KW2A & QRP

HS4 with only partial success. But, since it required the modification of a computer mouse to allow the paddles to send input to HS4 via USB, it meant learning how to do this. I was beginning to learn the other side or amateur radio - modifying your "stuff." This page describes how I adapted a mouse for HS4. Then Phil sent a QRP radio - the SW40 from Small Wonder Labs he found online. Now we could try radio with the thrill of propagation across 1125 Km. But to do that I had to learn about antennas. Yikes! More stuff to learn.

With QRP - simple works

The great thing about QRP is that simple works well. There is minimal radio frequency radiation (those waves we do not see) so the set presents little danger to the operator. And although sending minimal power electromagnetic RF waves depends on a good antenna it turns out a good antenna can be a simple wire. Reading about antennas is a daunting task with lots of internet information available. The problem is, like much on the internet, how do you judge who to believe. I wanted to string a wire from a tree near my house and bring it inside using coaxial cable left from an old cable TV setup. Would this work? I did not want anything more elaborate (not even a center-fed dipole). That meant I would have an end fed half wave (EFHW) antenna. I happened on Richard G3CWI's website. He is a co-founder of Summits on the Air (SOTA), and sells portable equipment through his company SOTAbeams. He sells EFHW antennas for SOTA activities and has a great page about the workings of these antennas (http://www.sotabeams.co.uk/EFHW). That cinched it and, with the help of a friend, I got a wire up in the crotch of a tree behind the house. Now I could try propagating electromagnetic waves.

QRP radios - CW only?

The SW40 is CW only but has a variable frequency oscillator (VFO). There is no read out of your frequency so turning the knob runs you across the CW portion of the 40 meter band but you really don't know where you are. Finding KW2A meant hunting while listening which was good practice. We ran a scripted exchange which I had in front of me so I knew what to listen for and what to send in reply. It worked in a clumsy way but since we exchanged call signs, a quality report and a bit more, it qualified as a QSO (the Q code for a valid exchange). It made me realize what a hill I had to climb to become even a minimally competent CW operator.

Not so! There is QRP PSK-31

I looked on the internet for computer help with decoding and while reading about the pros and cons of working CW this way I happened on a description of PSK-31. This is a digital mode that uses a computer's sound card to send a whistling sound to a radio that can send voice. The whistling is "phase shifted keying" of a unique code that sends at 31 baud (signal changes/second) and occupies only 31Hz of band-width. It is as good as CW, if not better, in getting through noise at low power. It was designed to allow a free flow of communication similar to what is possible with CW and different from the stereotyped exchanges that characterize other digital modes. [ASIDE: A comparison of CW and PSK31 can be found in the PDF at http://wr4cc.org/miscpdf/psk31.pdf posted by the Carter County Tennessee Amateur Radio Club WR4CC. BUT - the discussion of CW, on-off keying bandwidth is more complicated than mentioned in this PDF. See "An Intuitive Explanation of CW Bandwidth" by W8XR. My take is CW has a bandwidth of between 100-200 Hz compared to the 31 Hz of PSK-31 and this extra bandwidth makes it more prone to noise.]

Here is what you need to operate PSK-31 along with a link to Randy K7AGE's video series about setting up and operating:

• • computer with sound card

  • PSK-31 software

  • HF transceiver that can operate SSB

• PSK-31 YouTube Video Series from K7AGE

The SW40 was CW only. An internet search brought me to this interesting web store in the Ukraine which offered QRP PSK-31 radios with crystal oscillators fixed at the dedicated PSK-31 frequencies. I bought the 40 meter radio (7.070 MHz).

While I waited for it to arrive Phil and I experimented with PSK-31 on Hamsphere. In my case I connected a laptop equipped with the free Digipan software to my iMac running HS4 via a Behringer UCA222. Figuring this out required some work, but we were able to work each other via HS4. And I had my first QSO with someone other than Phil via PSK-31 and HS4. EA2AA in Spain sent a digital QSL card! As Jose Maria points out (in the blue text on the QSO card) this was a non-RF QSO.