Category Archives: AlexLoop

GB-0853 Craigmillar Castle Country ParkGB-0853

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Why in Edinburgh
QCTiP

I traveled to Edinburgh for Quantum Computing Theory in Practice (QCTiP) and with a chance to use my locator of 2M brought my IC705 and Alexloop along. I had originally planned to go out with my radio on Friday evening or Saturday morning, but not being able to stand another Ryanair flight, opted to go on Tuesday evening and get the train back Saturday.

train back to Bournemouth from Edinburgh

I used the handy google maps app to find my way to Craigmillar Castle park, it was a short ride and easy to do from my hotel near Edinburgh university in the old town.

Route to the park via #2 bus

It was a bit of trek from the bus stop to the park, but after being in all day, quite pleasant to get some exercise.

entrance sign
stunning views

The views from the park where really nice and the paths not too bad, with all the bad weather of late there was only a few patches of mud puddles, otherwise was easy to follow the trail/google maps to the adventure park which I had seen having a nice table to setup on.

all 3 bungees
but on the air

Getting the Alexloop setup required all three bungees, the wind was not strong but enough that the usual bungee around the table wasn’t enough. I used a vertical bungee to secure the mast and sure enough was soon on the air. I encountered some high SWR and found this was due to the power lead and the feed line being in close proximity, so I worked thru all that and re-routed it, then sure enough was on the air with first 5W and then 10.

The QSO’s came in sporadically, one minute there would be a FT8 pile up, then minutes of nothing, I figured that other stations must be on the same frequency so bounced around the available bandwidth on the FT8 20M range, sure enough was soon edging towards the 10 contacts I needed.

sundown
chilly computer, colder operator

At this point i realized I had come quite unprepared for the Scottish weather and whilst I was treated to a beautiful sunset the wind was beginning to really make me cold, thankfully FT8 requires minimal user input. I put my backpack on to keep the wind off me buried my hands deep within my hoodie. A chocopie gave me enough of a sugar rush to keep me going…

at last – 11 contacts!
wind having a good time with notebook

With some failed QSO’s (KF9UG) and some completed (VE1JW) I also had a run of 2 almost as I was shutting down (9A4ZM) – i had enough to activate the park. I was able to pack away and head back to the bus stop !

Urban and Countryside
lovely bus stop

I was really impressed on just how one moment I could be in this seemingly wide countryside of Scotland, and next back in the city of Edinburgh. The walk back to the bus stop was made with much haste and was so glad to be back in a wind-protected shelter. The bus arrived on time and I was so glad to be back in the warm ! The short ride back to the hotel was followed by a very nice bowl of shin-ramyen !

Shin ramyan to the rescue !!

I took my ADIF log and uploaded to the POTA website – I had already setup my 2ME0FWE call sign on the PoTA site before leaving for Edinburgh, so it was easy to upload to the regional locator under my main ‘2E0FWE’ owner call sign.

VE1JW – thanks fo the amazing long distance contact !

I was really please to see a splattering of PoTA Hunters, getting VE1JW in the log from Canada on 10W was excellent. Whilst it was hard work to get the radio, battery and computer to Edinburgh, it was well worth it. Going back on the train removed all the hassle of unload the battery, radio, computer at the airport.

This was by far one of those PoTA’s where I learned alot more other than just the radio. Being prepared for the climate being the key one ! Hopefully one day I’ll be able to get back to Scotland and use 2M0FWE again, the scenery of this beautiful country makes it all the more worth it.

A cold 2M0FWE

POTA – FT8, FT4, SSTV, SSB – UPDATE – 18/3/24 –

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After a very busy week, I had Sunday and getting out with my radio to look forward to. Thankfully the weather was being kind to me, whilst not warm, it wasnt raining as we had plenty of that over night !

Plenty of overnight rain at the QTH

I headed out to Boulderwood with the magloop and 705 and was on the air very quickly. Setup is quick and easy with the magloop and I actually learned a good wait to tune the antenna and get the SWR down quicker.

place hand UNDER feedline when tuning = better and quicker matching

I did run into issues starting out with WSJTX and FT8, the time on my computer was just ever so slightly out, but enough for a time sensitive decode of FT8 not to work correctly. I tried updating the time using the windows time server, to no avail ! I had to manually set the NTP server to rolex.ripe.net, sync the time and I was back in action !

control panel time
set NTP sever to ripe’s

I had 10 QSO’s in digital modes done in under 40 minutes, shifting between FT8 and FT4 on 20m, with POTA hunters chasing me thanks to the POTA app and RBN.

pskreport – 10W, FT8, 20M
PSK Report – 10W, FT4, 20m

Having completed enough contacts to activate the park, I was straight into Telephony and SSB. I went onto 17m, not that was any contests on, but I found it a good band for QRP operation, and sure enough I made two contacts, with EA1EC being a POTA Hunter, proving how using PoTA makes getting contacts that bit easier – when running QRP it all helps !

I jumped onto 20M, which was quite calm for a Sunday, and was able to tune around the band, making a contact with IK0VSY, with a good signal report. 20 meters really was the place to be today, so jumped onto SSTV and the pictures started rolling in from other SSTV users.

I waited my time and started to transmit and I made my first SSTV PoTA contact for 2024 ! I was really chuffed and excited, so big thanks to IK2QIN for the excellent QSO.

SSTV QSO received and uploaded to MAX SSTV by other SSTV receivers (Thanks MAX SSTV website!)

I then span the dial on 20m once more, and made 3 more SSB contacts, it was really great to make the contacts, with IU3EDQ being Portable !, but thanks again to EA2DT and EA4TL for hunting me and making the contact with excellent signal reports, with a 59 from me and a 5-5 for my reception report.

The IC-705 really done me a great service today, and being able to use the the voice repeat mode in conjunction with the ‘massive’ battery power of the ‘ultra max’ battery ensured I wasnt going to run out of power for the radio.

repeat mode and <1.3 SWR
on 20m and good results
repeat mode saved my voice

Sadly some massive QRM came in on frequency, but I was able to shift up and continue making contacts, that is the advantage of 20m over 17m, that it has more space in the band, so shifting isnt a problem. I quickly posted my frequency change on the POTA app and was able to continue making contacts !

QRM on frequency, maybe a new mode I’m not aware of !
the sun did try to come out

As the time approached for me to head to the supermarket to get my essential shopping, i packed up in no time, leaving the bunch and the park as I found it. Bolderwood is such a lovely place to come, its relaxing and gets me ready for the busy week ahead. I had a fantastic time getting out on the radio today.

Big thanks to all the people that made a contact with me today, it really is much appreciated and I really enjoy the amazing hobby that is amateur radio !

thanks for all the contacts !!!

*update 18/3/24*

Would like to say BIG thanks to Alessandro who contacted me with his QSL card, little did I know at the time that IU3EDK/P was up a mountain ! I received a lovely QSL card via email and a link to the activation – how amazing that it was a park-to-mountain activation all on 10W of power !!

Thank you Alessandro ! Please check out the activation from Alessandro here

QSL Card from IE3EDK up a mountain in Italy !

G-0112 11th Feb 2024

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Having worked on antenna projects at home and with good weather the urge to get out and get on the air was strong ! This time it was an morning outing to the New Forest and Bolderwood, which was unsuprisingly busy with familes, dog walkers and folk enjoy the lovely surroundings of Bolderwood.

New Forest map in Bolderwood

I setup the 705 and Alexloop, although struggled with getting the loop on securely this time out, just figured it was a case of over familairity – sometimes it just goes ‘on’ but this time it was being a right rascal ! Still, i was on the air quick with the radio setup. I jumped on 20m and started with FT8. No sooner had I self spotted the flow of contacts coming in was amazing !

In no more than 30 minutes the 10 contacts to activate the park was complete – even with a pile up !

The FT8 contacts came in from all over Europe, I was making it into the west coast of the states, but no QSO’s that far today unlike last weeks greyline activation.

FT8 on 20m – great reach with the magloop and 10W of power.

With the 10 contacts needed to activate the park and enough battery for both laptop and radio I tried SSTV, but it was very busy today. I found it slightly annoying that some people seem to serial transmit and dont leave a gap for a response. At least two times there was the same person calling CQ without leaving a gap and just retransmitting, I did however manage to capture a screenshot thanks to the cool CQ SSTV website which pulls in reception of SSTV sites.

received in NL on 10W

I tried a couple of times, but the QRM from interference on the band, as seen by the horiziontal lines on the image, was just getting stronger. I jumped over to 17M being a non contest band and generally good for QRP operations.

My first attempt on the QRP CoA resulted in a partial call sign and no signal report, so I moved further up the band to find a gap. I wasnt to be disappointed and made 3 great telephony contacts on 10W, it was a great experience mix up the PoTA activation with SSB phone contacts, with good reports.

3 Telephony contacts on 17m – DM5MU booming in on 3W

It was great that two of the phone contacts where made my PoTA hunters, showing that the app really worked well. Getting pulled out using low power is a challenge, but great when those signal repots come and the QSO’s are more than the FT8 signal report/ACK. A fine example of this was the SO with ‘Andy’ and DM5MU, who was happy to chat about his amazing Yagi which was running very low power but booming into the new forest with 59+10db! My signal reports was just as good with 5/9!

With all the fun and excitment of making rapid contacts on FT8 and Phone contacts on 17M I felt i had a great time on the radio, I was able to at least get a SSTV decode and enjoyed doing PoTA – one award is the ‘repeat offender’ which is 25 activations from the same location. As the new forest is quite big, its possible to goto other parts and use the same PoTA reference, so something I’m most deifneatly lookin at doing as the year goes on !

Thanks to the PoTA Hunters ! Esp on Telephony ! 🙂

A big thanks to the PoTA huters, esp those who work me whilst I’m only running 10W and patiently give me their callsign and signal reports, it really is a great time out !

Until next time 73 ! 2E0FWE

G-0112 4th Feb 2024 + Webtechnology site updates !

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had spring come early ? The sun was out today!

Some lovely sun kept the chills off today with flowers blooming and when it reach mid afternoon looked like turning into a great afternoon evening, I thought it would be great to make an impromptu visit to Bolderwood to try a PoTA activation.

compare to Janurary temptures, I was basking in the winter sunshin at a 12 celsisus !

I had everything packed away, i did one quick check for the power beiing packed, which it was, but had no idea on the battery level of the laptop, I knew I had used it recently so it shouldnt be too low. I headed off and it was great to to Bolderwood which whilst still pleasently busy, didnt feel over crowded. I’m sure this will change even by the end of the month !

Setup in no time
blue skys
a great place to do radio and relax

I was on the air in no time, with the Alexloop attached to the bench with a bungie and hooked into the IC705, it was easy to tune into 30m to start with for FT8. I chose 30m as I had alot of contacts at home and its not a band I used /P for POTA before, I made 4 contacts within 10 minutes, so wasnt disappointed. I then moved to FT4 on 20M – it was *busy* even finding a gap in FT4 was getting tricky, but I was glad to find a gap and get out. The laptop was down to 40% power by now, so I stuck it in energy efficent mode, which kept the battery going without issue and no adverse effect on the radio/USB connection.

using the laptop energy efficeint mode to extend the life the laptop

I was pleased with a series of rapid FT4 QSOs on 20m, i later learned these where all PoTA Hunters – whilst I’m amazed by them all in the distance, ranging from Austria and Spain in Europe, it was the DX contact with KC1MMC that blew me away – 3217 miles on 10W of power on a mag loop, I was really happy to say the least.

Sun went down and 20M opened up more

As the sun went down the volume of QSO’s on 20M just kept rolling in, from 17:17 to 17:25 I was having a QSO on FT8 every 2 minutes ! I had to call it a day as it was getting dark and wanted to get my equipment put away safely, but I think I enjoy coming out at dusk – maybe a small lamp or pen-light will be worth bringing next time.

14 contacts, 5 POTA hunters made happy !

This was a really enjoyable PoTA outing with minimal planning, I was really impressed how well the antenna done and the PSK Reporter picture shows, it can really reach the entire planet !

Digital modes doing really on 10W of power

I have seen videos of great QRP Contacts and am wondering how well I would do, I really think I should give it a try the next time I am out as the setup really impresses me and think it should be good to make some telephony contacts.

Making contact with KC1MMC on 20m FT8

Webtechnologies website update – WSPR Bands added !

I’ve been making monthly updates to my webtechnologies site, which last month I got back up and running so the code would scrape the data from the ‘updated’ WSPR old-db. I’ve now added sections that allow filtering by band. This is all transmitted via the 6BTV which is doing an excellent job of getting out on all 6 bands it is setup for.

Webtechnologies site – now with spots per band functionality.

I’m aiming to keep building more features for the website each month, just small incremental changes, but I’m sure will keep adding making for a feature-rich site. There is so much that can be done with WSPR data, I really enjoy using this mode and its great ot use my programming skills for amateur radio also. Check it out at the webtechnologies site.

G-0112 – Bolderwood New Forest, Alex Loop to the rescue

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With another bright but cold day, it was a good time to get out and get on the air. This time I was packing my trust Alexloop Ham pack antenna along with the IC705, determined to make an activation on my 3rd attempt from Bolderwood.

WX – I caught the ‘warmer’ part of the day at round 9 to 7 celsius

I was no sooner out the car and onto one of the many available benches and quickly setup. The alex loop was out the bag and with a bungee hook strapped pretty tightly to the bench. I tuned for 20m and got a great SWR of between 1.3 and 1.4 but no more than 1.5 and 10W of power. The FT8 contacts came rolling in, and with a busy 20m FT8 was then onto FT4, for even quicker overs.

Alexloop Setup
Manual Logging

It was great to get a mobile phone signal as I tethered my laptop to the phone wifi and could upload my contacts directly to QRZ via the excellent grid tracker application, I still kept a manual log so it would be easy to confirm the order and QSO’s I had today. The Reverse Beacon Network and POTA app was doing me a great service, as quite a few of my contact were POTA hunters. Getting 10 contacts in under an hour was great given just how cold it was, it was nice to see 5 of the contacts are POTA hunters.

I gave SSTV a go, but the signal where coming in thick and fast, I started to see a response to my transmission, but another station came in over the top. I try to use Robot72 and BW12 to keep my over time on 14.2300 short, but most people dont QSY on SSTV, and even then we tend to get other people talking over the SSTV CoA on 20m as well..

Still, having uploaded my ADIF file from WSJTX to POTA I was soon awarded my 2024 activation. Just in the nick of time ! A good start to POTA in 2024 !

POTA 2024 Award – a good start to the year

I am really excited about getting out and do more POTA – its a great start to the year !

73, Alan 2E0FWE

POTA from G-0112, cold but worth the effor

A review of the Alexloop hampack

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Its been quite some time since I’ve had the Alexloop Hampack, and with my QRP, /M and /P work becoming more ‘regular’ (at least one per month) – thought it time to share my views of this antenna system.

Alexloop hampack

Its hard to imaging, but its been just shy (April 2021) that I have had this antenna in my collection. This has given me plenty of opportunity to use it out in the field and for experimentation at home.

I bought this antenna to pair with the Icom IC705, which is undoubtedly an excellent transceiver in its own right – with excellent selectivity and filtering, its a question of putting the right antenna onto it.

The Alexloop Hampack – the good

Lets start what is good about the Alexloop Hampack. All these observations are based on my own usage, so whilst not scientific, they are at least practical and proven.

  • Its easy to setup

The Alexloop HamPack is very easy to setup. I can arrive at my operating destination and be on the air in minutes. There is no setting up a mast and throwing a wire, there is no tuning a vertical and getting the SWR 1:1 – i can get this antenna out the bag, onto a stand and tuned into the frequency I want to use very quickly. The LED showing the output might look a gimmick, but I can assure you I use this as a visual reference and then checking the radio’s SWR every time I setup or need to retune the antenna.

  • Its very selective

Now for some this might be a negative, but so far for me its been a positive. When I’m working /M or /P, I am limited to 10W. What I don’t want is to pick up every other station just slightlyoff frequency, and for sure, the AlexLoop gives me that. I can match my IC705 filters to the AlexLoop and get excellent input.

  • Its designed for and good at portable use

The AlexLoop Hampack bag is very well thought out. It comes with a excellent way of storing the main loop and then the tuner and other parts of the transceiver. I also own ICOM’s LC-192, which is an exemplary piece of portable radio design, however, even thou when I operate /M, I want to reduce the amount of baggage that I take, therefore I stick to using the Alexloop Hampack bag on its own, and regretfully the LC-192 is left at home ! With that, you can be sure if you *dont* have an LC-192 and are considering getting the Alexloop Hampack, the bag will suffice. It is not as good as the LC-192, in terms of access ports, padding and having a full functional HF/VHF/UHF transceiver system on your back, but for HF bands, the Alexloop Hampack bag *will get you on the air*

The bad

  • The price tag

It almost goes without saying, the biggest ‘bad’ of the Alexloop Hampack is the price tag. When I bought mine in April of 2021 it was £505, now an Alexloop Hampack will cost you up of £600. That is allot of money for an antenna and it really needs to justify its cost.

  • Using in the field

As I’ve said above, I found using the antenna in the field for QRP /P and /M incredibly good. However, not everyone is running an IC705, there are many /P or /M operators that have good transceivers that can push out 100W. The Alexloop is not designed for, and should never be used for values above 20W on SSB and 10W on Digital modes. If you have perfectly good transceiver already capable of powers above these, then is the AlexLoop Hampack the right antenna for you – I would say probably not, especially if you already own the transceiver, however, if you are designing a /P or /M solution from scratch, my answer would differ…

  • The Ugly

So is there anything ugly about a so well designed antenna. Well, I for one can say there is. When I received this antenna I found assembling it ‘awkward’ – that is getting the loop over the centre pole. This resulted in a nasty ‘nic’ getting into the loop coax.

I could easily accept this on a ‘cheap’ antenna with no instruction, but of an antenna, that at the time cost me £500+, I really was perturbed why a decent instructional video or document was available on how to set this antenna up. Furthermore, show how the selectivity worked would of been a benefit to a first time ‘loop’ user. Hindsite is 20/20, but when you pay allot you should really get that level of service included, not as an add-on.

Being an IC705 user, I found the Transceiver bag in the Alexoop Hampack to be oversized, compared to the afore mentioned LC-192, its padding/packaging for carrying a transceiver was really not as good as Icom’s own product. To me, this was scrimping on cost, rather than any other reason (i.e. a transceiver would fit in the bag) – and at the price-tag, was a little disappointing.

  • Summary / Recommendations

So its been nearly 2 years since I’ve had this antenna, I have at least 2 other antennas I can use with the IC-705 when working portable or mobile, and have the actual ICOM bag for the IC705, so what are my personal oonionsf the Alex Loop Ham Pack.

I am person that is time-poor, that is for me to go /P or /M requires planning and organisation, its not like I can just grab my radio and go out when I like, I’m busy. With that the Alex Loop Ham Pack always ensures that when I go out, I will get on the air – its easy to setup and I can make contacts as soon as the antenna and transceiver are matched. I don’t need to setup a mast, wire and ATU for an antenna, the Alex Loop Ham Pack does that for me with its simple and effective compact solution.

The biggest issue to me is the price, today (Jan 2023) it would cost me £600+ to get this antenna. That is a serious amount of money and given it is only capable of 20W maximum, is it the best antenna for the price ? I would say not, that a good dipole, end fed or vertical will outperform this antenna, but would it be as compact, easy and portable ? Probably not.

If you today you don’t have a QRP solution, you really cant go wrong with an IC705 and the Alexloop Hampack antenna, but then you are looking at a solution that is going to cost upward of £2000, to which you can get on the air with a QRP rig and antenna for £100-150 using a ubitx and simple dipole/end fed solution.

There is going to be a big difference in performance of the radios and antennas, and cost might be your personal motivation, where as quality/time maybe the secondary consideration.

Eitherway, the most important thing is to find the best solution you can afford, starting with the antennas as part of the solution, not the secondary, and getting outdoors and on the air.

G-0112 New Forest – First POTA of 2023

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Happy New year to you all who follow the blog ! Apologies for the absence of postings, hopefully I’ll keep them a little more regular, at least with doing a PoTA once a month.

Having watched several of my youtube hamradio favourites I was really inspired to get out with my radio and enjoy it. With amazingly good weather, I headed out to the New Forest, specifically to Bratley View.

Bongo at Bratley View, New Forest

I was quick to get the Alexloop Hampack antenna setup quickly and the IC705 tuned into 17m quickly. Using the excellent SDR Control on the IPad it wasn’t long before the contacts on FT8 started coming in.

POTA 17M from Bradley Park

In under 30 minutes I had made 13 FT8 QSO’s on 17M. I then tried FT4 on 20M, I could pick up the signals ok, but wasn’t haven’t much luck in making contacts.

20M FT4

I headed down the band to FT8 which was busy as ever ! I had no problem getting out and making contacts there.

20M FT8

With well in excess of my required 10 contacts for me to activate the park and with my lunch finished, I headed back to home to enjoy the rest of the day with XYL.

Lunch was boiled egg and sausages – but I had forgotten my pen !

I wasn’t able to locate my pen, so couldn’t log manually, which I usually do just incase something happens to the IPad.

As I was totally dependent on the IPad for logging, I exported and ADIF file. Since I last done POTA there is now an option to upload your own log files, so I set about checking out how to do that. A great video really helped me along.

Tutorial on how to use the POTA upload

The log export from SDR Control is great, but requires a bit of ‘munging’ to get into PoTA format. I found a script ruby-pota-csv-to-adif available here which made getting the file uploaded right first time.

With the upload complete, the following morning most of the processing was complete, I was pleased to see other PoTA Hunters in the log.

EC7AKV & SP8QC contacts amongst many others!

It was great to get back out on the radio and enjoy the simplicity of FT8 – I’m hoping to get some practice and try out using Telephony QSO’s via SDR Control, or just using the microphone, it felt great to be back out with the radio and enjoying it again!

Hopefully I’l have more progress on other radio fronts as well, but until next time, 73!

G-0407 Lodmoor Country Park POTA

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After a few weeks break of regular PoTA Activations, I was very excited to go out for my planned activation at Lodmoor Country Park near Weymouth.

I had completed my prep the evening before, checking that my batteries and accessories were all packed into the Alex loopham pack bag. In the morning I found that XYL Monica had even made me a pack lunch for my day out, which was much needed later in the day. An early start got me out with walking my dog Sweety at 5AM just as the sun came up, I then headed off to Weymouth, APRS beacon sending out packets as I did so, my full route wasnt covered today which seemed unusual, I did hear APRS packets on arrival in Weymouth.

APRS Recetion dropped off around Bere Regus

I chose to go to Beach Car Park, as this was situated conveniently near to the park facilities, its always useful to have a WC available, also the park itself look great and venturing beyond the comfort of the Bongo to get into the park would be nice.

Car park pretty empty at this hour
Campervan just about fitted under the 2″10 restriction
notice the limit on vans
Arrival at Beach Car Park

The Beach Car Park is open 24/7, and even free between 18:00 and 08:00, although the signage says ‘no overnight sleeping’. Interestingly I noticed that Motorhomes are banned outright (probably for this reason), and where as my Mazda Bongo is classified as a Campervan would still be limited to a ‘4 hour’ max visit – noticed this of course after I had paid £10 for the full day, and whilst I think during the less busy seasons its unlikely to be enforced, I can imagine during peak times its something to be of mindful of.

good clear maps
nice clean facilities
small park but tidy
park overview

Before settling into the Bongo and setting up, I popped to the WC, even at this early hour the facilities are open and clean and tidy, nice to see. The park had great maps to help navigate around. There is alot to do here for a family, such as Sealife centre, gokarts, mini-golf, pitch and putt and Sandwolrd – maybe its the kind of place where the youngsters could be enjoy the activities whilst allowing others to be operating the radio, win all round !

lots of exercise/play areas
no train today, looks great tho
go karts and sandworld open tho
alternative activities

Once back in the Bongo I was quickly on the air thanks to the fantastic Alex Loop Antenna – whilst I have other antennas, the ease and speed in which I can get this setup really makes it hard to use the alternatives. Using the bikestand as a support which I can drive the bongo onto ensures that the wind doesnt get the better of it as well !

IC-705 on bongo seat
20M was alive
SDR Control in action
Setup in the Bongo

With the magloop just out the door and feedline thru the front window, I could get the SWR pretty much always under 1.5 to 1:1 – 20m was alive with contesters – even FT8 was super busy – the excellent SDR Control really helped – I cant say how good this application is, I am getting more out of it every single time I use it, the ease of logging and connection to the IC705 via Wifi is excellent. FT8 got very busy, so remembering I had FT4 available also, headed up the band slightly and enjoyed a rapid sucsession of QSO’s. Within one hour I was very close to having enough QSOs to activate the park.

Digital Mode QSOs logged manually

I also log manually just to ensure I have a backup, I found today that jumping between bands was getting easier – I tuned 1:1 on 17m in just one go, and by now with a great collection of data mode QSO’s under my belt, felt it was time for some telephony/SSB action.

I piggy backed on the back of the contest, it was great running QRP portable and even the contesters were happy to receive a mobile station, some even going beyond the usual contest rubber stamp asking my about my setup ! I really enjoyed that and a method I will use in the future (I actually was inspired to do this by VK3YE talk on how to get more HF contacts!)

excellent video by VK3YE on getting contacts on HF

After a great lunch in the Bongo, I decided to head out to the park for /P action !

Lunch prepared by XYL Monica
A lovely walk around the park
Lots of nice benches
Its not Bushwoods..
Walk around the park after lunch

I really enjoyed the walk around the park, I wore the Alexloop hampack bag without any problem. It was quite weighty and at first a little nervous of the straps – thinking about how much equipment and how much it costs tends to make one a little trepidatious in trusting it all to a couple of straps!

Alexloop on the bench
logging with pen
packed away easily
Enjoy the Alexloop and IC705 on a bench

Whilst having a table/chair is my preferred ‘comfort’ of operation – and I even passed one picnic table, I liked this location, it was in the shade and the bench long enough to get everything on it without worrying about it falling off. A good bungee allowed me to strap the alexloop onto the bench, only once wobbling over when a big gust of wind came in.

It was nice that there was people interested in what I was doing, even a few comments by the passing runners on what a nice setup, as ever people where amazed with being able to make contacts around Europe – I think peoples perception of Amateur radio is that of huge Yagis and long wires, when they see the little loop and the SDR display with foreign voices booming from the IC705 they are interested to see it in action, I’m always happy to show the log book and talk about it.

I was able to make one more QSO from the bench and really enjoyed that, even on 5W of power the noise floor in the park was so good that I didnt need lots of power or a huge antenna to have a SSB contact. The fact that I had spotted on PoTA app meant other amateurs were looking for me helped for sure.

It was as easy to pack away as it was to setup from the bench, proving how versatile a well organised radio can be.

A beautiful location
Blackberry time
A massive overflow carpark

Heading back to the bongo I enjoyed seeing blackberrys growing and a giganttic overlflow carpark – it looked closed and judging by the meters had been for quite some time. I dare say this could be an excellent place to put a bigger mast and wire-type antenna up. I admired the view from the carpark once more before heading back to the QTH having had a really excellent time out with the radio. I will be back for sure and would like to investigate the bird reserve next time, it really is a big PoTA area to cover !

20 Unique calls today !

3 PoTA hunters
activation video

G-0202 Garston Wood RSPB Reserve – POTA – QRP – Take 2 !

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Following last weeks attempt, I headed back to Garston Park to attempt activating the park again. Armed with two lots of battery packs, mains charger and the iPad with SDR-Control loaded onto it I was determined to activate the park.

Bike-Stand mag-loop
The entry to the park..
Setup time

Having quickly setup, I was approached by two friendly chaps asking what I was doing with the equipment I had setup. Their initial assumption was bat watching ! (Makes senses with an antenna I guess !) We had a great conversation about parks on the air and also bat watching. Its something I’ve never heard of and with this park being quite near without a lock on it, something I wouldn’t mind trying – an overnight PoTA and bat watching. I’ve looked up some equipment and the bat watching website, so I’ll be looking into that later on in the year, probably when dusk/evening comes in a bit sooner.

Bat detectors – yes they exist !

With that I setup the IC705 to the IPad and SDR-Control – have to say that this application is fantastic – other than having to adjust the connectors in the IC-705 if I want to use the radio independent of the app, its as close to getting to 0 touch to getting on the air in FT4/FT8 modes.

Having experimented with FT4 at home and also updated my version of WSJT-X on the QTH windows machine, I was amazed at the rate QSO’s are completed. For me with a QRP radio and wanting to try battery usage where possible (I don’t always operate from the Bongo) this was great. At the QTH FT4 contacts where made in rapid succession, likewise in the field, when an opening came, the FT4 contacts came flying in ! within several minutes had equalled my previous weeks telephony contact ! I then went over to FT8 to try my luck there, sure enough, the QSO started to come in. The one problem with Garston Wood is the really weak mobile phone signal – for PoTA you really want to self-spot to get that first log on the page, then more will follow, sure enough I was determined to ‘self-spot’ and was rewarded with more FT8 QSO’s.

Digital modes via SDR Control
Rapid logging

The SDR Control app made logging and contacting as easy as it could be, I was amazed at how well thought out this application is. It can be configured to automatically log, which I tested for the first time today and confirm works wonderfully. Essentially this means you could run FT8 & FT4 completely hands free.

I exported the log from my ipad to my icloud storage, with a bit of simple ‘grep’ and redirection I had the file in the format ready to submission to the POTA Administrator.

cat alanpota.adi | grep 20220529 > 2E0FWE@G-0202-20220529.adi

I tried SSTV with the black cat app, but it wouldn’t integrate with SDR Control, so I tried the old fashioned method of picking up a microphone, but whilst I could pick up SSTV from the IC705 with my own ears, the ipad app was pretty much deaf out in the field. As I am great fan of SSTV this is the one thing the SDR Control App is missing – if a way could be found to integrate either the black-cat app into SDR Control so they can run both the same time, or SDR Control had its own native SSTV app, that would be amazing !

I tried a few more SSB contacts on 20m, but to no avail. With the weak phone coverage self-spotting was tricky and when I could self-spot it would take another ‘strong’ station to come in over the the top of me to make that frequency out of use to me. I tried 2M and although hearing some activity (always glad just to hear something!) couldn’t complete a QSO.

So today turned into all about Data, and how important to activate a park SDR Control is, being my 2nd visit, I was determined to get the 10 contacts to activate, and I wasn’t let down by the application. Being restricted in self-spotting also meant that when I could get onto the POTA website, I was consistent, and I was rewarded with a FT8 contact from K3VAT in the US.

excellent world map
Fulll QRZ log
SDR Control Log
FT4 and FT8 saved the day – and the SDR Control App

I’ve had a fantastic time of late travelling around to various PoTA locations and this was by far the most challenging one so far, with limited mobile coverage, varying conditions and generally being a bit busy, it was great to get the 10 QSO’s needed to activate the park.

My next ‘planned’ PoTA is quite a few weeks off, and its getting further afield to find ‘unactivaetd’ parks, but I’m really excited about it, until then I’m going to be utilizing my season ticket for Upton Country Park, with lovely weather and long evenings, I can head over after work and set up for a fun evening of ‘parks on the air’ close to home.

Until then 73 and hope to catch you in the log book !

Fulll QRZ log

POTA – QRP – G-0202 Garston Wood RSPB Reserve

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Finding unactivated parks around IO90 is becoming hard, thankfully there are stil a few, one of them is G-0202 Garston Wood. With only a short drive and beautiful weather I headed off to the park.

Park Gate Entrance
Bike Stand Mag-Loop Mast
Nice parking spaces
Arriving at Garston Wood

The drive in the early morning (approx 7:30AM) gave stunning views and morning mist, I was glad to have sat-nav as the lane leading to the park was very narrow and with all the trees having all their leafs was very green ! I found a nice spot to park and setup my mag-loop antenna on the bike stand. The gates to the park were near to hand as well. There was plenty of parking space at this hour, and it didn’t get much busier in the time I was there (2-3 more cars parking max)

20m contact qrm
20m Park-to-Park
Tuning around but running out of battery!
20m band activity

Unfourtantly when I arrived I noticed I had left my iPad behind ! Not a disaster, but that meant no digital modes such as FT8 or SSTV, and I was looking forward to SSTV, still undettered I tried for making 10 Telephony QSO’s! I started out ok, making contacts into Spain on 10W. Having learned last time that repeating calling CQ is tiring after a while (thats when I usually switch to FT8 now) I used the 705 in-built voice recorder to play back my CQ POTA call.

This got me another contacting in Poland, and my first ever Park to Park ! I found this really satisfying not only on the DX but reaching another park and getting a good signal report both ways (mutual 59) with SQ5MPG – Maciej in Poland at SP-0643 – Los Nature Reserve. What is more tricky with a park to park is getting the callsign and park locator correct, as this is required for logging later on.

I tried staying on 20m, but it was soon filling up with contest and people with far stronger signals than my own, I’d like to think they just could hear me being only on 10W and that goes with being /QRP that you’ll get more powerful stations boom over you higher up the band. I tried 40m and 17m – with 17m being a non-contest band, but to no luck on either, so headed back to 20m.

I made one more contact, another park to park with EC2AG (Antonio) into EA-0837 (Rio Agüera EU Natura 2000 Protection Area). Again, great DX and made the full Park-to-Park contact. I thought my battery had become disconnected, but it turns out for the first time ever I had drained the LiFo battery completely ! I guess this is what using the voice-record repeat for serveral hours will do, and I was reduced to 5W of power.

USB and Adaptor power
safely in the bag
For next time!

I returned home as my battery and power wasnt helping, and with so much contest traffic on, it was getting harder not easier to even make any initial contact. I made notes on my log book of the things I had missed today to remind myself of what to add when I got home, so as you can see this time I have added the USB cable and cigar-lighter mains adapter for the IC705 into the alex-loop hampack accessories bag. Of course I have put the Ipad in there as well 🙂

4 contacts

Whilst I didnt get 10 contacts to activate the park, its will mean I can make a return trip and be better prepared. I had a great time and the two park to parks were extra great, so am looking forward to returning, iPad and mains-power in hand !

Garston Park