In this modern era of radio technology, where even analog radio is largely digital, we amateurs are accustomed to perfect signal quality all the time.
Nevermind the perfunctory 599s that are handed out during contests, for activities like Parks On The Air and Summits On The Air I believe most of us like to send and receive an honest RST report.
R-S-T from the 1938 edition of the ARRL Handbook
Although subjective, readability (R) and signal strength (S) are pretty well understood quantities. But what about tone, the T in R-S-T ? When was the last time you sent or received a tone value other than “9” (the highest value) ?
Last evening, at the end of one of my frequent activations of the Presidio of San Francisco (K-7889), I struggled to pull a barely readable and very weak signal out of the noise. For what it’s worth, the natural noise floor was very low, with the geomagnetic field listed as “Inactive” on qrz.com.
One of these stations had a distorted signal ?
What made the signal particularly difficult was that it sounded quite distorted. The problem I faced was how to tell the OM that it sounded like his signal had been through a blender. The numbers in the Tone scale go from 1 to 9 but I did not have any understanding of the specific defects encoded by the scale. I needed to send a report, and quick, so I dashed out a “225” followed by “DISTORTED.” But I was unhappy that I needed to send an extra, unexpected word to explain the reason for the “5” tone.
Tone
1–Sixty cycle a.c or less, very rough and broad. 2–Very rough a.c., very harsh and broad. 3–Rough a.c. tone, rectified but not filtered. 4–Rough note, some trace of filtering. 5–Filtered rectified a.c. but strongly ripple-modulated. 6–Filtered tone, definite trace of ripple modulation. 7–Near pure tone, trace of ripple modulation. 8–Near perfect tone, slight trace of modulation. 9–Perfect tone, no trace of ripple or modulation of any kind.
When I got home I resolved to refresh my knowledge on the R-S-T system so that I could have it at my disposal while operating and on the rare occasion when a tone value other than 9 is warranted.
On September 30, 2023, my uncle Reggie passed away at the age of 83. I was incredibly fond of him. His funeral was to take place in Georgetown, South Carolina on Tuesday, October 3rd.
The funeral time was confirmed on Sunday evening (Oct 1), so I made all of my travel plans that night. I decided to leave early Monday morning and drive to Myrtle Beach where I’d reserved a hotel room for one night. I’d then attend the funeral the following day and drive back to my home in the mountains. Round trip, this would amount to about 12 hours of driving.
This, of course, was a pretty somber reason to take a road trip–although it would be nice to spend time with my SC family. I wanted to make the most of my travels and fit in a little “radio therapy” along the way. I glanced over the POTA map for a park that might make for a nice break from travels.
Before hitting the sack Sunday evening, I remembered that many months ago Keith (KY4KK) told me to give him a heads-up anytime I planned to pass by Florence, SC. I knew that Florence would be a simple detour on my journey, so I reached out to Keith and asked if he and his POTA buddies Tommy (N4GS) and Steve (W4JM) might, by some chance, be available for a quick POTA activation. Of course, this was very late notice.
Keith wrote back and recommended that I activate Lee State Park–he and Tommy were both available but, unfortunately, Steve had other plans.
Monday morning, I hit the road and arrived at Lee State Park in the early afternoon.
Lee State Park (K-2905)
I pulled into the park driveway and was greeted by a number of Halloween displays. Evidently, the park staff loves decorating for holidays.
At first glance, this looks like a POTA activator that never never got their ten logged.
I pulled into the visitor’s center parking lot and immediately met Keith and Tommy.
After a quick greeting, Keith said, “Thomas, our job here is to get you on the air as smoothly as possible so you can continue your trip.”
Keith, KY4KK (left) Tommy, N4GS (right)
Herein lies what I love about amateur radio and POTA specifically: even though Keith, Tommy, and I had only just met in person, they were instant friends.
I must say, Lee State Park is the perfect POTA park; there are loads of tall trees, covered picnic areas, open spaces, ample parking, and ham-friendly staff. It just doesn’t get better than this!
We walked to a large covered picnic area and Keith suggested that we deploy his 40 meter EFHW antenna.
I agreed without hesitation!
Unlike me, Keith is adept at using a slingshot to deploy his antennas.
As I started setting up the radio, Keith aimed his slingshot and snagged a really high branch on the first go. This 40M EFHW was being deployed as a vertical!
We will keep the comments open until 13:00 UTC on Friday, November 17, 2023. You can only enter once, so please include your callsign (if you have one) in the comment.
We will take the total number of comments, use a random number generator to pick one comment, then reach out to you to obtain your shipping information.
The ARRL will drop ship this prize package directly to you!
Since the beginning of November, I’ve been pushing my Elecraft KH1 activations to the front of the line so that readers and subscribers who are considering this wee handheld radio might get a chance to see and hear it in action.
So far, I’ve used the KH1 for what it was designed to do: pedestrian mobile/handheld using the built-in whip antenna. I’ve activated a park, a summit, and even did a little parking lot POTA hunting.
I’ve decided that November is KH1 month–this is the only radio I’ll use this month.
I will start blending in some of my field reports from October (there were some really fun ones in there) that feature my other field radios and a variety of antennas starting next week. I’ll still be pushing some of my KH1 field reports to the front during that time as well. Also, I’ll likely post more bonus videos over on Patreon.
Where to activate?
On Monday, November 6, 2023, I had several hours in the afternoon to take the KH1 on another mini radio adventure. I wasn’t sure where I’d perform an activation, though.
This time, I didn’t want to do a pedestrian mobile activation. I wanted to see how the KH1 might play on my kneeboard and how it might pair with my 28.5′ speaker wire antenna. I was curious if its internal ATU would find acceptable matches on all bands.
I packed the KH1, throw line bag, Tufteln Kneeboard, Helinox chair, 2L water bag, camera gear, and speaker wire antenna in my GoRuck pack (FYI: all links and full inventory are below).
This was more gear than I’d need, but all of these items were in my radio box in the trunk/boot of my car.
I had only one errand to run that afternoon: I needed to drop off some of my wife’s illustrated Christmas cards at my friend Hamilton William’s Gallery in downtown Morganton.
After catching up with Hamilton, I had to make a decision about where to go for an activation. I knew this: it was an incredibly beautiful day, so whatever I did, it needed to include a hike!
I considered a few parks but the most convenient spot for a proper hike was Bakers Mountain. It also required the least amount of driving since it was essentially on the way back to Hickory.
Bakers Mountain (W4C/WP-007)
It being an early Monday afternoon, there weren’t many other hikers at Bakers Mountain. In fact, I never ran into any other hikers on the main loop trail.
Bakers Mountain park is (sadly) not a POTA entity. It’s a county park, so does not currently qualify. There was talk once of Bakers Mountain being turned into a state park, but it falls just shy of the amount of acreage needed to qualify.
Bakers Mountain is a one point SOTA summit, but the hike (if you do the full loop trail) is actually pretty strenuous if you take it at a nice clip. I’d consider it a moderate hike overall.
I’ve already activated Bakers Mountain this year, so this activation’s point will not add to my goal of reaching Mountain Goat (1,000 points). That’s okay, though. Unless my family life changes in a way that frees up a lot more time, Mountain Goat is a good 5-6 years in the future at my pace! I’m perfectly fine with that.
Yesterday, I updated the firmware in my Elecraft KH1 with a beta release we’re evaluating in the KH1 volunteer test group. This beta release includes CW message memories and CW send/receive decoding. At first blush, both seem to work really well.
I updated my KH1 while having lunch at my buddy Vlado’s (N3CZ) QTH. Elecraft makes the process so simple: download their utility, download the firmware file, connect the supplied USB cable to the PC and the radio, and make one setting change on the KH1 for it to receive data. That’s pretty much it.
I loaded the firmware right before I walked out the door and then programmed the message memories at K-3378 where I had less than 20 minutes to perform an activation (that video will be posted soon). I had no notes, no manual, and sorted out how to record the messages with no problem whatsoever. The process is very intuitive. I even recorded all three messages correctly on the first go.
I’d already given thought to what messages would go where–one message is very specific to the KH1.
Here’s what I recorded in the three message memory slots:
“CQ POTA DE K4SWL”
“BK TU TU 72 DE K4SWL”
“AS AS DE K4SWL”
Number three is there for when I need to change log sheets in the KH1 logging tray!
AS is a CW Prosign that means, “Wait” or “Hang on.” Since it’s a Prosign, you send AS as one character (dit dah dit dit dit)–no space between the A and S.
I just hit that #3 memory then take my time flipping log sheets!
On my other field radios with CW message memories, I tend to give memory #1 a CQ POTA, memory #2 a CQ SOTA, then the third memory a 73/72 message.
In the early days of POTA, I used my “CQ POTA DE K4SWL” message memory a lot in beacon/repeat mode because we had a mere fraction of the hunters we have today.
These days, I find that I only end up calling CQ POTA two or three times–just enough for the RBN to pick me up. Once spotted? I almost never need to call CQ again and if I do, it’s easy enough to do that by hand. POTA has grown in numbers so much since the early days.
There’s no SOTA CQ on the KH1 for this same reason. I find I only need to call CQ enough for the RBN to find me.
Anyway, just a random Friday note for you!
I had a problem uploading my latest SOTA activation video with the KH1. I hope to have it published later this weekend or on Monday at the latest.
Have a great weekend–I hope you have a moment to play a little radio!
Many thanks to David (W8GM) for sharing the following guest post:
My CW QRP Journey Begins
by David (W8GM)
It is not really a beginning but for some reason it feels like it.
This a summary of my second ever CW QRP POTA activation which includes a summary of my radio path to this point and a unique encounter that shows how amateur radio operators can be so separated by distance but still somehow manage to build and maintain a sense of community.
Life can sometimes be so strange. I had an interest in amateur radio some 30 years ago but what stopped me? Morse Code.
No way would I learn a dead language so I could talk on a radio! Fast forward to the fall of 2021 when I discovered there was no longer a code requirement to become licensed.
It happened fast. I took the tests, explored the bands from 70cm to 80m and simply felt my way around amateur radio. I discovered POTA and I activated my first park on January 2nd, 2022. I have enjoyed camping, hiking and the outdoors my entire life and I realized that POTA had the potential to bring the outdoors and amateur radio together. However, I was simply a weekend POTA warrior. Most of my activations were from a car or sitting at a picnic table while I was camping.
During this time, I discovered websites such as QRPer.com and The Long Island CW Club and I watched oodles of videos of people combining hiking or remote camping with small radios and practicing amateur radio. I was jealous. However, I knew I only needed to put the pieces of the puzzle together and I could be like those YouTubers I was jealous of.
So really, this is where the journey began. I joined LICW completely ignorant of what a wealth of CW information and education this club offers. I soaked up a lot of that education and continued to follow the QRPers of the world.
Unfortunately, in June of 2022, I took off a full year from amateur radio. But in July of 2023 I was able to return, and I resumed my QRP goals. Once again LICW was there to support me and what follows is the story of my second ever CW QRP POTA activation.
Activation time
I pulled into my parking spot thinking “Wow, I’ve been coming here for over 15 years.” That thought quickly disappeared when I looked at my dash and saw it was 26 degrees Fahrenheit. Southwest Michigan’s first cold week of fall. I grabbed my pack and started heading to my secret spot.
My plan was to set up and then explore the woods most of the morning. Hiking around would keep me warm through the cold morning and I’d try to play radio in the afternoon after it had warmed up a bit. I arrived at my spot and, once again, I found it undisturbed. My leftover firewood was still sitting there in a neat pile. Over the last 15 years I have come here countless times, for as short as an hour and as long as 3 days and never once has anyone disturbed my little 20-foot patch of earth.
I set up my coffee kit, chair, antenna, and radio kit. I used a Packtenna 40m EFHW for an antenna and hung it in a sloper configuration. I did it just like all those QRPing YouTubers do it. I tossed a weighted throw line in the air and had the high end up about 40 feet. The radio was an Icom IC-705 and I put an Elecraft T1 ATU tuner in line for some extra insurance. I plugged in my cwmorse.us paddle and battery pack and I was good to go. But first I headed off to do some exploring before I returned and powered up the radio.
After getting back from exploring, I was ready for some coffee and that was made next. I powered up the radio and thought I’d try starting out on 10 meters. I had learned that a huge advantage of CW is you can be auto spotted on the POTA page. Cell reception at my spot is hit and miss. Some days it is there and others you have nothing but SOS on your phone.
No worries about spotting today. CW wins again.
I called CQ for quite some time and was starting to get nervous until a faint station broke through. And of course, it was the last thing a rookie CW operator needs. The call sign was wrong, or I was failing. Continue reading Guest Post: W8GM’s CW QRP Journey Begins→
Many thanks to Bob (K7ZB) who shares the following guest post:
QRP Operation with the QRP Labs QCX+ and ATU-100 on 20M CW
Bob Houf (K7ZB)
By now the QRP Labs QCX+ CW transceiver is well known, and many have been shipped by Hans.
The first unit I bought came fully assembled in the aluminum case but had a weird malfunction in the audio chain and after careful troubleshooting with Hans’ help a replacement unit was sent and worked well.
I have assembled plenty of electronics kits in 60 years of ham radio, building some from scratch and worked as an electronics design engineer for years so having someone else solder up a board now is a luxury I am happy to pay for – but if you like the smell of solder as smoke gets in your eyes and your hands don’t shake, by all means save some money and build one yourself.
I picked up a Malahit rendition of the N7DDC ATU – mine came from Amazon and is the 100W version that uses an external power supply.
My first setup was to see if I could power both the QCX+ and ATU-100 simultaneously from a portable 25800mAH charger bank with two USB ports. The addition of two USB-to-12VDC converter cables looked like an ideal way to minimize the size of the radio package for portable operation:
Unfortunately, although the power capability of the battery was far more than adequate, when transmitting CW for just a few seconds the battery BMS tripped the power unit offline.
So, my next move was to use my larger 12V, 6AH LiFePo4 battery to power both units which worked well.
The antenna used here is a longwire of 47’ running from the top of our second-floor balcony out to a tree. The wire is about 25’ above ground and runs between two of the 3-unit townhouse/loft condo building units. There seems to be little interaction noticed on the signal reports received due to the physical proximity. And, when not experimenting with QRP I routinely run 100W from my transceiver into the wire without a problem.
This time, however, I decided to use #26-gauge magnet wire instead of the far stealthier #28 wire I have run for the past year. A tree trimming gang went through earlier in the summer and took out my #28 monofilament tether line in the tree, so I decided to go with a larger diameter wire.
In both cases I sponge a thin layer of battleship gray paint on the line which helps conceal it when looking up in the sky.
One discovery from this version is that there is a BIG difference in visibility between #26 and #28 magnet wire as seen from the ground!
I took down the #26 and will revert to #28 – which is essentially invisible at 25’ above your head.
I run the wire directly into a Common Mode Choke which then drops down to another CMC designed for other bands so that with the two in series I have no shield currents and no circuit breaker tripping or RF in the shack issues on 40, 20, 15 and 10M, even running 100 Watts:
I have a very low noise level on receive and don’t use a Balun at the feedpoint of the antenna, but I do use an antenna tuner to match the impedance, either the built-in tuner of my Kenwood transceiver or the ATU-100 for the QRP rig.
The CMC’s were designed by a friend using the K9YC cookbook approach available online and are very effective.
QCX Operation
The band conditions over the past weekend were funky with high noise level and rapid fading at times.
Despite this, I made multiple contacts in the western USA with reasonable signal reports and only one station had to send “sri no cpi”.
On Sunday evening I stumbled into the K1USN Slow Speed Contest (SST) and enjoyed making contacts from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest and everywhere in between.
Band conditions were much quieter and there were signals nearly every kilohertz from about 14.030 up to around 14.050+.
The QCX+ uses a CW filter design set at 200Hz and with 10Hz frequency resolution it was easy to copy one signal from another, despite the lack of more sophisticated filtering capability.
Since you only are putting out a 4-Watt signal you search and pounce with care and in a casual contest like the SST it makes for a very enjoyable way to spend an hour on Sunday evening before the SNF game steals you away.
Or a World Series game.
The ATU-100 was delightful to use. Once it tuned to a decent match (1.33:1) on the wire, it was good for the entire span from the bottom of the band up to 14.060 where the POTA gang and other low power stations hang out.
In conclusion, this is a very excellent low power station, simple to use and I am looking forward to matching it with a clever 20M elevated vertical with elevated radials a fellow ham has designed:
The elevated vertical with coax connector and radials.
Once that is working, it is off to the Lost Dutchman State Park for some POTA fun…
Many thanks to Evan (K2EJT) 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.
K2EJT’s Venus SW-3B Field Kit
by Evan (K2EJT)
I’m big on small. When it comes to field radios, especially ones I’m going to have to carry any distance, I prefer them to be small and light. I don’t mind lugging a big heavy rig around if I’m going to be 20 feet from my truck, but if I’m hiking five miles into the woods, I want to measure my kit weight in grams, not pounds. That’s where this little kit comes in. Weighing in at only 733g, this kit fits the bill perfectly:
The stuff sack is from Dutchwear Gear. It’s crazy light, and the entire kit fits in the palm of your hand. Inside you’ll find everything you need to do a field activation.
The rig is a Venus SW-3B. I really like this radio, especially for what it costs. While it’s not as nice a radio as say my MTR-4B, you can get two of them for the price of one LNR radio, and get them in half the time! The one thing that you need to be careful with on this radio are the rotary encoder and the gain knobs. They protrude from the face of the radio, and I’m not sure how robust they are. Because I was concerned about how much abuse they’d handle, I 3D printed a set of side rails and a cover for the radio to protect them.
The key is a cwmorse.us N0SA paddle. I have two of these keys. One lives in this kit, and the other lives with my KX1. They’re really nice keys for their size and weight. There are downsides (like the sides being open), but aside from that I really enjoy sending on them.
As for an antenna, I’m running a Spark Plug Antennas 64:1 EFHW. The wire is cut for 40, 20, 15, and 10, and is made of 24ga silicone jacketed wire with a tiny plastic clip on the end to attach to the throw line. I really like this antenna. It’s a great combination of small size, low weight, and good durability. It works very well. In fact, I like it so much I own two.
The coax is 15’ of RG316 from Amazon. I don’t generally like to drag expensive coax into the woods. I’ve killed enough of it to know it’s not worth spending a fortune on something that’s likely to get destroyed.
The throw bag and line are the same setup I run with my KX1. It consists of a ripstop nylon bag with a paracord loop sewn in at the open end, and velcro across the top to close it. Fill the bag with rocks, close the velcro, and you’re ready to go. The line is 65’ of high viz, reflective 1.8mm cord. The throw bag doubles as a stuff sack for the cord when not in use.
The headphones are a set of old Skullcandy earbuds I’ve had forever. The kit also includes a Rite in the Rain pad and a pencil for logging, the power cable for the rig, and the radio instruction manual.
Powering the whole thing is a set of four AA size LiFePO4 batteries in a 4 cell holder. The four batteries combined are a little over 13V fully charged, and are about 2600mAh. They can power this little radio for a LONG time. I get multiple activations out of a single charge. I threw a set of Anderson Powerpoles on it to connect to the power cable on the radio.
This is the kit I carry when I want to go light. As always, I could go lighter, but then I’d have to make compromises I’m not willing to make. I’ve done plenty of activations with this kit, and it never lets me down. You can see a description of the kit here:
If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a new book by the ARRL called “The Parks On The Air Book.” Here’s the description from the ARRL site:
The Parks on the Air® Book explores the process of activating a park unit and hunting those activations. Through the experiences of 14 operators, it offers advice and motivation for taking your radio out to the park and becoming active in the growing POTA community. Full-color format!
I’m honored to be one of the 14 operators who has an essay in this fine book.
Mine is called, “The Art of the Self-Sufficient QRP Field Kit.”
A number of my POTA friends also contributed essays in this book. It was great fun reading through these.
I think the editors did a fine job pulling together a wide variety of perspectives in this book–not only focusing on activating, but also hunting. I also love the fact that the articles have a more human-interest focus; more context about why the authors enjoy POTA and how they make it their own. This is not a dry read…quite the opposite!
I should mention that the ARRL pulled this together by teaming up with the Parks On The Air crew.
The list price of the book is $22.95, and ARRL members can buy it for $19.95. I feel like this is a great value and an excellent read despite the fact they invited me to contribute! 🙂
A POTA Package Giveaway!
The ARRL have also given me a little prize package to send to a lucky QRPer.com reader. We’ll run a little contest this weekend that’s open to anyone and everyone interested in POTA.
Many thanks to Scott (K4VOR) 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, check out this post.
My KX1 Go Box
by Scott (K4VOR)
I’ve been a ham since college but was out of the hobby for over 20 years, that is until 2020 and COVID. Suddenly I had a lot of free time (like all of us) being stuck at home and somehow the YouTube/Google machine took me down the rabbit hole that is CW.
I got my amateur radio license just after the CW requirement was lifted, so I hardly knew dit from dah. Granted, as an aviator, I had some experience “copying” morse code when tuning navaids such as VORs & DMEs. A whopping 3 letters sent at a blistering 7 wpm! But other than that, I was as green as it gets. To make a long (3+ year) story short, I dove head-long into that rabbit hole and today I am sending around 25wpm and can head-copy around 20wpm, something I once thought impossible. Anyway, that’s my story, now on to the field kit!
Over the years I acquired several of the more popular QRP radios, such as an IC-705, QCX mini, (tr)uSDX, and the AMAZING Elecraft KX2.
I knew about the KX1 but I never gave it a second thought. I mean, it’s just a piddly little 3W CW only kit-built rig, right? Well, then one day I stumbled upon one of Thomas K4SWL’s activation videos in which he was using his KX1 – Ruby. There was something about the simplicity of it all. A unique specimen of simplicity and elegance – potentiometers for AF gain, RF gain, and filter width, three momentary push buttons and a VFO. Heck, the thing barely has a display – only a 3-digit 7 segment! That basic “stick and rudder” aspect had me intrigued, but the hook for me was the sound!
Thomas describes it as an analog sound, something you might get from an old tube radio. It’s a buttery-smooth, warm resonance – something that is rare these days with modern SDRs and DSPs.
After hearing that sound, the KX1 became my unicorn radio. After over a year of searching, I finally found mine – a meticulously built 3-bander (40/30/20) with the internal ATU. I am happy to share my go-kit built for this rig, some of which was inspired by “Ruby” herself.
The kit contains everything I need to get on the air, all in one Pelican 1060 case.
I will start with the antenna. Nothing fancy. Just a BNC binding post adapter coupled with a 27’ radiator and a 16’ counterpoise. It tunes up nicely using the KX1 internal tuner. 1.0 on 20 and 30 meters and 1.4 or better on 40 meters. The antenna winder is a 3D printer one I designed to easily fit in the Pelican 1060.
The key is a Palm Radio Pico Paddle (no longer in production), although a K6ARK tiny paddle will rotate in and out from time to time. One day I would like to find a KXPD1 which sadly was not included with my KX1 when I bought it.
For antenna deployment, I have 65’ of “throw line”, a.k.a. masonry/construction twine, and a rip-stop nylon draw-string pouch that I to use as a throw weight by tossing a couple of rocks inside. The throwline stows away inside the nylon pouch along with a dollar store set of earbuds.
Photos: In the field
And that’s it! This has become my go-to kit that I grab whenever I think I might have the chance to play radio when I am out and about. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you on the air!
QRP radios, product announcements, reviews, news and more. Low power amateur radio fun!
Please support QRPer by adding us to your whitelist in your ad blocker. Ads are what helps us stay online. All of our ads are ham radio related--no junk, we promise! Thank you!
