Shortwave transceiver

[Doc]

A while ago there was a thread about using skywave hf (shortwave) radio in the outdoors. Shortwave radio allows global communication without any infrastructure - you simply bounce the signal off the sky. You do need to do a weekend course to get a licence but this is not really an ordeal - my ten year old is doing it this autumn.

Arguably the best outdoorsmans radio is the Elecraft KX1 but the price tag of circa £250 is steep. Hendricks recently launched a new field radio at only $200.

http://www.qrpkits.com/pfr3.html

Like the KX1 it is morse code only and has to be soldered together. But both these skills can be easily acquired.

 

[Mikey P]

Oooooooo.......niiice!

I'd love to have a go at one of these. I take it you can use a long wire cut to approx length with a balun?

 

[squantrill]

Guys if your going to solder stuff then build your own shortwave transmitters you can get them a lot smaller than this. I have built a number of transivers in my time and now favour to take along a ft817 (qrp HF transiever) easy through a wire in a tree tune up transmit. I have spoken to plenty of countries using just a few millwatts.

Building your own of course allows you to get it very small and light weight.
http://www.gqrp.co.uk/

Interesting poll how many more radio amateurs are into bush craft ?

m0dcu/pa2sq

 

[crazyclimber]

Nice looking radio - I had a look at the 817 a while back too but then got tempted more by the 857. Then promptly bought neither!
Squantrill - *sticks hand up - kinda*. Interest, have a pretty good knowledge of radio and morse from a different field but never actually got my licence. 1 free weekend...

 

[squantrill]

Nice looking radio - I had a look at the 817 a while back too but then got tempted more by the 857. Then promptly bought neither!
Squantrill - *sticks hand up - kinda*. Interest, have a pretty good knowledge of radio and morse from a different field but never actually got my licence. 1 free weekend...

Ok cool so you took the services route instead

I tried the signals in the services as a career and I wasn't excepted told I was to fat and unhealthy and to come back when I put some effort in..!! So went into IT instead!

Well I think the new foundation courses are really quite easy if you have a little bit of common sense you can pass you stuff in a evening! you then get to use a waping 3 Watts that awt to be enough to talk around the world (I normally use 1W)

 

[Doc]

The Ft817 is a cracking radio (I have one) but it is very battery-hungry. Most kit built radios draw far less current. With a gel cell and a small solar panel, you could operate indefinitely.

AFAIK the Foundation Licence in the UK gives you a 10 watt power limit. As squantrill says, you really can work the world on just a couple of watts, though this does depend a bit on the sunspot cycle, and morse is far more effective at low power than ssb (voice).

If anyone wants to get a foundation licence, details are on the RSGB website. £25 and a weekend of interesting but straightforward study is all it takes.

 

[speckledjim]

A while ago there was a thread about using skywave hf (shortwave) radio in the outdoors. Shortwave radio allows global communication without any infrastructure - you simply bounce the signal off the sky. You do need to do a weekend course to get a licence but this is not really an ordeal - my ten year old is doing it this autumn.

Arguably the best outdoorsmans radio is the Elecraft KX1 but the price tag of circa £250 is steep. Hendricks recently launched a new field radio at only $200.

http://www.qrpkits.com/pfr3.html

Like the KX1 it is morse code only and has to be soldered together. But both these skills can be easily acquired.

I don't believe it! I was searching through some old threads when I came across this one. I built this radio a little while back, and it's been a real little cracker!
The receive on this thing is awesome; you can really pull out those weak signals and filter out those nearby stations. Also the inbuilt balanced line tuner works a treat.

I use it with an 'end fed zepp' antenna. This is great because it has the advantage of being end fed without the need for a counterpoise, and you just can't beat a half wavelength radiator!

I've never used this thing indoors, I've perfected the art of throwing sticks into tall trees with bits of string attached!
Contacted many European countries even with my crumby morse! Power out is usually around 3.75 watts with fresh cells. The whole station packs away into a small shoulder bag.

Building took a weekend and went without a hitch apart from some 150pF caps were missing. A quick trip to maplin sorted that one costing 60p.

I recall one memorable contact where I was operating late one night in woodland near Aberfoyle, and I made contact with a similar battery power QRP (5W or less) station in Sweden. I'd been calling CQ for ages and was about to give in, the band seemed dead and my hands were numb. Out of the blue Einar (SM5 CBC) near the small town of Idre, close to the Swedish/Norwegian border answered my call. He gives me a solid 579 signal report. It turns out that he’d been hiking in the mountains that day and was operating QRP CW from the comfort of his tent. He was running 5W into an inverted Vee.
QRP to QRP contacts don’t come very often (for me at least) and it just goes to show, that one more CQ can make all the difference!

 

[BOD]

Learn morse in a weekend to transmit capability?

What about taking it down ?

Love to go this route but is it really that easy?

 

[FGYT]

lol i wish took me a couple of months to get to 5 Words per min recieve not that i can remember any of it now bar 'F'

used to got to bed with d d da dit Foxtrot d d da dit Foxtrot etc etc playing

think i handed the tapes bact to thestoreman after i passed the 5wpm test then we could use the burst transmit stuff

ATB

Duncan

 

[speckledjim]

Learn morse in a weekend to transmit capability?

What about taking it down ?

Love to go this route but is it really that easy?

The weekend course for the foundation licence doesn't really cover morse. It isn't required for the exam any more.
I learned morse in my own spare time and use it on air. It doesn't take that long. You could probably do it in a weekend if you really went for it though!

 

[rik_uk3]

Cheers Doc, I was trying to remember the name of that rig Its on my xmas list.

 

[stevec]

the KX1 comes in at nearer 290 if you add the exrta channels and atu.
the hendricks 3 channel looks like really good value

steve