KQ9L

Richard Lim

Burr Ridge, Illinois

EN61as

QRP ARCI #11129 Flying Pigs #548

10-10 #73490

 

 

File written with CompuPic(R) - Photodex Corporation (http://www.photodex.com)

 

 

Welcome to my website.  This site will be under constant construction, so visit often!

 

 

About Me:

 

My name is Rich, and my QTH is Burr Ridge, Illinois (EN61as) which is about 25 miles west of Chicago in DuPage County, Illinois.  Iım an active member in the Dupage Amateur Radio Club (DARC) and have worked several events including FD using the club call W9DUP.

 

I have been licensed as a Ham since February 2002 and upgraded to the Extra Class license by June of the same year!  I operate 75% CW and 25% phone and am interested in DX, QRP, contesting and mobile hamming.

 

I am 38 yrs old, married to my XYL Lana (KC9BBL) and have two fantastic children Andrew 3 yrs and Alyssa 10 mo.

 

AppleMark

 

I have subdivided the webpage into my mobile hamming, QRP, and Keys, you can get to each section by clicking the links below.

 

I hope you enjoy the website, please feel free to email me with questions, comments of suggestions!  73 and God Bless!!  Rich

Mobile    QRP       Keys


Mobile:

 

Here is a picture of my mobile station:

 

AppleMark

 

 

The Truck is a 2003 Land Rover Discovery II with 3² of suspension lift and 265/70 R16 BFG Mud Terrain KOıs. The antenna is from Robert Young at Tarheel antennas and is a Little Tarheel screwdriver. www.tarheelantennas.com .  My mobile rig is an Icom 706MKIIG running barefoot with a Heil mic and Palm Paddle Key attached to the parking brake. And YES I do work mobile CW HI HI.

 

Mobile hamming has opened a whole new dimension of the hobby to me. I can now convert the ³down time² involved with my daily commute to and from work to ³radio time².  I have learned a lot about setting up a mobile station, mainly through trial and error HI HI.

 

Some of the key features to establishing a killer mobile station include:

 

1)   Clean power wired DIRECTLY to the battery.

2)   Good antenna and rig grounding.

3)   Getting the antenna as high up as possible.

 

RFI can also be an issue with your vehicleıs electrical system, luckily, mine was easily fixed with proper grounding.

 

 

 

QRP:

 

 

³Life is too short for QRP!²

 

Thatıs a phrase I have hear all too many times. To me, anything worth doing doesnıt come easily! I enjoy the challenge of QRP and have found the community of QRP ops to be some of the most friendly and supportive Hams around!

 

I have built many of the popular QRP kits, but,  my favorites by far are from Elecraft www.elecraft.com . I have built a K2 #3232, K1 #1669 and KX1 #21. The K2 is the cream of the crop in the Elecraft line up and has better numbers than many of the commercial rigs out there (see www.elecraft.com/k2_perf.html . I added a twist to my K2 when I built it and below is a picture of what has been called the K2 Twins. It consists of the basic K2 with SSB, NB, ATU and battery in one case connected to the KAT100-2 ATU and 100w PA in another enclosure. 

 

AppleMark

 

This set up is hot! I can work QRP/QRO at home and at a moments notice grab the K2/QRP for portable ops.

 

I used the K2 Twins at this years field day and together with Mike AA9QE we logged over 600 Qıs in 20 hrs. Below are a few pics from the effort.

 

AppleMark

 

This is me Rich KQ9L at the mic of the K2 twins during our 20m FD event.

 

AppleMark

 

This is Mike AA9QE in the tent. You can see the K2 Twins as well as a Yaesu FT897 as a backup rig.

 

AppleMark

 

This is out tent where we ran the K2 Twins entirely on battery power with solar backup. Notice the Hexbeam antenna www.hexbeam.com (KILLER signal!!) and the Tiki Lights to ward off the Illinois Mosquitos!

 

I have recently moved my K1 to mobile duty as the IC706mkIIG is ³sick². I canıt believe how well I can get out with only 5w!

 

More QRP:

 

Some of the other kits I have built include a Wilderness Radio SST www.fix.net/~jparker/wild.html

with dual frequency ranges:

 

AppleMark

 

This was my first kit transceiver and was a great learning experience.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in building their own rig.  Check out Bob Dyer's website at: www.fix.net/~jparker/wild.html

 

Dave Benson at Small Wonder Labs puts out some of the slickest little QRP kits in the business. www.smallwonderlabs.com

I have built two of his rockmites, a DSWII-20m and a frequency mite.

 

The rock mite is a wonder of engineering. At $25 dollars you get a transceiver and keyer which is easy enough to build in one nite!  Here is a pic of the my rock mites:

 

AppleMark

 

This is the 20m RM built into a Context engineering case. This rig has an internal 9v battery and can work off of 12v DC.  The paddle is one of my favorites made my Jim Richards K6VDH and can be found at www.morsex.com

 

AppleMark

 

This is my RM for 40m built into a Mity Box made by Doug Hauff K6RIE at American Morse www.americanmorse.com

You can see how tightly everything fits in here!

 

Keys:

 

Coming soon!

 

 

EMAIL ME: