Sorry I just couldn't resist!!! Between Star Wars and Star Trek our world has changed quite a bit. George Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic revolutionized special effects in he movie industry. OBTW: My favorite Star Wars spin off is Mandalorian. It's Star Wars for adults.
OK, enough of the sci-fi.....back to the real world of radio and QRP.
One of my latest observations is how much the QRP facet of the ham radio hobby has changed over the last 10 years. While there are still QRP clubs out there offering simple CW kits the emphasis has become QRP kits that feature direct digital synthesis (DDS), digital readouts, digital signal processing (DSP), built in test equipment, and basically features you would pay a lot of money for in a simple kit that costs under $100! Yup, I'm talking about QRP Labs and their QCX+ transceiver kit ($55 less case) Seriously, this is a great radio kit and has a load of features that are mind blowing! In addition to the QCX+ QRP Labs also offers a plethora of kits including a GPS receiver, 50 watt amplifier in the event you need to "turn up the wick" on your QCX+ transceiver, a series of band pass filters, station clock, Qrss/Wspr kit, etc.
Do yourself a favor and wander over the Hans Summers' QRP Labs site: qrp-labs.com and prepare to be amazed. The prices are fantasitc for the kits and the documentation is better than Heathkit.
About 10 days or so ago I managed to pickup up an original QRP Labs QCX transceiver for 40M, from Ken Evans, W4DU. This was housed in a custom aluminum case and makes a tidy little package for doing SOTA, portable ops. While the original QCX kit is no longer offered, Hans has updated the circuitry and provides the QCX+ which has a different form factor, redesigned circuit board, and aluminum case. I was so impressed with the original QCX transceiver I ordered a QCX+ for 20M. It should be here any day.
My wife, Patricia, KB3MCT, and I are going to take off on an extended trip to Texas, N. Dakota, NE Pennsylvania and back home. My ham radio goal for this trip is to work some QRP QSOs from the car while in transit. I did this in 1996 on the "K7YHA North American Tour" to celebrate my 50th birthday. At that time I had a Wilderness Radio Sierra with a Hamstick antenna for 40M. Good times!
I don't have a HF installation in the car at this time. So the first order of business is finding a HF antenna that would not cost an arm or a leg and fabricate some kind of mount for it. These newer cars do not have a lot of metal on which to mount an antenna hard point. Gone are the days of the bumper mount.
So, having l scoped out the Chevy Equinox and spying a class III hitch installed on the rear of the vehicle I opted for a hitch mount with a coaxial-to-antenna connection installed. This will allow me to remove the antenna (and mount) when not in use, so no holes in the car!
My choice of antenna is the Hustler mobile whip/resonator series. I have used Hustler products many times over the years. This particular mast/resonator antenna system came my way via Ray Bailey, N4GYN. He happened to have a Hustler mast with 40 and 20 M resonators that needed a new home. In addition to this Hustler mobile whip system I also have a 102 inch CB whip which I had planned on feeding through and LDG Z-11 automatic antenna tuning unit. I may include the whip and ATU as a backup since it won't take up a lot of space in the vehicle.
Power will be provided by the direct wiring to the battery that I use to power the Icom IC-2720 dual band FM mobile installation. Quicksilver Radio (qsradio.com) has a great selection of Power Pole accessories that will allow you to split out the DC power from your power supply/mobile battery so you don't have to run extra wiring. John Bea and I go waaaay back and John is a great guy to deal with. Check out Quicksilver Radio.
As for an operating position, I plan on using the QCX on 40M by just setting it on the console between the front seats and using a small paddle set by Tony Baleno, N3ZN. I have two paddle sets from Tony: a dual lever iambic and a single lever paddle set. Tony's workmanship is out of this world! His paddles are made extremely robust and I have not adjusted either of my N3ZN paddles since Tony sent them to me! Check out Tony's site: http://qrqcwnet.ning.com. Logging will be accomplished by paper and stubby pencil and later entered into my computer logging program.
In short, I can hardly wait to hit the road and have some fun with mobile CW.
In the mean time I am here, perched on the edge of my chair awaiting the FedEx truck to deposit my new QRP Labs QCX+ 20M transceiver kit. Once I get the ops position in the shack to where I can actually find the power panel, I plan on putting both the QCX and the QCX+ on the air prior to our trip. Look for me on the low end of booth 40 and 20M.
Stay safe and stay well.
Vy 73
Rich K7SZ
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