Tag: power

A New Widget/Gizmo

I picked this up during Hamcation last year. I thought was interesting. It allows me to quickly hook up a set of power wires to Anderson Power Poles. I recently found it useful when my FTX1 arrived and I wanted to hook it up to my power supply. Ten seconds later and I was good to go. I found over the past couple of months I used these quite a few times.

My quandary was I bought it from a booth at the hamfest from a vendor whose name I couldn’t remember, how much it cost, and even what it was called. So I thought I would try to recreate it. An Amazon seach found these.

Wire Connectors Putting it together I used 1″ 12 ga. solid copper wire and standard Anderson Power Poles. These connectors will handle wire from 24 to 12 ga. Putting everything together they look like this.

From here I dabbled some Clear Gorilla Glue to hold everything together and I used some clear heat shrink from a prior project. The fnished product looks like this.

I made enough to put with my various radios. I started using Anderson Power Poles about 20 years ago when they first showed up in the EmComm community. I know folks have a love-hate relationship with them. I love them because they can prevent cross wiring an expensive radio to a power supply. Today’s pricing they are about $1.25 a set, cheap insurance.

Now if I have a friend that does not use Anderson Power Poles, I can hook him up (literally). I think I spent about 30 minutes making these. A little something to make life easier when everything around you may falling apart. 73 de Scott

IC-705 vs FTX-1 Power

In this post I will take a look at the power requirements of both radios. Again, this is not a detailed in depth scientific experiment, more in line with what the average user would do with equipment he/she may have on hand. One of the first things I did was hook the radios up to a power supply, in this case a Samlex SEC-1223BBM and I used one of those generic power meters. At idle:

That was surprising! The Yaesu uses 155% more power at idle than the Icom. One possible way to look at that is the IC-705 with a 3.3 Ah battery may have the same operating time as the FTX-1 with a 6.1 Ah battery. This makes the Icom even lighter because it needs less battery.

Next I hooked the radios up to a dummy load and Bioenno 3 Ah battery and did a key down at 5 and 10 watts to measure the power consumed. First at 5 watts.

Interestingly enough, the IC-705 is more efficient in its power usage. It is 340 mAh less than the FTX-1. Moving on to 10 watts.

The Icom again is more efficient being 240 mAh less power draw than the FTX-1. What does this mean? I think in rough terms a 3 Ah battery with the IC-705 will give you approximately the same operating time as a 6 Ah battery for the FTX-1. If you are a drive-up POTA guy, this is no big deal. If you are a remote POTA guy or a SOTA girl, power conservation may become an issue. For me, I will use my 3 Ah battery with the IC-705 and get a 6 Ah battery for the FTX-1. Note: The IC-705 with a 3,3 Ah battery weighs 1 pound less that the FTX-1 with a 6.1 Ah battery.

Now comes my first gripe with the FTX-1. The FTX-1 uses a different power connector than my other small radios. My IC-705 and my KX2 both use the same connector. Some of my other QRP radios in the past also used the same connector. Now I have to make sure I have the right connector for the radio. In the image below, the Yaesu connector is on the right. The center hole is larger than the one on the left (Icom/Elecraft).

From here, my reviews/blog post will become more sporadic as I have to get the radio setup and taken out in the field. Unfortunately for me, POTA parks are all somewhat far away and I can’t just pop over for an activation. I do have some big trips/roves planned and I will be bringing the FTX-1 with me. In general, I like the radio, it has a nice fun factor and it does some things very well. In the near future I plan on doing an a/b test with the IC-705 during a CW contest.

One thing to note is the FTX1 can use USB C to charge the batteries however it requires PD (Power Delivery) and needs 45 watts. That would mean a USB C charger similar to one you would use to charge a laptop. The IC-705 can be charged using a regular USB A to Micro USB cable. This might become important if you are trying to save wait or space.

Stay tuned de Scott

Turning FunComm to EmComm

In less than a month, Hurricane Season starts. For most parts of the country, this is nothing more than a news item. For us in the southeastern United States, it becomes a time of preparation.

Hurricanes, are an extreme force of nature. Unlike tornadoes, whose path of destruction may be a mile or two wide, a hurricane can leave a path of desolation 100 or more miles wide. Because it it so immense, it is almost impossible to describe; you have to be there to appreciate the god-like destruction.

Last month Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science, released it’s 2024 hurricane season forecast. Their prediction is for an “extremely active” season with an “above-average” probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the continental United States (CONUS)and the Caribbean.

This year they are predicting 23 named storms (aver. 14.4) with 5 major hurricanes (aver. 3.2). The probability of a major hurricane striking the east coast is 34% (aver. 21%) and for the gulf coast 42% (aver. 27%). In the tropical Pacific there will be La Nina conditions which can increase hurricane activity in the Atlantic. In addition, eastern and tropical Atlantic surface sea temperatures are warmer than normal making conditions conducive to hurricane development. The complete report can be found here: 2024 Hurricane Season Prediction

FunComm is a great way in keeping your emergency and portable comms ready. Field Day, Winter Field Day, POTA and SOTA are good ways to maintain your emergency gear. The same gear I take to the parks is what I would use during a disaster. I have been to disasters where a guy walks up to me with a handi-talkie in 3 pieces and telling me if I can help him fix his radio, he could help me. Don’t be that guy.

Do your radios work? Do your field antennas work? Have you tested them and checked their performance? Have you tested your batteries and do they work with your radio? Do you have enough capacity? How about generators? Do you have the right kind of generator? Some of these Home Depot generators will destroy a radio. Can you bring fuel to power your vehicle and generators? If there is no power in a disaster area, there is typically no power to pump gas. Make sure you have enough gas to get back out of the disaster area.

Don’t forget about your laptop. Do you have the apps you need installed on the laptop? Are they up to date? Did you sync the time before you left? Do you have a plan to power your laptop?

Where are you going to sleep? Are you going to bring enough food? Water? What about sanitation? Again, no power, no public sanitation. Do you have a list of things you need to bring? What about cash? In a disaster, cash is often king as the credit card machines run off of electricity and the Internet. Remember, if there is no cell service, those cell phone credit card swipers won’t work either. Make sure you bring small bills, as stores will probably not have the means to make change.

The way I am set up now, I could leave my QTH in about 4 hours with a stop at a gas station and grocery store. Part of the reason is I practice my EmComm using FunComm. I have been to several wide area disasters and I made plenty of mistakes, I learned the hard way. 73 de Scott

QRO SCHMURO

There is always a lot of talk about QRP vs QRO, 5 watts vs 10, ad nauseam. So today I thought I would run the numbers and see what the real deal is. First we need a few definitions. An S-unit in general terms is the minimum change in signal strength to be just noticeable (k3wwp.com). In more technical terms it equates to approximately 6 db in change. The decibel (dB) is a logarithmic number. Each 10 dB represents a factor of 10 difference. This may be a little out there for some so we will cut right to the shortcut. There are two types of logarithms. For calculating dB, use the common logarithm which is base 10. To see if your calculator uses the right one. Punch in 100 and then log. The answer should be 2 which equates to 10 to the second power which equals 100. This is not a technical paper but an entry way to see how changing the power levels affect the signal level of your transmitting signal. As you guessed, it is not linear.

Let me introduce an equation:

Where Power P1 is the power you wish to evaluate and reference power P2 is your starting power. Let’s take going from 5 watts to 10 watts. The equation would look like this:

We take 10 and divide it by 5 which give us 2. Then we hit the log function on our calculator which gives us 0.301. Multiply that by 10 and you have about 3 dB in gain or about one half of an S-unit (remember 1 S-unit is equal to 6 dB). Let’s do one more by hand and tackle the QRP/QRO debate. How many S-units will increasing power from 5 watts to 100 watts give you? The equation looks like this:

Take the 100 and divide by 5 to give you 20 and then hit the log function to give you 1.301. Multiply by 10 for 13.01 dB. Divide 13.01 by 6 dB and you have 2.17 S-units. Going back to our definition that one S-unit is the minimum change in signal strength to be just noticeable shows that going from 5 watts to 100 watts is not that great of a change.

Let’s let the other shoe drop. What about going from 5 watts to 1500 watt? That will give you 4.13 S-units of gain vs 1.96 S-units going from 100 watts to 1500 watts?

This gives you a fairly easy equation to help you evaluate your needs based upon empirical data. Running 20 watts over 5 gives you 1 S-Unit. Using less power means less drain on the battery for longer operation. This is only part of the equation. Propagation, antenna, mode used, and station efficiency all play a part. Have fun and maybe don’t toss the QRP radio yet 🙂