Many thanks to Conrad (N2YCH) who shares the following field report:
Field Report :POTA Activation K-0228, Stuart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, Great Meadows Unit
by Conrad (N2YCH)
January 21, 2023
Parks On the Air’s Support Your Parks weekend event for winter 2023 is the third full weekend in January and I found myself without my Jeep. I sold my ten-year-old Jeep Wrangler and my new Jeep wasn’t due to be delivered until the following week, leaving me without my “POTA activation vehicle”. I ended up borrowing my XYL’s MINI Countryman to activate K-0228, but let’s face it, a MINI is not a Jeep. It didn’t have all of my “stuff” in it. I needed to get creative about what to bring along with me that would fit easily in the MINI, yet work well enough to activate the park.
I started with my backpack kit which contains an Elecraft KX3, battery, Signalink and computer (for FT8 and logging).
It includes everything I need to transmit and it’s easy to toss in the car. I just needed to decide on what antenna to use. Since it’s winter here in Connecticut and pretty cold outside, this would be an “in-the-car” activation and without the Jeep, my antenna options were limited. I could have brought my Sotabeams Tac-Mini which could fly my PackTenna EFHW up about 20’. However, anchoring the mast would be a challenge in the cold weather. In the end, I decided to bring my Buddipole tripod and nested mast, which are compact and fit in a small bag which fit right in the passenger seat. Continue reading MINI Portable: Conrad’s POTA field report from Stuart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge→
As you, no doubt, know by now, Yaesu recently discontinued the FT-818ND QRP transceiver. Within a day of the announcement most US retailers sold out their remaining inventory. There may still be new units at some UK and EU retailers at time of posting.
Ham Radio Outlet
Many thanks to John (KC8RZM) who writes:
I notice HRO, after having no listing for new FT818NDs for a few days, it’s now back being listed as being available for ordering (though not currently in stock).
John was correct, of course. I checked HRO’s FT-818ND product page and see that they’re listed as out-of-stock yet you can still order one for $699.95 US they seemed to have increased the price to $799.99 since yesterday (Jan 24, 2023).
I reached out to HRO to gather more information. HRO Sales Manager, Steve (W4SHG), replied:
We have been told more may be coming, we have no idea how many or when they may arrive.
So it sounds like they’re taking orders for an unknown quantity of radios they’ll be taking into inventory at some point in the future.
Martin Lynch & Sons
It also appears ML&S have new FT-818ND inventory arrive by end of January. They are allowing pre-orders to reserve these units. The price is £624.95 and they include a free MyDEL Leg Peg kit. Not a bad deal!
Should you bite the bullet?
If you’ve been considering a new-in-box, fully warranted FT-818ND, it might be worth reserving one of these units.
I would certainly not panic-buy an FT-818ND because there are so many tens of thousands of these in the wild I think there are deals to be found on the used market. I do suspect there may be a temporary increase in prices on the used market, but in a few months they’ll go back down.
Other retailers?
If you know of any other ham radio retailers who will be receiving new FT-818 stock, please comment below.
Here are some tips from readers from the comments section:
What is it about winter that engages my inner kit-builder–?
I go through this cycle every year: when outdoor temps plummet, I fire up the soldering iron and start building kits that have been sitting on the shelf for the previous three seasons.
I used to think that I built more kits in the winter because I spent more time indoors, but that’s not actually true. Reality is, I probably spend more time outdoors in the winter than I do in the other seasons…save fall, perhaps.
I actually have a QCX+ transceiver kit that a kind reader generously donated to me (thanks again, OM!). I can’t wait to dig into this particular build, but I’m forcing myself to wait.
Until I finish building and installing my Murphy Bench (check out this HRWB podcast episode where we take a deep-dive) I don’t have a dedicated space for a good multi-day transceiver kit. At present, I have to take over the dining room table and as you might imagine, the others in my family aren’t incredibly pleased with a semi-permanent workbench in the middle of the house.
I’m making my Murphy Bench a priority and dangling the QCX+ as a reward for completing the build. Wish me luck!
I’m curious: Do you find that you also do more kit-building during certain seasons? What kits or other projects are on your horizon?Please comment!
Update (one hour after publishing this post): It appears they’ve already sold out again. Sorry! I’m sure more will be produced in the near future.
Last night, during a recording of the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, George (KJ6VU) noted that he had just replenished stock of the Packtenna 20/40 End-Fed Half-Wave.
This particular antenna has a tuned 20 meter radiator and an additional 33′ of antenna wire finished off with strain loops and gold banana connectors. To operate on 40 meters, simply plug in the additional wire and connect the strain relief loops to the supplied S-Hook clip.
These antennas are made in batches and sell out very quickly (indeed, during the show recording George sold nearly half his stock). This morning, there are still a few left.
I mention this since I know a number of readers have been waiting for this particular linked EFHW to be in stock again.
A couple years ago, I started making Hike & Talk video sessions covering in-depth topics that are challenging to answer via email or even long-format blog posts.
When I receive a question from a reader and think to myself, “I’d rather answer that in-person than write a reply,” I make a note to do a Hike & Talk session.
These sessions are not scripted, outlined, or formatted in any way shape or form. When I make a Hike and Talk video, I imagine that I’m chatting away with you informally as you join me on a hike or walk.
All this to say that these long-format videos aren’t for everyone, so if it doesn’t sound like your cuppa’ tea, it’s okay to skip it! I promise, I won’t be offended.
Conquering the CW Doldrums
On January 11, 2023, I was driving back from Raleigh and decided that a quick POTA break was in order. That morning, I read an email from a reader and it was on my mind as I drove to Tuttle Educational State Forest. It was a long email, but here are the relevant bits:
Hi Thomas […]I’ve been studying CW on my own for about four months now. I know you advise joining a group like the Long Island CW Club to learn CW but my work schedule simply doesn’t allow for this. I travel frequently and have team members across the globe so my schedule is a mess. I have so little free time.
[…]I’ve been using various CW apps, CW recordings like W1AW and your videos to practice CW. I can’t stress how much your videos have encouraged me along the way because you make this all seem so achievable. I download your videos from Patreon and listen to them when driving, flying, during layovers, and in the evenings in my hotel room. Many times I just listen to your video audio as I would a podcast.
I am not at a point where I can understand all of the contacts you receive, but I do get maybe 1 out of 3. It’s a real thrill to know I decoded a callsign on my own. I see a day when I will do CW activations.
[…]I’m writing though because I feel like I’ve reached a barrier. I know all of my characters and numbers and I continue to do regular CW practice, but I feel like I’m not learning. Like my brain has stopped soaking up the code. It’s discouraging. Do you have any advice for getting through this?
I’ve received similar emails and comments in the past which is proof that you’re not alone if you can relate to this reader.
I’ve certainly been there, too!
Hike & Talk
In this video I will talk about the CW Doldrums, how I related to them, and how I work through them myself.
I include (against my better judgement!) a very long side story about my path to learning French. It relates, but perhaps not how you might think.
Instead of editing my videos, I always try to include chapter markings in the YouTube timeline so you can skip over any sections that aren’t of interest to you.
You’re going to need a few cups of coffee or tea for this one. You’ve been warned!
Thank you for joining me on this Hike & Talk session!
If you’re experiencing or have experienced the CW Doldrums yourself, let us know how you work through them in the comments section.
The important part is to know that you’re not alone and that, in fact, the Doldrums are truly a healthy sign that you’re learning CW and your brain is doing it’s thing!
As always, a special thanks to those of you who have been supporting the site and channel through Patreon and the Coffee Fund. While certainly not a requirement as my content will always be free, I really appreciate the support.
Thanks for spending part of your day with me on the trail!
Many thanks to Michael (N7CCD) for sharing the following guest post:
Flying With Ham Gear
by Michael (N7CCD)
I often get asked “how hard is it to fly with ….”, or “what does TSA say about …” as my job has me flying a fair amount throughout the year. In fact, I’m writing this now while waiting to board my flight for a week in Georgia and Alabama, after having just gone through TSA.
In a recent QRPer post by Thomas, I posted a comment about my frequent travel with ham gear and Thomas gave me a gentle “hint hint” nudge to write up my experiences on the matter. I thought this trip would be a good time to share my experiences in traveling with ham gear in my check-on baggage, as well as my carry-on baggage and my process for each. I’m always interested in learning from other’s experiences, so if you have some ideas for the good of the community, please share them in the comments below!
Before starting this article, and out of curiosity, I checked my past calendar and figured out that I passed through TSA screening about 26 times in 2022. I would say that, since starting my current role four years ago, I have at a minimum hit that number each year.
To address the main question I get about ham gear (antennas, radios, batteries, etc.) and TSA, surprisingly TSA has very little interest in any of it.
In all of my trips through the x-ray machine, TSA has never once pulled my bag out to further investigate what was inside. They have asked about my thermal camera, but never my ham gear. Full disclosure, I am TSA Pre-Check which does exclude me from having to remove laptops, iPads, etc. However, on a recent non-business trip with my wife and kids to visit family in Mexico, I wasn’t pre-check and they still didn’t care about any of my radio gear.
Since I’m limited on the amount of stuff I can physically carry on the plane, and my work gear requires me to check a bag anyway, I have divided my radio gear between what I want with me on the plane, and what I’ll just pick up when I collect my bag at baggage claim.
I have settled on a hard sided suitcase after having to replace some of my work arc flash PPE (personal protective equipment) when baggage handlers cracked my arc flash face shield. After upgrading to a hard sided suitcase, I started adding more ham equipment I would otherwise worry about getting damaged. In the image below you can see what, at this point, I’ve included in my checked bag.
From top left to bottom right: Raspberry Pi kit (more photos on that below), CWMorse paddle in a dollar store container with cable, Buddipole PowerMini, charging cradle for HT, SignalStuff mag mount for HT in rental car, hand mic for HT for use in rental car, throw line and weight, AlexLoop w/ Amazon Basics tripod, US Road Atlas
The idea behind the Pi and AlexLoop antenna is I can work HF digital no matter where I am. This is more fun than watching TV in a hotel, but also gives me digital capabilities to send emails or texts over HF if I am stranded without service of any kind. The mag mount and HT hand mic allow me to use my HT in my rental car as a mobile radio. The same SignalStuff antenna on my HT can be transferred to the mag mount easily once I step into the car. Continue reading Flying With Ham Gear and Navigating TSA→
Friday, January 6, 2023, was a beautiful day and my route took me within 10 minutes of South Mountains State Park (K-2753).
Of course, I had to activate it!
In truth, I had only a short window to do the activation, but I knew it would be seriously fun.
I’d packed my Penntek TR-45L and Chelegance MC-750 for the trip and was looking forward to pairing the two.
My TR-45L actually has the built-in Z-Match manual antenna tuner, but I wanted to, once again, configure the MC-750 as a resonant antenna (much like I did in my previous activation).
I also had my new VK3IL pressure paddle along for the ride and wanted to see how nicely it might work with the TR-45L.
If I’m being honest, it was a bit strange not to use a wire antenna at this particular park because South Mountains has some very large old-growth trees that are ideal for hanging antennas.
I wanted it for full-duplex satellite work (funny: many satellite enthusiasts call a pair of 817s the “Yaesu FT-1634”)
The unit I purchased was like-new with all original accessories and side rails for $350 shipped.
Although my first FT-817ND has a Collins narrow CW filter installed, I decided to build one for this second unit as well. That way, I could grab either radio on the way out the door to activate a park or summit.
So why the new FT-818ND?
It was always my plan to eventually replace out one of my FT-817NDs with an FT-818ND. Here are the reasons:
I was having difficulty finding a TXCO. The FT-818ND has a TCXO-9 high-stability oscillator built-in.
I wanted one of my two radios to be a late model.
I had planned to buy a Yaesu FT-818ND sometime in 2023. Possibly at the 2023 Hamvention.
When Gavin (GM0WDD) informed me that Yaesu was discontinuing the FT-818ND on December 28, 2022–only moments after the announcement was made–I immediately hopped over to DX Engineering and purchased one. I realized that the remaining inventory of new radios would be depleted in short order and I was right. By the following day, all major US retailers were out of stock.
Are FT-818ND prices going to soar?
No. I don’t think so.
The FT-817 and FT-818 have been on the market since 2001. In that time, Yaesu has sold bazillions of them. Seriously. These pop up in the classifieds and at hamfests all the time because there are so many floating around out there in the wild.
The FT-818/817 is sort of the opposite of a rare, limited-production-run radio. If you’re looking for a used ‘818, I think you’ll find that the prices are relatively stable.
I would discourage you from paying a premium for an FT-818ND.
Next steps with my ‘818ND
I am going to set this unit up for POTA and SOTA activations; it can do double duty for satellite work.
I’ll remove the Portable Zero side rails from one of my other 817s and attach them to the FT-818.
I initially planned to yank the narrow CW filter out of my 2nd Yaesu FT-817, but that just seemed cruel. If/when I sell that radio, I would like to give the buyer a narrow CW filter option.
I also purchased RT System’s programming software and cable for the FT-817/818. I’ve adopted RT systems for all of my other VHF/UHF radios, so it’ll be easy to load, change, and clone all of the frequency memories. I’ll be nice having both SOTA calling frequencies and repeaters pre-loaded on my radios.
I’ve thought about actually making a no-edit video of building/installing the CW filter and side rails.
While the announcement by Yaesu may have prompted me to pull the ‘818 trigger a few months early, I have no regrets whatsoever.
The only challenge I’m going to face down the road is trying to sell the “extra” FT-817ND.
Then again, I’ve thought about keeping the third one decked out in the TPA-817 pack frame (see photo above) and lending it out to local POTA/SOTA newbies who want to test out the healing waters of QRP.
Many thanks to Conrad (N2YCH) who shares the following field report:
QRP-Labs QDX Field Report
K-1716, Silver Sands State Park, Milford, Connecticut
January 13, 2023
By: Conrad Trautmann, N2YCH
A digital mode multiband transceiver for $69? Yes! QRP Labs has the QDX kit available for $69 US. Add $20 if you would like a very nice black anodized aluminum case to mount it in and if you want it assembled and tested add another $45. Visit the QRP Labs web site for all of the details (QDX 4-band 5W Digi transceiver (qrp-labs.com)
How well can a $69 digital transceiver work? Read on…
I ordered my QDX kit back in May 2022. It arrived in June, I assembled it and ran some tests at home. It worked well on FT8 into my home antennas. It interfaces nicely with WSJT-X and I liked the idea of using a low power transceiver to band hop on WSPR. My QDX is an early four band version, which does 20, 30, 40 & 80 meters. I set it to band hop on all four bands not remembering that my multiband offset center fed dipole is not resonant on 30 meters. Since the QDX does not have a tuner, it didn’t like the higher reflected power of a two minute long WSPR transmission into a bad load and smoke resulted. I was fortunate that the failure was isolated to the RF power amplifier transistors and replacing those got me running again. This was my own fault, not the transceiver. Now, it band hops on 20, 40 and 80 meters with no issues, I eliminated 30 meters from the hop schedule.
I share this important story at the beginning of my field report as a warning to anyone considering using a QDX to be very careful when connecting an antenna to it. Since the QDX does not have an internal antenna tuner, you either need a resonant antenna or must use an external tuner to provide a 50 ohm load with low SWR to the QDX. The QRP Labs groups.io site has a number of posts from users with different tuner suggestions.
Now comes the fun part. I visited Silver Sands State Park, K-1716, located on Long Island sound in Milford, CT on January 13, 2023 in the afternoon. While it was Friday the 13th, I had nothing but good luck. Knowing I would be running QRP power, I decided to use what I consider to be my best 20 meter antenna. It’s a modified version of a Buddipole, which I call my “no coil” Buddipole dipole. I use a Buddipole VersaTee mounted to a WILL-BURT Hurry Up mast, which is a push up mast that extends to about 25’ high. The dipole consists of two Buddipole 32” accessory arms, one for each side of the VersaTee and two MFJ 17’ telescoping whips, extended to just about 17.5’. This provides a very broad bandwidth and low SWR on 20 meters. See the screen shot of my antenna sweep from the RigExpert analyzer below.
Here’s a photo of the antenna in the air.
The temperature on this January day was a mild 55 degrees so I was able to set up my equipment in the back of my Jeep. Here’s everything I needed to do the activation. Since the antenna is resonant, I did not use a tuner.
My iPhone gives you an idea of just how big the QDX is, which is sitting just to the right of it. There are only three connections needed, the antenna cable, a 12V power cable and the USB cable. I was using my Bioenno 9ah battery for power. I brought the Bird Model 43 with a 25 watt element in it to monitor the output power and also to measure the reflected power, which barely even nudged the meter. It was effectively zero watts reflected. In the photo above, I was in a transmit cycle and you can see the power meter just a touch above 5 watts. On the computer, you can see a mini pile-up of six hunters in the queue. One thing to note about the QDX is that you can’t adjust the power by lowering the PWR slider in WSJT-X. It’s recommended to leave that at maximum. The way to adjust output power is to adjust the power supply voltage. In this case, the Bioenno had a full charge, so the radio was running full power.
I began the activation without spotting myself, just to see who’d hear me. Here’s a map of the pskreporter showing my spots.
I eventually spotted myself so hunters would know what park I was at. I was amazed that during my activation, I never ran dry or had to call CQ POTA, there was a steady stream of hunters the entire time. The QDX does a fine job receiving, here’s a screenshot of WSJT-X including the waterfall to show what it was receiving.
So, how did the $69 radio do? In a one hour and 17 minute activation, I completed 46 FT8 QSO’s. Here’s my coverage map.
I managed to complete three park to park QSO’s, too. One park called me and I called the other two who heard me and answered. I use JTAlert which helps me keep track of the order of who called. I always try to answer the hunters in the order they called me. I’ve set up a Directed CQ alert in JTAlert for anyone calling “CQ POTA” which helps me to see who else is at a park while I’m activating. If I’m able to contact them, I use the POTA spot list to include their park number in the SIG_INFO field of my log, which is N3FJP. N3FJP is handy to use since I start a new log for each activation and I’ve configured it to upload to LOTW and QRZ when I’m done for the day.
Another thing worth noting is that there is no speaker on the QDX. I’m one of those digital operators who actually listens to the cycles while I’m on the air. It provides a certain cadence to hear each cycle go by so you know what to be looking at or clicking on and when. With no sound coming out of the QDX, it forces you to find that cadence by looking at the computer screen. For me, it means watching the receive audio levels and the progress bar to see if I’m transmitting or receiving. The QDX does have a single red LED on the front panel that will flash during transmit cycles, which is also a helpful indicator.
I’d say the results shown here speak for themselves. I had a steady stream of hunters, I had just one or two QSO’s that needed a second RR73 to confirm and the coverage was as good as most activations I’ve done with more expensive radios and more power. Despite the self-inflicted hiccup I experienced at the beginning, I’d say that If you’re looking to try activating digital for Parks On The Air or even for your home, the QDX certainly works very well and provides a lot of value for the money.
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Many thanks to Conrad (N2YCH) who shares the following field report:
