My new Military whip antenna Racal ANT-129

A few weeks ago, I've bought via ebay a military whip antenna for a few euros. The whip is a Racal ANT-129, collapsible in 8 sections, total lenght 260cm circa, and seems rated for 21-30MHz.

The base of the whip is terminated with a M10 screw (10mm metric), is very easy to find a nut for radio connection. I arrange a quick base with a camera tripod and a piece of wood. I've connected the whip with a wire to my Elecraft T-1 tuner using a 5m wire counterpoise. The antenna needs NO tuner for 21 and 28 MHz, (ok, SWR is not 1:1, but may be acceptable) and with tuner loads in 20, 17 and 12 meters. No way to use this antenna in 7MHz and less. The foto below shows me (left) and Nico "The President" IZ8KTL (right) near antenna, tuner and FT-817 in /P. Many nice QSO with european hams. (TNX to Carmine IK8GYQ for photo)


I've built a more stable support for my whip, I'll show it soon! Stay tuned.

European 10m QSO with a CB Blade antenna

I've found on old CB blade antenna in a ham radio shop, and I've bought it.

The antenna is an Intek KA-27, see details on radiomuseum http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/intek_flexible_mobile_cb_anten.html

I's small (80cm) and cheap (14 euros). The blade is cut for 11m CB band, but had an acceptable SWR on 10m when fed against a short counterpoise (1,5m) and mounted on the front BNC connector of my FT-817. Trying the antenna indoors (near my window pointing to east) I've made several 10m QSO in Italy and east europe (LZ, YO). Nice for a cheap blade!

Fotos and further infos in the next days.

1000 Miles per Watt Award from QRP-ARCI

On April, 13 I've received good news from QRP-ARCI: my 1000 Miles per Watt Award! I've submitted a few days earlier my QSO with LS1D for the award. I've operated with 5 Watts SSB on 10m, and the distance was 6998.89 miles (11263.62 km).

My setup was:
- Yaesu FT-817ND
- Tuner Elecraft T-1
- Antenna Up-and-Outer 2x5mt
- Band: 10m

Let me show the E-QSL:

My clubs

I'm enrolled in several ham radio clubs:

- ARI (Italian Ham radio association), Sez. Benevento 8201
- G-QRP club, since 2007, id# 12191
- QRP ARCI, since 2011, id# 14432

Roll-up 2m Jpole Antenna

Is the first antenna I've built. Very simple, cheap, and a true performer for 2m FM communication. I follow the project by WB3GCK (http://www.qsl.net/wb3gck/jpole.htm).
In the picture above you find also metric measures. I highly reccomend this antenna for beginners: is a wide band antenna and also if was a little mismatch with cuts, it mantains a very good SWR.


Where to find 300 ohm TV twinlead cheaply: if you need little quantities of twinlead, buy a receiving FM broadcast antenna, the cost is circa 1-2€ and there is enough twinlead to make a 2m jpole.

Boost your HT for almost nothing

As almost every ham radio operator, I’ve a small portable radio. According to QRP philosophy, I choose to buy a Yaesu VX-2: very small, not very expensive, max power 2.5W with built-in battery. Using this nice radio I feel a bit frustrating for the short range of the communication allowed. The first thing I’ve done is changing the original useless rubber duck antenna with a telescopic quarter wave, and the results were very good. Navigating Internet, in HamUniverse Antenna Projects (in particular an article by Edward KE4SKY, http://www.hamuniverse.com/htantennamod.html), I’ve found another nice (and cheap) improvement to try: a quarter wave counterpoise.

The trick is trivial, and is surely well known to all hams operating in HF: a quarter wave vertical MUST be used with a good ground plane or against one or several counterpoises. This is true also in VHF region, but what is the amount of improvement? I soon arrange a quick-and-dirty counterpoise for my VX-2: 49 cm of speaker wire wrapped around the SMA antenna connector: the improvement in RX seems to be incredible, better than 1 s-point, in some conditions even 2 s-points!

The performance improvement is significant: we can note that 1 s-point is 6 dB; this means that my VX-2 with quarter wave counterpoise is more powerful that a 5W HT without counterpoise. In TX same situation: other hams reports that is a +1 s-point when I use the counterpoise.

I’ve built a more clean and stable version: a 6mm ring terminal and 49 cm of RG-174 (only braid connected). The 6mm terminal fits well in the SMA connector, and screwing the antenna lock counterpoise firmly in place.

I’ve also built a two band version, using speaker wire, one of which cutted at 17cm and the other at 49cm, the performances are a little better on 70cm. In past times, it was a commercial version of the counterpoise, which is called “Tiger Tail”. In the foto below, the two "tails":


The counterpoise is useful for all kind of quarter wave antenna, even shorted quarter wave or rubber ducks. Of course, I try also many conventional 5W HT, with the same (good) results in terms of performances. In UHF the improvement is less noticeable with my telescopic antenna, which is a half wave on 70cm.

This simple trick really performs well, is very cheap and fast to build. I’m surprised that is unknown by most ham radio operators. Try it!

I will present my shack

OK, let's begin with the blog. I'm a licensed ham radio operator and a QRP enthusiast, and my shack is made mostly with QRP rigs:

• Yaesu FT-817 (all-mode QRP Quardiband): my true passion
• Kenwood TS-50 (QRO HF) : with a comfortable receiver, used mostly for SWL
• Yaesu FT-290R (VHF all-mode): an old radio that does this job!
• Mizuho MX-14S (20m SSB handheld): nice...
• Yaesu VX-2R (V-UHF handheld): my 1st Radio as a ham!
• Kenwood TH-F7 (V-UHF handheld and all-mode all-band receiver): GREAT!!!!
• Many VHF and UHF handhelds

Tuners:

• MFJ16010: very useful
• Elecraft T-1 Autotuner: not cheap at all, but GREAT

Antennas (all homebrewed):

• Random wire tuned tith MFJ or T-1
• Up-and-Outer dipole cutted for 20m on 6m fishing pole, useful antenna: fast to mount (2min...), cheap, I use it on 40-10m with a tuner, or attached directly to rig in 20 meter band
• Rabbit ears dipole for VHF (6-2m), also used on 10-12m with tuner
• 2m twin lead rollable J-pole