PE4KH Amateur radio - Koos van den Hout

I sometimes want to take the radio outside, and one of the elements needed is power. For outside radio I take the very used Yaesu FT-857D with microphone and small morse paddle. I usually use the multiband vertical antenna for playing radio outside.

One of the requirements is power. I used to take one of several lead-acid batteries. The highest capacity lead acid battery I used is 12 Ah.

I noticed on transmitting SSB or CW over 50 Watts the voltage as shown on the display of the FT-857D dropping to below 10 Volts where it should be over 12 Volts. When transmitting at 100 Watts the radio will draw up to 20 Ampere which is a bit much for a 12 Ah battery.

The battery is also a bit heavy for holiday use. So I wanted to upgrade to something different. I searched for a long time and selected the Victron 12V 20AH SuperPack Lithium and to charge it I selected the Victron Blue Smart IP65 battery charger 12V with bluetooth.

The bluetooth is nice to keep an eye from a nearby phone to see how the charging is doing.

As this battery has screw terminals I had to make a different cable to connect the radio. This became one of those "I still have to fix this some day" projects. But this evening I have some time because my amateur radio club evening is cancelled. Time to do some other radio work, find the right parts and finish the cable. I made the cable and tested it. When transmitting at a 100 Watts SSB the voltage only drops 0.2 Volts.

Some other people at the radioclub were active building the mains power filter to the same design I built my mains power filter in September 2023.

So we want to measure the effect. I suggested using powerline network adapters because those cause broadband noise. This measurement will take place when I bring the network adapters and cables, and someone else brings a filter and measuring devices.

But I can test the effect at home, and it is impressive. I dug up the software to request the status in Linux from dguglielmi/dlan-linux-software: devolo dLAN Software Package for Linux · GitHub which compiles fine and runs. It needs to be run as root because it uses raw packets.

First to one mains socket, near the input of the filter. The speed is a lot lower than the maximum I saw earlier with two adapters on the same set of power outlets, so the path through our house wiring is noisy already.

Type    MAC address        Mbps TX/RX       Version/Product
local   00:0B:3B:6F:AE:90  ---.-- / ---.--  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B devolo dLAN 200 AVplus [MT2165]
remote  00:0B:3B:5F:95:AB   30.19 /  19.69  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B

Type    MAC address        Mbps TX/RX       Version/Product
local   00:0B:3B:6F:AE:90  ---.-- / ---.--  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B devolo dLAN 200 AVplus [MT2165]
remote  00:0B:3B:5F:95:AB   31.50 /  21.00  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B

Type    MAC address        Mbps TX/RX       Version/Product
local   00:0B:3B:6F:AE:90  ---.-- / ---.--  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B devolo dLAN 200 AVplus [MT2165]
remote  00:0B:3B:5F:95:AB   40.69 /  28.88  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B

Type    MAC address        Mbps TX/RX       Version/Product
local   00:0B:3B:6F:AE:90  ---.-- / ---.--  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B devolo dLAN 200 AVplus [MT2165]
remote  00:0B:3B:5F:95:AB   36.75 /  21.00  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B

And after moving the adapter to an outlet behind the mains power filter:

Type    MAC address        Mbps TX/RX       Version/Product
local   00:0B:3B:6F:AE:90  ---.-- / ---.--  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B devolo dLAN 200 AVplus [MT2165]
remote  00:0B:3B:5F:95:AB    9.19 /   9.19  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B

Type    MAC address        Mbps TX/RX       Version/Product
local   00:0B:3B:6F:AE:90  ---.-- / ---.--  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B devolo dLAN 200 AVplus [MT2165]
remote  00:0B:3B:5F:95:AB    9.19 /   6.56  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B

Type    MAC address        Mbps TX/RX       Version/Product
local   00:0B:3B:6F:AE:90  ---.-- / ---.--  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B devolo dLAN 200 AVplus [MT2165]
remote  00:0B:3B:5F:95:AB    6.56 /   7.88  INT6000-MAC-3-3-3348-00-2764-20080808-FINAL-B

The status led for the connection which can be green, orange or red depending on quality switches between red and 'off' for this connection! In a simple ping test there are high delays and packet loss.

Conclusion: the mains power filter is effective at filtering!

I am always hoping to get a new country/entity in the log. Lately it feels like I could not get all opportunities in the log that were available. So there is also a number of missed ones that I also wanted. What ends up in the lists is the contacts I managed, for missed opportunities there will probably be a next time.

Ogasawara islands

The Ogasawara Islands or Bonin Islands are an archipelago near Japan. They count as a separate DXCC entity.

I had a morse contact with JD1BMH who is active from Ogasawara from time to time.

Central Kiribati

Kiribati is a country in Oceania consisting of 32 islands and counts as three separate DXCC entities: West Kiribati, Central Kiribati and East Kiribati.

The Rebel DX Group was active as T31TTT from Central Kiribati. I only got in the log on 20m FT8.

Palau

Palau is a country in Oceania consisting of approximately 340 islands.

Masato Sugiara was active as T88IL in May 2026. I got in the log on 12m FT8 only.

Republic of South Sudan

South Sudan is a country in Africa and is independent since 2011.

I contacted Z81D on 12m FT8.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia is also a country in Africa. The Ethiopian Amateur Radio Society is active under the call ET3AA and I managed to get in the log on 12m FT8.

French Polynesia

French Polynesia is a collection of 121 islands which is an overseas part of France.

Didier Cabot is active as FO/F6BCW and I managed to get in the log on 20m morse.

The count of total worked entities is now at 260.

Past weekend was the CW World Wide WPX Contest 2026 CW edition.

I participated a few hours Saturday and a few hours Sunday. Although this is a big 48 hour contest with lots of opportunities for contacts I also had other things to do in the weekend and propagation wasn't cooperating a lot. Beforehand I thought about setting up an antenna for 15 meters but I didn't feel like it due to the high temperatures outside.

I made 90 contacts, one on the 40 meter band where I had some weird interference to the radio so I stopped on that band. All other contacts were on the 20 meter band so I entered my results in the 20 meter only category.

The results according to TLF:

                                             Band   160   80   40   20   15   10
                                             QSO      0    0    1   89    0    0
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                             Pts: 117  Mul: 83 Score: 9711      

The past weekend was a good weekend for contacts on the 6 meter (50 MHz) amateur band. Normally contacts on this band are possible for line-of-sight plus a bit, but with atmospheric refraction this can extend to longer distances. The current heat and high pressure areas help create this refraction.

I don't have an antenna for this band so I can only receive the strongest signals, and my signals are weak at best. I managed to make contacts into Hungary (1183 km), Ireland (907 km), Estonnia (1459 km), Latvia (1430 km) Slovakia (1002 km) and Spain (1465 km). And also the Netherlands (19 km). Really nice to see what I can do with this setup. All in FT8. In FT8 signal strengths are very visible and some stations went from 'no signal' to 'strong signal' at +10 dB in a minute. Getting them on the good propagation was some timing and a lot of luck.

Past weekend was the His Majesty the King of Spain CW Contest edition 2026. I participated for a while late Saturday evening and Sunday morning. In total I made 57 contacts which is not a lot for the time I was on the air. On Sunday morning I set up the multiband vertical antenna for 15 meters in the front yard hoping to get some contacts on this band, but I only got 16 contacts in the log on this band.

I had a lot of trouble hearing serial numbers so I expect a few errors in the log.

The results according to TLF:

                                             Band   160   80   40   20   15   10
                                             QSO      0    0   22   19   16    0
                                             Mult     0    0   17   17   12    0
                                                                                
                                             Pts: 89  Mul: 46 Score: 4094       

Always chasing those opportunities to get a new country/entity in the log. When life allows! Because family, work, friends and other things get priority.

Guinea

Elvira Simoncini was active as 3X3A from Guinea in Africa on a short DXpedition. A new one for me. I only managed to get in the log on one band in FT8, but this was a one-person DXpedition with mostly FT8 to get as much unique calls in the log.

Republic of the Congo

I added Republic of the Congo as a new country when contacting TN8GD. This is ongoing activity from Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and Chad. To get confirmation I will have to sponsor orphanages in those countries, which seems like a very good idea.

Marquesas Islands

A dxpedition was active from Marquesas Islands as TX9W. With these islands being in the very difficult corner of the planet for making contacts for me I was happy I managed to get one contact near the end of the dxpedition.

Since two weeks my main amateur radio logging program is QLog.

I had little trouble migrating data from CQRlog to QLog using separate export files per profile. All data checks out fine in QLog. I migrated log data for PE4KH, PE4KH/P and OK/PE4KH.

I updated all the records that mentioned SOTA, POTA and WWFF references. I also verified with the POTA and WWFF sites where it is possible to see who logged you in these activity programs. In CQRlog there are no special fields for these activities, QLog does support these activity programs. So I can also see an overview of entities claimed and confirmed in these programs. I noticed not a lot of these contacts get confirmed via LoTW or paper QSL cards.

Uploading QSO data to different services works better in QLog, I can now easily update clublog and upload/download LoTW and eQSL.

Earlier:

• Testing a different Linux radio logger
• Making some contacts while writing some perl scripts for QLog statistics

Thursday evening was the Netherlands Telegraphy Club NTC QSO Party which means an opportunity to make contacts in morse with other radio amateurs. Mostly in Europe.

It's only an hour: from 19:00 until 20:00 UTC. I made a total of 7 contacts which is not a lot but the NTC suggests making a longer contact than just the bare minimum and family needed some attention too.

I ended with a ranking of #26 at April 2026 QSO Party - NTC.

I am currently making some contacts, mostly looking for Summits On The Air (SOTA) and Parks On The Air (POTA) morse contacts. I really appreciate people going out to 'play' amateur radio, and it's really neat to get new locations in the log that way.

Noticeably QLog automatically fills location name and locator when I enter a POTA/SOTA reference. This saves me looking up things and copying them from their websites.

Besides that I am also working on getting some of the statistics I like from QLog which I am testing more and more as main logger.

The 'latest QSO list' at PE4KH Amateur radio and the Recent QSO Map - PE4KH Amateur radio are now generated from QLog data.

I am sharing my scripts at KHoos/QLog-scripts: Linux perl scripts to get extra information from the QLog database so others can try this too and maybe improve on it. Currently the big 'fault' I see is that the logtosite-qlog.pl : export the last 50 contacts as .csv file for website use and logtojson-qlog.pl : export the last 150 contacts as Geo json file for website map use scripts assume all entered contacts are for my main call and locations.

The fun part is that queries from the QLog sqlite3 database seem faster than the same query from the CQRLOG MariaDB database. Finding something in over 20000 records is instantly.