All posts by Thomas Witherspoon

Field Reports, Guest Posts, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

Brian Activates Allegheny National Forest and Remembers a Dear Friend

8 Comments

Many thanks to Brian (K3ES) who shares the following guest post:

Activation at Allegheny National Forest:  Remembering a Friend

by Brian (K3ES)

The last few weeks have been rough for the K3ES household.  In past activation reports, I introduced you to our two Boston Terriers.  Molly and Jojo came to us as rescue dogs in October 2022, and we have worked hard to help them feel safe and loved.  Unfortunately, both came to us with unexpected health problems.  We were able to get Molly through treatment for heartworm, and she is thriving.  Jojo always had something holding her back, but we were never quite sure what.  We lost her just before Christmas, and that was a real punch in the gut.

Jojo was a special dog.  When we brought her home, she barely weighed 15 pounds.  Even after we managed to build her weight up to 25 pounds, she was still thin for her frame.  She also came to us hunched, cowering, and emotionally traumatized.  It took months for her to start coming out of her shell.  We got glimpses of her as a feisty, and loving dog, who took real joy from laying in the sunshine.  We were hopeful that she would one day come into her own, and give our jubilant Molly a real run for her money.  Sadly, it was not to be.  She had increasing problems with mobility.  We treated her for a bone infection, for possible tick-borne disease, and for joint inflammation.  Steroids and pain medication helped her quality of life a lot.  It was only near the end that the likely culprit was identified as cancer, but even expensive diagnostic tests failed to confirm that.  Finally, her body just crashed, and we had to let her go…

Jojo supervises a truck activation of Allegheny National Forest in March 2023.

Looking back through pictures of Jojo, I discovered some that were taken during a never-reported “truck activation” of Allegheny National Forest (K-0619) back in March, 2023.

I have never thought that my vehicle-based activations were terribly interesting, so I never spent the time to report them.  Suddenly, that particular activation held new meaning, because one of the few times I got Jojo out with me for a POTA activation happened because I was doing a low-impact drive-up, working from the truck.  She rode shotgun, and sat happily in the passenger seat while I made contacts.  Molly sat in the back seat, napping from time to time.  After the radio gear was packed away, the three of us even managed to take a short trail walk along a Forest Service Road that starts at the parking area.

Jojo and Molly lead the way on the Forest Service Road after the radio gear was packed away.

Last week, I found myself in serious need of radio-therapy.  Since Molly is always ready to go for a ride and a POTA, I decided to take her along to re-create the prior activation that we did with Jojo.  So this is the story of our salute to a departed friend, a tribute activation, as it were.

Activation

Molly and I packed her blanket, picked up my KX2 field kit, and jumped in the truck for a 20 minute drive to the trail-head parking area that we had activated with Jojo last March.  It has trees, a decent driving and walking surface that would not be too muddy from recent rain, and the Forest Service road where we had walked after the previous activation.  This time, Molly rode in the passenger seat, alternating between napping, and looking at the scenery as we drove.  Upon arrival she stayed put, while I used a throw line to put up my Tufteln 35 ft EFRW as a sloper.  I hooked the unun around my 2 meter mobile antenna, and ran coax into the truck through the lower part of the driver-side door seal.  I set up the KX2 on the center console/armrest, prepared my log, and got on the air to start the activation.

Tufteln 9:1 unun was clipped to my 2m mobile antenna, with the 35 ft radiator sloping up to a tree, the 17 ft counterpoise dropping down to the ground, and the RG316 feedline leading into the truck.

Results

As with almost all of my activations, I ran this one entirely CW QRP.  Beginning just after 1900z (2 pm local), I decided to start on 15m and work my way down the bands.  The HF bands were in good shape, and 15m netted 2 quick contacts, then 17m yielded 6 more.  The pace picked up when I moved to 20m (12 contacts in 22 minutes), and got even faster on 30m (17 contacts in 19 minutes, before it was time to call QRT).  While I was on the air, Molly did some supervising and some super snoozing.

Molly is an interested supervisor…
But supervising is tiring work.

Working steadily for an hour and a quarter, and finishing with 37 contacts was just the kind of break that I needed.  I want to sincerely thank the hunters who made this activation a success.  For just a short while, I was focused on CW, call signs, and signal reports, and the sense of loss receded a bit from my consciousness.

A map of 37 contacts on 4 bands.

Equipment

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Molly and I walked along the Forest Service Road.  We felt incomplete…

Conclusion

After I packed up the station, Molly and I repeated our walk along the Forest Service road.  With just the two of us, it was definitely a bittersweet experience.  I think Molly felt our loss, too.  I like to think that Jojo would have been fine with missing this activation.  The weather, while not raining, was cool, overcast, and a bit gloomy.  The sunshine that she treasured was absent for us that day.  Hopefully, she has found a place in perpetual sunshine, and is soaking up the rays.  Good bye sweet pup.

We will always remember Jojo in her natural element, bathing in sunshine…

Hold on tight to those you love, and do something special with your four-footed companions.  I wish you all the best in 2024.

Best 73 de Brian – K3ES

Morse Code, News, Skills

Learning Morse Code When Work Life Limits Practice Time and Classes?

39 Comments

After posting my 2024 Radio Goals post, Mark left the following comment:

My main goal would be to learn CW this year.

[…]My work schedule doesn’t allow me to participate in any kind of CW classes since I’m in bed by the time they start. Trying to listen to anything while I’m working (I drive a delivery truck) is too tough to concentrate on the task at hand. So I feel I’m at an impasse. Happy New Year QRPers.

Mark, it definitely sounds like you need CW training in some sort of asynchronous format like audio or video recordings that will allow you to practice during lunch breaks and any short openings you might have in the day.

I started my CW journey so long ago, that I don’t know what some of the current options are for pre-recorded CW training that follows the Farnworth method. I learned CW via Gordon West’s Novice CW Training tapes which were really designed to help you pass the Novice test, not necessarily for CW proficiency.

Using the Farnsworth method, characters are sent to you at, say 21 words per minute or so, while extra spacing is added between characters and words to slow the transmission down as you start your CW journey. This teaches you to learn each character at your target rate from the very beginning. As you become more proficient, the spacing between characters is simply shortened. No question, it’s the best way to avoid the “counting dits and dashes” issue that causes many beginners to stumble.

Any advice for Mark?

I’m sure there are some phone/tablet apps, audio programs, and YouTube channels out there that will allow you to study at your own pace. I agree that it sounds like your work schedule would make real-time online courses challenging.

Readers, please comment with links to any resources that might help Mark and others in his shoes.

Consistency and habit stacking…

My own two cents here: Mark, I would worry less about how long you’re practicing CW each day and focus on consistency. Even if it’s just 10-15 minutes per day (most of us can carve that out), a steady and reliable pace will have a most positive impact on your CW journey.

Also, I find “habit stacking” to be a powerful tool–I’ll explain, but click here for a proper, thorough explanation.

Basically, habit stacking works by adding on a new habit to one you already do.

A real-life example: I wanted to implement regular light stretching into my daily routine, but I was finding it difficult to remember. Out of entire week, I might remember to stretch two or three times.

Then a friend told me about habit stacking where you add the new habit to one you’re already doing.

One thing I do each morning without fail is brew my first cup of coffee. From day one, I would grind my beans, start the coffee maker, and while the coffee was brewing, I’d spend a couple of minutes doing stretches and squats.

It was so simple implementing this new routine and I’ve never once forgotten to do my morning stretches.

In your shoes, I’d find a habit you’re already doing where you typically have a moment of peace: making your coffee, taking off your shoes after work, brushing your teeth…whatever you do daily and works for you. Then add on 10-15 minutes of code practice.

Even if you only added 10 minutes of code practice per day, by the end of the year, you’d have accumulated a total of 61 hours!

I feel like prerecorded code practice or a good CW app might help. Also, you might try a device like the Morse Tutor or Morserino. (I’ve been tempted to buy both of these to test myself!)

Again, my hope is that our community here will have some advice based on recent experience to help you! Please comment!

Field Reports, Guest Posts, News, Portable, POTA, Vintage

Chris activates Les Iles Nature Reserve with his Plessey PRC-320!

12 Comments

Many thanks to Christian (IX1CKN) who shares the following field report:

Activation of I-0395

by Chris (IX1CKN)

Hey folks, I just wanted to share my activation at the Les Iles Nature Reserve (I-0395) on Christmas Eve (December 24, 2023)!

It’s been a while since I last visited (in July). The weather was perfect, around 20 degrees Celsius, and I was in the mood for a real outdoor activation.

I decided to go with the manpack Plessey PRC-320, a trusty companion delivering a solid 25 watts. I wanted to be one with nature, so no benches or bird-watching huts this time.

Got off to an exciting start on 20 meters with two stations from the UK recognizing my gear. One even complimented the excellent modulation with a whopping 9+10 signal strength, giving me hope for the rest of the activation. Then came a Spanish station, the always attentive IX1VKK Rinaldo (following me from home), a colleague from the Netherlands, another Brit, and then… silence. I kept calling for another 5 minutes, but no luck.

Could it be the morning flare that affected propagation? Who knows, but I noticed on the POTA cluster that another Italian colleague was activating on 28 MHz and being spotted by several American Hams. I decided to give it a try, found a clear frequency locally, and started calling. And guess what? Responses from across the Atlantic started pouring in – Massachusetts, Georgia, and even a park-to-park with Jim KC1QDZ from Brenton Point State Park in Rhode Island.

Short video:

Maybe not my first contact with a U.S. park on 10 meters, but definitely a memorable one.

Signal reports weren’t super strong, hovering around 5/3-5/4, but hey, as long as the noise floor isn’t sky-high, that signal is enough to complete the QSO. Moved to a different frequency as the band was buzzing with North American stations – Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Maryland.

An hour in, and I’ve logged 12 contacts. Pretty incredible considering that what “saved” my activation were stations on the other side of the ocean. Europe on 20 meters was a bit challenging, but hey, that’s ham radio for you. You’d think POTA, with its simple and not-so-full-power setups, is a local affair, and then, on Christmas Eve, you realize DX is very much on the table.

I turn around, a duck dives in, and the last rays of sunlight caress the wetlands. Perfect way to end it.

News, POTA, QRP, SOTA

Any 2024 Radio Goals?

80 Comments

It’s the beginning of 2024 (Happy New Year everyone!) and a lot of my radio friends have been setting goals and asking what mine are for the year.

Truth is, I’ve had so much going on during the latter half of December, I hadn’t stopped to think about 2024 goals.

This morning, with a cup of coffee fueling my brain cells, I came up with a few ideas.

Here are the goals I’ve pieced together for 2024:

  • Complete a CW satellite contact
  • Complete a POTA activation using FT8
  • Add 20 more parks to the number of unique POTA sites I’ve activated
  • Add 5 new summits to the number of unique SOTA summits I’ve activated
  • Update: One more…build that QCX+ a good friend Bob gave me, then put it on the air!

Out of these goals, I think the second, completing an FT8 POTA activation, will be the easiest. I’m mainly making it a goal for 2024 so that I actually carry through with doing it.

The CW satellite contact?  I’ve got the gear to do it now, I believe, but this will take me well outside of my comfort zone. That’s a good ting. Making it a goal for 2024 will encourage me to bite the bullet.

The last two POTA and SOTA goals will actually be the toughest for me simply because we haven’t ironed out our travel plans for 2024 as of today.  Funny part is I know some leaderboard POTA and SOTA activators that would knock these goals out in the month of January without breaking a sweat!

I’ve activated all of the low-hanging POTA fruit around my QTH (with three exceptions) so any new unique parks will be further afield and more easily achieved if we take some family road trips.

I’ve many more SOTA summits to hit here in North Carolina alone, but again, so much depends on my available free time.

Your 2024 Goals?

What are your goals for 2024? Please comment if you care to share!

News

Going on a social media diet: Leaving Twitter, investing in Mastodon

32 Comments

Friends, I’ve decided to take a step back from Twitter in 2024.

Since I still communicate with quite a lot of ham radio friends on Twitter (the only reason I still use the platform) this has actually been a difficult decision to make.

So why leave?

Two main reasons:

  1. There’s just not enough time in the day to keep up with multiple social media accounts. I quit Facebook a couple years ago and it had a meaningful positive impact in terms of feeing up time. These days, I need the extra time to invest in answering comments here on QRPer.
  2. I much prefer Mastodon over Twitter.

Twitter has been a brilliant platform and I’ve been on it for over a decade, but I don’t use it like most people who want to follow news, politics, trending stories/memes, etc. I only use Twitter to communicate with my ham radio friends and community.

This year, I’ve noticed that I have less control to keep “trending” stories from accounts I’ve never followed (nor intend to follow) out of my feed. Even when I mute unsolicited accounts, they re-appear a couple weeks later because I assume they’re paying for placement. It all makes the Twitter experience more cluttered and time-consuming for me. And frankly? I know this will only get much worse–likely, by orders of magnitude–during an election year!

In the end, I’m not a “doom scroller”–I do social media for the social part.

More Mastodon!

Instead, I’m going to spend my social media time on Mastodon.

As my teenage daughters would say, I like the somewhat nerdy “vibe” on Mastodon.

Here are some more specific reasons:

  1. Our ham radio instances/servers on Mastodon (https://mastodon.radio/ and https://mastodon.hams.social/ to name a couple) are administered by ham radio operators. When you join a ham radio server, you’re going to be surrounded by other radio enthusiasts from day one.
  2. There are no ads. Mastodon is free (though your server admins will appreciate occasional contributions) and there are no advertising accounts whatsoever. This also means that Mastodon is much more private than Twitter and doesn’t track your clicks or scrolling behavior.
  3. You have better, more granular control of what shows up in your news feed. This is a biggie for me. I’ve been on Mastodon since June 2022 and I’ve yet to see one unsolicited item in my notifications feed. There’s no algorithm behind the scenes that dictates what you see and in what order.
  4. Mastodon is federated and de-centralized. No single company or person can own Mastodon–you’re not going to wake up one morning and find that Mastodon has gone out of business or been sold. If, for some reason, your server admin goes rogue, you can move your entire account along with all of your followers to a different server seamlessly.
  5. My experience on Mastodon has been very positive. It reminds me of Twitter 12 years ago.

In short: I feel like Mastodon is a more focused, permanent, robust, and resilient social media platform.

Come join me on Mastodon!

Selfishly, I’d love it if al of my friends on Twitter opened a Mastodon account, too. (Yes, I’m a big hypocrite asking you to open another social media account when I myself am focusing on one!)

Here’s where you’ll find me: https://mastodon.radio/@qrper

It’s free to join and while there are a number of radio instances and servers out there, I know the admins of both of these:

It doesn’t really matter which server you join, though keep in mind that Mark’s server is in the US and Christopher’s in the UK. You might see a slightly better ping time using a servers that’s physically closer to you.

Down the rabbit hole!

If you’d like a really deep-dive into the world of Mastodon, I would strongly encourage you to listen to the Ham Radio Workbench episode where we interviewed Christopher (M0YNG):

This interview with Christopher will answer all of your questions–it was a really fun episode, to boot!

Thank you…

I hope my friends on Twitter understand why I need to distill my social media down to one platform. I will occasionally–maybe once a month–log in briefly if for no other reason to keep the account active and make sure no one has sent me private messages.

If you need to reach out to me, consider joining Mastodon and following me, or simply comment here on QRPer.com.

Have a very Happy New Year, everyone!

Field Reports, Guest Posts, News, POTA, QRP

Matt’s Rainy Day POTA Activation

13 Comments

Many thanks to Matt (W6CSN) who shares the following post  from his blog at W6CSN.Blog:

Rainy Day Activation

by  Matt (W6CSN)

It’s late December and one of a series of winter storms is driving into northern and central California. The previous day, my plans for a combined Summits On The Air and Parks On The Air activation fell apart due to weather. Today most of the UTC day had passed with only light drizzle, and itching to get on the air, I hatched a plan for an activation at my nearby park reference K-7889, the Presidio of San Francisco.

Typically when activating at this park from the “East Beach” area, I will back into a parking space, setup the radio on the trunk lid and run the coax a short distance to a 17 foot vertical telescoping whip antenna which is clamped to a short steel post.

Today however, I chose to operate from inside the vehicle so both myself and the radio equipment would stay dry. Not wanting to leave the coax unsupervised where someone could trip over it, I deployed the Gabil GRA-7350T antenna with a triple mag-mount on the roof of the car.

The CW Morse paddles mounted to a steel clipboard on the center console.

The GRA antenna is a short, loaded vertical with the whip portion maxing out at about 8 feet in length. It works well on 20 meters, but it’s less of a compromise on higher frequencies. On 18 MHz, only a small amount of the loading coil is needed to achieve an acceptable SWR, so with the bands in pretty good shape I brought the Yaesu FT-818 so I could get on 17 meters.

There weren’t many spots for 17m on the POTA web site, but I posted my spot anyway and started calling CQ. It wasn’t long before KX0Y responded, followed by more hunters from across North America and Alaska. The Golden Gate Bridge was visible from my vantage point at the start of the activation, but as the rain intensified the bridge became enshrouded by the incoming weather front.

With 00 UTC approaching, the rain now coming down harder, and 13 QSOs in the log I called QRT. Rather than carefully stowing the antenna and mag-mount, I simply broke it down as quickly as possible and tossed it all the back seat since I would have to bring it inside to dry anyway.

The following equipment was used in this activation:

[Note: All Amazon and CW Morse links are affiliate links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.]

Thanks to all the hunters that responded and made the activation a success.

73 de W6CSN.

Accessories, New Products, News

New Chameleon Products

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Many thanks to Don (W7SSB) who writes:

We have several new products we just released. Please look at out website: www.chameleonantenna.com

There are several more products coming soon !

Thanks for the tip, Don!

Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP, Skills, Videos

Keying In The Rain: One rather soggy but incredibly fun POTA activation!

9 Comments

I’m lucky enough to live in a part of the world where–by and large–the weather is pretty darn nice.

In fact, I recently received a comment from a reader who jokingly said that I should work for the tourism board of western North Carolina because the weather always seems so pleasant in my POTA/SOTA videos.

It’s true: most of the time I hit the field to play radio, the weather is very pleasant.

That said, you see more of these “fair weather” activations because I tend not to make videos of ones in poor conditions mainly because I don’t like managing the camera in high winds, heavy rains, or even super cold conditions–especially when I want to get in and out of the field quickly. The camera tends slows everything down.

On Friday, December 1, 2023, though, I decided to do a park activation in the rain and make a video! Here’s my field report:

Pisgah National Forest (K-4510)

That Friday morning, I dropped my daughters off at classes, then made my way to the Mills River library to put the finishing touches on a field report and publish it. It was rainy and I wasn’t complaining; it had been a very dry fall in WNC up to that point.

After I published my field report and attempted to catch up on the email backlog a bit, I hopped in the car and headed to the Sycamore Flats picnic area in Pisgah National Forest (K-4510) and Pisgah Game Lands (K-6937).

That day, knowing it would be soggy, I packed my Discovery TX-500 which is pretty much rain-proof. By this, I mean that it’s designed to cope with rain, but it’s not designed to be completely submerged in water.

Truth be told, I had no intention of making an activation video. Once I arrived on site, though, I thought, “Why the heck not?” After all, other than being rainy and chilly, conditions were pretty pleasant. That and my OSMO action camera is completely waterproof.

I grabbed the camera and started filming the activation while closing up the car.

Setting Up

When playing POTA in the rain, I tend to select picnic tables or sites that are under the canopy of trees if at all possible. Trees not only provide antenna supports, but they also help divert a bit of the rain.

I found an ideal site under the canopy of a few hemlocks.

I deployed my PackTenna end-fed half-wave (EFHW) oriented (nearly) vertically and with the feed point close to the tree trunk so that it would be better protected from the rain. I wasn’t worried about the antenna getting wet, but I also didn’t want the toroid and windings to get completely soaked either. It’s never a bad idea to use what bit of natural protection the trees can offer.

As you can see in the photo above, I had my TX-500 completely exposed, but the battery, in-line fuse, and (to some extent) the speaker mic were all protected in the TX-500’s Telesin Case.

As always, I used my Rite In The Rain notepad which is a champ at handling wet conditions. Continue reading Keying In The Rain: One rather soggy but incredibly fun POTA activation! →

Field Reports, Guest Posts, Portable, POTA, QRP

Field Report: Alan’s P2P POTA Activation Challenge!

13 Comments

Many thanks to Alan (W2AEW) who shares the following guest post:

A self-imposed POTA Park-to-Park Challenge…

by Alan (W2AEW)

One of the things I love about the Parks on the Air program is that every activation is a bit of small challenge.  What will the band be like?  What antenna will I be able to deploy when I get there?  Will I have a spot to setup?  Will my CW ‘ear’ be properly tuned up? You get the picture…

There are a few parks that I activate much more than others – call them my “home” parks.  These are the ones that are close to my home, easy to get to and setup.  One in particular,  Washington Rock State Park (K-1635), is certainly the closest. It has some interesting Revolutionary War History.

Not only is this park very close to my home, it also has pretty good elevation (about 500’) for this part of New Jersey.  In fact, the local fire department hangs a very large illuminated star during the Christmas season at their building that is adjacent to this park.

This star can be seen for miles to the South and East of the ridge.

It’s no wonder that I’ve activated this park more than 20 times in the last year and half.

My XYL Nancy was *very* generous to me this year at Christmas – gifting me a new Begali Adventure CW paddle!  She even had it engraved with my call:

I wanted to think of a unique way to celebrate my first POTA activation using this paddle. I would be going to K-1635, so the location would be very familiar.  Therefore, I thought of an interesting self-imposed challenge…   Attempt to complete an activation with ONLY Park to Park contacts!

As I thought about this, I figured my best chance of success would be to operate on the weekend (significantly more parks are active), and use my most efficient multi-band antenna (a 40m EFHW).

Being an engineer, I’m use to having goals.  I’m also used to having additional constraints imposed – let’s call them stretch-goals.  Possible stretch goals for this P2P Activation Challenge could be:

  • Operate QRP (all of my POTA activations are QRP, so not much of a stretch)
  • Operate only CW (nearly all of my activations are CW, and this helps with the QRP goal too)
  • Attempt this using a more compromised antenna
  • Attempt this during a weekday

It turns out I had a few free hours on Wednesday, December 27, 2023 to play radio…  It was kind of a dismal day weather-wise.  I figured it might be the day to attempt this challenge.  The wet weather had me thinking that I’d setup my SuperAntenna MP1 vertical instead of using the 40m EFHW (and having it and the throw line get all wet and muddy).  The stage was set for the challenge including the stretch goals.

I setup the MP1 on the bedrail of my truck, using an MFJ-1976 ten-foot whip on top.

The band conditions were in pretty good shape, so I figured I had a shot.  I setup the rig inside the truck because of the rain, and got the iPad going with the POTA spotting page to see who I could hunt.  I logged four P2P contacts in the first 20 minutes, so there was hope!

In the end, it took about 90 minutes to log 11 Park-to-Park contacts.  Well, actually 12, since one of them turned out to be a two-fer.  I logged a few “familiar” activators, including Teri KO4WFP – a frequent contributor of Field Reports here, and Jonathan KM4CFT – running a two-fer out of North Carolina.  There were a few that I noted in my paper log because I had a good copy on them, but ultimately couldn’t bust thru the pile ups there were getting (like K7SHR at K-10946 in WY and K0YY at K-4416 in TX).

A personal thanks to all of the activators in my log that helped me reach my P2P Challenge:

  • KL7NL at K-6945 in NC
  • KM4CFT at K-8313 and K-3378 in NC
  • WD4AWD at K-2982 in TN
  • KU8T at K-4208 in IN
  • KO4WFP at K-0659 in FL
  • W0ABE at K-10532 in CO
  • N4XTT at K-2982 in TN
  • NM1L at K-7475 in FL
  • KC1BDJ at K-7879 in FL
  • KI5GBQ at K-7687 in OK
  • NS1C at K-2420 in MA

All contacts were on 20m with the exception of NS1C on 40m.  All were CW.

This was a fun little challenge, one that I hope to repeat in the future.  Hope to see you all on the air – POTA-ON!

72 de W2AEW

New Products, News, QRP Radios

More photos of the Xiegu X6200

12 Comments

Many thanks to my buddy, Don (W7SSB), who shares the following photos and product brochure of the yet-to-be-released Xiegu X6200.

The X6200 is not yet in the hands of reviewers, nor is it in production. This hasn’t stopped some people from “reviewing” this unit, so take anything you read up to this point with a grain of salt. A lot of folks have asked me what I think about the X6200, but I won’t comment until I’ve actually gotten a unit and tested it in the field.

I do have a few notes:

  1. I hope Xiegu takes time to have the X6200 thoroughly field-tested prior to production. In the past, early adopters have really taken on the role of Beta testing; it all makes for a very confusing evaluation period. In the same vein, I hope that more of the advertised functionality works from day one.
  2. Xiegu mentions that this unit has improved receiver sensitivity and a lower noise floor–both of these are most welcome. I hope this equates to more refined audio as well.
  3. I hope the receiver front end is more robust and has built-in BCI filtering. Previous models have suffered from overloading.

Of course, I will plan to review the X6200 and give it a thorough shake-down.

Photos:

(Click on images to enlarge.)

Product brochure

Click here to download the preliminary product brochure (as of Dec 28, 2023). [PDF]