If you are thinking of participating in your local club’s Field Day festivities or are heading to the campground with your family for a Bravo station, bonus points are available.

One of my favorites is the Alternate Power Field Day bonus.

To quote the ARRL Field Day rules for 2009…

“7.3.8. Alternate Power: 100 bonus points for Field Day groups making a minimum of five QSOs without using power from commercial mains or petroleum driven generator. This means an “alternate” energy source of power, such as solar, wind, methane or water. This includes batteries charged by natural means (not dry cells). The natural power transmitter counts as an additional transmitter. If you do not wish to increase your operating category, you should take one of your other transmitters off the air while the natural power transmitter is in operation. A separate list of natural power QSOs should be submitted with your entry. Available to Classes A, B, E, and F.”

Last year one of our club members brought a fold out solar panel array. Originally he hooked it up to a FM HT. The solar panels powered the HT just fine, but no one was on the air to make contact with.

Then an Elecraft K1 transceiver arrived. Hmmm…

Since the K1 is an HF transceiver one of the other stations (we were 4A last year) would have to cease operation while we operated the solar powered station.

No problem. We went to our CW tent and…

• Disconnected the antenna coax from the main CW transceiver (a Yeasu FT-2000 by the way – nice)
• Connected the antenna coax to the K1
• Flipped the solar panels out along the ground
• Hooked up the power to the K1
• One person operated the key and the K1
• While the person in the CW tent logged the QSOs on the N3FJP Network software
• and made note of these particular QSOs as “Alternate Power” contacts
• Logged five Alternate Power QSOs
• Reversed the process to get the CW Station back the way it was and continue to operate normally
• Done!

Here is our K1 operator, logger (in the tent) and the impressive solar array…

Making Solar Power QSOs during Field Day

This was pretty easy really.

In this case, the low current draw of the Elecraft K1 really helped. We did not need any temporary storage from a battery in parallel with the solar output. It all just worked straight off the solar power source. Nice.

You may desire to try the above and I really do suggest it. It is fun. If your rig needs a bit more power than the K1, consider adding the battery and letting it charge for a bit before making those five QSOs.

I hope to hear all of you on Field Day. Good Luck.

My immediate thought was “Hmmm, he already has a 100 watt style typical HF radio. Why does he need something that does 140 watts?”

The I remembered he also has a QRP rig which generates the typical 5 watts or so and this linear amplifier allows this QRP rig to be just like the typical 100 watt radios when you need or want it.

The amplifier concept comes from a company called…

Their web site is http://www.communication-concepts.com/.

The company has a variety of HF and VHF amplifier web pages and will sell you the parts and sometimes a circuit board ready for you to build. They do not seem to sell built units, just the parts.

Depending on your power supply voltage they have amplifier reference designs in the several hundred watt class. Supply voltages range from 13 to 50 volts.

The model I think my friend built is the AN762 which uses the typical automobile voltage of 14V.

As the web site says “AN762 is also designed for an output of 100 watts using two MRF453 transistors or 180 watts using two MRF421 transistors.” This gives you some flexibility in power output choice just be selecting appropriate transistors.

The folks at Communication Concepts, Inc. indicate the amplifier designs come from engineers at Motorola, the makers of the power output transistors.

For you QRP folks out there who occasionally like to go to the full 100 watts, Communication Concepts may well have just what you need to build your very own linear amplifier.

If I were to purchase, oh I don’t know… an Elecraft K3, I might very well get the QRP version and build this amplifier to give my the full 100 watts when I feel the need.

Please note Communication Concepts does not sell kits. They sell parts and reference the applicable application notes from various manufacturers, such as Motorola. Don’t expect step by step instructions. You need to understand schematics and know what to put where.

If home brew is something you like to do, now you have another option to consider.

These are single frequency QRP units that are easy to build and fun.

The QRPeanut Can transceiver featured on HamHelpDesk uses a DC-40A unit.

This easy to build QRP transceiver is a single channel direct conversion crystal controlled assembly available for use with CW.

All you need to add is antenna, keyer, headphones and power. An antenna matcher makes good sense too.

Improvements include:

• the addition of a 50 ohm resistor to tame one of the circuit sections and keep it from oscillating. This was an issue with some of the DC-40A units including mine which I fixed myself.
• Also included is a case! Perhaps it is not as elegant as a Peanut Can, but certainly solves the problem of what do to with the completed board once you have it ready.
• A new circuit board design with more space between components rounds out this latest offering from a very decent provider of fun QRP Kits.

Here is more information…

The New DCxx Revision B with Case!

I very much enjoyed building my DC-40A and am considering another one, perhaps for another band and the new case makes this a very good deal at around $50.

Bravo QRPKits.com!

Last fall I purchased a QRPKits.com DC40A QRP transceiver. At around $40 it is a no brainer purchase for any kit builder attempting to keep in practice. I really wanted to try an Elecraft, but budgets are budgets. I have my main rig now so I finally decided to take the built and tested DC40A board and house it. During testing I soldered a piece of coax straight to the antenna points on the board. The center conductor broke at the board pretty quick. I was motivated to tie that antenna signal to a bulkhead BNC.

I have several of the peanut cans around so we washed one up, laid out a plan of installation and wound up with this single channel QRP transceiver…

QRP in a Peanut Can - Batteries Included

It’s no Altoids Transceiver, but I like it fine. Here is a view of the installation…

Inside the QRPeanut Transceiver

Yes I will replace those two wires with a piece of coax.

The only thing I have to finalize is why the transmitter shifts frequency just a little after the initial dot or dash. It is all part of the fun.

Parts include:

• Bulkhead Solder BNC Connector – Digikey
• Eight AA Cell holder – Radio Shack
• Switch SPST – Radio Shack
• Nylon Board Spacers and Hardware – Digikey
• Drill bit to extend the red switch out of the lid – temporary I promise
• Can of Harris Teeter Select Super Extra Large Peanuts

My kid will use this to learn code using a 100 foot piece of wire out his bedroom window and an old Heathkit low power antenna tuner I had laying around.