Many thanks to Conrad (N2YCH) who shares the following field report:
AX1 Test using American Radio Supply AM-801 Window Mount: POTA Activation at Stuart B. McKinney Wildlife Refuge, K-0228
February 19, 2023
By: Conrad Trautmann (N2YCH)
If you’ve been reading the posts here on QRPer.com lately, you probably already know that the Elecraft AX1 has proven to be an excellent antenna for POTA activations for CW, SSB and Digital modes.
Personally, I used it for a New York City POTA rove I did at the end of 2022 and was able to activate four parks in one day all over Manhattan.
Recently, Alan, W2AEW contributed a story to QRPer.com detailing how he used a window bracket he constructed with an AX1 to do a CW park activation from his car. I’ve actually done a few digital activations from the car using the AX1, however, I used the tripod with the Elecraft tripod adapter and ran coax to it out the window and draped the counterpoise down the hood or trunk. This has worked well except for windy days where it would blow over. I was intrigued by the possibility of using the window mount and a number of the commenters to Alan’s post suggested sources for these types of mounts. I ended up ordering an AM-801 from American Radio Supply.
Since the AX1 depends on a counterpoise wire to operate properly, the first thing I did after receiving the AM-801 mount was to drill a hole in the base for a screw and a wing nut. The base is painted black, so I got my continuity meter out to double check that the screw was making a good ground, which it was. I had to bend the mount up slightly for the antenna to be vertical, since my Jeep windows don’t have much of an angle to them. I’m sure it would be just right for most cars.
After posting my latest field reports using the Elecraft AX1 antenna, I’ve received a number of messages from new AX1 owners. All of the following have kindly allowed me to share them here with you.
AX1 Patio DXing
From Michael (K1ETA):
Thomas,
I am a subscriber and an avid follower. [L]ike you, I do a lot of portable ops with various antenna setups and radios. I was recently offered an AX1 and I was told it was basically a dummy load. Having seen your videos and proof of success I accepted it and I can’t say how much fun I have with it. Yesterday, I made 22 DX contacts throughout Europe in the ARRL World Wide CW contest from my patio in my back yard with 5 watts, the AX1 and my KX2.
I would never have tried that with the AX1 had I not seen your videos. You see it is even good enough for contests if you don’t try to compete with the big guns. Listen, search and call back the stations without pileups!
Many thank for all you do and for making me an AX1 believer.
72
Michael Kenney (K1ETA)
Pairing the AX2 and Emtech ZM-2
From Michael (N7CCD):
Hi Thomas,
I just finished your video comparing the AX1 and AX2 and thought you might appreciate a solution I came up with for making my travel more compact.
I purchased the AX2 during the February sale and found it pairs well with the ZM-2 ATU for my IC-705 (wow what a mouthful of acronyms. No wonder my wife and daughter call me a nerd…). I didn’t get the tripod adapter in the sale, but found the AX2 sits perfectly on the ZM-2 which acts as a very stable stand. There is some body capacitance when tuning, but not too much. I was even able to easily tune it on 17M. I need to try other higher bands sometime.
I set it up in our breakfast nook just for kicks and sent a few JS8 and FT8 transmissions to see where I was being heard (I’ll include a screenshot). Was able to successfully send an APRS text message, and I even made an SSB contact into a special event station in Nevada!
I found a hard sided case I can store the tuner and AX2 in, which also had enough room to put in a “speaker wire” antenna as an option. Why not?
I think this may replace the AlexLoop for air travel since it’s so compact and versatile.
Hope all is well on your side of the country!
Michael – N7CCD
P.S. +16 into Michigan!
AX1 DXing
From Kevin (KD8IE):
Hi Tom,
After video about the AX1 recently, I decided to order one and it came last week.
The weather’s been kind of chilly up here. As a matter of fact, it was 41 when I decided to go out and do an activation then at Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Well, suffice to say I made contacts with the antenna a lot farther than I expected it would be. The bands were really long. First station I worked was in New Brunswick. The last two stations were Italy and Slovenia.
73,
KD8IE
Many thanks to all of you for sharing your experience and tips using the AX series antennas!
I look forward to all your videos and am enjoying how you use the Elecraft AX-1 in the field.
I have built the “WD-PT-PB” attachment for my AX-1 antenna.
That is, it is for Windy Day-Picnic Table-Park Bench use. It can be set up horizontally or vertically on the edge of a picnic table or at any angle on the back of a park bench and is a secure attachment for the AX-1 off the radio.
[I] bought the bolts straight and put them thru a random C clamp secured with a nut or wing nut and then bent one in my vise. Loosen the wing nut and angle the bolt any way I want and tighten the wing nut.
The pictures show it better than paragraphs of a description.
73,
Jim Long
Madison, WI
N9EET
That’s brilliant, Jim! I love how versatile the clamp is and that it even fits in your Maxpedition pouch! No doubt, it’ll help the AX1 (or AX2, or any similar antenna) survive the windiest of deployments.
If you’ve been following QRPer.com and my YouTube channel for long, you’ll notice that I typically post two field reports with videos per week when my free time allows. Each report takes about four hours to produce along with a video. I’ve currently got a small backlog of videos I need to post, so in order to squeeze them into my schedule, I’m going to use a slightly more abbreviated field report format: a “postcard” format!
My Postcard Field Reports will still be information-packed, just slightly more concise and distilled than my average field report. I’ll primarily post these for sites I visit frequently.
Speaking of which….
Lake James State Park (K-2739)
Thursday, February 2, 2023, was a rainy, dreary day so the perfect time to play a little POTA, right? I made time in my morning to visit Lake James State Park (K-2739).
When I arrived at the Catawba River Access, the parking lot was empty. Not too surprising considering it was a Thursday morning on a chilly, rainy day.
Last year (May, 2022), Xiegu announced a new compact field radio that would be added to their line of transceivers: the Xiegu G106.
As I was capping off my summer in Canada (August, 2022), Radioddity started shipping the G106. Radioddity had me on their list of folks to send a loaner G106 to, but I didn’t have time to even look at the radio I was so busy upon my return, so didn’t immediately request it.
I did watch, however, K8MRD’s initial review and updated review of the G106. It was less than stellar [understatement alert!] but more than relevant to me because Mike shipped his second unit to me on behalf of Radioddity.
I connected that G106 to a dummy load, checked the transmitted signal, and it simply didn’t look very clean. It looked worse than it did when Mike checked it only a couple weeks prior.
I shared my results with Radioddity, told them I didn’t feel comfortable putting it on the air for testing in the field, and they asked to have that unit returned and checked out.
Updated G106
Fast-forward to January 2023 when I was once again contacted by Radioddity to see if I would like to field test an updated G106. I was happy to do so, in fact, because I was curious if the whole G106 experience had improved.
In the spirit of full disclosure: keep in mind that Radioddity is a Xiegu retailer/distributor–they are not the manufacturer nor are they owned by Xiegu. They are a sponsor of QRPer.com, but have no say in what I post nor any sort of editorial input. Indeed, this is always a condition of sponsorship from day one.
To Radioddity’s credit, some of my most critical reviews have been of products they’ve sent me on loan (especially the GSOC). They take criticism on the chin and keep on moving forward. This is why they are still a sponsor and I like working with them. They understand that I call it like it is and stand by what I publish.
This G106 has been sent to me on loan for a few weeks to review. I plan to take this unit on a number of activations and pair it with a variety of antennas and accessories.
Very early impressions
I will eventually publish a full review of the G106 (likely in The Spectrum Monitor magazine first) once I’ve put in a lot more field and shack hours with the G106. In the activation video, below, I do make a lot of comments about the radio–thinking out-loud–so if you’re considering purchasing the G106, you might at least listen to a few of my initial impressions.
I will say this: for a modern SDR-based transceiver, it’s pretty bare-bones. It lacks a number of features I assumed it might have despite the incredibly affordable $320 US price point:
No SWR meter
No Power meter
No CW or Voice message memories
No RF gain control
No AGC control
No dedicated headphone audio output
But, again, it has more features than many of the bare-bones CW-only QRP transceivers out there, so for the price perhaps expectations should simply be in check–?
Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace (K-6856)
On Tuesday, January 31, 2023, I took the G106 on its maiden POTA activation to K-6856.
The G106 doesn’t have a built-in ATU (which I would never expect at this price point) so I decided to pair it with a resonant antenna. Since it was a very rainy day and the area/ground where I tend to deploy my wire antennas at Vance was squishy and soft, I opted to deploy my Chelegance MC-750 next to the picnic shelter. Continue reading Taking the Xiegu G106 on its maiden POTA activation!→
On Friday, January 27, 2023, I dropped off one of my daughters at the library for a creative writing session.
Hazel was along for the ride, so we decided to hike on the nearby Mountains To Sea Trail (MST) while my daughter was in the meeting.
During the hike, I realized that I should have taken my field radio pack along because it would have been so easy to activate both the MST and Blue Ridge Parkway as a two-fer.
Instead, Hazel and I enjoyed our hike and got back to the car with about 35 minutes or so to do an activation–including set-up, on-air time, and pack-up. That would leave me just enough time to pick up my daughter at the library before they closed for the day.
Challenge accepted!
Because I had been using the Elecraft KX2 and AX1 recently, I had both packed in my Spec-Ops EDC backpack. In theory–even filming a video at the same time–I knew I could probably fit in a whole activation with 25 minutes on the air. I only needed 10 contacts, and I’ve never been in a situation where the AX1 couldn’t achieve that goal.
Many thanks to Brian (K3ES) who shares the following guest post:
The VK160 Antenna packed on its Winder/Feedpoint for storage, transport, and deployment.
Building and Testing the VK160 Antenna
by Brian (K3ES)
The ability to set and achieve long- and short-term goals keeps me interested and active in the Parks on the Air (POTA) program. Often these goals are associated with POTA awards. Currently, I am working slowly to complete the activator version of the James F. LaPorta N1CC award, which requires an activator to make QSOs on 10 amateur bands from 10 different parks. With my operating style, I have found it achievable to make QSOs on the 9 available HF bands (80m, 60m, 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, and 10m), and this has become easier with the rising solar cycle. I have completed QSOs on non-HF bands using 2m and 70cm simplex. The other options to pick up 10th band QSOs include the 6m band and the 160m band.
I have found it difficult to make unscheduled POTA contacts on 2m and 70cm, and scheduled contacts can be difficult to arrange in parks that are remote from population centers. I have built a 6m antenna, but contacts are seasonal (and for me very elusive). So I started looking for a way to add 160m capability to my portable station. Ultimately that resulted in homebrewing a new antenna that I now call the VK160, and here is its story.
Objective
I needed a field-deployable 160m antenna. My operating style requires that the antenna system be both light and compact. QRP power levels are sufficient for my purposes. I am very comfortable deploying wire antennas in the Pennsylvania woods, and QRP wire antennas can be both light and compact. I have found that end-fed antennas are simpler to deploy in the field, because they can be configured as an inverted V or as a sloper, using only one point of support.
An end-fed half wave (EFHW) antenna would be naturally resonant, but would need to be over 250 ft (76m) long. A wire antenna of that length would be challenging to deploy, even in more open areas. So, I decided to pursue a 9:1 unun-based end-fed “random wire” (EFRW) antenna. In fact, I have two commercial EFRW antennas available, but have never been successful in tuning them for 160m using the ZM-2 tuner in my field kit. So, I concluded (probably incorrectly, but more on that later) that I needed to build a 9:1 random wire antenna with a longer radiating element than the 71 ft wire built into my largest existing EFRW. I also wanted to build this antenna myself, using available components, so that it would be both inexpensive and customized to my needs.
I broke the task into four parts:
First, I needed to build a 9:1 unun suitable for use at QRP power levels. The 9:1 unun is an autotransformer that reduces antenna feedpoint impedance by a factor of 9, hopefully a level that a wide-range tuner can match to the 50 ohm transceiver impedance.
Second, I had to design and build mechanical elements of the antenna system, incorporating the electrical components needed for the feedpoint.
Third, I needed to select a suitable non-resonant wire length for the radiator.
Finally, I needed to deploy and test the finished antenna on the air. If successful, testing would culminate in completing an on-air QSO with the antenna being driven at 5 watts or less.
Building the 9:1 Unun
While I have built successful 49:1 ununs as the basis for EFHW antennas, I had no experience building 9:1 ununs. Accordingly, I started with the ARRL Antenna Book, then a web search. VK6YSF’s excellent web page provided very detailed instructions for 9:1 unun construction. His 9:1 Unun design was based on a FT140-43 toroid wrapped with heavy gauge magnet wire, with design power rating around 100 watts. My application was focused on 10 watts maximum, and I wanted a lighter-weight solution to the unun design.
Looking at the components I had available, I found FT50-43 toroids and 24 AWG magnet wire in my inventory. I had used those during construction of successful 49:1 EFHW antennas. The VK6YSF design, built with the smaller toroids and lighter magnet wire, seemed to be a good (and cheap) starting point.
The “50” portion of the FT50-43 toroid designation specifies its 0.50 inch (1.27 cm) outside diameter. The “43” portion designates nickel/zinc composition that is suitable for high frequency inductive applications.
The next problem that presented itself was a problem with translating the winding technique to smaller wire and a smaller toroid. Put simply, my fingers do not have the dexterity to wrap three parallel 24 AWG wires around a ½ inch OD toroid without getting them crossed, twisted, or worse. So, why not twist the three conductors from the start, and wrap the toroid with “trifilar” windings? It would be simple enough to identify the mating wire ends after wrapping, just with a set of continuity tests. That would facilitate proper connection of the wires to yield the final auto-transformer configuration.
FT50-43 toroid with three-10 inch (25.4 cm) segments of 24 AWG enameled magnet wire staged for construction of the 9:1 unun.
I posed the “trifilar” winding question to my friends over on the QRPer.net discussion board. Nobody identified a significant flaw with the proposed method, but neither did anyone have experience that would assure success. So, I decided to use the “trifilar” winding technique to construct my 9:1 unun, with the full recognition that its success would be uncertain, and only proven by testing the finished product. Continue reading In Pursuit of the Top Band: Brian describes how he built and tested a field-portable 160 meter EFRW antenna→
As I mentioned in my previous field report, on Saturday, January 21, 2023, I had just enough time to activate two parks in short order on the way back to my QTH
I thought it might be fun to perform both of these activations with the Elecraft KX2 and AX1 combo because they’re so speedy to deploy.
Once again, I wanted to show the whole KX2/AX1 set-up and pack-up process in my activation video.
Lake James State Park (K-2739)
As I pulled into the Lake James Catawba River access, I discovered that there were few other guests there that day. I was expecting more people on a Saturday especially since the weather was so pleasant and South Mountains had been so busy earlier that morning.
Then again, the Catawba River access always has less visitors than the Paddy’s Creek area (which is really the main public access point for Lake James).
I pulled into a parking space, found one of the closest picnic tables, and set up the station in short order.
At South Mountains State Park, an hour earlier, I performed the entire activation on 20 meters. To shake things up a bit, I decided to perform the one at Lake James on 17 meters (note here that the AX1 only works on 20 and 17 meters unless you have the coil which adds 40 meters). Continue reading KX2/AX1: Second quick activation of the day at Lake James State Park!→
I thought you or your readers might like to know that Elecraft has a limited number of the ES80 cases on sale at half price. They have a slightly crooked logo but I doubt it will be noticeable when the case is stuffed full of gear.
I bought one for my IC-705 and USPS says it is out for delivery today (Wednesday). Just ordered it on Sunday.
Ironically–and a testament to my terrible timing–I purchased the equivalent of the AX2 package on Jan 30 (yes, two days before the Feb sale started) and I paid $130.51 shipped. I can confirm that $101.94 shipped is a great price!
I decided to purchase a second AX1 package yesterday, basically to have a dedicated AX1 system for my Elecraft KX2 field kit.
Note that Elecraft is not a sponsor of QRPer.com (though they really should be, shouldn’t they–? Please put in a good word for us!) and I have no affiliation with them other than buying, using, and evaluating their products.
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