LIQRP
News
Latest News of the LIQRP
Club
June 18,
2016
It was myself and Bob WB2ICQ who saw the date on
the LIQRP website.
I set up at a table across the parking
lot from where we usually set up under the shade of a nicetree.
I tried out my 44-foot doublet fed with
twisted-pair feedline and was not that impressed. Conditions weren’t good but I made a few QSOs in the WV QSO party on 40
and 20 meters. I had the K1 at 5 watts.
Bob brought along his 84-foot homebrew wire
end-fed antenna and we mounted it up 15 feet from one tree to another and then
to ground level. Made a QSO to
Canada on 40 and got a 579 which we considered great.
Bob made some measurements of his and my
antennas through the baluns with his Vector Network Analyzer and his laptop
computer.
Based on the plots, I have decided to keep my
balun ( 44-foot doublet ) in the 1-to-1 position since
it looked “smoother” than the 4-to-1 position.
72,
John
W2XS
April 18,
2015
Saturday the weather was fantastic, one of the first sunny
warm days of Summer...
the
bands cooperated too.
John-W2XS arrived early and by the time I got to the park
at 1100, he was all set up with his radio on the
air.
John
also came with gifts for others ( gell cells, very nice dial pots, etc ),
but
the lack of others put a dent in his Christmas in April
spirit.
But at
least the radio gods were smiling... It was really nice to see the European
stations coming in loud and clear giving him 599s all from
his inverted V and 5watts.
Elecraft K1
Inverted V, fed by twin lead, on fiber
pole
End
fed tuner
1:1 /
4:1 Switchable balun ( Elecraft )
Till next time...
73s,
Tom-aa2vk
October 18,
2014
Today's meet was a party
of two.... all others missed out.
I was out at SM park
about 1030 or so this morning (due to a change of plans).
Threw a 45ft wire up into
the tree, hooked up the gear, and was on the air.
The bands were hopping...
started on 10m and in the first ten minutes managed
to capture F5, OP, and a
VK... wow! Not bad on 5w and random wire.
Started working the other
bands to find a NY qso party , Boy Scouts, and a couple of European
contests going... Made contacts easy, about 1 per min
rate.
About 12 noon, the sun
starts peaking out of the clouds.
One of the new club's
member shows up, Eric Megli - KD2GXN.
We chatted awhile, went
thru the basics of throwing a wire up, his Loop antenna,
and other odds/ends of
qrp radio.
Eric
working a few stations, give him an A+
Icom
703, Z-11 tuner, 4aHr battery from my travel
pack
Wire
off into tree, placed by "bolo" method
Till next
time,
All best -
72's
Tom
aa2vk
March
2014
It is with deep regret and a heavy heart that I must pass along this sad
news about Anthony Catalano , WW2W/SK
Howard Brier - N2GOT
3/16/14
RIP Tony WW2W /sk
October 26, 2013
It was a great but very chilly day
...enjoyed by two.
The day was running about 45f in the
shade with some gusty breezes. Also, the bands were HOT!
John-w2xs, and myself, Tom-aa2vk, meet
up at area 4 of Sunken Meadow at about 1100am.
In about 10 mins, John has up his
Inverted V on a 10m fiber pole. He runs it back to his K2 thru a 4;1 balun
via
twin lead... very effective
antenna setup.
I take my good old 40ft wire and heave
it into the tree as a verticle on the 817 with LDG
tuner.
CQ World Wide contest was running and
so were the bands from 80 to 10m.... DX everywhere.
John is on CW on the 12/17m
bands, I'm up on 10m running SSB .
I filled three pages of a steno pad in
3 hours... contacts were for me about 50% of those called.
John managed to break pileups with
QRP.
In all, a very nice time, leaves were
falling, it was picture perfect.
( to bad the guys practicing hard rock
across the lot didn't play some Willie Nelson )
Till next meet,
All Best,
Tom AA2VK
August 31,
2013
Fred
K2LDC, Tony WW2W, Howard N2GOT, Sal N2SAL, and me (John W2XS).
Fred has
his IC703 (right?) + vertical on the picnic able. And some digital equipment.
Tony had his NC40A and his 10-meter talkie and some other stuff.
Howard
had his KX3 hooked up to the Brooklyn 40-meter dipole. What a nice radio. (How's
the TS-590 now, Howard?)
Sal made QSO's from his /m rig in the car
(including talking to Howard on the picnic bench hi hi).
I had the K2 and
portable inverted V on a Jackite pole along with some other show and tell stuff.
We all made QSOs. Stayed for a few hours. Had a great
time. I think Tony took some pix.
Ken NN2KC and his wife stopped
by with his Youkits antenna meter (which I thought was really nice).
Many people were there picnicking and some were interested as to what we
were doing.
A very
nice family on the table near us
offered us food and drink.
Weather was terrific.
QRP rocks!
John,
W2XS
June 22-23,
2013
A few of the members went out of their way
to run Field Day for a scheduled meet.
Many thanks to Larry for the use of the
Bellport Yacht location.
A 40M and 80M
dipole.
Larry on the roof of the yacht club
with the vertical. (plse don't jump)
Bob-K2YGM killing it on his KX-3
cw.
Larry-W2GL working phone on a
Kenwood.
Lou-KD2MU trying to
find anyone who'll listen on 15M phone from the IC703. ( no pic
)
Thanks for
looking,
All best -
72,
Tom
aa2vk
April 27,
2013
Today we had sort of
a
trial run for Field Day at Bellport Bay Yacht club.
A good turn out on a great day....
(Dave-kb2usl, Larry-w2gl, Lou-kd2mu Bob/Claudia-k2ygm and myself Tom-aa2vk)
The
location and view is superb
at the BBYC , prob doesn't get much better
List of
contacts made while testing; (on kx3 by Bob)
KW7D-New Mexico,W4OX-Fla
QSO Party,S53EO-DX,WO4AZT-PR QSO PARTY,K4I-Fla QSO Party,
KH7XS/W4-Fla QSO Party,
K4L-Fla QSO Party,N1XYE-CT,N3PZ-PA,KB3ZNL-MD,W4ACW-NC
Just a few pics...Follow up on
the reflector for future info.
best 72, Tom
Early
risers to
site (tks Claudia for pic, sorry - missed you Dave)
Host
site
Raising
the
antenna
Larry casting for antenna support to lightpole
Bob
working stations on his KX3... 40m dipole/ladder
line
March 23,
2013
We had a mini-meet at Denny's this past
Saturday morning. Persons at meet ( Lou, Fred, Larry, and myself
).
Talk was about the upcoming Field
Day this June 22-23 at Bellport
Bay Yacht club.
Larry(w2gl) wants to use the next meet on
April 27 for sort of a trial run... waiting for his info re same which I will
post.
Sounds like a perfect location with good
antenna supports.
All best
Tom aa2vk
Pic thanks to
Lou
August 11, 2012
Meet
Well, this day we chickened out! There was a
predicted 50% chance of thunderstorms and 70% of rain for
1pm.
So, sadly, I made the call for the local diner instead
of playing Ben Franklin in the park.
It was a small group of two; Fred - k2ldc and
myself.
But not all was lost, we had toys and chatted during lunch.
Fred had a full backpack of items (see
below).
Description of below and story will
follow.
For now, that's all.
All Best,
Tom - aa2vk
.
The ENIGMA machine was the super
secret encryption device used by Germany during WWII. Although there were slight
leaks about such a device, it wasn't until the 1990's that real
information
was released about the ENIGMA
machine, the cracking of the code mechanism.
To quote from The Secrets of
Bletchley Park , "...The most famous of the codes and cyphers to be
broken at Bletchley Park [England] was the Enigma machine cypher.........The
Poles had broken Enigma in 1932......but the cypher was only altered once every
few months. With the advent of war, it changed at least once every day, giving
150 million million million possible settings to choose from. The Poles decided
to inform the British in July 1939 once they were unable to break Enigma any
longer.
" Breaking the marine Enigma (4
wheel) was critical at that time to stop torpedo attacks on ships bringing
supplies to Great Britain.
I purchased my electronic Enigma
kit last year when I visited Bletchley Park with the IEEE Life Member Technical
Tour. After construction was completed and I confirmed that I could decrypt WWII
German messages,
I decided to put the circuit boards
in a case that would be appropriate. Therefore, I assembled and hand finished
(rubbed multiple layers of sanding, Linseed Oil, and polishing) an oak case
quite similar to the originals
but sized to fit my kit and added
similar fittings. My kit runs from an internal 9 volt battery. The power switch
is hidden in the center of the front patch panel. External power can be
connected via a dark hole in the upper left of the patch panel.
This kit is capable of outputting
the code via an RS-232 port, or it can be set to key an external oscillator
with the corresponding
morse code letters.
(notes
above)
QRPOMETER; a QRP Power/SWR
Meter
Designed by David Cripe, NMØS
Kitted and Offered For Sale By The
Four State QRP Group
http://www.wa0itp.com/qrpom.html
The QRPmeter works as advertised except it will only read
power up to about 8 watts, not 10.
Hendricks Deluxe Tenna Dipper
Kit
Designed by Steve Weber,
KD1JV
The Deluxe Tenna Tuner was a fun kit. It will work from about
3.4 MHz to over 30 MHz.
When the SWR drops to below about 3:1, the LED begins to
dim and it goes out at a 1:1 match.
I'm
thinking of making provision for a very small meter to give a better indication
of match ---
without increasing the footprint. I fininhed the raw aluminum
box (provided) with several light spray layers of a transparent Krylon paint.
The
decal lettering sheet came with the kit.
April 14, 2012
Meet
Today's
first meet of the year was a good one. Some old members and some new ones in
apperance.
We had
Bob - K2YGM with Claudia, Bob - N2DET, Neil - W2NDG with sons Dave and
Alex,
Lou -
NY2H, John - W2XS and yours truely Tom -
AA2VK.
Weather
was really nice for a change, about 64f, the trees didn't have much growth
yet which
made
antenna placing easy ( without losing any weights ). John placed up his Inverted
V on
a ten
meter pole, I went with my standard 35ft random wire thrown as high as
posible.
We all
were able to make contacts as there were a few QSO parties going on out
west.
My
personal best was a
very quick contact to Finland (OH6JJ) which netted me a good
54 (for qrp).
Most of
the meet was talking about various antennas, methods of placing/using same,
and
if
ground wires are really needed to make an antenna function. Also we had a few
tests of
the
smaller qrp radios ( John had brought along
).
72's and
all best till next time,
Tom
aa2vk
A few
pics with info links to some gear.
All pondering what to do next... actually all
listening.
K2
and battery backup pack
Elecraft K2 (rear of) and repair tool - hammer ; http://www.elecraft.com/k2_page.htm
Just watching!
Boys telling tall tales ( without beer
)
See... CW is fun! Using Wilderness radio; http://www.fix.net/~jparker/wilderness/nc40a.htm
ZM-2 Tuner; http://emtech.steadynet.com/zm2.shtml
Palm Paddle; http://www.mtechnologies.com/palm/
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