Hi Dave- Yeah- as a general rule, longer is better. The very short antennas are all compromises to some degree. I've had good luck with the Hustler antennas on my truck roof. BTW- Hustler's mag-mount

Thanks, John- you beat me to it! 73- Dave Benson, K1SWL

Phil- I remember that era- summer thunderstorms when the house was framed but the roof decking wasn't complete. Squeegeeing the water into the basement opening. Those were the days. Operation here fro

Yes- that event runs weekly from 0000Z to 0100Z every Sunday evening. A friendly event with a 20 WPM max. Most folks call 'CQ SST' and the exchange is just Name and State/Province. Highly recommended,

Curt- I think band conditions on 20M have been a bit sparse. As others point out- the upper bands are in surprisingly good condition from time to time. Whenever I'm in the shack, I tune across 20M. On

Tom- Hope you and your family have a great time! Good luck with the POTA activations- hope you make lots of contacts. 73- Dave, K1SWL

David- I'm pretty modest about such things, so I'll settle for 'demiGod' <g> I wound up on this path right out of college, doing mostly digital design. None of it was taught in college- we learned on

I'm not sure that Si5351 is available in 8-pin DIP anymore. The newer MSOP-10 (?) is pretty challenging to solder until you learn the tricks. The Adafruit 2045 module does the job in a small footprint

Ron- Thanks very much! 73- Dave, K1SWL

gang- I'll put in a contrary word or two here.... I do a lot of POTA activations, and I usually draw modest pileups. When I'm spotted on POTA's website, nearly everyone tunes to *exactly* the dial fre

Hi Tim- I'm probably duplicating the earlier message, but here goes: ALC is indeed the mechanism for dialing back power, although I'm not sure how the Elecraft rigs implement that function. With their

Jason- Unless the instructions specifically say to fill in a hole, you do not need to. They're 'plated-through holes'. 73- Dave, K1SWL

Doc- You can use a length of coax between the rig/tuner and the wire antenna. Shorter is better, because the combination of line length and high SWR can add additional loss to your setup. In typical i

Doug- (This is general information, and not aimed at you) The higher-than-expected inductance isn't just a 4SQRP thing. It's a common source of difficulty. There's always stray capacitance between adj

Hi Ted- Nice job all around! From the sound of it, you were doing a Parks on the Air activation. With the cooler weather, I've moved my portable operations into the truck. I use a small tabletop on th

Matt- The best advice might be 'try it and see'. You'll probably hear the local oscillator from a DC rig in the background. The degree of DC-rig shielding and another consideration- mixer isolation- w

Ted- I'm typically sticking to 20M and using an EFHW antenna. A buddy has had only modest success on 40M. I think a good part of the difference is his 'casual' antenna and comparatively low power. By

Ted- Congratulations on that effort with the Bayou Jumper! The nice thing about POTA and other programs like it...once you're 'spotted', crystal-control is no handicap- they'll come to you. 73- Dave,

John- My rule of thumb is that 8 passes with the blade is about right. I think it does a better job than a soldering iron at 750F, but that's somewhat dependent on the manufacturer's choice of coating

Keith- Are you working to a deadline? I've got 3 or 4 projects on the bench but would be happy to whomp up a short article. I'm racing the clock while the weather's still good. Lots of POTA activation