I was out walking around in a local park with the KX2 today, using a couple of different 48” loaded whips. (/PM = pedestrian mobile, closely related to “HF Pack,” though I prefer an ultralight version of it, with a “pack” weighing only 2 pounds.) There were quite a few stations on 20 and 15 meters, and I had no trouble working everyone I called using 5 or 10 watts. Oh, and the sun finally came out...it’s been wet up here.
Just a reminder to those of you who want to try this: You really do have to use at least one radial (counterpoise wire) if you plan to transmit. While receive works pretty well even without the radial, your transmitted signal will be 15-20 dB down, and you may have problems with RFI. This differential effect between RX and TX performance without a radial becomes more pronounced as you go down in frequency. Short whips usually come with instructions that suggest adjusting the length of the radial wire and/or the length of the telescoping part in order to obtain a low SWR. While that is certainly possible, it’s far easier to let an ATU do the fine tuning. The ATU can compensate for variations in counterpoise length, bends in the wire, ground conditions, how high off the ground the antenna is, etc. If the SWR goes up for any of these reasons, just tap the ATU tune button. (This is one reason that all Elecraft radios have internal ATU options, BTW.) Please report back on your own success with /PM operation. 73, Wayne N6KR ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
