The power of QRP

Listening on my mobile setup this morning to a very noisy 40 metre band. I heard DF2DD calling CQ. His signal was around a 4 and 5 very impressive as he was running only 1 watt! If the band had been a little quieter it would have been an easy QSO. I guess that shows that QRP can really work.

10 metre mobile

I had a short 10 minute journey to make today, just across the village. Since 10 metres was open again I put the 10 metre whip on the car. Actually its an El Cheapo CB whip that I bought from  a local Maplins shop.

I relly need to trim it for 10 metre use, but at the moment the LDG auto tunes it nicely. I was rewarded with a QSO with an Italian station, located in Sicily. Can't remember the call though, keeping a log is difficult when you are mobile!
In any case that was my first 28Mhz mobile contact.

A dinosaur with a lot to learn

Although I have been in this hobby for around 27 years I still have a lot to learn. Or mybe its just that I haven't kept up with developments! I started thinking this way a couple of days back when I had a PSK QSO with a station on 15 metres. This was a European station, not DX, at the end of the QSO he asked me to "spot him on the cluster". Now I think I know what this means, I am aware of the DX cluster, but I don't use it and I would not have a clue how to "spot" some one.
A Local amateur friend has a Two HF rigs, both conected to the PC and uses the "Ham Radio Deluxe" software. He has the DX cluster on the screen and if he sees an interesting DX station he can just click on the callsign and the rig is automatically tuned to the DX station frequency. I could do this, there are two computers in the schack and my FT1000MP could be computer controlled. Why don't I do this- I'm not sure-maybe I should. Perhaps I am a dinosaur, I still use a paper logbook and sometimes its nice to use the radio without a PC switiched on.

Conditions generally seem to be picking up. I notice that 15 metres and 17 metres are open more now. My 40/80 metre shortened dipole appears to be working fairly well, it also loads up an all bands from 80 metres upwards.
As far as the mobile HF setup is concerned I have been concentrating on 40 metres. Over the past few weeks I have heard many VK and ZL stations on 40 first thing in the morning with good signals. So far I haven't worked any as they always seem to have big pile ups. I have had some inter UK contacts on 40 mobile though and am enjoying the facility of HF when I am driving.

The Story so far.

I am quite impressed with the way my mobile setup for HF is working. This week I have mainly been monitoring 40 metres on my travels. I have worked into Germany and the Orkney Islands despite 40 not being in such great shape. I also had a contact with a station in Cardiff who was able to give me a very useful audio report as I was driving nearby. It seems I don't have any nasty noises, no RF getting back into the rig or anything like that. I do get some QRN from the car on 40 metres but luckily the noise blanker takes care of it.
When I have been out and about earlier, around 7AM I have heard several VKs and ZLs on 40 at quite good strength, haven't worked them yet though, there always seems to be a pile up!

Tuning up

Here is my LDG IT100- my latest purchase- is an auto ATU that connects to the Icom 706 that I use mobile. Its a compact unit- you can see my mobile phone on top to give an idea of its size.

It is now living in the boot of my car and seems to work well. Its capable of tuning my 20 metre whip on both 18 and 7mhz, of course that whip won't work well on those bands but it gives an idea of the capabilities to the ATU. Basically as long it it gives me full band coverage on the whips I will be happy.
It came with a connecting lead for the 706 (about 15cm long, I had to extend it to about 1.5 metres) and a short patch lead to go between rig and ATU.
Although the ATU instructions say that the unit can be used mobile there are no provisions for any sort of mounting bracket, I have managed to mount it in built in plastic tray that sits in the Volvo boot.
In a quiet shack you would notice this ATU as the relays clatter quite loudly, not a problem mobile of course particularly as its in the boot!

The quality of the unit seems OK, but is does seem similar to the sort of construction of MFJ equipment in other words not really up to the standard of the likes of Yaesu, Kenwood and Icom.

Going mobile

My mobile setup for HF appears to be working well, on receive at least. I have ordered a small auto ATU to broaden the bandwidth of my mobile whips as at the moment the TX bandwidth is very narrow. Nevertheless on 20 metres I have heard stations In Austrailia, Indonesia and the USA as well as the Carribean, all on 20 Metres, note I say heard the only transmitting I have done so far has been a local QSO in order to get an audio report!
I am happy to report that my car does not seem to generate much QRM at all on HF and what little there was (on 40metres) the noise blanker on the 706 deals with.
I am not so pleased with the boot mount I bought for the HF antennas. It looks like the one below

Mine is unbranded but I have seen these branded as Sirio mounts. The connectors to the centre pin and earth under the mount are not in any way weatherproofed. Worse than that tightening the nut (as I needed to do) around the SO239 connector can cause the coax to disconnect and break away from the mount. This happened to me and I had to remove the mount from the car and solder the coax back on. Yes the mount does work and it holds the HF whip on fine. It is however poorly designed and its a pig to fit!  Not clear in the picture  is the plastic dome on which the SO239 sits which is mounted on a smaller metal dome. The plastic dome is free to slide over the metal one below altering the angle of the antenna. All very well but there doesn't seem to be a way of stopping it moving. So the antenna will not stay at the exact angle you want.

I guess its a case of you get what you pay for as these mounts are fairly cheap. I am looking for something better now as I don't think mine will last to long!

Update

Well I have been having fun adjusting my HF whips for 40 metres and 20 metres. On 40 metres all seems to be ok, I have a reasonable bandwidth and pretty much in the middle of the band.

On 20 my antenna seems to want to resonate on 13.9Mhz, there is no moving it, shortening the whip section results in a very poor SWR. This means the antenna is just about useable uo to 14.2Mhz, its a very good match on the CW end of 20 but I am not sure CW mobile is a good idea!
I have heard mixed reviews of this type of antenna, some users have reported they cannot get a reasonable match at all so perhaps I am doing fairly well. In any case I have head Indonesia and a mobile VK station on 20 so far so the antenna is certainly receiving ok.

Both antennas are the kind with a rigid helically wound base and an adjustable steel whip. The total antenna is around  7 foot (2 metres) long with the adjustable whip section being around 4 feet (1.2 metres). I also need to change the site of the HF antenna to the right (offside) of the car, the spot where the VHF antenna is located. The reason for this is the HF whip keeps hitting overhanging tree branches. changing the antennas over will mean re routeing the cables in the car so that may have to wait for a while. I have now added a spring at the base of the mount to give a bit more flexibility.

4 Wheels on my wagon

Today I have managed to Install the Icom 706HF rig in my car. Actually I am quite pleased with the mount of the Head Unit- it looks quite neat. In order to get the space to mount the head unit I had to remove the factory fitted double size radio/cd unit and replace it with a single DIN sized unit. Here is the old Volvo unit I removed.

And here is the 706 head unit with the replacement CD player below.

The 40 metre whip on the boot mount rather dwarfs the VHF/UHF dual bander!. I am not too happy with the quality of the boot mount I have used, it was the only one a could get at the last rally I went to, I may have to change it later.

Si far I have two HF whips, one for 40 metres and one for 20. I have done some preliminary tuning and managed to get them both fairly close to where they should be in terms of resonance but there is still a bit of work to do. I am thinking of getting hold of an auto ATU which would make life easier. The only problem is I don't know where I would put it. Under the driver's seat is my remote head VHF/UHF rig and now the body of the 706 is under the passenger seat.

Wspring again..

Various household chores prevented much radio operation this morning. However I set the TS450 to run 1 watt on WSPR on 17 metres- I have been neglecting WSPR of late but I still thinks its a great way to test propagation. not a great deal of activity of note on 17 today but my single watt of RF did find its way into Germany and Austria.
I have at last started the groundwoork for fitting my Icom 706 HF rig into my car. Today I ran a power cable from the engine bay into the car, routing it through to the space underneath the passenger seat where the 706 will be located. I still have to install ther boot mount for the antenna, sort out an external speaker and of course fit the rig itself! I am also considering one of the reasonable priced LDG Auto ATUs which would help extend the bandwidth of my single band HF antennas.

On a totally different note and I apologise in advance for this non radio related snippet, I took a trip to the cinema last night to watch the film version of the TV series "The A-Team". I guess I am giving my age away when I say that the A team, was a favourite series of mine when it was first shown in the 1980's. Action packed fun, with a tongue in cheek approach it was an instant hit with many.
I went to see the film therefore with mixed feelings.Often when a TV series transfers to the big screen, with a higher budget and different actors the outcome is not always a good one. For example I could never get on with the "Batman" films having grown up with the 1960's Batman TV shows starring Adam West and Burt Ward.
With The A-Team I needn't have worried. The film was good action packed fun, the actors carried their parts well and I was able to accept them as their characters quickly, without thinking back to the original cast and comparing. So All in all I can recommend this film!!