Many thanks to Jonathan KM4CFT who shares this article with us. If you have an article in your head and want to have it posted here, let’s keep this community going while our friend Thomas continues to help his neighbours. Draft up your story in an email with reference points to the pictures you want embedded and their captions, attach photos to the note and send it my way to vincedeon at gmail dot com and note QRPer in the subject line to get my attention.
By: Jonathan Kayne, KM4CFT
About 10 months ago, I took the plunge to design my own Morse Code transceiver. It was a crazy idea, and this was certainly a massive undertaking, but somehow, I managed to pull off this monumental task. The result of the project was the CFT1, a 5 Band CW Field Transceiver specifically tailored for POTA and SOTA operations. Doing this project was a great learning experience and despite the monumental effort and work I put into it, I really enjoyed getting to design a new product. There is something special when you see something you love and put effort into appear in the hands of others and seeing them enjoy using said product.
The purpose of this article is to outline some of the thoughts I put into when I designed the CFT1. It is not meant to go into the meat and potatoes of RF design work as there are plenty of resources out there that go over that stuff. I have yet to see much discussed on design philosophy of a transceiver so I thought it prudent to document these things. That is; what I took into consideration when putting together the radio. And as I learned in this project, when pulled off correctly, can result in a great product.
My buddy Jonathan (KM4CFT) made a big announcement this morning.
He’s been working tirelessly since the start of the year, designing and testing a brand-new field-portable CW transceiver he’s dubbed the CFT1.
As of this morning, you can purchase the transceiver kit on HamGadgets.com.
A little backstory
Jonathan first mentioned his plans to design a CW transceiver back when we were doing a joint POTA activation at the end of December 2023. At the time, it was just an idea. When he said he planned to have it ready for sale in 2024, I was skeptical. I mean, he had a day job and had never designed a radio before. How could he pull that off in such a short timeframe?
Fast forward to Four Days in May/Hamvention in May 2024, and wouldn’t you know it, Jonathan had a working prototype on display! I was blown away. Within a couple of weeks, he was contacting us beta testers, eager to get revision one units into our hands.
I got my CFT1 in June and immediately put it through its paces in the shack. Even in beta, this little radio was rock solid – I was seriously impressed!
I thoroughly tested the CFT1 in the shack, both on a dummy load and with my QTH antenna. If you’re into SOTA or POTA and I worked you in June, chances are it was with the CFT1.
Vlado (N3CZ) making field day contacts.
I even took the CFT1 out for a spin on Field Day. Vlado (N3CZ) and I were both impressed with how well it performed in that crazy RF environment. Remember, this isn’t a contest radio, but it didn’t seem to overload at all. Impressive!
When I heard Jonathan was launching the CFT1 today, I figured I’d do a quick POTA activation to showcase this awesome little radio.
The Blue Ridge Parkway (US-3378)
Yesterday morning, I was heading to Mission Hospital in Asheville to visit a family member who had just been admitted. I realized I had enough time for a quick activation at the Folk Art Center on the way.
I arrived at the parking lot around 8:30 AM. It was pretty empty except for the grounds crew. I set up at my usual picnic table.
I paired the CFT1 with my KM4CFT End-Fed Half-Wave, trimmed for 30M with a 40M linked extension. I was hoping for some 40-meter action early in the morning. Setup was a breeze. My throw line cooperated beautifully – the 40M EFHW was practically vertical!
Naturally, I filmed the whole process: setup, activation, and pack-up. Before I started the activation, I spent a few minutes talking about the CFT1 – its design philosophy and what I like about it. Hopefully, this will help you decide if it’s the right radio for you.
Gear:
Note: All Amazon, CW Morse, ABR, Chelegance, eBay, and Radioddity links are affiliate links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.
My buddy, Jonathan (KM4CFT), is close to releasing a new CW Field Transceiver kit he designed for POTA, SOTA, and pretty much any other field radio activity.
Today, he shared the following photo, which is a bit of a teaser:
Those of you who attended Four Days in May this year may have already gotten a proper sneak peek and even operated a prototype of this radio.
Jonathan tells me that he’ll be releasing details in the near future and you’ll soon be able to order the kits via Radio Dan’s eBay store[eBay partnership link] or via his website.
Of course, I’ll also post details here on QRPer.com when the new radio kit is live and ready to order! Stay tuned!
As I write this report, I’m on the road with my family–we’ve been spending the week on the coast of North Carolina and are now (at time of publishing) in Raleigh. I’ll keep this field report short and sweet so I can publish it quickly and also fit in an activation before record temps heat up the region!
Blue Ridge Parkway (US-3378)
On the morning of July 4th, 2024, Jonathan (KM4CFT) and I arranged to meet and activate on the Blue Ridge Parkway (US-3378).
Jonathan was in town visiting family over the holiday weekend, and I had a brief window of time that morning to join him. My schedule had been packed since Field Day, making this my first chance for a POTA activation for a couple of weeks.
We knew it would be an interesting activation right from the start: we both arrived at the Folk Art Center at the same time and were greeted by a large black bear strolling down the road in front of the entrance! A bear walking awayfrom your POTA spot is always a good thing.
After a quick catch-up, I grabbed my arborist throw line and deployed the 30/40 meter linked end-fed half-wave antenna I’d built using the KM4CFT antenna kit.
It would have been rude to use another antenna with KM4CFT standing right there! (Note to N5FY: Yes, I know I’ve been rude to you on many previous activations, haha!)
Gear:
Note: All Amazon, CW Morse, ABR, Chelegance, eBay, and Radioddity links are affiliate links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.
Jonathan took to the air first. Since neither of us had announced our activation, I opened POTA.app to spot him. Except, I didn’t. In a moment of confusion, I accidentally spotted myself!
It turns out there’s no easy way to delete your own spot once you’ve done that. (If there is, I’d love to know, though I hope to never make that mistake again!)
What followed was rather comical. Jonathan noticed people thought he was me, even though he used his own callsign in each exchange. I guess it’s easy to mishear a callsign when you think you already know it!
I kept spotting myself “QRT,” but many kind operators kept re-spotting me. I even moved to 14,000 kHz (an out-of-band frequency I’d never use) and spotted myself QRT. People were still re-spotting me on Jonathan’s frequency!
It was funny, and the early morning hour on a holiday probably contributed to the confusion.
After Jonathan logged his ten contacts, he handed the radio over to me. I swapped out paddles (his TP-III setup mounted to the FT-818 wasn’t comfortable for me).
I started calling CQ POTA de K4SWL, spotted myself (correctly this time!), and the real activation began.
In the end, I worked 25 stations in 26 minutes. Thanks to all the hunters!
Then it was time to call QRT and continue our day. It was great seeing Jonathan and fitting in a little POTA before the day really started!
QSO Map
Here’s what this five-watt activation looked like when plotted out on a QSO Map:
Activation Video
Here’s my real-time, real-life video of the entire activation. As with all of my videos, I don’t edit out any parts of the on-air activation time. In addition, I have monetization turned off on YouTube, although that doesn’t stop them from inserting ads before and after my videos.
Thank you for joining me during this activation! (And thank you, Jonathan, for joining me!)
I hope you enjoyed the field report and my activation video as much as I enjoyed creating them!
Of course, I’d also like to send a special thanks to those of you who have been supporting the site and channel through Patreon, and the Coffee Fund. While not a requirement, as my content will always be free, I really appreciate the support.
As I mentioned before, the Patreon platform connected to Vimeo makes it possible for me to share videos that are not only 100% ad-free but also downloadable for offline viewing. The Vimeo account also serves as a third backup for my video files.
Thanks for spending part of your day with me! Have a brilliant week ahead and be kind to one another out there!
Many thanks to Jonathan (KM4CFT) 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.
IC-705 Field Kit
by Jonathan (KM4CFT)
This is my new field kit for my IC-705. The 705 is my favorite radio in my collection and I prefer to use it for any casual field work where size and weight isn’t a concern. (When I am concerned about size and weight I typically take my KX2.)
It consists of a protected IC-705 and a camera lens case. I cannot take credit for this idea since I copied it from Aaron Bowman, W4ARB. (see his video here)
The kit consists of the following:
Note: All Amazon and eBay links are affiliate/partner links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.
On Thursday, December 28, 2023, I had the good fortune of meeting up with Jonathan (KM4CFT) at the Zebulon Vance Historic Birthplace (K-6856) to play a little POTA.
These days, Jonathan lives in Colorado, but he’s originally from western North Carolina. We met once before when he was in town visiting his folks. That previous time was very short, though; this time, we wanted to meetup and fit in a POTA activation together.
We arranged to meet around 2:00 in the afternoon at the Vance Birthplace.
We decided to deploy one of Jonathan’s End-Fed Half-Wave antennas. He cut this particular one for 20 meters.
We set up under the picnic shelter with the antenna essentially in a sloper configuration.
Gear:
Note: All Amazon, CW Morse, ABR, Chelegance, eBay, and Radioddity links are affiliate/partnerhip links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.
I brought along a couple of radios that Jonathan had yet to operate. He chose to use the Penntek TR-45L (great choice!).
One wrinkle: Jonathan operates with his paddle in “reverse” with the left paddle sending dashes and the right sending dits.
Unfortunately, the TR-45L doesn’t have a software function to flip between “normal” and “reverse” settings. No problem, though: Jonathan simply turned his key (a BaMaKey TP-III) upside down! Problem solved!
The only annoying issue was the 45L speaker–something inside the chassis or speaker assembly was rattling/buzzing with louder signals and with the sidetone. After noticing the speaker vibration at an activation in South Carolina a few months ago, I opened up the TR-45L at the QTH and tried to tighten down anything that could resonate inside the chassis. My fix seemed to work until we powered it up for Jonathan to use. I may have to add some padding around the speaker assembly if I can’t locate the culprit inside the radio–it could be pretty much anything.
Jonathan plugged along and paid no attention to the buzz, nor my fiddling with the radio while he operated. (You’re a good sport, OM!).
After he completed his activation, Jonathan handed over the radio to me.
Since I couldn’t sort out the acoustic buzz/vibration without opening the radio on the picnic table, I opted to swap out the TR-45L with my Discovery TX-500.
I hopped on the air and logged quite a few stations on 20 meters. It was serious fun!
Here’s our real-time, real-life video of the entire activation. As with all of my videos, I don’t edit out any parts of the on-air activation time. In addition, I have monetization turned off on YouTube, although that doesn’t stop them from inserting ads before and after my videos.
Jonathan, it was great hanging with you and, again, I’m so impressed with your CW progress. It seems like only yesterday when you started your CW journey!
When folks are passing through western NC it can be difficult for our schedules to align for a POTA meetup, but I’m so happy when they do.
Thank you!
Thank you for joining us on this joint activation!
I hope you enjoyed the field report and ctivation video as much as I enjoyed creating them.
Of course, I’d also like to send 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.
As I mentioned before, the Patreon platform connected to Vimeo make it possible for me to share videos that are not only 100% ad-free, but also downloadable for offline viewing. The Vimeo account also serves as a third backup for my video files.
Thanks for spending part of your day with me! Have an amazing weekend!
When my friend, Alan (W2AEW), caught wind that I planned to buy some 26AWG wire for this build, he sent me a spool of wire from a large reel he’d recently picked up at a hamfest.
What a nice guy! The blue wire is absolutely ideal for portable antennas.
Being the nice guy he is, Alan actually published a video about building Jonathan’s antenna kit on his YouTube channel. I highly recommend watching it!
Before I received the kit, I already knew what type of antenna I’d build: a 30 meter end-fed half-wave (EFHW) linked with a 40 meter extension. This antenna design has been on my mind for some time and Jonathan’s kit was the perfect excuse to build one.
Why a 30M EFHW with a 40M extension? Because a 40M EFHW gives me excellent SWR matches on 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters without needing an ATU. A 30M EFHW gives me matches 30 and 17 meters.
Thus, with one linked wire antenna, I can cover 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, and 10 meters! That’s a lot of bands!
And since the antenna needs no extra matching, it’ll work with my transceivers that lack an internal ATU.
The Mountain Topper MTR-5B I acquired earlier this year.
In fact, I originally thought about this antenna design to use with my Mountain Topper MTR-5B which covers 40, 30, 20, 17, and 15 meters.
I built this antenna by first trimming it for a 1:1 match on 30 meters including a loop and strain relief to attach the extension.
When I was satisfied with my 30M EFHW, I then made the 40M extension, attached it to the 30M section with 2mm bullet banana connectors, then trimmed the antenna for a 1:1 match on 40M.
I spent the better part of 60 minutes trimming this antenna. I feel like patience really pays off because it’ll set up the antenna for good matches on all of the upper harmonics. Admittedly, I was a bit pressed for time that day, so I only tested this antenna in one configuration (an inverted vee shape) so hadn’t checked the SWR as a sloper or vertical.
My advice is to aim for a 1.3:1 or better match on 30M and 40M–that should be very doable if you wound your transformer correctly.
Long time QRPer.com contributor and supporter, Jonathan (KM4CFT) has designed and started producing ultra-compact end-fed antenna kits (eBay affiliate link).
His end-fed antennas are incredibly small, thus perfect for portable operations. They remind me very much of K6ARK’s end-fed wire antenna kits, but a little easier to build because the board is larger and there are no surface mount components.
Jonathan sent me one of his end-fed kits (assembled) a couple weeks ago, but I’ve yet to trim mine due to my crazy schedule and activities as of late (well, that I need need to order more wire!). I will take this antenna to the field this month, but the video may not show up for a few weeks.
W2AEW Builds the KM4CFT UNUN
This morning, I learned that my good friend Alan (W2AEW) published a video where he builds, tunes and tests Jonathan’s QRP End Fed UNUN kit:
Alan’s video is superb. If you purchase this EFHW kit, I’d encourage you to watch his build. (And subscribe to his channel!)
How to purchase
Jonathan is selling his antenna kits on eBay–click here to check it out. The price is $29.95 plus a modest shipping fee. I think it’s an excellent deal.
Of course, you’ll need some wire for your radiator and/or counterpoise.
I plan to build mine with a 30 meter link to pair with my Mountain Topper MTR-5B.
Many thanks to Jonathan (KM4CFT) 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. Jonathan writes:
Hi Tom,
I thought I would share the two go kits I have [check out the QMX kit here]. I tend to customize my equipment and supplies before I go on a POTA or SOTA outing but I keep these for the rare occasion when I want to grab a radio real quick.
The Elecraft KX2 Go Kit
A bit more standard fare for elecraft KX2 owners. I use this kit the most often since the KX2 is rugged and incredibly well suited for field activations.
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