Many thanks to Luca (IW2EPE) 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.
My (tr)uSDX Field Radio Kit
by Luca (IW2EPE)
My POTA kit is assembled around the (tr)uSDX radio. I am a hunter and I have only been a fox this last summer but with poor results. However, I would like to try again with this kit because I think it can do it.
The weight of the kit is approximately 1kg.
The kit consists of:
- Radio (tr)uSDX cw ssb capable of working on 20/17/15/12/10 m. I only use the 20m with 3w of power.
- EFHW mini tuner antenna by QRPguys. This is a nice simple and efficient product.
- QRPguys dummy load.
3-cell 2200 maH lipo battery, type used in model aircraft. - 5v power bank to test the connection in wspr.
- Sony headphones.
- Homemade condenser microphone.
- Homemade RF choke.
- Smarthpone with some apps like FT8CN and wspr.
- About 15m of 4mm nylon rope.
Lastly I also added the home-made DS1 antenna from QRPguys. This is my version and is not an original kit.
You need more power. I too have been having difficulty with even POTA chasing from home with five watts. There seem to be too many other chasers or park to park activators that I have to wait till the end of a long line of high power stations before they hear me. At home I have been using a G5 RV up 25 feet and five up to 10 W SSB.
That doesn’t mean not to keep trying and with CW you will probably do a little better than me. But it’s all part of the game. Don’t give up and keep trying new things. A dipole thrown up between the trees is still better than a vertical for most activations, at least in my experience over the years. An end fed antenna is about in between.
Something you might consider, David, to optimize your QRP punch in SSB is to work on your TX audio if you haven’t already. It can have a dramatic impact on your ability to be heard on the other end without applying more power. When I’m at home and using my KX2 or KX3, I use a Heil Pro set designed for Elecraft radios. I tailored my TX EQ (with a friend’s help–you could also by using a remote WebSDR) and it was a difference of night and day. A little compression added after also makes a huge difference.
Also, I move just a wee bit off frequency so my SSB sounds slightly different in tone than the other chasers (I do the same in CW). It’s amazing how well you’ll punch through doing this.
Bob Heil has a number of presentations online about how proper audio EQ equates to a much stronger and more effective signal.
Just a thought! 🙂
Cheers,
Thomas
Hi David, thanks for the advice, I’m a power minimalist. The CW will be a good challenge for me.