Portable QRP = planning and adaptability

Last years shot of my planned location for today

It turned out to be a fantastic day  lots of sunshine and temperatures in around 23C. I was long over due and it was time to  pack up the KX3 and go on an outdoor trip with the rig. I brought along the Alexloop as well to give it a go outdoors.  Part of planning is making sure you have all that you need for the trip and not just radio stuff. There is water, one of those chairs you sling over your back, hat and sunglasses without these the trip could be not as comfortable. I arrived at my "spot" that I have gone to in the past found a nice parking spot in the shade. I then proceeded to unpack the car but could not believe the amount of mosquitoes that were buzzing around me. If planning had been better repellant would had been on the list but in all fairness at this time of year mosquitoes were the last thing on my mind. It was now time for adaptability and move to another location.

New setup in town

 There is no way I could have setup and been comfortable with the bugs at this location. I was now heading back to town and to another location. This one was along the river in town and always has a nice cool breeze off the river. I found my spot and setup did not take long at all and there was a table that was available as well. The Alexloop was very easy to setup and very fast to get it tuned up on 14.060. The KX3 was set to about 2 watts output and so began my CQ's. About 15 minutes into the portable operation the KX3 went

All packed up.

dead!! This has happen to me in the past with this radio and I knew exactly what is was! It was very poor planning on my part....the KX3 batteries were dead. Well not dead exactly but below the minimum voltage needed to operate the radio. That was the end of my out door adventure for the day and the radio is now at home getting it's batteries recharged. Monday is a holiday up this way and depending on the weather maybe I will give it a go on Monday.Going to have to look into a second set of batteries so I always have a charged set ready to go.

KX3 charging

WSPR up and running

No contacts heard or made but it's working

Good afternoon from the shack of VE3WDM, it's a long weekend up this way with Monday being a holiday! I have been seeing lots of posts about Dayton and a huge amount of tweets. It would seem that most if not all major manufactures have some new goodies they are premiering at Dayton. For those of you who read this blog and are sending use the news of Dayton.......KEEP IT UP!! So what's new around here.....well I have updated my VE3WDM K2 build blog with a new page. This is my second Elecraft K2 I have built and I wanted to blog about it. I want to highlight the build as well try to make this blog a good resource  for ham radio kit builders. This K2 build is taking longer with taking pictures and blogging about it but I am having a hoot. Today I decided to get WSPR going once again in the shack, well I must admit that at first it was to TRY to get WSPR going again. I did have WSPR installed and running with my K3 in the past and for some reason (as I have found many digi modes do) the rig would not come out of transmit. No matter what I did I could not  repair this odd event. Today I decided to remove the WSPR program from my PC and start fresh. I am happy to say that all is working well agian. A fellow blogger Bas had mentioned to me while I was comparing my attic dipole to my new Alexloop antenna that WSPR would be a very good way to compare the two. At this point this evening I am just making sure WSPR is functioning as it should and so far all looks well. My next step will be to put the attic dipole up against the Alexloop.

Dayton = NEW STUFF!!!!

This is a great idea from Ten-Tec which was introduced at Dayton....I give you the QRPer blog he has done a stellar preview. Check it out and get the grey matter excited!!

Alexloop vs Attic dipole

Setup for test. (Laptop running Ubuntu update)

The propagation conditions have not been all that great over the last couple of days so what a better time to do some on air Alexloop vs attic dipole comparisons! Here is the setup I used my Elecraft K3 putting the Alexloop in antenna 1 on the K3 and left the dipole on antenna 2 on the K3. This way I can use the internal tuner for the dipole and remove the antenna tuner for the Alexloop with just the push of a button on the K3. The power output was 5 watts, figured I would go to the top end of QRP considering the atmospheric conditions being not so hot. The Alexloop was up in my radio room facing West out the widow and East through my house walls. The Dipole is in a "Z" configuration in the attic so it kinda is facing most all directions. The Alexloop frequency was 14.061 and the dipole was 14.059 and I was using CW along side the Reverse Beacon network. The current atmosphiric conditions at the time of the test were:
A-5
K3
SFI 157
SN 173
Below is the results of the test.....not so well it would seem the Alexloop netted zero and the dipole only one. So is seems for a more acurate comparison better conditions are needed.