Tag Archives: Sam (WN5C)

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WN5C: Notes from a homebrew POTA adventure

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Many thanks to Sam (WN5C) who shares the following guest post:

Notes from a homebrew POTA adventure

Sam (WN5C)

I recently wrote about the homebrew transceiver I built to operate on a month-long trip through the American Southwest. Upon arriving back in Oklahoma here’s the final outcome: 27 days, 40 parks, and 669 QSOs. I honestly can’t believe that the rig went the distance, or that I made so many contacts on 2 watts or less!

The priority of this trip wasn’t radio, though. I’m an archaeologist and I’m starting a new research project that marries my historical interests with my love of two-way communication. In short, I’m studying the effects of how communication technology aided the American colonization and transformation of the western United States around the turn of the twentieth century. This means I walked and mapped single-wire telephone lines strung up in pine trees in northern New Mexico (used to connect fire lookouts with Forest Service ranger stations), a fascinating story of dramatic changes in land management. I also visited heliograph (sun-mirror signaling) stations established in southeastern Arizona by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1886 to assist in apprehending Geronimo.

Working Fort Bowie NHS (US-0815) in Arizona. The peak in the distance, Helen’s Dome, had a heliograph station on top. From the fort telegraph lines would have connected remote operations to the rest of the Army’s 1880s communication network. Next time I’m climbing up on top!

I look forward to relocating and studying the artifacts from more of these heliograph sites (mostly on remote peaks) to reconstruct this communication network and understand the lives of both the soldiers and the Apache, and how this novel surveillance system altered the battlefield. Based on the artifacts I’ve seen so far there are many cans of Army-issued proto-Spam and beer bottles surrounding the signaling station where American Morse Code would have been sent and received via flashes of sunlight. The original Field Day?

But back to radio. I covered a lot of ground and activated parks in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Kansas.

The POTA sites that I activated (click image to enlarge).

At some locations I was camping so I was able to do multiple long activations and work the lower bands well into the evening. These were some of my favorite moments of the trip, being the only spot on the POTA app and leisurely working with no time or weather-based worries. It also gave me a chance to hear callsigns I was unfamiliar with, essentially exploring a new area of the country.

Working closer states after hours on 30 and 40 meters at Colorado NM (US-0918).

For other times, due to time constraints or weather (thunderstorms or that it was unbearably hot), I got my 10 contacts and moved on. Sometimes I packed the equipment for a long hike, often carried it from the car to a picnic table, and a few times deployed my antenna and operated from my vehicle.

Not every activation was a grand adventure. Sometimes, like here at Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR (US-0226) in Colorado, I worked from the passenger seat in the car.

Every activation was memorable in its own way. I worked folks from 44 states, five Canadian provinces, and an unforgettable contact from Italy.

A map of the contacts I made (not including those in northern British Columbia, Alaska, and Italy).

The radio held up surprisingly well. Aside from it looking like a Dalí painting as the 3D printed box continued to deform in the heat, and some hot glue remelting, the electronic components worked as they should. I look forward to printing a stronger case and making some upgrades going into the fall. I do now have a real respect for the engineering that goes into designing field radios, especially those that are thrown into a pack!

Setting up a portable shack on Vail Pass in the White River NF in Colorado (US-4410). This was near the end of the trip, the plastic case was looking pretty bad.

After I began feeling less anxious about the homebrew radio (it kept turning on!) I could start focusing on the trip itself: an amazing POTA adventure with an often-uncooperative sun. Here’s a few themes I noted. Continue reading WN5C: Notes from a homebrew POTA adventure →

Articles, Field Reports, Guest Posts, Kits, Morse Code, News, Portable, POTA, QRP, QRP Radios, QRPers, Travel

Sam’s Thunderbird Mk 1 Takes Flight: A Homebrew Radio Field Report from the American Southwest

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Many thanks to Sam (WN5C) for sharing the following guest post:

Homebrew in the Field

by Sam (WN5C)

What a week it’s been!

I have the opportunity to spend a month traveling through and camping in the American Southwest (specifically, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado) doing archaeological work. And of course, that means the prospect to operate portable at weird times and in lots of places.

I’ve been planning for this trip for a couple of months, about the same length of time that I’ve been trying to achieve my amateur radio dream: to build a complete transceiver. So why not try to do both things at once?

This is just a quick note of my experiences in the first quarter of my trip of taking a homebrew rig into the field.

First off, I have absolutely no background in RF engineering, or electronics at all. But the literature is good and Elmers are priceless (thanks Kenn KA5KXW!). I started small, with kit projects, and then very basic transmitters.

I’ve always appreciated how much satisfaction my father gets by building things by hand, and finally I have a similar hobby. I called the radio I designed the Thunderbird Mk 1 based off the fact that I cut my CW and POTA teeth at Lake Thunderbird State Park in Oklahoma and will probably continue to work there the most. It’s a 6-band (40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 10) CW QRP transceiver with SSB receive.

The receiver is direct conversion and is an amalgamation of VU2ESE’s DC40, KK7B’s Classic 40, and W7EL’s Optimized QRP Transceiver. The VFO is an Arduino/si5351 combo based on the schematics and code written by VK3HN (who has helped me from afar, thanks Paul!). It’s crude, but I use a 6-position rotary switch to manually switch between the band-pass filters.

The transmitter is based on W7ZOI’s Updated Universal QRP Transmitter, married with VK3HN’s Arduino code that acts as the oscillator, keyer, and side tone generator. I get about 3 watts output for 40, 30, 20, a little less for 17 and 15, and about a watt on 10 meters. Like the receiver, I manually switch the low-pass filters.

Here’s a picture of the digital parts (ignore the second Arduino Nano, I thought I would need it but did not), the power board, and the filters. It’s on the bottom:

On top is the main board with the receiver, the transmitter, and T/R switching. Also, you’ll notice the green PCB. I *really* wanted to build NM0S’s Hi-Per-Mite from scratch but I couldn’t get the circuit to run right before my trip so I opted to install one that I built from a kit. It’s a fantastic CW audio filter that I can switch in and out (everyone should have at least one!).

I can switch in a little speaker and added a straight key jack. I printed the box on a 3D printer at the local library. It works great for the shack. In the sun, it’s starting to warp in the heat, so I’ll have to address this, but things still work!

Getting out the door on time with a finished radio was tough! I had finished right before I left on my trip (end of May 2024) and had no time to field test. The best I got was taking the rig to the table in the back yard and firing it up during the WPX contest.

I made amazing DX contacts on all the contest bands I had and called it good. But working superstations isn’t real life, and over the next week I’ve had to MacGyver the radio (rigging a car jump pack, an inverter, and a soldering station together at a picnic table to replace a bad transistor, for example). I think I’ve finally shaken out (literally) all of the loose solder joints and bad grounding. Continue reading Sam’s Thunderbird Mk 1 Takes Flight: A Homebrew Radio Field Report from the American Southwest →

Articles, Field Reports, Guest Posts, Morse Code, News, Portable, QRP, QRP Radios, QRPp

Guest Post: Lake Thunderbird (K-2792) with a homebrew transmitter!

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Activating (sort of) Lake Thunderbird (K-2792) with a homebrew transmitter

Sam Duwe WN5C

When I dove into radio a couple years ago a few sub-hobbies caught my attention: QRP, portable ops, CW, and homebrew. Of course, these all fit nicely together, but in my mind there was a huge leap between soldering an unun and a building a radio. But why not try? What’s the worst that could happen by melting solder and then sitting at a picnic table? This is how I built a simple transmitter and kind of activated a park.

The Michigan Mighty Mite

Nearly everyone has heard about the Michigan Mighty Mite (MMM), a QRPp transmitter popularized by the Solder Smoke blog. There are countless YouTube videos and posts across the internet. It’s very simple: a single transistor, a variable cap, a coil, a crystal and some resistors and a cap. Supposedly one can get up to half a watt of output (I couldn’t). But with a small purchase from Mouser one can oscillate. That seemed pretty cool.

I hadn’t touched an iron until I started playing radio. But I’ve been drawn to homebrew projects. I built a regenerative receiver last year which was very rewarding. I’ve also put together kits (a QCX mini and a TR-35). But my dream has always been to construct a transmitter/receiver combo, or a transceiver. I thought a good place to start was the MMM.

I built the transmitter based on the common schematic for the 40-meter band. The MMM is crystal controlled but I opted to solder in a socket and buy a handful of crystals, so I have the luxury of operating on 7056, 7040, and 7030 kHz. I made a few other improvements, too. The first was to build a low pass filter to attenuate harmonics. Second, although I haven’t finished it yet, the switch on the right will be to choose between multiple crystals. And third, I added a BNC jack to connect a receiver, with a transmit switch. When not in use the transmitter will dump into a dummy load. This receiver switching idea was lifted from the design of the MMM that QRP Guys produces.

When I tested the transmitter at home the best I could get with my charged Bioenno 3 Ah battery was about 300 mW output. The filter is reducing things somewhat, but maybe I need to look into a different transistor or rewind the coil. But I was able to get a 339 signal report from Illinois (no sked) in the midst of distance lightning crashes, so I had a little confidence going forwards. School is out for me this summer, so I decided to head to the park. Continue reading Guest Post: Lake Thunderbird (K-2792) with a homebrew transmitter! →

Accessories, News, Portable, QRP Radios

Sam sources a larger tuning knob option for the Penntek TR-35

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Many thanks to Sam Duwe (WN5C) who writes:

John (AE5X) had suggested a while back finding a larger tuning knob for the Penntek TR-35.

I was striking out in finding one that fit but had to put in a Mouser order and thought I’d give this knob a shot (Mouser # 706-11K5013-KFNB) and I really like it!

I accidentally bought the gray version and had to paint it black. It’s shiny because of the clear coat and rough because of sanding and because I’m apparently awful at painting, but I find that it fits with the plastic bezel of the radio.

With the optical encoder it really glides, and totally changes the feel of the radio. Pretty good deal for $2.36.

Thank you for the tip, Sam!

Antennas, Guest Posts, Homebrew, How To, News, Portable, QRP

Sam builds a tiny tabletop HF antenna

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Many thanks to Sam Duwe (WN5C) who shares the following guest post:

A (surprisingly good) tabletop HF antenna

by Sam Duwe, WN5C

I recently built a tabletop QRP HF antenna for 17 and 20 meters, in the spirit of the Elecraft AX-1, so I could operate at lunchtime on the campus where I teach. My wants were something small, that would fit in my work bag, that didn’t require a tuner, and could work on a couple of different bands. But on a lark I decided to attempt a POTA activation at Lake Thunderbird State Park (K-2792) pairing this antenna with my Penntek TR-35 QRP CW transceiver. I figured I’d maybe get one or two QSOs and then switch to a long wire in a tree. But what happened amazed me.

I talked to seemingly everyone. Beginning at 9:00 AM September 26th I worked both 17 and 20 meters for an hour and a half and made 37 contacts from across the country. I even had a Swiss guy call me back on 17 but he faded before we could finish. This antenna, at least as a CW POTA activator, works. Granted conditions were very good, but I’ve replicated this multiple times in the past few weeks, just recently at a picnic table in the parking lot of the Route 66 Museum (K-8644) in Clinton, OK (there is quite a thrill in urban activations).

It has also reasonably low profile and very quick to setup and take down. It is also quite a conversation piece when I set it up at school. I elevated the counterpoise by attaching it to a nearby oak and an interested undergrad sheepishly asked if I was listening to the tree!

The build is pretty simple. Physically the antenna consists of a small painters pole from Walmart and an old tabletop camera tripod. I found a nut that fit the screw portion of the tripod and hot glued it into the orange connecting section of the pole. That way the tripod can then be screwed onto the pole. The RF parts of the antenna consist of a 38” telescoping whip that I scavenged from the rabbit ears antenna that came with my RTL-SDR. It connects using the original connector which was hot-glued into a hole I drilled into the top of the painters pole. I found similar small 3 or 4-foot whips from AliExpress for cheap and these would probably work fine.

I then soldered a long length of speaker wire that was wound into two coils: the top for 17 meters (24 turns) and the bottom for 20 meters (25 turns plus the former 24-turn coil). The speaker wire was the soldered to the center of a BNC connector which I hot glued and taped to the pole. I soldered a short piece of wire from the shield of the BNC for the counterpoise and added an automotive spade connector to attach to a 17-foot length of wire. I also included a switch between the coils and the BNC connector to select either just the top coil (17 meters) or both coils (20 meters) using solder, hot glue, and tape.  I then covered my shame in silicone tape.

The most time-consuming aspect of the project was tuning the antenna. It required trial and error to first tune the number of turns on the 17-meter coil and then the 20-meters coil. I extended the counterpoise (for me it’s best when slightly elevated) and the telescoping whip. I performed the tuning with the whip not fully extended to give room to tune in the field. Using a nanoVNA was useful here, as was soldering a pin to the wire to poke through the wire at various parts of the coil to find the best SWR.

In use, the antenna can be affected by both body capacitance and how the counterpoise is situated, so I found that an in-line SWR meter was helpful in making sure all was well. Once set up it is easy to fine tune by just adjusting the whip length. 1.5:1 SWR is about how well I can tune on average. Obviously if you have a tuner you would just have to get it close.

There are a million variation on a small base-loaded vertical antenna, and you can definitely improve upon this design. And, besides the super well-built and elegant AX-1, QRP Guys sells an interesting looking kit, and there are some good 3D printed designs I might want to try out. But regardless how you go about it, it might be worth giving a tiny antenna a shot.

72, Sam WN5C

Articles, Guest Posts, Homebrew, How To, Morse Code, News, Portable, QRP

Sam builds a compact external speaker and 200 Hz filter for the Penntek TR-35

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Many thanks to Sam (WN5C) for sharing the following guest post:

A Compact CW Filter and Speaker Build for the TR-35

by Sam Duwe, WN5C

I recently built a Penntek TR-35 and, like seemingly everyone, I love it.

Once the rig passed the smoke test I was having too much fun and wasn’t quite ready to put away the soldering station. I had two non-essential wants for this project: a narrower CW filter for listening comfort, and an external speaker. Here’s a quick description of how I crammed both of those into an Altoids tin. Nothing is new or groundbreaking here, but it has been a fun and useful project for me and hopefully will give some inspiration for others.

The Hi-Per-Mite

The heart of the project is a Hi-Per-Mite 200 Hz CW filter, designed by David Cripe NM0S, and sold as a nice kit for $28 by Four State QRP Group. Hans Summers G0UPL uses the circuit in the QCX so many will be familiar with the filter’s sound. It’s nice and narrow with no ringing, and makes using my base station (a Kenwood TS-520 with the 500 Hz crystal filter) a joy.

To be clear, the existing narrow filter in the TR-35 is great, but I like the option of going narrow(er). It’s a Pixie-level build difficulty so it should come together in an easy couple of hours. I originally built mine in an Altoids tin using inspiration from Phillip Cala-Lazar K9PL’s review and it worked very well. It sips current and is powered by a 9-volt battery. With a DPDT throw switch connected to both the audio path and the power you can easily switch the filter on and off.

The Speaker

A neat aspect of the TR-35 is that there is a lot of audio gain so you can drive a non-amplified speaker. I have a little Bluetooth speaker that does this trick when I want to use CW to annoy people, but I figured if I’m already hauling an Altoids tin to the field maybe I could get it to talk, too. I looked around my junk box and found a broken Baofeng speaker mic and salvaged the speaker. It works really well: a robust but comfortable volume.

I’m sure any little speaker would do the trick… nothing fancy here, it gets hot glued it to the lid of a mint tin after all.

The Build

After I built the Hi-Per-Mite here’s what I did: first I ate a tin of Altoids and felt a little sick. Then I drilled some holes. The one on the left is for the audio input, the one on the bottom for the headphones (both of these are 1/8” stereo jacks), and two on the right for two mini DPDT switches. I also drilled holes in the lid for the speaker sound to come through. I gave the tin a good sanding and tried to remove sharp edges, and then sprayed the lot with black primer and spray paint.

Continue reading Sam builds a compact external speaker and 200 Hz filter for the Penntek TR-35 →