As a bit of a QRP nut myself, I am always interested in QRP rigs with new features. The TX-500 caught my eye mainly because of the attached pandapter. Found this video review over on QRZ.com and thought I’d share it out to the other QRP nuts lurking in the bushes. Sure looks like a rather snazzy lil rig and includes some nifty features like:
160-6-meter ham bands, General RX coverage 0.5 – 56.0 MHz, SSB, CW, DIG, AM, FM, real-time panadapter, 32-bit floating-point DSP; low current drain 100 mA in rx, online updates and more…
As a QRPer I follow a small group of hams that post to the Fireflies QRP org.
If you like to build kits or home brew like me, check out Larry’s W2LJ’s find about a much needed accessory for the shack.
Yeah I know, I can hear it now… Banggood is a company located in China. I have purchased several kits and other odds n ends from Banggood without problems. The only downside… It can take several weeks for delivery.
Psst: If you happen to be a first time buyer over at Banggood, there is a coupon offer and you may be able to get the magnifier for a few dollars!
I’m going to take advantage of this low price because I have been using a small magnifying glass attached to one of those portable alligator clamp stands.
This magnifying glass will help tremendously with these old, tired eyeballs!
Larry W2LJ has been posting on his own blog for years. You may find many of his posts informative. His Blog can be found here.
As us FT8 ops know the app will not function without clock syncronization. So the usb GPS gets connected just long enough to insure the real time clock and in turn system clocks are in sync.
The Pi is running as a HotSpot handing out IP addresses via DHCP and will have no internet connection. At this point I see no reason to tether it to my iPhone.
Antenna system will vary depending on our location.
We also plan to take an HF SSB rig along to activate a state park or two (parks on the air) POTA. If so I’ll be logging with HamLog since it has a template for POTA and SOTA activations.
Anyway be sure to stay tuned for our results, comments and complaints! Can you improve on perfection? LMAO!
FT8 Portable Update
Here’s the update from yesterday’s FT8 portable operations “first excursion“. As easily predicted here on Long Island on any hot sunny day, all the good local hidden spots close to water’s edge are busy as hell. Anywhere near “free” beach / salt water access was jammed with cars. So we got as close as possible to water’s edge ( ~ 100 feet) without wasting a lot of time searching all the back streets.
The Good: Bringing the system up worked as planned and was 100% on receive. Fiddling around with the KX3 got us temporarily stuck in FSK D Split Filter Mode. But thanks to the internet over cell service we brought up the KX3 manual and quickly set the filter back to DATA A mode.
The Bad and Ugly: Partly due to the lack of a good location close to salt water, running 7 watts with an inadequate antenna system, we made no contacts.
The plan for the next outing is to bring along my TIA vertical antenna system from Wolf River Coils and give it a go!
