Help asked investigating a feedline coupler

 A feedline coupler, an unusual name for this unusual antenna tuner...

It looks old doesn't it. But what is old? And how old could this tuner be? Let's look at the inside...

This tuner has some wiring and components that are from another century. Does anyone know when?

It is made to tune a open line. The current owner did try it on several bands and it tuned best on 15m. But I guess that's depending on what kind of antenna is used.

There is no diode inside to rectify the current for reading on the meter. In this case a heating element is used. The current owner used this with 100W and saw the meter just going up a little. According to him there should be a lot more input power to have a good reading.

More details:

You can click on the photos to enlarge them.It is a fascinating piece of equipment I think. And...so far we cannot find anything about or like it on the internet.

So I ask readers of this blog to play Sherlock Holmes. I don't know the answers but have questions:

Where was this feedline coupler used?

Is it a commercial build or is it homemade?

Why did they use a heating element?

What year was this made?

Audio enchancement trouble in W11

 

  If you work with digimodes, like me, audio settings are important. Now, with a recent upgrade of my computer I was not immidiately aware of audio input problem. For several days I had almost zero noise on 6m. I normally see some noise in the waterfall of JTDX (or WSJT-X) but not this time. At first I thought it was the change of the coax choke at my 6m antenna. But strange enough I saw noise on the IC-7300 waterfall. So after some thinking I was shure something between the radio and computer was wrong. Or some filter setting was not right. There are so many variables. So I tried some filter setting and every time I changed filter the waterfall changed to normal for 2 seconds to return to "quiet" after that. 

I played some with the audio settings in W11 but had no time this morning. I thought it was some volume problem but still the waterfall looked not as what it used to be. I tried some contacts on 10m and it went well, working and receiving 6O3T on FT8 was easy. But still on the "low" noise 6m band it looked like a noise reducer or noise blanker is "on" and disturbing the noise I normally see equally over the waterfall.

After digging into W11 soundsettings again I finally found that there is a new audio enchancement feature which is set automatically on. I quickly switched it off and everything was normal again.

I'm shure others can have this problem as well. Although you will not notice this immidiately when you are looking at a crowded frequency. The only thing you notice could be traces that look odd. But you will see it especially on an empty frequency. Just my tip of the day....just check your settings.

To find the audio enhancement settings in Windows 11, go to Settings > System > Sound, select your output device (like "Microphone"), and disable the "Enhance audio" toggle.

Morse Invaders now with RX mode

KE6EEK upgraded the morseinvaders website with RX mode!

 https://www.morseinvaders.com/

It is really a fun game to play. And you learn and can improve your morsecode at the same time.

My quest to learn CW (23)

 And steady we go...

Have been training with 28/22 wpm but it was just a step to far I think. So I train with 28/20 wpm now. I do mostly plain text training which shows between 60-100% accuracy depending on how long the sentence is and what words are used. Words like "the", "you", "it", "in" and "is" are now easy. But words like "sometimes" or "something" are hard to decode. Anyway it is fun to try and get better every time. Do one lesson per day,  random code groups of 5 with 28/20wpm. I score about 60-80% now and think it is not bad compared to what I did last month.

CWOPS intermediate course

However I miss the interaction. I need feedback on my learning. And although a few people motivate me through the comments on this blog. I miss the contact with people that want the same as me and are beginners as well. Learning the code and make real QSOs on air. So, I wrote PE2V Vincent for information because he's one of the volunteers at CWops. He kindly send me an e-mail with all the links to the pages for application. So I did, and I will start with a CWops intermediate course in January 2026. In the mean time I already started with some homework assignments and already am at session 8 day 2.  

Of course I will continue writing about my learning experience on this blog!

#CQWW DX SSB 2025 review

Contest: CQWW DX SSB 2025

Category: SO AB LP

TRX: IC-7300 100W

Antennas: 4 el 10m LFA, Inv-V 2x22m, 3-band Halo.
 

Well, I'm still recovering of this weekend. The CQWW contest was a blast. I could not be on the radio the whole weekend due to other obligations. But still I managed to make 900 QSOs in total. I stopped early Sunday evening because I was very tired, otherwise I could certainly make 1K QSOs. However, what is the benefit of an extra few QSOs against some rest before the new work week?

This was also the first time I used my contestcall PA6G. I really liked it. No mix up with EA4BAS anymore, the short callsign is easy to call after every exchange. When calling S&P I noticed that calling Papa Alfa Six Germany instead of Golf in the end helps a lot. In short: it was a very good choice to have a contestcall, it has a lot of benefits. I still have to get used to it in CW though.

Propagation was very good this weekend. On 10m I managed a few small pile-ups with Japan in the morning and USA/Canada in the afternoon, rate about 80 QS/hr. On 80m I was spotted several times, rate was about 120 Qs/hr. I think that is not bad for a modest station with only 100W. As a matter of fact, I think if I would be able to be on for the whole weekend I could get a score like a high powered station. It is all a matter of get the right (free) spot on the band to run and get spotted by others. You need to a little bit lucky as well, but it is also operating practice. Some think it is just a matter of being the strongest but I disagree. You can't beat propagation, even not with large antennas and a lot of power. Although a good station helps of course.

Still can't find a reasonable mapper. This map is made with Global Overlay Mapping by EI8IC. I wanted to make a map at the worldradioleague site I previously noted but it seems those 900 QSOs are just too much and the map is not showing. But below are at least some statistics from that site.

I really miss the adventureradio site for this. It was a really good site but the creator had to stop because of map issues. The site is still online but is not loading the map. 

Anyway, I had great fun. I didn't do as well as last year due to other obligations. But there will always be a next one. It was a nice experience to work with my new contestcall for the first time. I'm certainly very happy with it. Till next year. 73 and good DX.

#60m Angola worked

 

I guess D2A has a lot of static on his side. I got the idea his receive is being disturbed. This one took me 1,5 hours of calling. It was also difficult at times to receive D2A due to nearby signals from Europe. But in the end I made the QSO.

Superstation - A new VarAC game

 

Not yet out! But currently in progress. I'm on the beta team. I think this will be a nice addition to VarAC. VarAC is a great way to communicate but it needs something like this to get more populair. People want to play games, compete and collect things. All people are collectors in some way.

What is Superstation?

Superstation is Global VarAC Game that is played over an extended time frame. Everyone in the world participates on an equal footing.

The purpose of the SUPERSTATION game is to increase the number of VarAC QSOs and to encourage more DX activity. A typical game will run over multiple weeks although a game can be run at any length.

SUPERSTATION is different from any other amateur radio “contest.” There is an element of a card & dice game, promoting QSOs that are more than simple exchanges, and demonstrating the DX capabilities of the mode. All amateurs around the world are invited to participate.

https://www.varacwednesday.net/superstation

I can't go in more detail is the game is not yet there. But I'm excited!

Update 29-Oktober-2025: After I discovered on social media the beta is already been out I asked why I didn't get the software to test as beta tester. Now one of the developers told me that he never saw my application as betatester. But I have an e-mail with all the documentation and a welcome from the same person? It seems they just forgot me. I'm really disappointed. But at least we will soon get the public beta software.

NTC partake with N1MM logger

   Last thursday it was time again for the NTC QSO party. And despite I wrote in the last post about this that I didn't want to use N1MM+ logger with all its features I just did. I wanted to know if it would help me making more QSOs. And actually, yes it did. I made 6 QSOs on 80m and 7 on 40m. It helped that I already had a name through the logger. Although I worked a NM (Non Member) which name I copied well. Not really important for me but I ended 10th of 17 participants in the electronic section. Not bad at all. I have to say I copied the contest exchanges well but some also keyed text to me which I didn't understand. I guess it was something like "have fun" or "tnx for the QSO". I even dared to call CQ NTC on 80m a few times. I got some stations back to me, actually I found it easier to "run" (call CQ)  compared to "S&P" (Search & Pounce). I did the keying myself and didn't use the automatic keyer from N1MM. I messed up a few times, but I guess every beginner has this and no one gets angry about this with CW. Looking forward to the next NTCQP. 

Upgrading Windows

 I'm shure there are more Hamradio operators out there that had the same issue as me. You got a good computer but it won't upgrade to Windows 11 because the system seems not to be compatible. I have been looking for a solution for quite a while since I was aware that Microsoft would not forever support W10. Now with the upcoming end of support the 14th of Oktober I really need to upgrade. But how? And would I loose my software? 

Well to make a long story short. You need a 8Gb USB stick which is capable of format to NFTS. You can download the lastest W11 for free from Microsoft. Download the ISO version for your language. You also download a tiny piece of software called Rufus. This Rufus program basically changes something in the installation file so you can install W11 on most computers with W10 without loosing anything. To see how it works just look for in on YouTube.

It works wel for me and upgraded 4 PCs including the shack PC without loosing anything.

#6m Mali worked

  Didn't feel well today and stayed at home. It gets better now. I noticed some spots from TZ4AM Jeff who is in Mali, Africa. As far as I know Jeff is only doing CW/SSB. So it is difficult to get him. You need more luck compared to FT8. I did hear him a few weeks ago for a short time on SSB but never on CW. This time I got lucky and worked him after a few calls. Just in time because he faded fast into the noise keying 73..

PA6G contestcall

 

Announcement: From today on I will use the callsign PA6G in contests. It is shorter and especially for CW much easier to decode. 

Many know about our efforts with PA6AA as contestgroup. We did the first historical "explorer" section in the CQWW SSB 2023 in the Netherlands. The explorer section is now called multi-distributed like in the CQWW WPX contest. This also led to a discussion if this was a legal way to use one callsign on several locations. At first we had permission. But later on we got the message that it was illigal. Unfortunately this led to many discussions and some cancellations which also involved other special event- and conteststations. We still try to convince our government to change the rules. 

PA6AA still exists and is the contest callsign of PB7Z. Another member PA5OES now has the contest callsign PA6F. Since I noticed some stations have trouble with my callsign in CW I thought of a shorter call for contesting. PA6G is sounding nice in CW in my opinion. G is the first letter of my province Groningen. As written on the QRZ page of PA6G I will only do digital QSL for this callsign. 

My quest to learn CW (22)

Daily practice continues... 

Now train with 26/20 wpm after I had about 90% correct a few times at 26/18 wpm. It is like I have to start all over again.

Average about 60% correct all the time. Same counts for plain text training. I also use an app on my phone called morse maven. I have the idea I learn more from morse maven compared to my daily lcwo training. I also make/made some CW QSOs on about 16-18 wpm with the begali paddle and have the idea it gets better every QSO. Although I try to find stations that are only make short QSOs. To make a complete QSO exchanging name, QTH, Rig, Antenna and WX is just a step too far. But I'm shure I will get there at some point.

I would like to welcome more members in my perseverance CW group on LCWO. 

Only 3 members is not much. We can discuss our achievements and we can see each others scores on lcwo. I hope members can learn from each other and encourage others as well. You don't have to be as fanatic as me. But if you are determined to learn morsecode it would be great to welcome you as a member. 

ATNO DXCC #300 V6D Micronesia

 Finally I worked my 300th DXCC on the HAM bands. And it was on one of my favourite bands 10m. Best of all it is on my now favorite mode CW. It took about 30 minutes. And proof was instantly there. The benefits of the internet. I'm certainly happy with this great milestone of 300 DXCC. Only a few very difficult ones to go ;-)

First FreeDV contact

 After reading the blog from VK3TPM Peter and watching his videos about FreeDV I decided to give it a try for the sake of experimenting. I took some tinkering to get it all working, especially the CAT control. Till I finally realised that CAT control is only working as soon as you hit "start" in the software. Anyway, FreeDV is a nice digital addition. Kind of DAB radio for HAMs. It is funny to hear someone speak on HF without any noise. Screaming in the mike, like we use to do on SSB, is not helping. Just speak like you do when someone is sitting beside you in a quiet environment. Watch part of my first contact with FreeDV on 40m with DK8EQ Uli. 

NTC QSO party - finally some success

 

   Last month I wrote about this party and the struggling to make QSOs. Or at least to decode some of the calls and exchanges. Most keying went way too fast for beginners like me. I have the idea a few of those stations did read my post because I had the idea this time I was actually able to decode more of the code.

I have a work around now. If I hear a call I now look for it on qrz.com to get an idea of the station and the name. Then I try to figure out if the name I hear is the same name I read on qrz.com. And of course I try to figure out the NTC number. So far that worked, only not for PI4NTC which is the club call. But after a few overs I figured out the name was THEO. The numbers went quite easy, the only number I had to search for afterwards was the one from PA7F. Luckily there is a list of members on the NTC website. And yes, if you use a contest program like N1MM this could automatically be filled in. But that is what I want to avoid. I really want to do all or most of the decoding with my own brain in this contest.

   The result. 6 contacts on 40m and 2 contacts on 80m. I did only S&P. Of course I know that you can make much QSOs with running. But it was my goal to make just a few more as previous editions. Find the scoring results here: https://pi4ntc.nl/ntcqp/ntcqp-2025-09/ I did not even finished as last ;-).

Thanks to all the ops that made CQs on a reasonable speed for beginners. I did appreciate it. And sorry for any mistakes I made. Overall I think I did pretty good this time and of course this is very encouraging to do better the next time.

#60m St.Pierre & Miquelon worked

Just before going to the job I though I check out 60m for this new on band one. I managed to get a free space in the split pile-up and it took 3 times calling before I got a reply. 3rd new one on 60m in a short period. The fun is that DXing is still possible on this band even when sunspots will go low in the next years.

Harvesting power from our sun

     Last year I wrote about the extension of my solarpanel setup with an additional 11 solarpanels. I estimated that this second setup would give me about 1000 KWh/year. But it became a bit more. I figured out that the first 5 panels would be payed for when I would reach 1705 KWh in total. Today I reached 1706 KWh in about 1 year and 3 months. I also wrote that I thought it would take 3 years to get to a break even point. When next year will be as good as this year I will reach that point in 2,5 years. I'm very happy about it because the rules in the Netherlands will change in 2027. At this moment we get the same price for the electricity we deliver to the grid as the price we have to pay for a KWh. At least extra power you don't use for example at the middle of the day is extracted from the power you use. For example you use 14 Kwh over 24 hours and your solarpower above what you use is 10 KWh in the same time you just have to pay for 4 KWh. So actually the electricity provider is a large remote battery. Of course this gives a lot of problems on the powergrid especially in high populated parts of our country. That's why the government decided this will be over in 2027. So, I was just in time buying these second hand solar panels and have to think what to do in the next year and before 2027. Best thing is to use the solarpower directly. That means use the electricity when the sun is there. I've been thinking about an electrical boiler, actually I already got one for free from my sister. In the Netherlands the most common way of heating your water is with gas which is getting very expensive in the last 10 years. Another option is a way to hold the elctricity in batteries and use it when the sun is not there. Both need to be "charged" when the sun is shining and delivering power of course. There are some smart systems available but a little expensive right now. I'm also thinking about off grid electricity for part of the property, like electricity in the garage, gardenhouse and glasshouse. Secondhand equipment can be bought, just have to find the right gear.

#60m Palestine worked

 

After a first unsuccessful first attempt I managed to make a valid QSO the second attempt. The pile-up was and still is huge. It is a miracle I made the QSO after all.

#60m Sint Maarten worked

First contact with the straight key

   Thought of calling CQ and making a contact with my straight key this evening. Something I've never done before. After a few CQs on about 15 wpm (I think??) nothing was coming back to me. So I decided to search for someone to QSO with. Then I found EA3PO unmistakingly calling CQ on 20m with a straight key on a speed slow enough that it was readable for me. I decided to key my call but he was not responding. So I tried again slowly EA3PO de PE4BAS K. Now he was coming back to me. Don't know exactly what he was keying but heard my call and a report. I thought I heard his name something like CESG, I was sure it was wrong but that is what I heard. After all it should be CESC short for Fransesc. But that is what I found out after the QSO. I hope he did hear my keying well, I think so because he repeated my name and did say something else which I didn't decode. It is so frustrating that you hear someone "talking" and you want to understand but you don't. Anyway, I did make the contact and that is what counts after all. I think I better concentrate on training words that are common in a QSO. Like TNX FER CALL UR ES RST RPT CALL NAME QTH HW? any other words? I found that many operators send BEST DX when they say goodbye.

TF2MSN Odinn

 So unfortunate that a nice HAMradio operator has died last month. I didn't know him personnally but Odinn was my first ever contact from Iceland back in 1987. We exchanged QSL cards.

Odinn was living on Vestmannaeyjar Isl. back then. This all happened on CB (11m). Contact made in FM with a converted 22 channel radio. This CB radio was modified by myself and had 54 channels, that's why my callsign at that time was DD54. I remember that there was a lot of fading on his signal and I could barely understood what he was saying. It was so special to me that I went to my dad and asked him to listen to a station from Iceland for the first time. My father, as always interested, but not his hobby ;-). Anyway, I had several QSOs with Odinn later on when I had a SSB radio.  And when I became a HAM I really enjoyed working him after I discovered he also went to HAMradio. We always had a chat about the good old CB times. It is sad we lost him. He will be remembered!

CQ WW digi

 Participated in this FT8/FT4 contest for a few hours last weekend till I reached 150 QSOs. Interesting to see that many interesting DXCCs could be worked without much effort. 

Testing the mapping feature from WorldRadioLeague.com. Not perfect, but it looks nice. I only did 10, 15, 20 and 40m. Did not participate over 16 hours like is written on the side of the map. I think that the time between the first and the last QSO is 16 hours. But in between I was off for at least 10 hours to sleep and do other things. On 40m my call was being used by another station. Strange to see your own callsign calling while it is not you. This station even made some QSOs. I don't see what the fun of this is? Same thing happened to one of my hamradio friends on 40m as well. 

My quest to learn CW (21)

 My quest continues.

Try do do my daily CW training but due to circumstances I'm not always able to log in at LCWO. However I do practice everyday some days multiple times.

Concentrating on decoding sentences I do the normal course once a day. Still 25/18 wpm is too fast for me. 80% accuracy is one of the best scores. However when I train plain text training on 26/20 wpm my rate is higher.

The goal is to make QSOs of course, Well, that's another story. I made some QSOs in Sweden as SM/PE4BAS/P. And yes it worked out. But I had help from the CW decoder in the (tr)uSDX. I don't have that with the IC-7300 and I refuse to run a CW decoder on the computer. Without the decoder I have to rely on my own brain and that makes me less confident. Yes, I hear stations calling but am afraid I will not be able to understand what they key as soon as I call them. I also tried to call CQ on 16 wpm to hopefully get an answer with the same speed. But so far this didn't work out. Well, I struggle but that is normal I guess. I just continue with it.... I'm shure at some moment in the future I will get it.

NTCQP again

   I participated once again in the Netherlands Telegraphy Club QSO Party. I really looked forward to it and I had a goal to make more QSOs as last time. But unfortunately it didn't happen. At first I listened on 40m but hardly couldn't decode any call. Some stations I heard were OK2BVX, DF4WX, PI4NTC and PA1HAM(?) and PA3GPX. I couldn't hear a name or NTC number all the keying went way too fast for me. After half an hour I moved down to 80m. Had a short exchange with OG0C. Then back to the NTCQP. I finally heard someone with clear and reasonable speed keying, it was PA3CNI. I got his name and NTC number after a couple of overs and decided to make the call on 16 wpm. He did came back on the same speed and it went smoothly. Confident after this one I was looking for another contact. I heard many strong signals but couldn't decode anything out of it. Some use probably mechanic keys and the way the dots and dashes sound is messing my brains up. In the end I think I heard OK1LO, SF6SSC and PA9X but I'm not sure. 

I have to say that this was a little discouraging. I wanted this so bad but am not able to simply decode morse behind the simple 5NN after 2 years of every day practice. 

But Bas, you make CW QSOs? You did make them from Sweden and others are in your log? Yes, but most of the ones in my log are 5NN contacts. Everyone can make them, even without knowing CW. And in Sweden I was using the decoder built into the (tr)uSDX, it feels like cheating. I really want to do all decoding in my head. It should be possible so I will continue on my difficult path to learn morsecode...

QRV from Sweden

  We took our family vacation for 2 weeks visiting Sweden. First time we were in this country. We rented a house in Djupekas and so we had kind of a base to get back to. Advantage was that I could leave the antennas installed. Besides our daily trips exploring the south of Sweden I had some time for my radio hobby most time in the evening and some time in the morning. I made some skeds with hamradio friends in the Netherlands which went very well. Unfortunatly the setup was not really good for DX. When I packed my station I had just enough room in the backpack for my endfed. So I decided to take both the magnetic loop and the endfed in the end. I'm glad I did because the endfed was the antenna I operated most of the time. 

The focus was to do as much as possible CW. The (tr)uSDX is a real CW radio in my opinion. Although it does a nice job on SSB and digimodes as well. I was glad there is a CW decoder built in because I still have problems following a complete sentence. I do recognize some letters and words but there is no way I can figure out a complete sentence. Luckely the decoder helped me to figure out the complete text keyed. 

In the end I made about 98 QSOs with SSB, CW, FT8, FT4 and VARA on 20m, 30m, 40m and 60m, I also used JS8 but could't find a station to QSO with although my heartbeat has been responded to by many. I learned a lot about the (tr)uSDX functions and in the end I made 19 CW QSOs in total. I have to tell I made a lot of CW CQ calls but there were no stations answering most of the time. In that case I switched over to FT8/FT4 which always easily gives you a lot of contacts. The only DX I could make was with a station on the east-coast of the USA on 20m FT8. Not bad considering my setup. 

Experiments I did:

1. Using VarAC to send an e-mail. I wanted to know if I could send an e-mail with ths setup. It went well in the end but it took some effort to find a station that could hear me.

2. Work DX. As soon as I saw spots of myself on PSKreporter in the USA I tried several stations.  I finally worked W2HCB on 20m FT8 after a while.

3. Worked 60m with a double MLA configuration. I tried CW, did not get any response. I knew PA2S and PG0DX would be on early in the morning. Worked both of them on FT8. I also worked DB6LL who was also /P. And I worked SM0BRF who is near Stockholm,we did an e-mail exchange because he asked my location in Sweden and I was unable to answer that with FT8.

4. Try 80m with the double MLA configuration. I tried hard but could not find a sweet spot. I couldn't get the SWR better as 1:5 . I didn't want to risk a broken (tr)uSDX, So I did not operate 80m. I might think of another antenna setup to be able to do 80m next time.

Setup 60m early in the morning

The (tr)uSDX did a great job on a vacation like this. Although I did try it at home, when operating as my only rig I had to learn some things. Like the use of of TXdelay. You need it when you work CW but when you switch to digital you need to switch it back off. Besides that the best volume for CW is at 11, at least for me. But on digital it is way to loud, best setting for me was 7. At the start I had a lot of problems with CAT control due to incorrect settings. But it went better when I used the settings as described above. Same counts for the laptop in use, at start it was empty withing 45 minutes. But I found there is a way to put it on battery save mode, which didn't affect digital operation. 

Station right after my CW QSO with PE2V.

The (tr)uSDX itself doesn't use much power. In about 12 days of operating it I only once needed to recharge my 12V powerbank which is holding about 5Ah.

The endfed was too low the first day. I couldn't get a good SWR on 40m. I bought a spool of  plastic laundry wire at the local supermarket to get the antenna higher into the nearest tree. I was lucky there were rocks all around so I attached on to the line and threw it over a high branch. It went easy actually. SWR on 40 was a lot better, 1:1,3 on 7100 KHz, The SWR meter in the (tr)uSDX is a great function. 

QSOs approx. made, some might miss.

Of course radio is not the only thing in life. We did a lot of sightseeing. And enjoyed the beautiful nature of Sweden. 

The baltic sea just 200m from the summerhouse.

My quest to learn CW (20)

Daily practice continues...

 

I try to be on air with CW as much as possible. Did make some 5NN contacts with DX stations. But would like so much to exhange more as 5NN. However I'm still unable to follow a complete transmission. I do a lot of QSO practice listening on the CWops training page with 25/15wpm. But even that can only be copied about 50%. As you can see above I train random letters/numbers with 25/18wpm, copy about 70-90% as you can see it is mostly 80-85%. My brain is just not fast enough. Some letters are easy but have some trouble with a few. I did read it is normal and according to this PDF from WZ8C it could be wise to just train the alphabet again for ICR. For ICR training I found another interesting app for Android or Iphone/Ipad users called Morse Maven. Haven't used it much yet but will do on vacation. I also tried calling CQ randomly with 15wpm. Unfortunatly the stations that come back to me have a higher speed and I'm lost in copying, it is a little discouraging. Anyway, I'm keeping up doing my daily training sessions and will persevere...

Final preparation

 I made my decision, I take the magloop with me on vacation. One final test this evening on 60m FT8 convinced me that it is the most versatile antenna. It covers all the bands the (tr)uSDX has and has a small footprint. Tuning for every new frequency is a disadavantage but for digimodes it is not important, once tuned it is ok.

I made a FT8 contact with a station in Germany over a distance of 273km with the setup as showed on the photo. From inside the shack with about 4W. For 60m I need a double loop which should be inefficient. But I got a report of -8dB which is not even weak.

Unfortunatly I lost CAT control two times. Not shure what causes this. It is not RFI since it was happening when receiving. May be the poll time is too high? I figure it out...

The (tr)uSDX is not the most reliable radio but it does the job. I don't bother that I have to reset the radio at times or reconnect the USB cable to get things working again. At least it is possible to make contacts with it.

Now to pack everything in the rucksack and wait for the day that we can finally go...