{"id":993,"date":"2014-11-25T19:26:02","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T18:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/?p=993"},"modified":"2021-01-18T17:13:04","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T16:13:04","slug":"first-experiences-with-my-30m-qrp-transceiver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/?p=993","title":{"rendered":"First experiences with my 30m QRP transceiver"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"[image]\"<\/a>
Final shot of the rig, including labels, key and headphones.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This year I built a very nice 30m QRP transceiver, based on a design by Onno PA2OHH<\/a>. Meanwhile I have used this rig a couple of times, and did some measurements too. This article tells some of my experiences with this great little box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

GM\/PA3HCM\/p<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"[Image]\"<\/a>
QSL-card sent by Jan PA1JT<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The main reason to build this transceiver was to enable radio contact with friends in Holland during my hike in Scotland, September 2014. I built a lightweight antenna, based on a aluminium tent pole (4 meters tall) and a wire dipole (2 x 7.5m). The result is an inverted-V antenna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to bad weather conditions during the first day, we had some exhausting walks through a landscape that was turned into a large bog. Therefore I was not always able to setup the radio station, but I managed to make a range of QSO’s using this simple setup. It was nice to see walkers first laughing at me with my morse key, until I successfully contacted a friend; they asked me to send telegrams to their friends, which I refused due to regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During most evenings I was able to contact Jan PA1JT, who made a 30m dipole just to contact me. Also, Adrian PA0RDA provided a weather forecast every night on a given frequency. This helped me to prepare the next walk. Unfortunately I was not able to contact him, he was not able to copy my signal due to local noise and sub-optimal antenna conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked some friends to make recordings of my signal, since I was really interested in how my tone would sound. It appeared to be a very pleasant tone to listen to, and very stable too; the oscillator was rock solid. Just listen to this recording, made by Jan PA3EGH<\/a> who built a 30m vertical especially for this occasion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Measurements<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The VERON<\/a> organizes a ham radio fair each year, called (in dutch) “Dag van de Radio Amateur”. During this day there are lots of activities, including a flea market, talks, morse code challenges, home brew area, interest groups, etc. There is also a place filled with measurement equipment, allowing to bring your own stuff and see what it does. I took my homebrew 30m transceiver and tried to measure its sensitivity. I attached an RF signal generator, running at 10.125 MHz and turned down the output. I was able to hear the carrier until the signal dropped below -110dBm (less then 1 uV).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using my HEDZ<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A couple of years ago Adrian PA0RDA and I built a Half Extended Double Zepp antenna for 80 and 160m<\/a>. On a rainy evening in November 2014 I grabbed my 30m transceiver from the shelf and attached it to this wire dipole, just to listen a bit. I heard stations from different countries, from Germany to Brazil! I then attached my morse key and tried to tune the antenna using my versa tuner. I succeeded and answered some calling stations. I made some nice QSO’s with stations throughout Europe. However, not every station was able to copy my signal due to my QRP power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year I built a very nice 30m QRP transceiver, based on a design by Onno PA2OHH. Meanwhile I have used this rig a couple of times, and did some measurements too. This article tells some of my experiences with this great little box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[55,87,28,30,67,29],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transmitters_and_receivers","tag-30m","tag-40-30","tag-cw","tag-qrp","tag-straight-key","tag-transceiver"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1886,"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions\/1886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pa3hcm.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}