Innovantennas LFA2 3 element yagi for 10m

During the christmas break I ordered the above antenna. The plan was to build and errect it during the break weather permitting. Unfortunately for Justin at innovantennas, this meant dealing with an order at short notice just before christmas. Justin said he'd do his best to get it to me over the christmas holidays and sure enough a box arrived on the 27th by courier. Unfortunately there were no instructions in the box, but the LFA2 is so simple in construction I couldn't go wrong. The materials used are high quality and all the holes are pre-drilled and in perfect alignment. The antenna went together quickly, but it became obvious that there were 4 poles missing from the loop element. I e-mailed Justin as soon as I realised and luckily Justin was still working. Justin asked for a photo of the antenna so he could assertain which parts were missing and very quickly agreed the missing parts. 3 days passed and again the courier arrived with another box that completed the necessary parts.

I have to thank Justin for such excellent service as although the initial order was incomplete it was sorted out proffessionally and quickly and all this over christmas and new year holidays!

Whilst waiting for the missing parts I did 2 things:
1) Decided on a feeding arrangement and built a coaxial balanced feed out of 2 lengths of rg213 and a three way tee piece connector.
2) Profiled my original cushcraft ten-3 (3 ele 10m yagi) with a local ham 4 miles away.
The result from the original antenna:
Signal strengths to local station
towards, s8
180 degrees away, s2+
Noise towards the neighbours houses
towards, s4+
180 degrees away, s1+

I removed the Cushcraft ten-3 and mounted the LFA2 using the same pole and coax but with the addition of the coaxial balanced feed arrangement in-line.

The result from the LFA2 antenna:
Signal strengths to local station
towards, s8
180 degrees away, s2
Noise towards the neighbours houses
towards, s2+
180 degrees away, s0+

I'm not sure the noise figures with regards the neighbouring houses can be relied upon as this is dependant on what they are doing but the noise definately seemed down.

So all in all I'm happy:

pros : lower noise, good materials/construction
cons : the balance point for this antenna occurs at the driven element position meaning that when mounting it to a stub mast the weight has to be offset which can cause the end to droop or raise accordingly.

Elecraft KX3 initial thoughts

I bought the KX3 on a whim, if I'm honest I lose patience with QRP as I have less spare time than I used to have. I like the idea of QRP,  but you have to wait for ideal band conditions and those rarely coincide with my free time.

I bought the kit version and found the build up to Elecraft's usual high standards, everything fitted together perfectly and the chassis has a quality, solid feel to it. The build took a few hours over a couple of nights and no problems were encountered.

Using the radio was slightly less rewarding, basically the radio does what it is designed to do and not what I wanted it to do. For instance:
1) The external speaker reveberates with a buzz sound when the volume is turned up to comfortable listening levels and a large signal is received. Even when external speakers are attached, the KX3 audio amplifer has distorted output on large signals. This is because the radio was designed with low current consumption in mind. Don't expect to fill your shack with booming audio as this isn't possible or desireable on a windy mountain top.
2) Want to connect a linear amplifer? Want your computer to be able to key the KX3? Well the KX3 has a crap minature 2.5mm stereo socket ACC2 to take care of that. Fiddling about with this I realised that this wasn't likely to stand the test of time. How many times would you require to connect a linear amplifier and a laptop to the KX3 on a windy mountain top?

Anyway you get my point, if you want a radio for a windy mountain top the KX3 is great. If like me you are more likely to use this radio the most in your shack, then this is the wrong radio for you.

On another thought train, there are some annoying "features":
1) The buttons are akin to poor quality telephone handset keypads. Sometimes you press and get nothing, sometimes you press and get a double press. I don't remember the same response from the K3 keypad which is similar in construction, so why is the KX3 different? Maybe the designers figure that you'll have shakey hands on that windy mountain top and they have configured the firmware button debounce logic to counter it appropriately.
2) Turning the VFO on bands above 20m emits a burrrrrrrrrrrrrp sound from the speaker (stretched out till you stop turning the VFO. It is at a very low signal level, but once you've heard it, it will annoy you senseless. Yes there are menu items you can select to lessen the effect, but trust me, the noise doesn't completely go away. Some of them also have side effects like disengaging the roofing filter. However I'm sure when you connect a decent antenna and you are on a windy mountain top you'd never notice it.
3) The manual is full of features that haven't been fully implemented yet like DVK, NR and NB. But who is likely to be examining  a manual for the finer features of the KX3 at 3000ft in the middle of a snow drift.

Again, you get what you pay for, which is not necessarily what you wanted. Reading eHam reviews and the Elecraft mailing lists makes sense when you try to figure out what the user has been using it for. A high score normally means the owner also has crampons and an ice axe.

TYT TH-UV3R dual band VHF/UHF handheld

My latest purchase is a TYT TH-UV3R handset. It was bought from Ebay for £34 inc. postage from China. At this price I was prepared for the worst, but it really isn't that bad. In fact, I'm pleased with it. I like that it can be charged from a computer USB port (to mini usb on handset) and that it allows me to monitor 446MHz (that I use to keep track of my daughter when she's out playing) and my local 2m repeater at the same time (using the 'dual watch' or as the manual describes it 'dual wait' :-) feature). I have all the 2m S channels programmed in, complete with all the repeater offsets and CTCSS tones. It is really simple to operate, although the manual seems to be lacking a bit to the current firmware version, as some key sequences aren't as described. As long as you take the manual with a pinch of salt and experiment with key strokes, the correct function can be found very quickly. The build quality is excellent, the display is bright and clear and the rx audio is just like any other handset 5 times the price.

The TYT is shown here between the VX3 and VX7R handsets from Yaesu. Now to sell the Yaesu's!

K1EL WKUSB lite WinKey

A new product from K1EL
http://k1el.tripod.com/WKlite.html
These cw keyers are excellent to allow easy hook up between your favourite contest logger and your rig. The K3 doesn't really need this as it has PTT and CW key via the CAT RS232 RTS and DTR, but for all other rigs it's a must. I've just ordered one at $38 + $10 postage. I also have the WKUSB, but it's quite bulky and I've never used it standalone. The lite version also loses optical isolation and push button memories but the board is now only 2.5 x 1 3/4 inches. I always use mine in host mode with WinTest, so this should be just the ticket.

As you can see from the above picture, the finished result is much smaller than the original keyer and doesn't have those annoying buttons on the top that keep getting pressed in the rucksac. I have mounted the new keyer in a small enclosure from Maplin (£9.99). Just plug the key into the front 3.5mm stereo socket.

The USB connector goes to the computer and the CW and PTT lines (to the rig) now come from the tip and ring of the 3.5mm stereo jack located on the rear of the new keyer.

The kit kit arrived with a lot of components missing, but luckily I was able to source them from the spares box. There were too many many components missing for this to be an accident, so maybe K1EL is having difficulty meeting the initial order rush.

GB5SI Shiant Isles IOTA ref. EU112

After the successful activation of Lunga EU108 (Treshnish Isles) in 2011, our group (Consisting of GMDX group members) will be activating the Shiant Isles EU112 between 15/7/12 and 22/7/12. The Shiant Isles are located between the Isles of Lewis and Skye on Scotland's NW coastline. The Shiant Isles consist of 3 small uninhabited islands in very close proximity to each other (House, Rough and Mary Islands). We will be staying on the north west corner of House Island which should have a great take off from North west  through to South. A second station may be set up to cover the North east through to South east. Working condx are expected to be Elecraft K3 transceivers, Expert and THP linear amplifiers and predominantly vertical antennas. We expect to be active from 80m through 6m and on CW, SSB and RTTY modes. QSL route will be via MM0BQI.
Hope to work you all!

KOSS SB45 Headset with Elecraft K3

Bought this headset on Amazon for £20 after reading some mail on the Elecraft reflector. I wanted an electret mic so this meant either the SB45 or SB49. The only difference is that the SB45 doesn't have a volume control on the lead (which I think is a pest for radio use anyway).

The good:
The headset is very comfortable. So far 8hrs continuous in CQWW WPX and no issues. Fits over my big lugs comfortably and gives a reasonable amount of sound isolation.
Rx and tx audio are superb with the K3 (flat tx equaliser settings).
The headset can fold up into a very neat ball allowing easier packing for dxpeditions etc.

The bad:

The lead is very thin and I suspect has not much in the way of a screen, but so far no RF issues with a small ferrite placed half way along the lead (just in case).

The microphone stalk is very flimsy and not very adjustable, but it seems to sit in the right position.

Overall it's a great purchase and makes me a bit embarrassed at spending a comparative fortune on a Heil headset.

ERC (Easy Rotator Control) kit

http://easy-rotor-control.com/

One of my friends (MM0GPZ) put me onto this handy kit. It converts your old manual rotator controller to a PC driven one (retains manual capability). The photo above shows the new serial and power cables at the bottom right of the shot.

The advantage is that logging programs such as WinTest (wtRotators) can turn your antenna for you. If you enter a callsign and type (Ctrl-F12) for short path or (Alt-F12) for long path, the wtRotators program will automatically turn the antenna to the correct bearing for that station. The ERC uses the HyGain DRU-1 protocol so WinTest must be set up to expect this protocol and not Yaesu or whatever controller you are using. Once this is setup correctly, you get a nice on-screen digital bearing with manual adjustment icons all at the tip of your mouse.

I found a link on the internet describing GU0SUP's install in the same rotator controller case so I copied his installation location.
http://www.guernsey.net/~pcooper/ERC.html

The kit arrived in 5 days from Germany. It had 1x 22pF capacitor missing which I replaced from my spares box, but apart from that all went together in around 3 hours (+2 hours installation into controller) and worked first time.
I squeezed the ERC into my G-600RC rotator control box and connected it up to the serial com port on my PC. I used a wallwart PSU to power the ERC.

Rene DF9GR very gratiously allowed me the DXCC 10 Euro discount for being the first GM claimant. The final bill was 66 Euro.

Calibration went without a hitch. I tried transmitting 400w through a 3 ele yagi on the 10m band (approximately 15m away) pointed directly at the controller and observed no effects. I'm very pleased with the results so far.