Evolve3 on John Flinchbaugh KD3EE

2025-12-19 US-8751

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I activated US-8751, State Game Land 52. I deployed the speaker-wire doublet again in an inverted-V to operate 1W on 20M. It ran NW-SE, and I used the 4:1 and a 1:1 current balun on the coax. It tuned well in 20m, and caused no USB disconnects! My 1W FT8 signal was heard in France and Spain.

The Evolve 3 keyboard had some dead keys: w t. It doesn’t seem I can fix that, so it may need to be replaced.

doublet

4:1 balun

setup

2025-11-29 US-8878

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I activated US-8878, State Game Land 181. It’s my 39th unique park activated on my way to the next award at 40. I made 11 FT8 contacts at 2-4W with my speaker-wire doublet pulled up into a tree. I had extended the length to 44ft length per some online recommendations.

The battery was low on my little Evolve 3 laptop, and I wanted to charge it from LiFePO, but it wouldn’t charge. It turns out that I had inserted the barrel adapter into the headphone jack instead of the tiny power port. The laptop had died at 9 contacts with 3 people calling me, so I switched to my other laptop to finish up.

10M tuned OK, 40M tuned OK, and 20M tuned easily, but with both laptops, the radio would drop the USB connection immediately upon transmitting. I may need to add a current balun between the radio and matching transformer.

EFHW Test 2

Sun, 19 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I ran out to Susquehanna Riverlands State Park (US-9719) to test the EFHW again. This time I tied it to a bush and a picnic table and raised the center with the fishing pole mast.

I took the time to sweep all the bands with the X6100’s built-in analyzer app. 40m looked like it could stand to have the wire slightly shorter, but when I transmitted, the SWR looked fine. I saw about 1.5:1 SWR on 40, 20, and 15. 10 was a little off, so I guess I’ll add the 100pf capacitor that most people use.

The tuner made 12m and 17m work, so I made FT8 contacts on 40m, 20m, 15m, and 17m.

I was also trying out some of the combo winder/unun I 3d printed and made some notes. I’ll post my remix soon of another person’s OpenSCAD code. I like the all-in-one designs that wrap up into one package, but I wonder how much that will hinder my random experimentation with antennas.

While transmitting, I noticed the Evolve 3 laptop’s mouse would stop responding. I had seen this on other laptops using the 1/4 wave HF vertical. I added the common mode choke to the feed line near the radio, and that cleared up. There was already a choke near the antenna, but I guess it wasn’t enough. I love when I can see a clear cause and effect or problem and solution.

Riverlands Sign

Riverlands Rain

Riverlands Operating

985 Workbench - 2024-04-22

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

My Week in Radio

I met some 985ers on Friday morning at the tailgate and breakfast.
I heard a bit of the ARISS mission talking to students last week
I have APRS working
- UV-K5 running egzumer
  - VOX mode
  - Sensitive
- Pixel 6 Pro
  - Volumes way up, nearly 100%
- BTech audio cable
- APRSDroid
  - AFSK mode
- Saw decodes on the phone
- Saw myself show up on https://aprs.fi map
Evolve 3 laptop is working with Linux completely:
- network
- sound
- used it for a pota activation
Time to also slim down the go box for POTA as it’s gotten heavy.
2m dipole in the tree working well for a couple weeks, so it’s time to change.
- next: try building a ground-plane quarter-wave with radials
- it’ll feed better from the bottom
Trying other firmware on the Quansheng radios
- mixes of features I want and don’t want
W3FIS, Paul Ross, sent me a small box of some radio gadgets to explore
I’ve been seeing people recommend using a CW decoder
- maybe try the decoder in my radio
- get some practice keying, instead of waiting
York Hamfest is on Saturday

21 Tech Net - 2024-04-07

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

My Week in Amateur Radio

Overload on UV-K5 with better antennas
- UV-K5 & UV-K6 for comparison - not broken
- Balance antenna location good enough but not too good
- FM bandstop filter helps a whole lot
Modifying params database on Xiegu X6100
- Now shows me accurate bands and privileges, so I won’t accidentally wander beyond my privileges.
Picked up an Evolve 3 laptop that runs on 12v
- Linux is being challenging: wifi and sound.
Packing camera and radio gear or eclipse trip tomorrow

985 Workbench Net - 2024-03-25

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I failed to check-in do to RF issues, but my summary is still good.

My Week in Amateur Radio

Antenna movement
- Trying my dipole antennas in new places
  - hanging dipole in back yard
  - still getting debilitating interference over 985
  - 21 and k3ir coming in pretty good
- Restrung the EFRW antenna for HF
  - a little higher, straighter in the tree
- It’s great fun to throw wires and strings in trees
Overload on UV-K5 with better antennas
- UV-K5 & UV-K6 for comparison - not broken
- Balance antenna location good enough but not too good
- Going to try a bandstop filter, but not sure about transmitting through it
- Love the firmware options on Quansheng radios, but do I need a better radio?
- It kills me that I’m so marginal for accessing my favorite repeaters.
Modifying params database on xiegu x6100
- Now shows me accurate bands and privileges, so i won’t accidentally wander beyond my privileges.
- Modified the source code and rebuilt the database from my source
I picked up an Evolve 3 laptop that runs on 12v
- Getting linux installed on it
Still learning CW
- 20wpm
- It’s so difficult to stay focused copying at 20wpm even for 1 minute