Hi, thanks for looking me up on QRZ.COM, I was born (March 1955) in Clacton-on-sea, UK and have lived in Germany since 1976, I also hold the call sign G1ZOS.
I enjoy working QRP and best of all when portable, to me QRP is not just about the reduction of power output to 10 watts SSB or 5w CW, it is also about using simple homebuilt equipment and simple wire antenna, but if you are able to afford commerical equipment and multi element high gain antenna on towers that is also good because it is the QRP SPIRIT that counts, simply reduce power and start enjoying the challenge of Ham Radio again.
I would prefer a deckchair copy to an armchair copy anyday.
I am also interested in digital modes and have built the Softrock RXTX ensemble with 1 watt output for 30m, 20m (700mW) and 17m (500mW) bands from a kit by KB9YIG, Tony Parks.
I have had a lot of fun building these two and have already had spots of more than 5000 Kms when portable and at home running just 150 mW and 500 mW, this is nothing wait until you see how far other OM's are getting with just 1 or 2 mW.
At the moment I am trying out a homemade DL7PE-MicroVert monopole antenna for the 17m WSPR segment, the radiator is an alumium tube 23.5mm dia and26 cm long, my first spot on WSPR was into the USA at a distance of 7775 Kms with just 500 milliwatts, I am very impressed with this small stealthy antenna and will be building more to try out as possilble portable and SOTA antenna.
please click on the link below for more information on theMicroVert antenna.
In this picture you can see my outdoor shack, (from top to bottom, left to right) MKARS80 for 80 meters built from a kit running 4 watts.
The Fivehead for 40 meters built from a kit running 1.5 watts, I have added a 10 watt linear amplifier ( which I run at 5 watts), AGC and a 5 digit frequency counter, homemade single coil, balanced, Z-Match, the coil is wound on T-200 toroid (red).
13m of 450 Ohm feeder to a 41m long doublet, 12m above ground.
The pictures above are from the river Rhein, Bonn, Bad Godesberg opposite the Siebengebirge hills.
This is my Hairspray can antenna for 40m band from an idea by DL7AHW. I have had a number of QSO's of 900 Kms (560 Miles) using 1.5 watts and the Hairspray can antenna, I am looking forward to see what this setup can do with5 watts.
also in English http://dl7ahw.bplaced.net/Superantenne00E.htm if you need some advice with the construction of this antenna please contact me either by Skype (see below) or email (see above).
and a 1:1 balun kit, rated for 800 watts (not much chance of over heating with just 10 watts) from DG0SA Wolfgang, http://www.wolfgang-wippermann.de/
I have enjoyed many hours of QRP/Portable operation with this setup, its a lot of fun why not try it yourself.
This is my antenna arrangement at home, the folded G5RV is called a "Tactical Delta Loop" and is from an idea by KC8AON, please click on the link below for more infomation on this antenna.
