Monday, April 3, 2023

Damage to receiver with CW Flea, amplified?

Jo F5NFB recently asked if there might be any harm to his receiver by using a 5-watt amplifier with his CW Flea transmitter.

The CW Flea is a 3-band CW QRPp transmitter for 20, 30 and 40 meters. It has onboard RF connections to a user's receiver-of-choice and to the antenna which is common to both the Flea and the receiver with T/R switching performed by the Flea.

Since any outboard RF amp would be downstream of both the transmitter and the receiver, I didn't see any way that a 5-watt amp might be problematic but I suggested that Jo confirm this with the CW Flea's designer, Harry SM7PNV.

In the meantime, this question gave me an excuse to measure any "leakage" output of the CW Flea that connects to the receiver.

Not shown in the photos is my step attenuator, placed in series with the Flea's "RX" connection and the tinySA used to measure the RF at this output when transmitting. I initially placed 30dB of attenuation at the input to the tinySA - just in case.

This turned out not to be necessary.

RF output (on 20m) going from the CW Flea to the connected receiver is -34.1 dBm. This is S9 + 40dB - a strong signal but not a harmful one.

Barefoot, the CW Flea produces a -34.1 dBm signal to the receiver

Saturday, April 1, 2023

Video: mcHF working split to get V26EI on two bands

After yesterday's operation with the X6100, I dug out my mcHF to remind myself what great rig it is.

This morning, with mcHF, paddles and coffee side-by-side (the perfect trifecta) I heard V26EI booming in on 20m CW. 

He was operating split, listening up about 2kHz, working mostly Europeans, who I could hear weakly - but good enough to know where V26EI was listening.

A push of the SPLIT button puts the mcHF in that mode and I toggled VFO's back and forth a few times to get my transmit VFO exactly where I wanted it - in this case, right on the frequency of a French station just worked.

They were also on 17m, quite loud.

Five watts into a 1/4-wave whip in the yard/garden and my love for the mcHF is rekindled. It's a keeper.

Fittingly enough, the V26EI is comprised of a group of Irish ops (hence the suffix) - and in my town two hours later, a group of Irish dancers were putting on a show. I was reminded of a Mitch Hedburg quote... 

directly on YouTube here


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Three Florida parks install permanent antennas for POTA

Fire tower or vertical antenna? Both!
In an effort to attract more visitors to its parks, the Florida Parks & Wildlife Department recently announced that three parks in the state will be testing the idea of having permanent antennas installed for use by POTA operators.

According to Maria Frolicworth (callsign pending), head of Florida P&W's Central Region, POTA ops account for 12% of all visitors to the parks.

"We'd like to accommodate this very substantial demographic - and even increase it if we can!" Maria stated, with unbridled optimism.

"We've seen it all - wires in trees, kite-borne wires and RV's galore - bedecked with whips, wires and loops. Somewhere along the way, we thought, "We can do better'".

Thursday, March 30, 2023

X6100 activation of K-5220


I took the X6100 on its maiden voyage today. Prior to that, I worked several stations on both phone and CW from the home station, all with an external battery so as to provide a 10W output.

More than anything else, the X6100 makes me appreciate the IC-705 and the Elecraft KX2.

If you have one of those two radios (or, perhaps, others) and you begin to take them for granted, buy an X6100.

My one-sentence impression of the X6100 is: It has a lot of features, many of which are poorly implemented.

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Xiegu X6100 arrives, works DXpedition

My new Leetle Fren' arrived today and I wasted no time putting it through its paces on CW.

I also tried the latest fashion in alternative firmware, from the Oleg Collection R1CBU. In fact, he updated it today. Works like a charm but I reverted back to Xiegu's firmware soon after, knowing that I need to learn it first.

Several CW contacts went into the log, even with my jake-leg antenna (working on that).

Then I saw CY0S, the Sable Island DXpedition, spotted on 10m phone and thought, "Why not - the rig came with a mic..."

Receive audio from the little riglet sounds great and the built-in ATU works quite well. 

 

On YouTube here

 

 

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