What's New
Here’s some of what’s happening in and around the VE7TK QTH. (November 2023)
Your feedback is welcome!
View from the Garden
September and October have seen a drastic reduction in the rabbit population. I’m not sure if they’ve disappeared forever or they’re just resting for the winter. Our raccoon family continues to flourish and, according to Daiquiri, they are common visitors in the front and back yard. Our resident buck has grown to be a very handsome fellow. Here he is in October and with his antlers in velvet in late July!
I’ll be trying a slightly different location for the camera in November. Hopefully an improvement — time will tell
View from the Bench
The AT-615 antenna tuner from hamware.de is back in service. The 10 relays ordered arrived from Spain after a little more than 10 weeks! ALL 8 relays on the capacitor board were replaced. In addition, all the boards in the remote tuner have all been coated with acrylic conformal coating (thanks Brian, VE7JKZ). The tuner is back in service at the base on my 43 foot vertical antenna and working as it should!
QMX On The Air
The QMX ( https://www.qrp-labs.com/qmx.html ) multi-band and multi-mode transceiver went on the air on September 1st 2023. This little 80 through 20 metre QRP rig has between 4 and 5 watts output (depending on the band).
In 40 days of operation (Sept 1 to October 10) I worked 100 DXCC entities (see table below – Contacts in bold are already confirmed via LoTW as of November 1st). The majority of my contacts were on 20 metres with my 3-element SteppIR using FT8.
Needless to say I’ve been having lots of fun. So much fun that I’ve now ordered the 20 through 10 metre version of the QMX. More on that soon!
