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

Blizzard of ’26

Posted on February 26, 2026 by robert

Ever since I moved to RI in December of 1979, all I ever heard about was the Blizzard of ’78.  It was a horrible storm that immobilized much of New England for many days.

Emergency Management wasn’t really much of a thing back in 1978.  FEMA didn’t even exist until April of the following year (and the Blizzard of ’78 was part of the justification).  Various governors and mayors were late in closing down cities and roads, and by the time people were trying to leave work for home, it was too late.  That lack of planning and procedures, coupled with a New Englander’s tendency to ignore dire weather forecasts, meant that even though the storm ‘only’ dropped 27.6″ of snow, people died in their cars stuck on interstates, and school busses were stranded with children inside.

Beginning this past Sunday February 22, and continuing through Monday evening, the “Blizzard of ’26” struck New England.  Ultimately 37.9″ of snow fell in RI.  That combined with much higher sustained winds and gusts, and wetter snow fall, made it the strongest Blizzard to ever hit the state.  In fact, more snow fell on that day that is usual for the entire year!

While days later, people are still digging out, in reality, despite the impact of the storm, the state has recovered MUCH more quickly.  The governors instituted travel bans and states of emergency.  People stayed home.  As a result, folks didn’t die in their cars, and kids were making snow angles in their yards rather than being stranded in busses.

Although not a formal radio topic, I bring this up because of its impact on infrastructure.  We lost power at about 10:30AM Monday.  Thanks to hard working Rhode Island Energy crews, we had power back by 6:30PM Tuesday.  The total number of power outages and the duration was far lower this time than in ’78.  I was blessed to have a generator and fuel, and all my radio antennas remained in the air.  Our Generator ran from 4:00PM Monday through 7:00PM Tuesday: 27 hours on 3 gallons of gas, supplying power for our heat, refrigeration, lights, internet, and a radon removal fan.

The movie below shows neighbors working together Tuesday afternoon to clear 3 feet of snow from our local roads.

 

 

Posted in EU2000i, Weather | Leave a comment

Progress toward 2000 unique POTA Parks

Posted on February 13, 2026 by robert

I’m thinking something pithy, like as slow as maple sap in the winter – that’s how fast my march toward 2,000  unique  POTA parks is going.  It’s been 44 days, and I’ve worked 50 new parks, bringing the total to 1,870.  In my defense, I was sick as a dog for 21 of those days.  But, realistically, I’ve been hunting about 16 parks to get one new one confirmed.

We will get there someday.  And then the even slower march to 3,000 unique parks will begin!

Posted in POTA | Leave a comment