QRP portable on PSK31 - five watts and five QSOs!

The car at Red Mountain with the antenna on the roof.

This evening after work I finally got a chance to test my new portable set-up for real. Previously, I had only tested it in the main shack connected to my home antennas. But today I wanted to give it a REAL test. So I took the portable station in my car to a hill about two miles from where I live called Red Mountain, just overlooking Donore village in County Meath. I wanted to run five watts only on either digi modes or CW, running off a separate battery, not the car battery. I didn't know what to expect . . . or even if it would work properly, although having tested it at home I felt it would.

It took me a few minutes to get everything out of the box and connected up. Eventually I would like to make a proper "go box", but for now I have to connect all the leads and that's OK. It only took a few minutes. I was using the Watson Multi-Ranger antenna on the roof of the car. I decided to use PSK31 so I didn't bother connecting a mic to the radio, or indeed the K1EL keyer. All I had to do was connect the radio to the battery, the antenna to the ATU, and the Signalink to both the computer and the radio. Oh, and I used the new Icom CI-V interface so that HRD could read the frequency and mode from the rig.

Everything fit on the passenger seat. It was a little uncomfortable because
I had to turn sideways to operate, but it all worked very well.

With all that done, I tuned up and then started CQing on 14.070.85 using just five watts. I was chatting to a couple of the local guys on two metres also. After five minutes of Cqing there was nothing, so I was thinking I might change to CW, but all of a sudden a F5 station was calling me! So I successfully made a QSO with him. I finished, thinking how delighted I was to have successfully made a contact with five watts when a German station called me. I worked him too. Then an Italian called me and I logged him. In total, I worked five stations in half an hour. The last one was the best DX contact - into Ukraine. 

Working DL9KW Karl-Heinz on PSK31 with 5 watts.

It was great fun - and very rewarding. The location helped. The hill falls away steeply towards the east so there would be good take-off into Europe. I packed everything away into the EI2KC portable case with a smile on my face.

I'm hoping to do more portable work soon - perhaps with a couple of the local hams in tow. We could maybe bring a flask of tea and some sandwiches and biscuits and make a nice social event out of it too...

Just a couple of things I need to do for next time. I need to get better clamps or connectors to keep the power lead connected to the battery. I also need to get a shorter RJ45 cable to connect the Signalink to the rig - it's too long currently. 

EI2KC selfie . . . in the car doing QRP PSK.

Trying to work Brazil on 20 metres with 10 watts. Will I make it?

Above is a video I made last night of my attempt to work PV8ADI in Brazil on 20 metres using just 10 watts. Will I make it through with my almost-QRP power? Or will I be just too weak for him to hear? Watch the video to find out.

EJ7NET makes over 4,000 QSOs in three days

It's official. EJ7NET's Gola activation has logged over 4,000 QSOs in less than 72 hours. The station tear-down takes place this evening at around 18:00 local time. We might get a couple of hundred more by then. There was another opening to Japan on 17 metres this afternoon, with about two dozen or so JAs logged.

Rolf operating portable from the cliff tops on Gola Island.

EJ/HB9DGV/P on Gola.

To celebrate our success, the EJ7NET QSL manager for the Gola activity, Rolf HB9DGV, brought his Elecraft KX1 to the top of the cliffs on the western end of the island and made about 30 QSOs as EJ/HB9DGV/P. He was running just 3 watts into a Sota dipole. Two of the QSOs were transatlantic.

While Rolf was up on the summit, accompanied by Declan and Gordon, Liam had a good run on 40 metres SSB, working mainly UK stations, helped by Tony who took over and continued the run.

Dabbling in a bit of JT65 - 10w heard in Japan

Right now, I'm dabbling in a bit of low-power JT65. I was putting out a CQ using JT65-HF (version 1.0.9.3) on 20 metres and, as you can see from PSKreporter.info above, my puny signal was heard in Japan!! Right now, I'm in QSO with W2ZEN (Locator FN30) and he gave me a SNR report of -21. I don't do JT65 very often. In fact, I've only used it a few times, but it is absolutely fascinating. Hopefully I'll get some nice DX tonight. I can't imagine I will make too many contacts though - it takes a full six minutes to complete a QSO properly with this mode!!!

All the stations that heard my 10w JT65 signal,

Interesting QSO with QRP station in Pittsburg - video

I did something last night that I haven't done in ages. I put out a CQ on HF. I was running just 100 watts into the MA5B pointing north west for the States on 18 Mhz SSB and managed to run a bit of a pile-up. During the course of this pile-up, I picked out KB3RHR, Craig in Pittsburg, who was running just 5 watts from a Flex radio. He had a reasonably strong signal, 57 to 59 with QSB. Craig captured our QSO on video in his shack just after setting up his Flex 1500 radio. You can see the video below: