CWT from New Glarus Woods State Park

Besides ham radio, one of my long-time interests is bicycle touring.  Each year, I ride several thousand kilometers, mostly on the back roads of Wisconsin, One of my favorite campsites, just 50 km from home, is New Glarus Woods.





To combine ham radio and bicycle touring, I built a KX1 transceiver, an antenna tuner, and various other bits so I could put up an end fed 40 meter half wave.  The whole operation weighs under 1.5 kg, including spare batteries and the launcher.  (Almost half of that is the launcher.)  The KX1 runs on 4 Li-ion cells with a linear regulator to limit the voltage to 14 Volts, and puts out 4-5 W on 20 and 40 meters.  The 800 mAh batteries are more than adequate for two hours of contest operating.

Wednesday morning, I rode down to the park, arriving in time to get the antenna up before the 1900Z CWT.

Transport

The campsite didn't have antenna potential, but the nearby picnic area had a big clearing and a tall, conveniently located tree.

Antenna Tree

It only took one try to get the line over the tree, and the AWG 26 wire went from the picnic shelter to the tree, insulated with monofilament line.  The high end to the north was about 10 M high, so it should have slightly favored radiation to the south.  Because it's a half wave on 40 and a full wave on 20, the feedpoint impedance is high, so the counterpoise is just a short length of wire on the ground.  The tuner is my own design, and can match up to 6,000 Ohms with only a dB or so loss.

Operating Position

For the 1900Z CWT, I set up in the sun next to the shelter, in hopes of a little warmth, as there was a cold north wind.  At 0300Z, I moved under the shelter.  It was down to about +5 C by 0400 during this late spring cold snap.  Those bags on the bike contained lots of warm clothes, in addition to the radio stuff.

I made about 70 contacts in two hours of CWT operation, including some DX. It's been a long time since I logged on paper, so it was a challenge.  Next time, I'll use a dupe sheet.  The KX1 and antenna seemed to get out fairly well, with only a couple strong stations calling CQ in my face.  It took a few tries to get through to F5IN on 40, but Mike eventually heard me.

All in all, it was a fun operation.  I'll be doing more of them.  In between portable operations, I should be about 40 dB louder from the home QTH.