KX3, G5RV & SB-40

FIELD DAY AT HOME?

I was supposed to go out and about on Saturday but the weather killed my intended excursion plans (again), so in the end I decided to travel all the way to the bottom of the back garden early on Sunday morning 😂😂😂

I set up the ELECRAFT KX3 with battery power using my trusty FlightMax 8.4Ah LifePO. I was going to set up a resonant linked-dipole in the garden but was constantly wary of the dark, cloudy skies and decided instead to use a length of RG174 to connect to my G5RV. Well actually, it's a half-size G5RV.

Using a SignaLink USB and a Surface Pro PC Tablet, I thought I'd do some FT8, interspersed with a little SSB work. Everything went well and I was able to make FT8 contacts across the whole of Europe. Sadly, I got no Transatlantic contacts.

SSB wasn't too easy either. I could hear North American operators easily and I tried many times to speak with K2TRD-Martin and VE1SVP-Richard, who were both BOOMING in but there were hoards of QRO stations tramping over each other (and me). Normally, I can establish contact with American and Canadian operators without a problem, but not today and not on the G5RV.

If I'd used my SotaBeams 20/40M dipole, or my Home EFHW, I'm sure it would have been a better day. Nevertheless, using 10W, I managed 90-odd contacts on 15, 20, 30, 40 and 80M (thanks to the built-in tuner).

Throughout the day, I used a "gaming" headset (KOSS SB-40) plugged directly into the KX3 and it performed superbly! I got good modulation reports and with 'monitoring' activated, I could hear for myself that the mic sounded great.

Quite a good day, I thought.