QCX challenge along the river

 From my QTH it is a 20 minute bike ride to a nice location along the river Lek with clear views in all directions. The location is a parking spot on the dike a few meters above a landscape with floodplains (8 meters ASL). For the 13:00 UTC QCX challenge I took along a 10 meter Spiderbeam mast and a vertical dipole. In between 2 hailstorms I managed to make 2 QSO's with IT9IFI and OK2BQN with a straight key. Quite challenging operating conditions... 30 minutes operating time.

The QCX challenge is monthly QSO party. You don't need a QCX transceiver to participate but the more people you work with a QCX, the more points you get. There is a Discord channel available to make skeds and your score can be submitted to 3830scores. More information at qrp-labs.

Testing the QCX in the garden

 Last november I bought a QCX mini with an amplifier and this weekend I put them in a metal case. It was time to test it. So I put up my 10 meter fiberglass mast in the garden and attached a vertical dipole. The QCX is powered by a 12.5V power bank (top right in the picture) consisting of 16 Li-Ion recycled laptop batteries. I made a QSO on 14.053 with Geir, LA3CB and Piotr, SP2UKH with my Palm paddle.

Propagation wasn't great this afternoon but I got some good EU coverage. The RBN picture shows spots after calling CQ with the straight key at 12 wpm. The 20 Watts output from the amplifier helps a lot!