Alinco strikes again

Saturday, June 7, 2025! And not just an ordinary Saturday. It was the day for the annual Michigan POTA meetup.  This year the meet up was at Fort Custer Recreation Area (US-3310). I visited the last year's meet up and this year's weather forecast was much better. Although I did not have the time for an overnight camp trip unlike last year, I decided to go in for a day trip. The 250 mile round trip in great weather and the chance to meet up some POTA folks was too good to pass.

I saddled up at about 9:30 am and flat topped it to the park around 11am. In my saddle case was my usual KX-3 POTA set up. However, since the bands have not been that great I decided to go with a little more oomph with my trusty old DX-70. 

When I arrived, the meetup was at full swing. The meeting was well attended and saw people from various parts of the state. After some meet and greet and catching up with acquaintances from the past year I decided to get an activation in. There were some chuckles when I set up the Alinco.  This rig is not in the greatest shape, but I have always been partial to it. It was a rats mess of cables and wires when I had completed hooking up the CW keyer and the antenna tuner. 

I was warned! The bands were bad. I roamed the 40m, 30m and 20m band. Only 40m seemed to have some life in it. Despite running my Alinco at 50W there were very few takers. I was using the JPC-12 vertical. KB6NU who is out of Ann Arbor suggested that I try his doublet antenna instead. He was kind enough to lug it from his car and set it up for me. While the doublet brought in a few more contacts nothing would overcome the pitiable band conditions that day.

Activation at the POTA meetup. Photo Courtesy: MI POTA Meetup

     

But time was on my side. I had an automatic MX-2 type keyer hooked up to the Alinco; so the tedium if putting out repeated CQs was not there. I was mildly mocked for having taken my full size Begali single lever paddle that was hooked to the keyer. Nevertheless, I kept the CQs going through the excellent lunch spread put out by the organizers. Eventually after about 90 minutes, I was proud when the tenth contact rolled in. I was also proud that I did not have to rely on the help of the attendees to make my quota. 

As I was packing my gear in, the raffle tickets organized by the meet up folks were announced. I ended up winning a POTA bumper sticker. This stroke of luck emboldened me to stop by US-1518 on the way back. Yes indeed! My luck held and I was able to get a successful activation there as well.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the MI POTA meetup organizers for putting on a great event. Your enthusiasm is infectious and is greatly appreciated

To the shoebox again

I started off my very first POTA activation with my Alinco DX-70 and my POTA kit was a shoebox [https://motopota.blogspot.com/2023/03/my-first-pota-activation-and-onto-pota.html] . I graduated onto an Elecraft KX-3 for my recent activations. 

I did, however, have the Alinco on my desk and felt that every time I went POTA activating, I heard a deep sigh! Perhaps, the Alinco wanted to play! The Alinco is as easy to operate as the KX-3. It may not have all the modern bells and whistles, but it is a formidable rig in its own right. Some of the strikes against it for me were

• it did NOT have a keyer and thus did not support paddles for CW operation
• it does not have a built-in antenna tuner; forcing me to be low power 
• it does not have CW memory for calling repeated CQs

Now bear in mind that I did work with these limitations on my initial 30 to 40 activations. Using a straight key to repeat POTA CQs was scary and exhilarating at the same time for a CW newbie like me.  The downturn in band conditions made me long for the higher power output of the Alinco. Recently, I did acquire an external tuner and a CW keyer. I had all the tools to give the rig a second chance. 

Today, I paired the radio with the N7DDC antenna tuner, a knockoff Nano MK2 CW keyer with custom firmware (PUEKEO), my favorite Putikeeg paddle and my random wire antenna. 

The CW keyer is powered by a standard USB-C connector and comes with a custom firmware. This firmware allows most field operations with just a paddle connected. For instance, to put the keyer into tuning mode you 

• Press the Menu and then key T (dah)
• subsequent operation of paddle emits a constant tone for tuning
• Hit the paddle again to exit tuning tone
• Hit menu again to resume other operations

Similarly to program CQs say the first memory slot you would hit Menu and then key dit-dah-dah-dit  and dit-dah-dah-dah-dah (P1). You then paddle your memory sequence and hitting Menu again writes it to program. The device has buttons on the front to quickly recall the memory. For repeat calls, you hit the call button and the left paddle at the same time. Simple :-)

The N7DDC is powered by a 12V DC input. The tuner operation could not be any simpler. You hit the AUTO button and it takes care of tuning quickly. You must take care to restrict tuning power to under 30W. All I have to do is to remember to hit the low power button on the radio for tuning. No need for any other connectors; just feed the power and the connections to the antenna and the rig.

The Alinco DX70 has a on-board switch that can either restrict the rig to 50W or 100W. I had it turned down to 50W. In addition the radio has a high/low power toggle on the front panel. The low power is 5W when max power is restricted to 50W. I felt this gives me the right set of power choices. QRP if I want, and enough power when I want to be heard further. 

So here is the set up all put together at US-1518 today along with the now familiar shoebox in view

 I never realized how much I missed this radio. There is so much fun in taking the time to hook up all the wires. Life in the slow lane can be enjoyable sometimes. I worked both CW and SSB and got excellent reports on both the 20m and 40m band. I usually favor quick activations on the go or at break during work day and thus prefer the KX-3 for its simplicity in setup. However, when I have the time I will resort to this setup.