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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