QRP today...

With my "Sandy antenna" Par EF-10-20-40 I'm QRV from the terrace. Nice weather also. I found 3 switch mode psu's in the house making noise.
They are turned of for the moment...
New ones has to be invested in...


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QRV Remote Rig.

I have brought a few radios with me.
Remote Rig is done via internet to the radio placed in our sailboat.
The antenna is a 20m backstay With an Icom AH-4 antenna tuner.
I tried to use my end-fed antenna for QRP with my FT-817 out of the hotel window from 8th floor.
Did not work very well.
I'm also QRV via D-Star vi local repeater and via DV-dongle and raspberry pi at the North Norway room.


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Location:Am Kronberger Hang,Kronberg im Taunus,Germany

FreeDV

My first FreeDV contact - F6EMT - Marc near Paris
Good site to check who's online and available:
http://192.231.186.24/

Signal was about 14 - and 1 - 4SNR
Great potential - but not really a QRP mode - yet.. :-)
    This is how the new 1600 mode looks like:




1400-mode needs much better signal. Even with 7-9S it's a real nut to crack.. :-)
This is how old 1400 V0.91 mode looks like:

WSPR 1W @ 20m

New modes for the FT-817 usage.. 

1W WSPR:

Antenna is the 3el. Mini Beam from Mosley at 20m.

This weekend I have played QRP :-)

The FT-817 does a great job at 5 Watts.
The beam does also make it easier, but I believe a good dipole would have done the same job.

Mostly QSO's on 20, 17 and 15 and my vertical is usually doing better on 20 than the beam.

Yesterday I mounted the 2700mAh battery in the Yaesu. Should make my portable runtime a bit longer.

Also, my 7Ah Gel battery will extend it even further.

Radio suitcase starting to get heavy.... :-)

I made a interface cable and got the SignaLink USB on the air.

Works as a sharm, and doing PSK via an MiniPC works great.

So, I'm ready to go out in Portable Land when weather is warmer.

Today - -11C, so I'm not that cheerful for that.. 

The complete setup:

Noticed a bad issue with Sony PC Companion - latest version and a Sony Xperia mobile.

I have seen this on older versions on Sony PC Companion also with a Sony Ericsson mobile.

The issue is that my MixW RigExpert Tiny is keying every 30 seconds or so.

Completely impossible to have Sony PC Companion installed on the same PC that has Rig control connected via USB - since the PTT is keyed every 30 seconds.

I have reproduced the issue on a portable Win7 PC also, so it's for sure the issue.

Uninstalled Sony PC Companion, and the rig is not keyed unintentionally anymore.

Just a heads up... 

Visited Lofoten this years X-Mas.
Busy with the family, so it was not busy in the shack.
Planning to build me a remote station, so I can activate Lofoten Islands EU-076
more often than I can now.

Remoterig is needed first - and Icom IC-706MKIIG will be the base first.
TS-480 is very interesting for this arrangement, so - we'll see...

73's and a Happy new year!!