First qso with ATX-1080 antenna and 2,5 watts

Last week I bought a second hand ATX-1080 antenna for my FT817nd. Yesterday I received it by the mail and today I had the time to try this antenna.









With a cup of coffee I sat quietly at my diningroom table and listened to 20 meters, swr reasonable. I heard the special call SI9AM, this time with ON5RZ as a guest operator. A lot of stations called him and it seemed that he not heard my QRP signal. Nevertheless, my patience was rewarded. Raf said my call with an error and I answered to it. He corrected my call and we could made a nice QSO. Details of my setup passed and I told my name.

Who knows what for fun this antenna gives me even more.













73, Tjeerd (Gose) - PA3GNZ

Limerick Sudden receiver, by GQRP club

This week, no radio activities. The weather is too hot for hanging over the soldering iron and I am home with a painful ear infection.

By post was the latest Journal of the club GQRP 'Sprat'. A Magazine with always interesting articles. By this time the announcement of a kit what the GQRP club is sold. The Limerick Sudden Receiver.

73, Tjeerd (Gose) - PA3GNZ

Contest on 6 meter

Saturday afternoon, I was listening on 6M because there were conditions. I heard that there was a contest and on the internet I found out what kind of contest this was. I came to the following information. In this contest you change a report, serial number and locator.
Among the other activities, see previous posting, I have made a total of 20 QSO's.In this picture are the lines through the various contacts visible. Clearly the most possibilities were to eastern Europe. The farthest distance was with UU9A in KN64SM, over 2000km.
I made the qso's with cw/ssb and the most with 20 watts, 2 with 10 watts. From the 20 qso's there were also a few new squares: JM68, JN94, KN44, KN64, JO91 and KO14.

73, Tjeerd (Gose) - PA3GNZ

Genesis Q5 (30M) transmitter repaired and modified

Today I repaired my Genesis Q5 transmitter.
First I had to remove transistor T2 and then I could remove the IC. Then I placed the new IC and I measured that the oscillator was working, yes!
Now I could replace transistor T2 and the transmitter was working again, the frequency 10.11574, it's too low. (When you've read my previous article about the Q5, you could see that with the value of 33pF (C7) the frequency was nearly 10.117 Mhz. The 33pF which I installed today was another.
I received the advice to change capacitor C7. First I replaced this by one with a value of 22pf. I measured that the frequency was 10.12012, much too high. The next step was placing a capacitor with a value of 27pF.
The transmit frequency is 10.11595. This deviation from 10.116 Mhz is acceptable for me.



I finally placed the 27pF capacitor.

73, Tjeerd (Gose) - PA3GNZ

J-pole antenna for 2M

Last week I made a J-pole antenna for 2M. This antenna is made of 300 Ohm ladder-line I found in my junkbox. Yesterday evening I used the antenna indoors, hanging from the curtain rail, and could reach PI3AMF, a repeater in Amersfoort. A distance of 28 km. I used my FT817nd with 2,5 watts output.
This weekend I want to measure the swr with an external SWR meter.

The rest of this week I had no time for the hobby.

18:30 UTC. I saw that my swr meter is not suitable for 2m, stupid of me. Now I should just borrow one from a colleague in the neighborhood.

73, Tjeerd (Gose) - PA3GNZ