Nerd has Never Been Cool
When I learned that Arizona QRP Club AZ ScQRPions released a new QRP Transceiver kit designed by N7VE (Dan Tayloe) I placed my order without even thinking twice. N7VE pushes the performance envelope of HF design to new levels (think the famous Tayloe Detector) and this little transceiver kit is no exception.
Posted in QRP.
– 20 March 10
Excited by the possibility of adding to my DX worked totals on 80M during the ARRL DX CW contest a few week-ends ago, I hurriedly installed a new 80M ground plane (GP) antenna. Like the year before, I intended a single-band effort and the new GP was going to be my secret weapon.
Posted in Antenna, Construction, Contesting, Model.
– 7 March 10
I have been playing with HFTA software from the ARRL Antenna Book to determine the typical take-off angles needed to communicate to DX locales. First step was to develop my elevation profile, which I did based upon the instructions included using a program named MicroDEM. While not the most intuitive thing in the world, I did manage to follow the Antenna Book directions to obtain my DEM GIS file from a government location and to create exportable FAN files needed for HFTA. A FAN file is a terrain height profile in a particular direction from my QTH “tower” location.
– 6 March 10
