I worked the 2023 CQ WPX contest this weekend as single operator QRP. I used the EFHW vertical beam on 15m and 10m with some activity on 40m and 20m using the S9V31 vertical. I started with the beam pointed just East of North on 15m. Propagation conditions were interesting as we had just come off a strong geomagnetic storm. 20M was very noisy and it seems that most activity was centered around 15m and 10m which fell in line quite nicely with my antenna plans. I worked QRP on this contest ion 2019 and 2020 and closed about 50 QSO’s with scored just under 5,000. This weekend I worked 106 stations across 26 countries and 86 unique prefixes for a claimed score of 15,824. Here are some charts regarding the contest performance:
Most all of the contacts were made on 15m and 10m. I would point the antenna East of North early in the day and then switch to more Southerly and then more Westerly directions during the course of the day. Changes take less than 5 minutes to implement. I think that the antenna is a winner. There are just a few improvements I’d like to make:
Replace the hysical links with traps to simplify band changes.
Pre-deploy additional mast stakes to simplify moving the reflector element.
See if I can replace the adjustable matchbox with a fixed one for operation only on 15m and 10m bands.
Predicated gain is about 4dBi which is considerably better than a plain vertical and provides good low level radiation. I tested directionality by switching between the S9V31 vertical on stations facing away from the beam. I should note that trying to make contacts with just the vertical was difficult. This antenna might end up being an interesting choice for field day this year as domestic contacts were not difficult to close.
I did not have time to get the traps built for the 2-band EFHW vertical beam antenna before the start of the 2023 CQ WPX contest. I instead made this a linked antenna with a slightly longer 10m element. Both 10m and 15m show directionality howver the EFHW matchbox could not achieve a perfect match on 10m. It was close enough to use the antenna tuner to bring it to a match without difficulty. This is a good antenna for use when some level of gain and front to back rejection is needed. It is simple to setup for portable operation and only needs a 6.5 foot radius and no radials for operation.
Improving this antenna will require the use of the traps to prevent having to take the whole thing down to change bands. I am also exploring how to best match this preferably with a dedicated 2-band matchbox that does not require adjustments. Changing direction can be facilitated by adding a couple of additional mounting stakes at the desired bearings. It is fairly easy and quick to move the reflector element to a new position without taking the whole thing down.
I used this antenna this weekend on the CQ WPX contest with very good results running QRP. More on that on an upcoming post.
With band conditions improving on 10m & 15m I am thinking on how to improve antenna gain in a portable antenna for those bands. The Moxon for 15m works great but is tricky to setup on the Spiderpole. Full or shortened Yagi’s have the same issue. Inverted-V Wire beams can get messy to setup as they need two support poles and tie off on the ends plus they are hard to rotate.
I am now looking at the vertical beam as a compromise between gain and portability. A 1/4 wave vertical beam works well for a single band but does require radials. This makes it difficult to relocate a reflector or director to re-aim. I have been looking now at the EFHW antenna. In its basic form this is a 1/2 wavelength of wire on a specific band that is end fed through a matchbox for tuning. Band changes require a new wire length for a specific band but can be accomplished using links. This antenna has shown to be a proven performer by itself. What I am looking at now is to replace the links with a trap so that the entire antenna does not have to be brought down for a band change. There may be a way to replace the variable match with a fixed one as I am looking to match high impedance on only 10m and 15m. A counterpoise of about 1m is needed along with a 1:1 choke at the feedpoint.
This forms my driven vertical element.
Now to form a vertical beam I use the same trap for 10m and cut matching parasitic wires. I have the separation between the elements at .13 wavelength at 15m but fix that for both 15m and 10m. This promises about 4dbi gain in the forward direction. Changing direction is super simple in that the parasitic element only needs to be relocated with no radials to contend with. Here is some modeling of this antenna on 15m:
Here is the predicted performance on 10m:
This antenna shows some nice low angle gain which will be handy for DX. I recently tested the 15m mono and version and certainly noticed the directionality. I’ll start working on a trap for this and hopefully try out this weekend.
There were many personal factors that kept me from running competitively on the ARRL DX SSB contest this last weekend. I had intended to run this with either the 15m Moxon or the EFHW vertical beam but I just did not have the time to deploy either. I did not have an opportunity to operate the contest until nearly noon on Sunday.
Weather here was nice so I opted to take out the IC-705 with the JPC-12 antenna and setup for QRP “field day” style. Working 10m & 15m I managed 10 DX QSO’s in about an hour and a half. The contacts I did complete were done without difficulty. Furthest contacts were to Canary Islands and Argentina. 10m appeared to be the better band during this time.
I submitted my log as QRP non-assisted. All in all, I was glad to get outside with the radio and enjoy making some QRP DX.
Now that 15m and 10m are open once again, I have been looking at ways to get some low angle gain on these bands in a portable setup. The 15m Moxon works great but my setup is a hassle in high winds. I pulled out the EFHW matchbox I have built and tested previously and set it up for 15m with a carbon fiber fishing pole as a mast.
That was a mistake.
It turns out that the carbon fiber poles served to hopeless detune the antenna. This problem went away when I replaced the mast with Fiberglass poles. My first attempt failed as the poles were too short. I ended up using the two travel SOTA poles that extend to 10m. That fixed the tuning issue on 15m. Once the driven element was setup, I placed a second pole with just a wire about 6 inches longer than the driven element about 6-1/2 ft away and pointed into the Northeast. SWR was below 1:2 across the band. I then setup the IC-705 and started trying to work stations on 15m. Note that this setup requires no radials! The driven element has a counterpoise about 1m long and a 1:1 choke at the feed point.
I made 5 QSO’s on SSB 5W all into the US Northeast. I even had one rag chew with a station in New Hampshire with no difficulty in copying on either side. During this time, I heard no stations west of Illinois or south of Cuba. All in all a promising antenna for field work on the higher bands.
A week of cold and damp weather in South Texas was replaced by a gorgeous Saturday. 72° F and 55% humidity and almost no wind. I decided this would be a good time to activate my new “shack-in-a-bag” setup based on the Icom 705 and the JPC-12 vertical antenna.
Total setup time was less than 10 minutes. My initial setup of the JPC-12 antenna was on 10m (no coil needed).
The JPC-12 is easy enough to setup although the configuration tips in the manual are not entirely clear. First the ground spike is inserted into the ground. A ring terminal with three 16 ft radial wires is placed over the spike and then the coax connector section is screwed in. The radials are layed out on the ground. Next four tubular sections are screwed in place. Finally, the telescopic whip is installed on the top of the tubes (for 10mm or 15m no coil is needed). The nanoVNA comes in handy for fine tuning but this is also easy to test with the IC-705 SWR feature. 15ft of RG-58 forms the feedline. For 10m or 15m this antenna forms a full size, resonant 1/4 wave vertical. Changing bands takes only a minute or two to adjust the whip or in the case of 20m or 40m adding the coil section.
I setup the rig with the attached battery pack which limits power to 5W. I also setup a bluetooth headset with PPT using the 705 mic button. I started listening on 10m and heard quite a bit of SSB activity due to the Ten-Ten contest. I answered a CQ call from Vermont and secured a 57 signal report. I switched to 20m then to 15m and back to 10m. I made additional contacts to California, Minnesota & Missouri as well as one DX contact to Brazil on 10m.
Teardown and stowing of the station took all of 6 minutes.
Overall, I am very happy with this setup. Very portable. Quick to setup and take down. The JPC-12 antenna works quite well on 10m and 15m as they are full size resonant antennas. 20m and 40m use a coil and are shortened but still resonant. Also easy to setup and take down. The radio itself is seamless to operate as the interface is almost identical to the Icom 7300. I’ll definitely be using this portable more often. The only thing I’d like to add is a folding solar panel and 12V LifePo4 battery. This will allow longer run times and up to 10W output.
I have been very busy these last few weeks and have had little time for radio-activity other than running FT-8. Early mornings here at the QTH have been active on 15m and sometimes 10m into Europe stating after dawn. 40m remains good into Asia during the same time of day. I am working on some antenna ideas to take advantage of the improving conditions. More to come on that topic…
I did get a bit distracted this week on completing a dust collection scheme for my 3020-pro CNC machine. I have a small shop vac but not a cyclone separator. I did not find one scaled to my needs nor within my budget. I was at a local pawn shop recently where I saw several upright vacuums cleaners for sale with the separator feature on them. I picked up a “Dust Devil” for $15. Removing the canister and the hose I took some measurements and 3D printed three hose adapters to hook this up as a separate cyclone separator. Everything fit on first try and lo and behold the thing actually works!
The nice thing about this hack is that the vacuum can be easily returned to service as a floor vac. Not bad for $15. Next it an enclosure for the machine which I’ll prototype with dollar tree foam board.
This bag contains my new portable ham shack that I put together over the last few weeks of 2022. The contents:
Icom-705 QRP Radio
Mat 705 plus tuner
Two 25ft lengths of RG-58 coax
Some short patch cables
Two battery packs for 5W operation
JPC-12 vertical field antenna
Roll up VHF/UHF antenna
Dell laptop & Charger
Bluetooth headset
I have deployed this portable once since sourcing all the components and was real happy with the results. I have room for a solar panel and LiFPO4 battery for 10W operation and will be working on that soon. I’ll be doing some more detail reviews of the radio and antenna soon.
International travel opened up at work in the last couple of months of 2022 and add the holidays and various family functions and there has not been much time for radio. I have been able to run some FT-8 here and there but not much in the way of Phone. Solar conditions have been quite good with 15m and 10m opening up nicely. 15m into Europe is working well in the mornings on FT-8 with the vertical. Hope to be on more often now.
After operating the CQ DX contest this past weekend using the 15m Moxon, I just took down and inspected the antenna. I had lowered it on Monday and it was subjected to some heavy rain during the night Tuesday. Today I disassembled the antenna completely and found that it was in very good shape. The epoxy and string reinforcements to the spreaders worked great and there was no sign of cracking. All in all it looks really good.