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RagChew

Micro-Newsletter
Edition 28/2025

The

Editorial Team

New

Net Frequencies

The Walrus

and Times

Plan

DXperiment
Reports from Tuesday’s
Bread

in the Oven

QMX+

- All dressed

Post Morsum

Net

up but no banana

Report

Hanging

Up the Gumboots

A Simple

Portable Antenna

DXperiment

Propagation

International

Flight Contest

Morse

Mania

- Winter 2025

Head

Copy

Prosign

Conditions

Practice - Eeyore

has a Birthday

of the Month

Di-dah-di-dah-dit
About the CQ QRS

Group

Did you have fun on this week's CQQRS

practice QSO net?

| certainly did!

20m wasn't cooperating with our European / UK family this time - Mike DL3YZ in Stuttgart
was coming through into WA and weakly into SA, but here in Southern NSW nothing was

RSS

heard of him, Simon MOKBJ portable North of Wolverhampton or Geoff PA/VK6HD on the
canals of Friesland Netherlands.

40m was better behaved with a good number of QSOs

going on, and we had a nice turn-out on 80m as well;

what's more, the push to have a go

on 160m continued, and we had a number giving top band a go.
This week it's my pleasure to welcome Patrick VK2IOW from Millthorpe near Orange NSW
to the editorial team. Responding to my previous weeks' Walrus comments, Patrick has put
up his hand to join Richard VK6HRC and John VK2RU to help out with the editorial effort -

thanks mate. So this week, when you read the reports from our team in the newsletter,
you'll be enjoying the fruits of Patrick's labours; well done mate!
New Frequencies and Times
As we head out of the depths of Winter (ha - today we had a maximum temperature of 7
degrees, with 57kph winds and near 100% RH - figure out that apparent temperature!) here

in the Southern hemisphere, I've made some adjustments to our scheduled times and
frequencies.

Coordinated Universal Time

0700z to 1300z

(Note - 20m DXperiments may start at 0600z if conditions require)

Australia

Western Australia Time

UTC +8 Hours

1500 to 2100

Central Australian Time

UTC + 9.5 Hours

1630 to 2230

Eastern Australian Time

UTC + 10 Hours

1700 to 2300

Queensland Time

UTC + 10 Hours

1700 to 2300

NZ Time

UTC + 12 Hours

1900 to 0100

New Zealand

0600z to 0900z

20m

14039-14051kHz

Note - 20m times and frequencies will be allocated by Mike DL3YZ prior to the net.

0700z to 1300z

40m

7020kHz - 7040kHz

80m

3535kHz - 3560kHz

160m

1855kHz

Wednesday (VK/ZL)

2200z - 2300z

Post Morsum

WA FM AllStar Network

Callback

(connect direct to AllStar Node 42482 or use
Echolink to connect to VK2KI-L)

Changes:
* 20m now has a segment allocated based on recommendations from our European
family members and an earlier start time as suggested by Mike DL3YZ to catch the
earlier long-path opening.

I'm also hoping the team there will consider a weekly short

path trial as well - stay tuned.

The 80m segment has been moved down a tad; unlike when we started the net on 80m
only, these days we're not struggling to find a quiet spot (switch-mode power supply
hash aside), so | wanted to narrow the segment to about 20kHz.

However, | also

recognised that some of our QRS family members like to operate below 3540 so I've
shot for 25kHz from 3535 to 3560kHz.
And in consultation with Mister 160m QRS (Jordan VK3ACU), we've picked 1855kHz as
a landing spot for 160m activity;

if 160m becomes popular, we'll add a segment.

Let's see how these changes go - please let me know your thoughts.
The Walrus Plan

With Patrick VK2IOW on board, we've made progress toward me
being able to step back from the editing - and I'm still very keen to

hear from anyone who might be interested in helping out in a small
or large way.

But I'm also interested to learn more about what

material readers do and don't like in the RagChew - are we
focussing on the right things? For instance, the CQQRS WhatsApp
group snips that John VK2RU assembles take him a considerable amount of time; but are
they being read by the members of our family who are not already on WhatsApp, and are
they of interest?

Please let us know your thoughts.

And speaking of the Walrus plan; I've found a way of allowing different editors and
contributors to produce material for our MailChimp newsletter generator - material can now

be produced on your word processor such as Microsoft Word, Apple Pages or the free
Libre Office, including embedded photographs.

So from now on, if you're contributing

something to the newsletter, please help me by sending Word (.docx) or Pages (.pages)
formatted documents, using Helvetica 16 font, and include photos etc in the document.
Contact me via cgqqrsnet@ gmail.com
And by the way, a reminder;

if you'd like more information.

if you send me any information by email or WhatsApp - unless

you specifically state that material is not to be published, I'll assume that you're happy to
see your thoughts in the RagChew newsletter.

Stan ZL3TK came up with an interesting suggestion this week;

if the newsletter needs to

cease production, we could consider establishing a groups.io website instead. That would
then allow team members to contribute freely without need for editing, and the contributions
would instantly be emailed to the team. A little bit like an email version of our WhatsApp

groups, but the contributions can be categorised and remain on the website for future

reference. Nowhere near as nice as having a newsletter to read, but perhaps a more
efficient long-term solution? Thoughts?
DXperiment
Simon MOKBJ

has decided to take a break from his weekly portable adventures in the wee-

small hours of the UK mornings for a while;

thank you for all you've done mate - it's been

great fun trying to get through, and your reports and photographs have really made the
newsletter interesting.

As | said above, I'm hoping that our European team members will consider adding a shortpath test to the weekly schedule - on a different day of the week perhaps?

I'm also hoping

that they'll consider running something like our 40m QRS nets as well to attract new EU
and UK operators to the gentle art of slow CW; fingers crossed.
You'll also see that we now have one of our foundingfamily members Geoff VA6HD
operating on the canals of Holland for the next couple of months when his busy schedule

allows.

I'm glad you found room in your luggage for that QMX transceiver mate!

Masthead

Image

Thanks this week to Geoff VK6HD
the canals of Holland.

who's again operating from his boat on

Geoff and Jackie try to squeeze three months of

Canal time into their busy schedule while running their Peel WA area notfor-profit organisation that addresses domestic violence at the cause.
means very early hour video conferences every day - making
operation a challenge.

That

radio

However, this time Geoff snuck his new QRP-Labs

QMX transceiver and 20m vertical into his three-month

luggage and as you

can see, he’s found the time to make electromagnetic waves.

New

Team

Member

Welcome this week to Otto, VK4OLB
one of the hallowed

who lives in Brisbane.

very pleased to have Otto’s very first CW QSO when
last week.

Otto received

CQQRS net First CW Contact awards this week;

Our new team

he came

| was

up on the net

member was operating portable while camping

near Mount Surprise with 4.5 Watts into an end-fed half-wave antenna via
a 56:1 BALUN.

He’d been practicing CW for about two months

in between

school work, and hopefully he'll be able to come up on the net from time to
time when

his study allows;

listen out for him and say g’day If you hear

him on.

Reports
After next Tuesday’s Group, please send me a

list of who you worked and /

or who you heard using our web form here:

bit.ly/COORSNET

Please help attract new and old team
your report each week.
Thursday.

members to have a go by submitting

Submissions close 1300 (Eastern Australian time) on

Website

If you'd like to find out a bit about our net, or would like to pass information
to others about our Tuesday get-togethers,

here’s the link to our website.

bit.ly/COORSWebsite

Cheers,
mb

Mark Bosma
VK2KI / VK6QI

Beautiful South Bowning NSW
mark.bosma@icloud.com

non impediti ratione cogitationis

Reports

& Comments

Here’s this week’s

Last Tuesday’s

reports.

Group

Here’s the 59 stations heard by 39 members

CQQRS Team
Member

Qsoi

Heard on air
Worked 20m
Heard 80m
Worked 40m
Worked

80m

Heard 80m
Worked

80m

Heard 80m

Worked 40m
Heard 40m
Heard 40m
Tried 40m
Worked 80m
Heard 80m
Tried 80m
Heard on air
Worked 40m
Heard 40m

Worked 20m
Worked 40m
Worked 80m
Worked 160m
Heard on air
Worked 40m
Heard 40m

QsO2

Qso 3

Qso 4

of our team on Tuesday:

Qso5

Qso6

Qso7

Qso8

Heard 40m

Heard 20m
Tried 20m
Worked 40m
Heard on air
Heard on air
Worked 40m
Tried 40m
Heard 80m
Heard 160m
Worked 40m

Heard on air
Worked 80m

Heard on air

Heard on air
Heard on air
Heard on air
Worked 40m
Worked 80m
Heard on air
Worked 80m
Worked 40m
Heard 40m

Worked 80m
Worked 40m
Heard 40m
Heard 40m
Worked 40m
Heard 40m
Worked 80m
Heard 80m
Heard 40m
Worked

80m

Heard 80m
Worked 80m
Heard 80m
Worked 40m
Worked 80m
Heard on air

Heard 20m
Heard 40m
Heard 80m

Heard 20m
Worked 40m
Heard 40m
Worked 40m
Heard 40m
Worked 80m
Heard on air
Heard on air
Worked 40m
Heard 40m
Heard 40m
Tried 40m

The spreadsheets above show the known stations on last Tuesday’s Group;
the comments

in the team

members’

reports (submitted via our webform

bit.ly/COORSNET ) follow:
Comments:

This week’s comments

have come from our webform

been compiled for us by Patrick VK2IOW;

reports and have

thanks Patrick.

From Simon MOKBJ at Cannock Chase forest, UK
[80m]
Back to one of my favourite locations up on Cannock Chase. We're at
-

“08

ir
=

the start ot another warm spell of weather - the third already this year.
Temperatures at O7OOUTC were only 12C but the sun was up and |
didn't need my coat.
| got no VK/ZL stations in the bag but did manage a new country:
Z35M in Macedonia. According to his QRZ page, this operator

achieved an amazing 43,000 QSOs in the year of 2001. It was also
great to chat on air with fellow net member Mike DL3YZ.
I'm going to shift my activities over the coming weeks so won't be on
the net again until the autumn, when DX should improve. See you
later.

From Stan ZL3TK

at Waitarere Beach

[40m]
Based on signal reports, westbound propagation was superior to
eastbound. Again this discredits the legend of symmetry which
everyone used to believe back in the ‘International Years of the
Quiet Sun' (1964 ~ 1969), because either evidence to the contrary

didn't exist or hadn't been reported.

From Peter VK6IS at Wundowie
[40m]
Too noisy, too cold in shack,
Too many noisy northern neighbours
[80m]
Not many Locals on 80m these days, on any mode, actually.

From Jordan VK3ACU

at Meredith
[40m]
| observed a high SWR, which worsened on the lower bands.

[nis ultimately prevented me trom tuning my homebrew
balanced-L matching unit on 160m. The cause? A snail had
= positioned itself on one leg of the ladder line outside, nestled
between the ladder line leg and the spark gap to ground!
Remarkably, the snail was still alive, though it certainly received
an unexpected lesson in CW.
Later in the evening, my cat decided to "assist" by sitting on my
straight key, inadvertently closing it mid-QSO with James VK3JFR. Despite these minor
interferences, it was a fantastic night on the air. | also had a chance to work a

few stations

during my lunch break today. Thanks to all

From George Comninos VK2AOE

in Sydney

[80m]
| was very ensconced in the refurb of a very tired looking FT101E.

It is

alive but has "personality". Sat down to switch the shack off and heard

some chit chat on 80m and realised .....TS SLOW MORSE NIGHT!!!!
Fired up the old Kenwood TS520 and had a late chat to Sava in
Brisvegas....then off to bed! 73

From David VK6KD at Ballajura (Perth WA)

[40m]
| scanned 40m for a short time over the evening but 80m had
= more activity and | didn't get the chance to go back.

[80m]
Good practice on the CW key again.
practice, hihi.

| started off a bit rusty and cleaned up my act with the

| managed to get a noise floor of S1 which was great.

screenshot showing

my TX sig had noise coming through when

Mark, VK2KI sent me a

| transmitted approx 400hz

apart.

Very different from last week’s crisp signal.

Will need to investigate further.

From Andy VK5LA at Winkie
[40m]
Good sigs on 40m, nice to be called by Rick, VK6XT
for a chat, then off to the kitchen for me to prepare
Fettucini Boscaioli (sounds fancy but it's not!)

Then a quick QSO with lan VK1HF.
[80m]
Headed down to CW after the 80m boat anchor net
and worked Sava, VK4PN, we tried 160m, but no banana, he was 559 again this week (but
with stronger and deeper QSB).

His high noise level struggles with my 50 watts and

compromised antenna. Then our illustrious leader checked in to see what was on the menu,
so | informed him of our tasty Italian cuisine!
From Rick Hill VK6XT at Grass Valley WA

[80m]
Bug key produces interesting variations of morse code when
used at 10wpm! Callsign unknown.

From Roy VK6RR at Geraldton
ia

[20m]

Very poor condx on 20m tonight.

[40m]
Didn't hear as many stations as usual.

From Richard VK6HRC

at Padbury
[40m]
Good

to hear Rick VK6XT

back on as well as lan

VATHF.

From your editor Mark VK6QI at Beautiful South Bowning via various KiwiSDRs.
[20m]
Mike DL3YZ was a nice RSN 421 into the VK6SEG

KiwiSDR at Hoddys Well this week.

checked Paul VK5PH's KiwiSDR network at Ironstone Range near Adelaide;

| also

Mike was not as

strong, but readable.
| didn't manage to get the VK6CRO

Remote going on the night unfortunately.

| think | also saw and heard the tail of some of the calls by one of our founding team
members, Geoff PA/VK6HD who was maritime mobile on the Canals of Holland

« ae
Petiwe

Near Fryvin

Bas,

NL DOK

NU DOK |)

(ATO: 2025-07403 1213

See

[bee teens rans 26 mts ge
=

tim

§ Useroute tool

ocr Tet

“

ATA: 2025407408 1101
0.

ree

onic

tie

pos

ee a

It may have been

“=~
ou

Geoff's 5 Watts or

Meee perhaps someone

"| Laattet | © Mapbox
© OpenSi

calling him - but each

time

| saw

the

signal

pop-up on the SDR by the time | selected 14039, the signal disappeared - so hopefully that
was the beacon keyer on his mighty QRP-Labs QMX transceiver.

Also from your editor Mark VK2KI at Beautiful South Bowning NSW
[20m]
Nothing at all heard here in the East from our European contingent on 20m this week.

[40m]
Odd conditions continued in the Eastern zone.

In particular,

variable conditions from here in Southern NSW to Victoria and
to WA, yet at one stage | was able to work into far North
Queensland and Geelong, and also be heard by the Ironstone
Range SA KiwiSDR network of our team member Paul VK5PH.
It was nice to chat to John VK2RU
Towers (near Townsville);

portable up near Charters

John is one of our editors so we've

had lots of chats along the way, but | was surprised to learn that we hadn't actually had a CW
QSO

until now!

John was complaining about how cold it was getting - dropping below 30 -

time to head further North he said!
| also chatted to Dean VK3DL at Geelong.

I'd worked Dean before on

SOTA/ Parks activations, and in the Don Edwards Memorial and QRP
Hours contests, but not on the net until now.

Dean continued the food

_ discussions which I'd had with others on previous nets when he said
he had to go QRT to rescue a loaf of home-made bread from the
oven.

I'm hoping we get a recipe from Dean for a future On My

Workbench article.
Not long after | noticed deep and sharp QSB on the signal from
Jordan VK3ACU at Meredith, and marginal signals continued to come
through from WA;

it was good to hear Clive ZL1CJB on the net again working Jordan before |

tootled off for dinner.
[80m]
After dinner, the band was full of non-QRS DX, so it was time to go through the antenna
coupler and noise canceller adjustments for 80m.
| really enjoyed 80m again;

conditions weren't great across Australia from here to the West,

and | didn't notice any ZLs, but still there was lots to listen to and enjoy.
Richard VK6PZT and Rick VK6XT both called me, but conditions just weren't good enough to
make a go of it - I'd hoped that later in the evening things would improve as the D-layer

dissipated, but that was not to be this time.

In the mean-time | had a nice chat with Andy

VKS5LA who had the biggest signal I'd heard.
Sava VK4PN came up but wasn't hearing me, so | rounded out the evening with a struggling
QSO

with David VK6KD

at Ballajura.

Signals were

really marginal - with the occasional

meteor-scatter-like bubble of QSB when half a letter would come through solidly. After many

repeated "PSE RPT AGN?" we both exchanged RSN 211; what fun! | noticed an interesting
thing watching David's signal on the waterfall displays of a couple of the KiwiSDRs in WA instead of the beautiful crisp |C-7610 CW of the previous week, David's signal appeared to
comprise of a central carrier with what looked like intermodulation products 400Hz apart
extending over +/- 2 KHz.

I'm sure David will be sneaking a look at his new Owner's Manual

during working hours this week!

From Manny VK3DRQ

at Blackburn

[80m]
Again no luck with OM Mike DL3YZ.

| could

hear him 332 on the SDR, but he couldn't
copy me, only VK3???

[80m]
Poor conditions with lightning crashes and QSB++. Will
be catching up with grandsons next week - hoping to
® start the process of leading them down the path of radio
addiction disorder, and away from the screen addiction

disorder they seem to be developing.

From Paul VK3KLE at Stawell
[40m]

Conditions were good. Contacts were easy to make. During the

week | repositioned my EFHW dipole to give better proximity
distance to a 80m dipole. Also new wire location is mostly in the
clear further away from shack and other objects.
Received stations were varied in strength some with fair amount of QSB. Overall another very
successful evening on 40m QRS CW.

From Greg VK5KFG

at Willunga

[80m]
| have just finished the QMX Plus project and was
pleasantly surprised to see that it worked, as intended,
when power was applied for the first time.

Naturally |

was keen to show it off on Tuesday night. Despite
measuring a lusty 5w output on 80 (not quite as good on
the other bands), my proud new QMX Plus sadly
returned miserable signal reports.
VK3WOW,

In fact, Peter

who was S9 here, apologetically reported

that | was unreadable.

Knowing that the antenna hadn't

fallen down this time, | switched to the IC7300.

The

signal improved his end so much that apparently Peter
thought | may have moved next door.

Luckily Peter is

also a fan of the QMX and was most understanding.

went on to have a nice lengthy chat on the subject.
Finally, although it should probably not be mentioned in
this forum, devoted to CW as it is, the SSB firmware update on the QMX went without a hitch
and appears to work, even if, on current indications, no one is going to be able to hear it.

From Peter Dann VK3WOW

at Blackburn, Victoria

[80m]
T_T

By UTC 1000, conditions on 80m looked so good on BOM

HAP

chart compared with 40m, | did not even try 40m. Had a dramatic

demonstration of difference between QRP and QRO in my QSO with
Greg VK5KFG.

Found him initially all but unworkable (but did catch

his call sign) and was just about to give up when he came back to
me sounding like he was operating from house next door. Turned out
he had switched from his QMX rig (5 watts) to a rig running more like
100 watts.
International Flight Contest - Oh my! Why did | ever let myself get sucked into this vale of
tears? Nonetheless, I've started now (have submitted two entries my email), and what a
challenge in patience, accuracy and following instructions it turns out to be. Will be interested
to get some sense of how others are finding the experience. | must say Stan ZL3TK has
clearly put a huge amount of effort into setting this up, and really | can only bow my head and
salute him for that!

From Phil VK6GX at Gidgegannup
[40m]
| got home after a big meal at the RAOTC
luncheon and promptly fell asleep in front
of the rig. Several nights of staying up late,
watching the Tour de France and the AU v
WI Test Match in Grenada caught up with
me! Thanks to one of our dogs for waking
me up in time to have four nice chats on
40m.

Post Morsum - July 9th
From Richard VK6HRC

Five on the VK6RLM

VK6KD
VK6QI =
VK5KDO
VK6HRC
VK6MRB

RPTR

and South West

Echolink / AllStar hub.

David
Mark
Peter
Mulligan SWL and others :

David worked three on 80 Mx and monitored 40 Mx at times, still going through the new
setup to sort a few gremlins out. Good to have Mark there this morning with helpful advice
as he has gone through a setup of a noise canceller/ matching unit a while ago.
Mark had fun as usual, monitored the 20 Mx activity via KiwiSDRs and heard Mike calling.
On 40 Mx worked four heard nine and on 80 Mx worked two, tried to work Richard

VK6PZT but conditions not quite good enough.
Peter previous call VK7KPC before the move worked 40 Mx took a break to take part in
another net and came back to monitor the activity on 80 Mx. He is also going through a
new setup sorting things out.
| had fun on 40 Mx worked a

few locals. | then checked the RBN and saw that Stan

ZL3TK had been spotted with a good SNR so tuned up and gave call and he came back
but conditions had deteriorated so it was a brief contact. Hoping for better conditions
soon!

FY just had chat to Max on HF ( slumming it on SSB ) in spite of all the problems is in
good spirits and hope to be back on ASAP.
Thanks to all on last night

and this morning, stay safe.

Richard VK6HRC

This Week’s

Topic of

Interest
Hanging

Up the Gumboots

..at least for now
by Simon

MOKBJ

Hanging up the Gumboots - For Now
From Simon MOKBJ

I've decided to shift my radio activities over the summer and will be
taking a break from the early starts on Tuesdays. Conditions for DX

should improve in the autumn so | expect to get out and about in the
early mornings again before the worst of the winter.
Data

I've done a bit of analysis of 2025's Tuesday operating with the CQ
QRS group on 20m and 15m. The full data can be seen here (see
below for the link). Since 11 March | have operated on 14 out of 17

Tuesdays which yields enough data:

ies

Total days operating: 14

Total hours operating: 15

Total QSOs: 41
Total VK/ZL QSOs: 6 VK2IOW (2), VK3DBD (2), VK2QI, VK3ACU
Total EU QSOs: 34
Total USA QSOs: 1
Mean QSOs per day: 2.9
Mean VK/ZL QSOs per day: 0.4
| had a VK/ZL QSO on 4 days out of 14.
3 of my 6 VK/ZL QSOs were on one day.
| made three quarters of DX QSOs from a coastal QTH.
| used the same radio (Xiegu G90), power (20W) and antenna
(JPC-12) for all attempts.

| operated between 30 minutes and 3.5 hours after sunrise. |
generally got more DX contacts when | operated closer to sunrise.

It's been great fun to explore different locations for operating. My noise
level at home is too high to pick up distant stations. With my portable

set-up in a nice quiet spot, | can always hear more stations than | can
work.
Conclusions:
I'm making fewer contacts than | would like.
To achieve more reliable and consistent summertime DX, | would need

to consider:
getting up at 2am and driving over 2 hours to the coast for sunrise

buying an FT891 or similar 100W radio for portable operating
using a directional antenna with a substantial gain over my omnidirectional vertical
antenna.

In other words, | think I've reached the limits of what my current equipment will allow.

I'm

looking forward to hearing from Mike DL3YZ and Ross MONNK on their portable antenna
ideas and experiments.
The outlier is the one in Italy where | made three
VK QSOs. It may just have been a very good day
for propagation. | was at the end of a pier on the
super-salty Mediterranean, which must have
helped. And | wonder if there were human factors
- an exotic location and a bit of a buzz on the
WhatsApp QRS Alert channel to stir extra interest
perhaps?

4
‘&

Thanks for your thoughts too Ross. It made me look up Brian
ZL3XDu's YouTube channel again and by coincidence he has
summed up 40 years of antenna experimentation in a new video
today (see below for the link). A 2-element vertical with elevated
* radials work best for his coastal location on 20m.
Short term plans:
Over the next months, | want to do more in the afternoons and
evenings on various bands, which | think may be more fruitful. |
also want to use my neglected QRP radio more.
I'll definitely participate again in the autumn when the greyline
works better for us. | expect October and November will be the
peak months.

Meanwhile, | will eavesdrop through the Ironstone web-SDR to listen on Tuesdays to CW
with an Aussie accent and I'll avidly read the brilliant newsletter.
Enjoy the rest of the summer/winter and I'll catch you on the air in due course. All the very
best,
Simon MOKBJ
A,

MOKBJ

Simon’s analysis: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACXlvSfbAZ1xW1SXRVIEDRgW493ZDj7vrvLcOw6UknHIjAI9IxiNMVclpr_ mT|wkl9vcpGDsthPBRKbCqQ/pubhtml
ZL3XDJ video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGOPW-Dalt8

[Thank you so much Simon or your efforts to get out and have some fun at
all hours of the morning;

your photographs have been one of the

highlights of the RagChew news/etters.

And of course thank you for

tempting us with the testing of Ross MONNK’s hypothesis that at the peak
of the sunspot cycle, you can work the world on a few Watts and a bit of
wet string.

| reckon we should think about introducing a short-path test on

a different day of the week as part of the DXperiment - short-path Is so
much easier;

I’ve started discussions with Mike DL3YZ on this and other

things that might be interesting.

Similarly, the higher bands such as 10m

would be really
interesting and so much fun.

| look forward to

your reports of what you hear of the net on the
KiwiSDRs from the comfort of your nice warm
home... and of course, your future adventures
as we head toward the equinox. ]

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email to

On
A Simple
From

cqqrsnet@gmail.com

My Workbench

Portable Antenna

Richard VK6PZT

Easy QRP end fed

3 parts no soldering less than 10 bucks

1 Mark VK2KI

How do you deploy it - dipole or counterpoise? By the way, | still can't believe
you were hearing my signal again this week! What happened to the famous
Dalyellup noise? and how's business going?
0-07 PM
Richard

VK6P7T

| stick the end to a squid pole or thred it thru a fishing weight and
chuck it in a tree
re

€

hola

done 3 of em for 15, 20, 30 and 40m

the end fed has a 0.05 counterpoise, no feedline,
connector

1 toroid 1 radiator

qood for 10 watts i reckon

just a BNC to Screw
O47 PM

hai

1 Mark VK2KI

0.05 wavelength counterpoise - easy!

And how is the BALUN wound?

0-33 PM

1 Richard VK6PZT

Two or three primary turns dependant on band then enough secondary turns
to drop the impedance to 50 ohms , auto transormer style
10-55 PI
the small toroid means you may have to go round twice

0-56 PM

1 Mark VK2KI
|

Richard

VK6P7T

Two or three primary turns dependant on band then enough secondary turns to
drop the impedance to 50 ohms

, auto transormer style

Bifilar windings | assume?

10-57

1 Richard VK6PZT

the one in the photo is 2 primary 14 in total 49:1
the two wires you see exiting the toroid

not bifilar

1 half wave one 0.05 counterpoise

1 Mark VE2K)

TU mate - glad to hear you have some time to get on air - and build
antennas too. Di-dit.

7
last image

is 3 primary

21 turns

—

total 49:1

1 Mark VK2KI
1 Richard VK6PZT

the one in the photo is 2 primary 14 in total 49:1 _ not bifilar

Ah, as you said - autotransformer-like. So the counterpoise wire goes straight
through, the feed is 2 turns up and the wire Is at the end of the
14th turn. Nice!
1 Richard

VK6PZT

yup, if you guess the lenght right you dont even have to cutt the wire, just
strip the insulation at the ground / counterpoise and then 2 turns furthur

1 Mark

VK2KI

1 Richard

VK6P7T

yup, if you guess the lenght right you dont even have to cutt the wire, just strip
the insulation at the ground / counterpoise and then 2 turns furthur

Heh heh - easy with only two turns!

article for this week!

Thanks mate - a good On My Workbench

a
WHYED
| Richard
VK6PZT

1 Richard VK6PZT

here is a list jay car part numbers
PA3175 BNC plug with screw terminsls $6
1M

13379

18v4dfwAmm

tearnidec

— £4

far

nack

nf Af

3D ctarkar)

For

Lahr”

vteoun

SON

3011 Wire light gauge hookup wire 28c/m

| prefer holman retic wire from bunnings for the 40m or 80m_

stronger. Its $20 for 50m.

| have also used the larger L15 35x21x13mm

bands as its way

(LO1258) toroids for higher

power but they get hot when cranked up to 100 watts.

12:08 AN

1 Mark VK2KI

Thank you - good stuff! = ;..5,4
By the way, what led you to use 0.05 lambda for the counterpoise?

1 unread

—-=.=, a)

message

1 Dean VK3DL

This is good stuff Richard. | have a couple of larger homebrew efhw 49:1
transformers but have been meaning to put together a pocket size one for
QRP portable use. The use of the BNC screw adapter is a nifty idea |
hadn't considered.
C05 Al

works ok too, easy to tune by adding or
removing turns on the fly.

Richard VKGPZT & Shelley Ayre
You

By the way, what led you to use 0.05 lambda for the
counterpoise?

Just what i read was required for an end fed if i wasnt
using coax feed line.
it also come in handy to secure the
bottom of the antena to somthing like a peg in the ground
or tree branch
8:48am

Tell us about what’s going on on your workbench;
on the go that others might be interested in?

do you have something

Please let me know

cqgrsnet@qmail.com

Other
Other things

I’ve received

News
from our 200-plus

readers.

DXperiment

Propagation

Conditions

From Mike DL3YZ
| also noticed this morning that we need to start the DXperiment skeds a
little earlier, to have full advantage of the DX window.

My signal was S 5 in

ironstone on 6:00 UTC and dropped to S 2.7 at 7:00 UTC. Think | need to
check different bands too.
40 m condx here in EU are excellent these days, reaching even to US.
Even had a station just 80 km from here yesterday on the other side of the
black forrest mountains. Thats real NVIS, as we both are in river valleys
600 m lower than the moutains.

Now he is sending me tips to
improve my CW;

seems

| must

have not been at my best code HI.
Thanks for the report and have a
great week
73

Mike.

Morse Training
Our team

Net

member

every Wednesday

Nic VK7WW
at 7pm

runs an on-air Slow Morse training net

EDST on 3580 for 30 mins. He uses the callsign

of the Northern Tasmania Amateur Radio Club VK7TAZ
Many of our team

on that net.

learned Morse code with the

Support of Nic, and the weekly training session
comes

highly recommended

for anyone who

wants to learn the Code, or simply brush up.
Everyone’s welcome - 3580kKHz at 7pm
time every Wednesday;

Eastern

you'll hear lots of the

CQQRS team on that net. Jordan VK3ACU has

SIREEREBISE CODE COURSE
copii. ae

recorded the complete set of lessons which you
can

now

find here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?
list=PLHsSQmZz6fBXO/swAfbTmutrbbELl
/fUOL
Contact Nic VK7WW

for more info nicholaschantler@hotmail.com

how to join the NTARC

DISCORD

along and join in on Wednesdays.

International

including

group to follow the action, or just come

Flight Contest

It’s not too late to join this interesting Morse Code exercise.

Progress report on the QHS International Flight Contest
From Stan ZL3TK

Flight NR 04 took off on Wednesday as scheduled, heading NNE across the mighty

Atlantic.

Delighted to report that sound file entries to the contest have been regular and show an

excellent standard of sending with perfect spacing, They're a pleasure to hear.

Surprisingly, an OM in my ancestral Germany has popped up, possibly in response to the

contest getting mention on the VBand and Vail Discord sites.

But boy-oh-boy, have | had to face up to my own shortcomings!

One might assume

years of traffic would have eliminated most bad habits, but not so at all.

Two major

failures revealed by this contest have been my jumping to conclusions and scan
reading. Shamefaced, I've had to apologise to entrants several times. Self-discipline

must now be brought to the fore and exercised far more judiciously; sorry chaps, | will
definitely try harder.
A number of queries have been received asking why each flight appears for only two
weeks, then disappears. After giving the reasons for designing it that way and noting the
long-term educational value of participating even if some flights are missed (who really

cares about points anyway?)
were merely tyre-kickers.

‘It appears since none have followed through, enquirers

Disappointing but c'est /a vie.

Contest information is available at bit.ly/qrsifc

10 flights

11 weeks

In your own time

160 points potential
Award Certificate
QRM and stress-free
Great CW experience

QRS

CWops

Morse

Mania

International Flight Contest 2025

- Winter 2025

Morse Mania - Winter 2025

Objectives: This eight-week event has the following objectives:
9

To promote regular on-air QSOs primarily between VK and ZL operators. Other
DX operators and contacts are welcome.
For CW operators to have as many QSOs as possible whilst meeting the minimum

criteria for a QSO.

9
o

To provide an event that meets the needs of different types of CW operators.
To use these sessions to build on existing skills and satisfy your own goals.
o
For aperson who normally operates POTA/SOTA, this might mean extending
their QSO vocabulary to include a few new words or phrases.

For an operator comfortable at 12WPM and basic QSOs, this might mean

aiming to increase speeds by 2-3 WPM once a week.
For acontester this might mean exchanging station details they don't normally
exchange.

Participants are encouraged to notify the Event Administrator of their personal goals prior to
the event.
When:

Start date: Tuesday 17 June 2025
End date: Sunday 10 August 2025

This is an eight-week event aimed at our CQQRS family, with one-hour sessions

commencing 17 June 2025 and taking place on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays at
0930-1030z. And there's a bonus for QRS operators as well.
How about having ago?