 40 with no luck. The propagation was not the best possible with lots of QRN as well. I gave up maybe a bit too quickly but I felt really tired so I went to bed.

On Tuesday I checked that they had a station running SSB on 10 but nothing on 15 and nothing CW. I figured they might come on air soon with CW and my bet was on the 15. Sometimes my HAM friends ask me how is it possible to work DX peditions with 5 watts through a pileup. Well.. the best way to work them QRP is to be there first before pileups mount. This was the case with 3B9SP as well. I had radio on 15, keyer ready, splits programmed, antenna pointing to 3B9 and all my scanners running on 15 waiting for station to come on air. This time the waiting was short. Less than 30 minutes waiting and scanning the bands before any cluster spots appear. I was not the first one to work them on 15, but I think I worked them QRP less than 2 minutes after their first CQ on 15.

I think the op was still familiarizing himself with the radio and how to control split since he was asking up, but at the same time running QRH simplex. This is quite unusual method of working split and I felt a bit unsure was it really a 3B9SP or a pirate that I worked, but just a couple of calls after me HB9DAX a well known QRP DXer called his countrymen and had a short qso. The op there id'd himself as HB9BQP who is listed as one of the team members on the DX website. So I felt confident that it was a real deal. Just 10 minutes later he started running split, so I guess he was just getting used to a new radio.

Not a Good One

Band conditions have been challenging over the past couple of days. Friday was reasonably good and I managed to log 7Z7AB IOTA AS-190 new one running QRP. Pileup was quite big since this IOTA group has never been activated before.

The Conway Reef exepdition team is on the way back home. Many stations are active from Fiji. Saturday morning brought a very nice surprise when conditions were really good between OH and Fiji on 20m band. Working 3D2GC with 5 watts proved to be quite a challenge but after an hour of finding the right spot in the pileup I managed to log him.

Good operators work small signals! Great ears and very nice CW (op. LZ1GC)!

5U6E Not A Good One

I worked 5U earlier on RTTY with QRO. Band conditions on 10 were not great, but the signal was coming S7 to my 4 el yagi. Not much happening on the bands, so I decided to try to hone my skills and try to get 5U to the log with 5 watts.
I spent more than hour in the pileup trying and trying, tanking my call with no success. The pileup was 7k wide and many south europeans going through. The signal started going down around 14:30z when the darkness started creeping in. The 10m closes quite rapidly up here at this time of the year so I knew I had less than 15 minutes left before the band would be dead.

5U has appeared on the bands quite sporadically, so this could be my last chance to work 5U this year on 10. I decided to switch on my small transistor linear giving 250w out and 3S-units boost to my signal.

He worked two stations before my call came back OH3T ?.
I sent my call once to confirm and his report with TU, expecting to get my 5NN report and TU. But no, all I got as return was TU 5U6E UP.

So, did I work him? Yes I did. Am I in his log? I am sure about that.
Did I get my report? No I did not.

So technically speaking this was not a good contact, since I do not have my report.

I am thinking two option why I did not get the 5NN.

1. Since working mostly QRP and with more or less standard 20WPM QRP speed my rig is in semi break in, with delay 600ms. So it is possible that he sent 5nn that I never heard.
2. More propable explanation is that he moved on to work the next station since he is expecting to hear his report AFTER he has sent mine. Now, instead of sending the report he send the question mark and since I was the wiseguy and sent his report before getting mine the protocol was broken.

But.. why the question mark and not 5NN in the first place?

A good practice is to send a report if you have something that resembles a call.
Not a question mark.

Hunting TT8TT QRP on 10

Good Morning, Long Path Open

Yesterday morning there was a very nice opening on long path between EU and VK/ZL. I was hoping similar conditions would be today. And sure enough. Running QRP I logged couple of VKs and best of all ZL2IFB who was calling CQ at 14.060 i.e. in QRP window. He was on qso when I found him. Unfortunately, there was lots of QRM happening and tail ending during his qso so I was losing hope to make the qso. Once his qso was over it was utter chaos. Many QRO stations calling without listening. They kept calling and calling.

As I tried to work Gary already yesterday I thought he might make a quick QSY up or down. I first checked up.. nothing, then down and there he was calling CQ. I gave my call three times and he got me. We had a nice QSO. I later found out that he had worked quite a few low power EU stations so the conditions on 20 were really exceptional.

TT8TT With 5 Watts

TT is reasonably easy to work from OH-land. I have many contacts but none running QRP. So I was putting lots of hope for this pedition. Great ops copy small signals. Maybe it was a bit too early to give it a shot, since pileups have been massive, but since conditions were really nice on 10 today I decided to try. If nothing else more practice in cracking pileups with small power.
The op was great. Worked systematically the pileup, copied calls without the need to give call twice and the runrate was very nice. There was suprisingly little qrm happening, so it was very smooth. I was able to listen the pileup and follow the previous callers and zero my calls right on the frequency to his passband.
He went systematically up and I was following. When he started over from bottom I followed. Half way up on the second go he finally copied my call and all time new one on QRP was in the log. All this in 20 minutes.

It get better than that!

Right after my QSO. I went to their online log and my qso was already there.

... and even better.

I requested direct QSL, paid the fees via paypal, made a small donation, and got emails back confirming all this.

I think the Italian DXpedition Team is going to set the bar very high for peditions to come.

The picture below is a screenshot from my Flex 1500 PowerSDR software. This is live from TT8TT pileup from my QTH with my 3 el yagi. Pileup is almost 10k wide!

Lonely ZD9UW

Once I got my paperwork done from TT I checked the band conditions to Tristan de Cunha. The rumor was that this would be the last day of operations. I checked from the excellent DXsummit cluster the previous known frequency for ZD9 and that was on 10. I tuned my Flex to 28.460 and there he was. Lonely calling CQ with signal barely audible above the S5 noise level. No callers, just lonely calling CQ. The band conditions had started quickly dropping from what they were just 30 minutes ago when I worked TT. Fast decision. Heat the big amp, change of station from QRP to QRO, change of antenna connections. The amp was already on 10 and tuned for the antenna system that I was going to use. Tuned my TS-590 to correct QRG, set the split while amp was heating up. The band was really dropping fast. Yes, green light finally. No time to check, just give it a go. Gave my call once. He came immediately back with 55 report. ZD9 in the log.

RYRYRY

I don't like RTTY. I prefer PSK or even JT65HF. I have worked quite a bit of RTTY but for some reason, it is not my favourite modes. Maybe it is the software issue, just have not found software I like. For QRP work it is very nice when band conditions are good, but when band is down it is just awful to get a decent copy. It is also very prone to QRM and lids. When working RTTY it is brute force that rules. I know people who have destroyed their amps on RTTY contests. 

And so it was with 5U. Brute force. Back to QRO station. Practically all the digimode QSOs over past several months I had done with my Flex, so getting everything organized i.e. ALC, mig gain, TX DSP processing off, etc. was a bit of a hassle. I tuned the rig manually to 10m RTTY and found the 5U5U. The copy was mediocre at best. For checking the audio level I decided to call with amp on standby. Nothing happened. The USB connection between TS-590 and my PC had died. Great.. reboot that was. When the PC came back alive the station had vanished.

After few minutes he came back, but now on 15. So I QSYd to check the validity of cluster spot, and there he was. Big signal on 15, excellent copy. I tuned the amp and set the split to +2500. Less than 10 calls, and 5U was in the log.

It took more time to set everything up than work the station. I don't like RTTY.

3D2C Hunt Continues

Finally the conditions were favourable. Last day of the pedition, K-index low, massive pileups have calmed down a bit, several 3D2C stations still running parallel further reducing the competition.

I checked the 10m first that was open, but the signals were a tad below the threshold to give serious try with 5 watts. On the other hand the 15m sounded really good. Propagation was reasonable and the noise on the band was below S1. I was really hoping that similar conditions would be on Conway Reef for him to be able to copy my signal.

When I got to 15 the pileup was just starting. I tried several times, but unfortunately the pileup was still mounting bigger and bigger. The operator was very good and systematic, so I was able to follow the progress and basically zero my calls to his bandpass most of the time at least. Still no luck. Either my signal was too low on his rx vs. the background noise, or just too much competition still. I decided to have a break.

I came back to the radio after couple mugs of coffee an hour later. I noticed that the conditions were still good but his signal level had dropped a bit. The pileup was still running 8k wide but there were noticeable areas of very little action on the bandscope. I found his frequency with ease and was able to follow several previous callers and zero my calls. I tried calling immediately from the same QSX and plus a bit above, where he was moving. Multiple tries, but he picked always someone else. No luck. Then suddenly he gave a twist to VFO and QSYd. But where?

I found him 3kcs down almost immediately from the "calm area of the pileup". The previous station was just signing with the 5nns. I zeroed to his signal and moved XIT just above. Gave my call twice. Nothing. Gave it once more. And suddenly he came back with my call and customary 5nn. I have to say I was a little startled first and fumbled with my keyer, but managed to send the report and tu back.

Big TU to 3D2C team. That was all time new one on QRP.

THANK YOU!! BIG HAND!!

http://www.yt1ad.info/3d2c/

Terrible band conditions

On Monday morning everything was coloured red.

Major strom, K-index peaking 7. Some strong EU stations on 20, but very little action elsewhere.
Some reports on cluster about Conway, but nothing heard in my antennas.

In the afternoon the conditions improved. Logged 7T50I/P pedition with SSB 5 watts.

In portable on Rechgoun Island and lighthouse

IOTA AF-94

Found 8P6DR calling CQ on 20 with very nice signals. Got him to the log /qrp as well.

I was listening T6JC earlier on 15 when he was working lots of JAs, but the signal was very weak. Way too weak to work QRP. I checked him an hour later just to find the signal had improved to S7+. He was running split. After a couple of calls he came back to OH2?, repeat, OH3?, repeat OH3?, speed down, OH3T?, I gave rr and report and he came back with my call and report. Excellent op. (S57J) http://www.s57j.byethost14.com/ at the helm of the T6JC.

I was listening 3D2C on 20 when massive signal came on air. That was peaking +35 on my S-meter. Hard to miss on the band scope a bit above the pileup. That was LZ1814MIS, a new saint from the "All Bulgarian Saints - 2012" http://www.balkanclub.org/awards.htm Balkan contest club award. Yes it was the first of October and time for a new saint. I worked him with the first call, once he got the keyer programmed. Some initial hassles obviously.

Later in the evening I was calling CQ on 20m but got very little action. I checked from RBN that my qrp signal was 10dB over at VE2 on 20. I got some calls back from EU. A UU7 (?) was calling me but I could not copy the full call. Sri OM if you are reading this.

10m wide open on Friday

Last Friday was really great on 10m. Band was wide open with background noise on S1-level and below in my QTH.

Logged CT9, CU3, ZS2, VU2, 6Y, IS0, NE8 among many other regular ones with 5 watts or less on 10m both SSB and CW. I was really happy when I managed to get through to ZS2 with SSB and there were quite a few stations calling. He was peaking +15 on my S-meter.

Tibet Autonomous Region of China

I worked also the Chinese pedition to Tibet Autonomous Region of China, the BY1WXD/0. Very nice signals to EU on 10. They are active until the Sunday next weekend.

CQ CQ de 6Y5..

In the the afternoon my time I turned the antenna towards Caribbean to check if 10m opening would provide any surprises. And sure enough.. 6Y5WJ was calling CQ with no takers. I called him a couple of times with no reply. I rechecked the radio only to find that my split was for 3D2C, that I was hunting earlier. Great, no wonder there was no reply. I quickly synchronized the VFOs and gave my call. He came back immediately. After few more callers the massive pileup mounted and he started running split.

3D2C QRP Hunt Continues

So far, no luck with Conway Reef in QRP. The pileups are still massive.
I have noted lots of complaints about missing qsos in Clublog. Problem with the satellite phone. My one QSO that I made in the beginning of the pedition is fortunately in the log. So in case I decide to send my antry to CQ DX Marathon that one is covered. They will QRT early Wednesday so that leaves lots of hopes for Monday and Tuesday.

QRO fun with 3D2C and V73

Conway Reef expedition came on the bands yesterday. I turned on the radio in the morning before work to check the bands and sure the Coway was lound on 10m SSB but as usual in the beginning of the dxpedition the pileup was huge and I really did not have that much time to put effort on 10m and SSB which is not my favourite mode.

V73 @15 CW

After emails I checked the cluster and noticed that V73 was there on 15m CW but not very loud in the morning my time. I decided to wait for a while to see if conditions would improve and started reading emails. Unfortunately, the band conditions remained the same with slow deep QSB kicking in every now and then rendering the signal barely audible.

During lunch time I decided to heat up the big amp and give it a try, since there was no demand and I was planning to work Conway guys as well. I was surprised to find V73 lonely. Maybe everybody were on that big 10m pileup trying to get through. V73 kept on calling CQ lonely while the amp was heating up. I QSYd to clear QRG, tuned the amp, checked the output power to about 1kW.

Sure enough he was still there calling CQ with nobody coming back. I waited the anticipated QSB period and sent my call twice. He came back, but heck.. the QSB ate my report. Decided to give my call once again to signal that I did not get good copy. And as expected he came back again with my call and 559 report. Good op. I sent the stamp RR TU back with his report and 73s, put the amp on standby.

3D2C @20 CW

I had my Flex 1500 QRP rig on 20m and was following the progress on the pileup. The pileup was more than 10kHz wide with lots of OH stations getting to the log. Many familiar calls among those whose station setup I know, so the propability of working Conway was reasonably high.

I turned off my QRP rig, went back to my TS-590 and the big gun that was already warm from the V73. This time I set the tx to 1.5kW. I planned to play it smart first and find his QSX and zero my signal there. This plan failed miserably. I tried to listen the pileup and get a hint where he was listening, but since most of the callers going through at my lunchtime were JAs it was tough to follow the original plan.

Since I had been monitoring the pileup already for quite some time I had a feeling that he was moving pretty fast in the pileup and picking the strong signals from the pack. So plan b that was. I decided to find more or less a clean frequency (about 7 up) and start calling. This operational mode is something I dislike doing, but it was lunchtime and no time to play cat and mouse games. I just hate working blind. I kept on sending my call with the rythm the op introduced. For some reason his runrate was clearly slower what I earlier counted in the morning. Maybe they changed the op, maybe conditions changed, or op just getting tired. I don't know.

I stayed on the same frequency propably five minutes, calling and calling. Usually he came back with a call and report after a period that lasted two of my calls (so that was the rythm). This time it was different. I gave my call standard two times and waited. Nothing. I sent my call once again. He sent OH3? back. OK, now I was pretty sure I had him in my sight. I sent my call twice and he came back with the expected reply. I sent back my standard stamp reply, got the TU back.

Back to QRP

Now the real challenge with 3D2C begins. That QRO QSO was expectedly easy with nice yagi up in tower and big amp. The real challenge is to get Conway to the log with 5 watts! At least I am going to give it a serious try.

Welcome!

I have been planning to set up a blog for a while. So here it goes...

The initial idea for the blog:

• share thoughts on status of HAM radio today
• notes and discoveries from the bands
• discussion on antennas, technology, propagation, products, etc. related to amateur radio.

So pretty much all around with no strict guidelines. Go with the flow.. hee.

My passion is QRP, peditions, science of propagation and antennas.

Welcome, I hope you will find this both educating and entertaining.

72 de oh3t