I have always spent a fair amount of my HF operating time on the 40M and 30M bands, with a little time on 20M. Lately, though, I’ve been making a point of spending more operating time on 20M through 15M (or at least as high as the rig I’m using will go). To that end, I had a little fun on 15M with my KH1 this morning.
I stopped by Norristown Farm State Park (US-4363, KFF-4363) this morning. I broke out my Elecraft KH1, which hadn’t seen much action over the past few weeks. We were under a wind advisory, so I operated from the truck and used my truck-mounted 12-foot loaded whip.
As I was setting up the KH1, I ran into an issue while removing the KH1 paddles from the radio. During an activation about a month ago, the spring between the paddles popped off. I found the spring and re-installed it when I got home. The paddles must have gotten damaged somehow, because the left paddle wasn’t moving as smoothly as it used to. Today, the spring came off the paddles again, but this time it was nowhere to be found. I wasn’t planning to use them today, anyway. For those times when I use the KH1 handheld, I have the N6ARA Tiny Paddles with a KH1 adapter. I also have a K6ARK Pressure Paddle kit on order. But I digress…
Anyway, I started on 40M, because here on the east coast it’s a quick way to make the first 10 contacts for the activation. That’s especially the case early in the morning. There was a lot of atmospheric noise on 40M this morning, but it didn’t take long to log 17 contacts. The 20M band was good for another nine contacts, and 17M produced three contacts.
Being inherently lazy, I left the loading coil tap set for 17M and tried to see if the KH1 would tune it up on 15M. The KH1 easily found a 1.2:1 match. That wasn’t surprising, since the 12 foot whip is only about 11 inches longer than a quarter-wave on 15M, and I only use one turn of the loading coil at the 17M setting.
After making a couple of 15M contacts with the antenna adjusted for 17M, I bypassed the coil completely. Again, the KH1 loaded it right up. I could have shortened the whip by 11 inches to make it a resonant quarter wave on 15M, but I didn’t have my antenna analyzer with me. Honestly, I don’t think it would have made a significant improvement in performance, anyway. Overall, I made 13 contacts on 15M, which included a handful of DX stations.
After 90 minutes on the air, I had made 42 contacts, including nine park-to-park contacts. The DX contacts today included:
- 20M: Dominican Republic
- 17M: Ukraine
- 15M: Czech Republic, Latvia, Spain, Italy (2), England
I was happy with how the 12-foot whip and KH1 performed on 15M. I’ll definitely be spending more time on 15M (and above) in the future.
I also have an idea for an antenna I might try to build. More on that later, if it works.
72, Craig WB3GCK
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