qrp

I was on Twitter the other, well, year. and I saw that Richard GW1JFV had posted a photo of something he'd gotten in the mail. It was a kit from http://lxqqfy.com. They're a Chinese outfit that makes electronics kits for radio amateurs. Now, I'm always a sucker for a cheap kit, as evidenced by the assortment of unbuilt kits I have on my shelves, and they've reproduced some classic kits that are no longer available elsewhere. So, in my ongoing effort to actually establish two-way radio contact using gear I built myself, I bought an S-Pixie.

After months of wondering if anyone was using 80m at all, and finally shifting the frequency of my Ft. Tuthill 80, I have at long last heard strong signals aplenty. I must have copied at least two dozen calls around 3.530 MHz all frantic to work somebody. Unfortunately, I don't know if I could hear that other station or not. I certainly didn't copy any call that I would think would be rare.

I conclude from this that my antenna needs improvement. Since I already knew that and am planning to do something about it, that's a convenient conclusion.

I finally figured out that tuning the Ft. Tuthill from 3560-3600 (or thereabouts) put me higher in frequency than most of the people who are operating 80 meters these days. Since I'd lost the additional components that came with the kit, it took me a while, but I bought some 33pF capacitors at Fry's (and the guy there in the aisle who was looking at resistors told me about Tayda Electronics which is an amazingly cheap place to buy electronic components.