Monthly Archives: November 2012

CQ WW CW 2012

Posted by on November 27, 2012 No comments

Last weekend I participated in the CQ WW CW for the first time as Single Operator. I have been working the last few months to prepare my station for this contest. Most time was spent on automatic switching of the correct antenna for the correct band. In previous contests I had some problems in blowing my lowpass filters due to errors in selecting the correct antenna. No such issues this year.

Setup for this contest:

  • 2x Elecraft K3
  • 2x Drake L7
  • hexbeam for 10/15/20m with separate feedlines
  • 40: sloper
  • 80/160m vertical.

just before the start of the contest I (or better my neighbors) had some issues with the ground fault circuit. Making more than 200w made their ground fault interrupter to activate. I also had some RFI problems from 40m sloper.

During the Saturday evening I had to partly lower the hexbeam and to shorten the 80/160m vertical as a storm was announced with gusts of Force 10.

In the end I am pretty satisfied with the result!

        Band    QSOs    Pts  ZN    Cty
         1.8     171     192   10   46
         3.5     441     596   18   70
           7     321     574   17   70
          14     504    1019   32   98
          21     427     999   35  114
          28     276     697   25   75
       Total    2140    4077  137  473

            Score : 2,486,970

links: sh5

1×6 switch

Posted by on November 5, 2012 No comments

Last year I built a 1×6 antenna switch. The switch was designed for my SO2R station. The goal was to built a 2×6 switch (see Top Ten Devices app note) with a high isolation between the different ports.

Previous designs for a 2×6 switch failed due to bad isolation values (less than 50dB). These designs were build with loads of relays, but without a PCB. After some experiments with a A/B switch (with isolation values of around 100dB) the 1×6 switch was designed.

PD9X has some nice images of the switch.

schematic

PCB

BOM