Thanks for hanging in there Bob. I hated having to fire up TS-2000 with it's power sucking 100 watts but unfortunately it just wasn't gonna happen with QRP. My multiple mistakes were from quickly throwing a different keyer in line once I gave up on the KX1, it kept trying to add extra dahs where I didn't want them, sorry bout that.
Let's do it again soon, hopefully QRP next time. In the meantime I'm still in the shack if anyone wants to try another one this evening.

The reels showed up in the mail today. For wire I'm using 24 ga. 2 conductor speaker wire that I split apart, the 35' counterpoise fits easily but the antenna wire at 63' is a pretty tight fit although I did get it all on there. The reels are much less robust than what I had hoped for, the two half shells lock together with a 1/4 turn setup, for extra security I taped the halves together to help prevent them from unlocking.

That said it seems to be a pretty decent set up for quick and easy deployment and stowing. I took them out into the front yard and tossed the antenna into the tree, dropped the counterpoise on the ground, hooked them to my SOTA tuner and had it tuned on 20 meters in just a few minutes. Then I unreeled them to full length and tuned it to 40 meters, then reeled everything back in. The whole process probably took less than 5 minutes.

It remains to be seen how they'll hold up under field conditions but if they fail completely in the field I still have the wire itself and I'm only out a few dollars.

Quote from: cockpitbob on May 01, 2013, 07:09:43 PM
Sked:  how about Gil's favorite frequency of 7,067.5 at 00:30z?  KK0G de AB1LT

I'll be there.

Quote from: RadioRay on May 01, 2013, 03:20:52 PM


I am QUITE certain that you fellows ACTUALLY meant to
"Greenwich Mean Time" , eeeeh wot?

Was that a British or a Canadian accent? LOL

Quote from: gil on May 01, 2013, 02:43:36 PM

Sure, I can do 40m tonight..

Gil.

Hope to hear you in there tonight.

Quote from: gil on May 01, 2013, 11:26:51 AM
I don't like UTC.. I like 24h  time where I live. So, 11:00 is 11:00 AM, otherwise I would use 23:00. Eastern time.

Gil.

I agree on the 24 hour time format, every time piece I own from
clocks, watches, cell phone, car stereo, etc is set to 24 hour
format if available. Whoever thought up the illogical 12 hour
format was nuts in my opinion, same thing with the M/D/Y
date format?? doesn't make sense.

The beauty of UTC is that it is always the same everywhere
on the planet, that way there's no confusion?? obviously I
was confused :o

Regardless, I'm at work during the day so it's a no go
anyway. How about try tonight with cockpitbob and me on
40 meter?

Quote from: gil on April 30, 2013, 10:04:53 PM
Listen tomorrow 14067.5 at 11:30 EST...

Gil.

We should probably use UTC to avoid confusion of AM/PM, time zones etc. I assume you mean 0330 Z?

Quote from: cockpitbob on April 30, 2013, 09:31:36 PM
I have to warn you, I've got a wife, 2 kids and not much free time so I'm really undependable 24hrs out.  Still, how about 8:30pm(edt)/00:30z on 40M, unless you prefer 80M?

CW or SSB?

Sounds good, call me on 7.107 MHz, CW of course. I'll be listening tonight at 0030 UTC, and don't worry, if you lose your 'free time' to the family I completely understand.

Quote from: Joe on April 30, 2013, 11:01:28 PM
What about using a chalk reel. I have the whole home brew bug right know. I was cleaning up my shed and came across one that has a broken door, so it won't hold chalk. And after reading your thread the light bulb went off. Don't know if would work or not, I think I can put about 50' of wire in it if not more, it holds 100' of string.

73 Joe

I never thought of that, great idea. Harbor Freight would be a good place to get a couple chalk lines, they have regular sales and I seem to recall seeing them priced at around $2-3.

Anyone want to sked this evening? Tomorrow? Sometime? Anytime? 8)

Quote from: Tubeguy linhttp://radiopreppers.com/Themes/default/images/post/thumbup.gifk=topic=434.msg3711#msg3711 date=1367307719
I use my CW for commo.....I have a Shure 444 mike that has never been on the air. Code is the only way to go.....in my humble opinion.

Andy

Thumb Up

Quote from: KC9TNH on April 29, 2013, 09:35:13 PM

Quote from: gil on April 28, 2013, 10:31:14 PM
I think there was a contest... Too busy... Sorry.

Gil.

I listened as well; all I heard was someone +30, splattering 3kHz up & down.

It's a Snapaddle kit I got from Jackson Harbor probably about 8 years ago. Unfortunately it's been discontinued. For a cheap paddle made out of circuit board material it works surprisingly well. http://wb9kzy.com/mechpadl.htm

I got home from work today and decided to take the the KX1 out for it's first trail contact (the one in my front yard doesn't count). I did a short hike of probably not more than a mile back into an 1100 acre tract of timber a few miles from my place, found a suitable tree and tossed a wire into it maybe 10 feet high. After 10 minutes of calling CQ on 14.060 a W2 in Georgia answered with a solid 599 signal and gave me a report of 559. After that it was getting dark and the ticks were crawling all over me so I packed up and headed out.

QRP works, a rig small enough to fit in your pocket works, dirt simple end fed wire antennas only 10 feet in the air work, but the key to all of this working is CW, CW, CW, CW 8) If any of you are still on the fence about learning code hopefully this is a little motivation.

I can't fault them for buying cheap laundry reels, removing the cord and installing $2 worth of wire then marketing it as a yoyo antenna to hams for 4 times the price............... that's good old American capitalism. Of course the beauty of capitalism is I'm also free to reverse engineer it and source my own parts elsewhere.

I was surfing the web trying to find a better way to store and deploy my EFHW for use on the trail when I saw the Yoyo antenna http://www.hamradiofun.com/yo-yo-tenna.htm which is $26 with shipping for a single yoyo.

Of course me being the eternal frugal homebrewer, I did a little more surfing to see if I could find the parts to make it myself and what do you know.......... I found these http://www.ebay.com/itm/120931636307?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 which only cost me $12 for a pair of 'yoyo's'.