Many thanks to Phil (KF6IF) who shares the following article about his portable field radio kit which will be featured on our Field Kit Gallery page. If you would like to share your field kit with the QRPer community, read this post. Phil writes:
Hi Thomas,
As requested here is my Elecraft KX2 Field Kit:
Antenna Gear:
- AX-1 homebrew clone
- AXB1 Whip BiPod
- 90 degree BNC connector
- PL259 / BNC connector
- 13′ ground wire with lug
- K6ARK Winder with two 25′ speaker wires, banana plugs, and plastic carabiners
- Double Banana Jack to BNC female Adapter
Operating Accessories:
- MH3 microphone
- Elecraft USB cable
- K6ARK Microphone – homebrewed
- K6ARK Paddle
- Retractable stereo cable
More than anything I keep coming to the conclusion that an effort needs to be made to get YAESU in particular to offer a radio that is at least an equivalent to what they recently discontinued that seems to be so well regarded by this community. FT – 818 I believe it is.
Bad to discontinue a product without a soon available radio as a replacement in your product line.
Or another company seeing the need and filling the gap.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, most especially in a market as vertical as QRP, we’ll presumably get what they feel they can sell at a profit, not what the community wants. Hopefully only the component shortage has delayed a replacement
Gary –
Glad to see you share my view. Thanks, Mike
I’m sure he’ll get some requests for details on the homebrew AX1. Is there a link for that?
Looks great!
Hi Pat,
I brewed one also, see my blog for details and measurements
https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/67928378/posts/4209357257
maybe it helps you out!
73’s PA1RL
Robert,
Your link to me to a WordPress login page. Not sure if it’s me or the link, but I’m interested in learning more about your antenna!
73,
Mike, KL7MJ
Hi Mike & Pat,
I hope this link
https://pseudovoice.wordpress.com/2022/08/22/diy-alternative-for-the-ax-1/
works
73s, Robert PA1RL
Thanks Robert!
THANKS Thomas for this very interesting series of posts.
THANKS Robert for the link to the AX1 article, and THANKS to whoever PseudoVoice is for the fine construction details. While I love my AX1 as much as Thomas loves his, a backup is always a good rainy day project.
Interesting! Many years ago I built a compact vertical that was made to mount directly on the back of my FT-817 using PVC pipe and a telescoping whip. The AX1 didn’t exist back then, so I modeled my design on a Hustler mobile antenna with the short (22 inch) mast, giving me a center loaded design. The coil was tapped with an alligator clip jumper so that between the coil taps and adjusting the length of the whip, I could operate from 30 to 6 meters. There’s nothing new about operating QRP portable with a compact antenna!
This reminded me of a loaded whip I made back in the 80’s. I had just purchased my first wideband scanner an AOR handheld.
I wasn’t very happy with the hf performance on the standard antenna. I wound an 18 in piece of fiberglass rod full of #24 enamel wire,
leaving enough space at the top and bottom for mounting and adding the 36″ telescoping
Next I filled the epoxy off the #24wire. I used very fine file as not to remove to much of the wire in the process.
I placed the rod into the bnc connector and added the epoxy. I had the work the epoxy into the bnc connector. I had already cut one lead off a 5W resistor to attach one end of the coil too, and had placed that in the end of the rod that went into the bnc connector.
The last thing to make was the slider. I used a small bottle cap and drilled a hole just big enough for the coil assembly to fit through.
I found a small piece of copper metal and attached a wire just long enough for the slider to cover the entire coil. I attached the metal slider to the cap and placed it onto the coil assembly.
I attached the far end of the wire to the telescoping antenna.
The system worked better than I expected and tuned from below the 40M band up to above 10M band. Had many hours of fun with that setup. At the time I did not yet have my amateur license.