Summary of Hand-carried QRP antennas
Whether through choice or circumstance, more radio
amateurs than ever before are enjoying portable operating.
Suitable equipment is widely available but what about
antennas? Manufactured antennas exist
but only some suit lightweight portable activity. And, it’s easy to overpay for
something that’s too heavy and too lossy for successful QRP.
Hand-carried QRP antennas takes the mystery out
of portable antennas. After inviting
you to assess your needs, it discusses the pros and cons of popular types. Its style is brisk and practical with almost
no maths.
Many ideas for cheap but good materials suitable for
portable antennas are given.
Beginners and those returning to radio after a break should especially
find this section handy.
Finally there’s construction details on a
variety of simple but practical antennas and accessories suitable for
portable operating. All have been built
and tested by the author over almost 30 years of successful QRP activity.
Hand-carried QRP antennas is an ebook readable on
most devices. It’s the author’s second
book, following on from the top-selling Minimum QRP, released in
2015.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter (mis?)spent his youth at rubbish tips, taking apart
given radios and TVs and building electronic projects that mostly did not
work. He avoided soldering until
figuring out that new solder works better than reusing solder from terminal
strips in valve radios.
Milestones included the construction of a crystal set in
1980, discovering shortwave broadcasting on a valve receiver in 1981 and a
simple ‘electronic organ’ in 1982 from a Dick Smith Fun Way book. Hours were spent putting wires into springs
on a Tandy 150-in-1 electronics set.
Amazingly some wires could be pulled out and the project would still sort
of work with only half the parts in circuit.
Two back to back AM/shortwave radios led to the discovery
of amateur SSB activity and a novice licence in 1985. The following year was spent building
transmitters no one heard. A one valve
crystal controlled CW transmitter from the 1973 ARRL Handbook provided the first
contacts – mostly CW/SSB crossmode on the 3.579 MHz TV colour burst crystal
frequency. The value of frequency
agility was an early lesson and various VFOs were built, most of them
drifty.
The 1990s brought more bands, more modes and smaller
gear. Projects included a 7 MHz VXO CW
direct conversion transceiver, 2m FM portable transceiver, and a 14 MHz CW
transmitter for Cycle 22, then near its peak. Later favourites included HF DSB and SSB
transceivers (often using ceramic resonators, ladder crystal filters, NE602s and
BD139 transistors) and phasing SSB equipment.
Limited space led to experiments with magnetic loops and
HF pedestrian mobile. The joys of the
latter (along with the perils of a trailing counterpoise) were first discovered
with a converted Johnson Viking CB on 28 MHz.
This was mounted in a carpeted chipboard box with battery and 1.5 metre
whip. A move to a bayside suburb brought
further HF portable and pedestrian mobile activity which remains an interest to
this day.
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