Cold Sunday Mornings

A few items on the to do list for a cloudy chilly 40 F degrees in New Jersey starting with taking a good inspection of my stealth antenna.

Before I even think of applying power to my transceiver using this antenna I always check the SWR with the MFJ-259B analyzer. Well the SWR reading was screaming at a very high reading telling me something is way off when a check was made last night. Almost sounds like a connection is broke, remember this is magnet wire with a air life of a few months at best with the storms, wind, and snow over the past few weeks. A good education guess is I do not have much faith in this antenna just yet.

If my day goes as planned, (which it never does) I have also been tinkering with a small QRP circuit on a wireless bread board. So far the circuit has passed the smoke test but not getting any RF readings at base or collector of the transistor. A few small adjustments might have to be made to get this circuit to oscillate correctly. It would help if I used the exact components listed on schematic, but that is part of the fun in experimenting.

One Transistor QRP Circuit





The sun just popped out for a minute or two, looks nice. Would love to get in the car and head to a scenic location and play radio, have not done yet this year. Just scrap my indoor activities and take off, decisions, decisions.

Yes experiencing cabin fever in February, how long until spring?