[Elecraft] Another Field Day story

[k4nvj@excite.com]

Due to a scheduling conflict imposed by the XYL, I was unable to participate in our local radio club's field day effort this year. Instead, I was tasked to drive her to Nashville to visit a friend. Not to be left out, I took along my K1, #764, and a 20M dipole.  Well, the house where we would be staying turned out to be a small condo with very little room for antennas. In fact the only way to get it up was to stretch it across the roof, from front back, lying on the surface with the ends hanging down over the edges.A check with the analyzer showed the best swr to be aprx 3-4 around 14.050. When I attached it to the K1 and keyed up output was limited to about 3 watts. Wish now I had added the tuner. Anyway, I tuned around, heard a VE5 calling CQ and gave him a call. He came right back to me. I was operational. But of course, I thought I should be able to improve on the antenna. So I pulled the center of the dipole up closer to the apex of the roof and repositioned the feed line. Another swr check shows I've only succeeded in moving the point of resonance down about 200khz. And now the K1 is limited to a max output of only 1 watt.  Short of dragging the antenna off the roof and starting over, there did not seem any hope of making an any improvement in that situation. So I gave up and started operating. Over the next 4 hours, I made about 60 contacts. What a thrill. With only 1 watt output and an antenna lying flat on the roof, the K1 still makes itself heard. No wonder more and more hams are switching to QRP. And the K1 is an absolutely amazing little radio. Joe K4NVJ


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