EFHW QRP Antenna

Wanted to make some EFHW antenna for portable use.  I really should use a larger toroid, but the largest I had was an FT50-43, so thought I'd try with that.  I printed this from thingiverse, but used the smaller toroid.  Cut the wire for 20M and trimmed it while measuring with the NanoVNA.  Tried FT8 and WSPR with 5W.  Seemed to work pretty well.  The only thing I found is that scanning the SWR with the G90, sometimes I would get this thing where the SWR was super low, and then would jump up super high.  Not sure if that was something having to do with the tuner in the G90 or what.  Also, at one point I had it tuned and tried a higher power (to see if the toroid would get hot), and the SWR jumped up while transmitting.  Don't know if that is some sort of common mode current or what.

Overall though, pleased with this antenna.  The wire winds up nicely on the form, and was able to get out.  I'm not sure if it is particularly better than the DS-1 vertical, though.  Will need to make this again using a larger toroid and do some side-by-side experiments.  

Loving 20M

 Hitting all the continents with WSPR.  Loving this new dipole!

New Antenna Day

 I've been dealing with a lot of noise at my QTH.  I suspect it is power line noise, but it seems to be worst on 40m.  My little DS-1, while cute and while it works, I'm not sure how *well* it actually works.  So finally broke down and built another dipole, this time taller and for 20m.

I somehow ended up with an extendable painter's pole, and thought that would work nicely.  I 3d printed an end-cap to screw onto it, and 3d printed a little dipole middle piece to hold those parts.  Didn't use any balun or anything.  Oversized the wire a good bit and then folded it back while measuring with the NanoVNA until I had a decent SWR in the middle of the 20m band.  Am using the umbrella hole in our little iron garden table (also something we ended up with for free) to hold it up.

I don't know if it was the higher dipole or band conditions, but achieved a goal of getting to both Australia and the UK! Woohoo!

Edit: Also was heard in Japan on FT8!!!  (Didn't manage to work anyone on FT8, but was picked up a bunch of places)

Edit 2: But I did manage an FT8 QSO with XE2AFL in Mexico!  Woohoo!

New Radio Day - Xiegu G90

 After only using self-built rigs all this time, I finally broke down and bought one.

Called CQ with it last night after the kids were in bed, and managed to have a nice QSO with KE6HCE, who is actually in the same town.  :)

Today I made an audio cable for the CE-19 adapter.  Followed instructions here, though I seemed to have gotten the headphone/mike backwards.  No worries on that, just had to reverse the labels.  Managed to decode off the bat, but the StarTech audio interface I was using wouldn't put out sound.  (Probably need to install a driver, since it has multiple output options).  Switched to another USB interface I had, but couldn't get the VOX to work (following directions here).  Finally found I needed to adjust the VOX gain up to 5, then it worked.

Tried FT8 first, but wasn't getting anyone.  Also, needed to turn my power down to 2W, because it was taking more than my bench supply was able to give.  (Need to look at getting proper supply for this.)  Moved over to WSPR, and got some nice results on 20m using my QRPGuys DS1.