Resurrecting an Old Friend

Posted on April 15, 2026 by robert

My success with the KX3 activation a few days ago made me dust off an Elecraft K1 transceiver that I built a decade ago as a kit.  The K1 is a 5 watt CW QRP transceiver, and came in a 4-band or 2-band version.  By the time I was making my K1, they had run out of 4-band options, so I made mine for 30m and 20m.  I also made the internal antenna tuner.

Sure enough the radio still worked, and the only thing I had to do was adjust the VFO calibration, which was about 300Hz low.  With that done, the rig produced 4 watts with a 12.1 VDC input, and 4.8 watts with 13.0 VDC.  Close enough to 5 watts for me.

In the photo above, I was using a USB-C power bank to run the radio using the 12.0 volt USB-C to barrel connector adapter.

Conditions weren’t great today on 20m.  Lots of slow deep fades.  Nevertheless four stations picked me up on the RBN – not a booming signal, of course, but not bad for 4 watts.

I plan to use this for a POTA, but will try to use my full 17′ whip (not the hamstick).

Posted in K1, QRP | Leave a comment

Opening Season for POTA (and fishing)

Posted on April 13, 2026 by robert

Entrance to Silver Spring US-10547

Yesterday I shook off my long-lasting winter blues and headed out for my first activation of 2026.  This was a shakedown trip to make sure I wouldn’t completely mess things up while testing a few new things.  I drove all of 3 miles to a near-by park, Silver Spring State Recreational Area, US-10547.

For gear, I decided to use my Elecraft KX3, which hadn’t been on an activation in recent memory, a small external battery so I could measure the total power consumed, my 20 meter Hamstick with MagMount, and a Begali Magnetic Traveler Light, with leg strap (which worked very well and eliminated the entire issue of “where will I put the paddle?”).

Elecraft KX3 running 5 watts CW. I used an external battery so I could measure total power consumption

The Begali Paddle was strapped to my leg

A MFJ 20m Hamstick (no longer available, but there are a few clones like the Moonraker 12-062)

With the power set to 5 watts, I started the activation by searching for other stations to bump up my Park-to-Park count.  That actually took the most amount of time, about 25 minutes, to work 6 other stations in parks.  I then started calling CQ POTA and it took 9 minutes for 8 stations to answer my call.  With 14 stations in the log I decided to call it quits.

Spots shown on the Reverse Beacon Network for my station. Propagation wasn’t great into the US, but was cracking into Europe.

When I recharged the battery, it took 0.76 amp-hours to refill.  While I was in transmit for about 35 minutes (0.45 AH), the rig was actually powered on receiving for almost 2 hours (0.3 AH).

Incidentally, it happened to be opening day for fishing, and there were lots of happy kids (and adults) catching trout.  I sat in the park for a couple of hours enjoying the nice weather and the happy fishermen.

The six stations I hunted initially bumped my Park to Park total up to 100

Posted in Activation, From the OM, HamStick, KX3, P2P, Paddle, POTA | Leave a comment

Hunting for Pebbles

Posted on April 13, 2026 by robert

Pebble in use in the field. Photo credit Thomas K4SWL

A number of years back, my club had a built night that centered around an inexpensive 40m QRP rig called the Pixie.  It’s one redeeming value was it was CHEAP (< $10), so new hams wouldn’t be too bummed out if it didn’t work.  I suppose if I was being completely honest, it did work, in a fashion.  The receiver was terrible as documented here.  And the TX failed the FCC harmonics standards.  Even so, almost two dozen folks built them, and a few hardy folks actually made contacts with them.

Ever since then we have been looking for a new QPR kit for another build night, with a different criteria – it must actually perform well enough to be useful.  Of course it needs to be simple to build and not a budget buster. Enter the Pebble.

The pebble is the passion project of the Ham Radio Duo: Mike N4FFF and Becky N4BKY.  If you watch their YouTube describing the Pebble, you will discover that part of the inspiration for the project was the Pixie!  They should be available in kit form for around $50, sometime in the next few months.  You can sign up to indicate your interest, and find information on ordering one here.

I learned of the Pebble from a fantastic source of information for QRP fanatics created by Thomas K4SWL – QRPer.com I’ve been following Thomas for awhile now, and have him in my HamAlert trigger list.  On March 17th, I worked K4SWL and discovered, after he posted details about his activation on his QRPer.com blog, that he was using the Pebble!  Look at the entry at the bottom of the photo below.

I’m in K4SWL’s activation log – Contact #10 at the bottom of the page! (Photo Credit: Thomas K4SWL)

Of course I’ve indicated my interest in buying a kit, and check Becky & Mike’s website daily.  I can’t wait to have my own Pixie to Pixie QSO.

Posted in HF, Pebble, Pixie, POTA, QRP | Leave a comment

2026 Hurricane Season Forecast

Posted on April 9, 2026 by robert

Due to the anticipated influence of El Nino (warmer than average water in the equatorial pacific), the anticipated number of Atlantic hurricanes is somewhat lower than average.

This is Bob’s broken record – the time to prepare for the hurricane season is now, when the weather is nice an calm.  Get those generators tuned up, and work on your plan, should we find ourselves in Nature’s path this year.

Posted in From the OM, Weather | Leave a comment

At last!! 2,000 Unique POTA Parks

Posted on April 6, 2026 by robert

Today, I finally crossed the 2,000 unique hunted park marker.  It’s been a minute for sure.  The first 1,000 came pretty quickly, even the first 1,500.  But things have slowed down quite a bit.

While I’m happy about it, in the scheme of POTA, it really isn’t a big deal.  There are about 39,500 hams who have hunted at least 10 parks.  Almost 2,000 hams have hunted over 2,000 parks.  But the top hunter has worked 24,693 unique parks.

POTA-ON to the next 500 unique parks!

Posted in Awards, Hunter, POTA | Leave a comment

Voltage Reducer for QMX/QCX

Posted on March 19, 2026 by robert

One of the warning that come with the QMX/QMX+/QCX transceivers from QRP-Labs is that the supply voltage should be limited to 12 volts.  In Ham speak that might be anywhere from 12 to 14 volts, but they mean 12 volts NOT 13.8.

I’ve done a couple of adapters with diodes to drop the voltage from a typical LiFePO4 battery pack, but that seemed kind of wonky.  I discovered that there are plenty of vendors of voltage specific USB-C to 5.5mm barrel connectors;  They convince a USB-C supply to output voltages like 9V/10V/12V/15V, etc.

I purchased a pack of four 12v versions from from Amazon for $9.  I already had an Anker Nano Power Bank with attached USB-C cable.  It is rated to supply up to 2.5 amps at 12 volts, and has a capacity of 36 Watt-hours.

The QCX series consumes about 0.5 amps at 12v, and the QMX+ draws about 0.7 amps, so this is well under the 2.5 amp rating of the battery bank.

I haven’t noticed any switching noise on 20 or 30 meters, so it seems to be an effective setup.

One word of warning: Plugging the USB-C to 5.5mm adapter onto the power bank will keep the power bank turned on.  So be sure to remove the USB-C cable from the adapter to avoid discharging your battery  (According to the Anker display it will drain the battery after 53 hours)

Anker Nano Power Bank with USB-C to 5.5mm 12V adapter on its cable

Close-up of USB-C to 5.5mm 12V adapter

The pair make for a pretty small power supply for the QMX/QCX. I haven’t tried it yet with my KX3, but suspect it will be just fine at the 10 watt level with the latest firmware updates installed.

Posted in QCX-mini, QMX, QMX+ | Leave a comment

More exciting than Bouvet? K4SWL QRP POTA!

Posted on March 6, 2026 by robert

By now it should be obvious that I’m somewhat obsessed with POTA. When the weather or health doesn’t allow me to get outside, I hunt, or listen to podcasts and read posts from activators.

I first ran across Thomas K4SWL back in February of 2022 and have worked him about a dozen times since.  Each new contact is always a treat to me because I know he is a QRP guy.  This year I discovered he runs a website QPRer.com, and is a frequent co-host of the Ham Radio Workbench podcast.  I find his reviews of QRP radios and equipment to be very insightful.

Thomas adds posts of his activations to his website, and this one can be found here.  He frequently posts YouTube videos of his activations as well, and the link to this one can be found here.  It’s always a treat to hear yourself at the other end of a QSO, and mine comes up at about the 24 minute mark.

I really appreciate Thomas for his activations and sharing his joy of QRP with the world.

Proudly in the log of K4SWL on his Feb 17 QRP activation of US-2755

Posted in Activation, KH1, Portable, POTA, QRP, QRPer | Leave a comment

Bouvet Island – 3Y0K

Posted on March 6, 2026 by robert

I guess I consider myself slightly above a casual DXer.  I’ve already got some nice wallpaper like 9BDXCC, but I’m nowhere near DXCC Honor Roll, having just 284 confirmed countries.  In the past four years I have only added 8 new ones.

I knew Bouvet Island was coming up this year, and used KP5/NP3VI to dust off my rusty skills.  Man, that lulled me into a false sense of security because they had been on the air for about 40 days by the time I worked them.  So the pileups were small.

So I went hunting for Bouvet with false hopes.  On the first two days, the signals were weak and the pileups were massive.  I honestly don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like it in 15 years of DXing.  I spent about 5 hours one day trying to work them on 40m CW – a fools errand on their first or second day.  Then I discovered that 40m FT8 was producing good signals between 11 PM and 3 AM local time.  I spend another 6 hours or so without luck, watching many stations that I had heard in the nights before work them over and over again.

Finally at 1:16AM local time this morning, I was lucky enough to complete a contact with them.  Signal levels were decent (about -15 for both of us), proving yet again that 100 watts and a wire can work the world.

My thanks to the DXpedition crew for 3Y0K.  I can’t believe any group of people are willing to spend $1.7 million making a tiny frozen island near Antarctica radio active!

Posted in DX, DXCC | Leave a comment

POTA Progress

Posted on March 1, 2026 by robert

I’ve made quite a bit of progress toward 2,000 unique parks in the month of February, despite losing time to the Blizzard of ’26.  On Jan 1 I was sitting at 1,820 parks.  Two months later I’m up to 1,937.  67 of those have happened in the last two weeks.

Most of my POTA hunting had been on CW and on the weekends.  I discovered that SSB was much more productive, especially on week days.  I suspect this time of year requires dedication and likely means activators are going to somewhat more unusual places (who wants to sit on an ice-covered bench looking at bare trees in the winter).

I’m hopeful that I will be over 2,000 parks before the end of March.

Posted in Hunter, POTA | Leave a comment

Desecheo Island KP5/NP3VI

Posted on February 26, 2026 by robert

For whatever reason, I sort of stopped chasing DX a couple of years ago.  There are only so many hours in a day, and it can sometimes takes hours of patiently trying to contact a rare DX station.  I knew that Desecheo Island had been on the air for weeks and would be an All Time New One (ATNO) for me, but I ignored it.

Until last night, that is, after some discussion of DX on our local 75-meter net.  Right after the net, I contacted KP5/NP3VI on 30-meter CW.  Later today, I worked them on 10/12/17-meter CW and 20-meter SSB as well.

Imagine my surprise when I found all contacts had already been uploaded into LotW!

Check out the official website here:  https://desecheo2026.com/kp5/ 

There are excellent tools showing real-time QSOs as well as the status of the remote island station.

Posted in DX, DXCC | Leave a comment