Happy New Year!
I don’t have a significant update regarding Project Yamhill or the new CW QRP transceiver that I’m developing, but I wanted to let you know what’s going on with me, since it’s been a little while since I’ve had the opportunity to write for this publication.
First off, I’ve been working at my new full-time job for about four weeks now. After having been my own boss for a long time and having the freedom to make my own schedule, this has been a very big change for me. On top of trying to adjust to the new reality, the entire family has been fighting illness for the last three weeks, so my energy level has been barely enough to get me through work and the minimum household chores that I need to do, and nothing more.
It’s been raining nearly every day here for the past month in the Willamette Valley. Of course, that’s not terribly unusual for the winter months here in western Oregon (and it’s the price we pay for the lovely green in this part of the world), but it does get a bit wearing to go for long stretches without even a little bit of dry to break them up. Because of that, I’ve been wanting to add an antenna mount to my pickup so that I could do some POTA ops from the comfort of the pickup cab instead of trying to haul everything out to a soggy operating position outside on a bench or in a folding chair. Since my new work isn’t that far from the local Ham Radio Outlet, I had the chance to stop by HRO one day after work in order to pick up an Opek OP-SS-17F stainless steel 17 foot whip, some LMR-240, and some ground braid. In addition to a truck bed stake mount and some PL-259 crimp connectors from Amazon, I was able to gather everything I needed to make a tidy antenna system for my pickup.
After getting some education from YouTube University on how best to route coax from the bed of the truck to the front of the cab, I figured out that should remove the trim and floor upholstery near the rear driver side seat, drill a large hole in the sheet metal, hit it with some primer from both sides, and then fit a grommet so that there was no chance of the metal cutting through the coax. At that point, it was pretty easy to route the LMR-240 down through a hole in the bed, back into the cab through the new hole I just created, and then under the door trim pieces and carpet until it came out right by the center console. Crimp connectors onto each side, and then ground the antenna mount to my bed with the ground braid, and it looked pretty good! Adding the OP-SS-17F to the mount, extending it all of the way out, and sweeping it with my antenna analyzer showed a 1.5 SWR in the CW portion of 20 meters, which looked perfect. I mostly do 20 meter and up ops during the daytime, so this will be all that I need for that, but if I ever want to do lower bands it would be easy enough to add something like a Wolf River coil to this setup.
Of course, this setup is no good for operating while driving, but I don’t plan to do that anyway. It’s quite simple to screw the OP-SS-17F into the mount in order to operate, and then take it down when done. This should allow me to more easily do POTA activations when the weather is awful, and may even allow me the chance to do some lunch break chasing, as long as security doesn’t give me a hard time. 😅
I did get one other bit of ham radio kit in December that I want to mention. I was asked for a wish list of things that I would like for my birthday, so that seemed like the perfect opportunity to request something I’ve been eyeing for a little while now: the Gigaparts Explorer POTA20 carbon fiber mast. I have a 20 foot SOTABEAMS fiberglass mast, which works well enough, but it’s a lot heavier and bulkier than the POTA20, and I really want to start paring down the weight of my portable station.
I was extremely happy to receive the POTA20 for a birthday gift, and I’m really looking forward to pairing it with the new end-fed half-wave antennas that I’ve recently built. Should make for a very lightweight and easy to deploy antenna solution for just about anywhere.
What’s Next
I’ve confirmed that I’m going to be travelling to FDIM 2025 (probably with my two sons!) and I’m really looking forward to getting back there, since the last time I visited was in 2012. I sincerely hope that I can meet some of my readers there. Please come visit if you get the opportunity. I think there’s a good chance I’ll be at vendor night, but even if I’m not repping Etherkit at Vendor Night, I’ll be attending all of the FDIM events.
Now that I feel like I’m getting some of my time and energy back, I’m going to be getting back to work on the new CW transceiver. I very much want to have at least working beta units ready for FDIM, even if the radio’s not quite ready for a full release at that point. Starting today, I’ll be diving into the schematic capture and PCB layout in KiCad.
Thank you all for a very successful 2024! I’ve got quite a few more subscribers that I anticipated would be interested in this project when I started it a few years ago, so I’m pleased to see that it has struck a chord with folks. I’m looking forward to moving forward as best that I can in 2025.
Happy New Year Jason. Best in 2025! Popcorn Todd