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Andrea C

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Hello, I would like to drop a line to present myself. I have recently bought a x108 outdoor version and I would like to start using it in the near future. I’m a licensed ham from uk and my power limit is 10w. I would also like to build a portable tuner with cheap components readily available off the main selling website to use the radio in the field. Happy to discuss it if someone is interested.

‘73 de M6KDU
 

DD5LP

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Hi Andrea,
Welcome to the forum and welcome to the world of the X108G!
Let me know if you have any questions as I use my X108G (outdoor OLED version) as my main rig for SOTA now, taking over from an FT817ND from Yaesu. Do you intend to use the rig from home and portable or just "in the field"?

ATU - there is a cheap £9? manual QRP ATU kit out of China ( ) that may do what you want but of course a better route is to create a resonant antenna if that's possible, as an ATU doesn't tune an antenna. It matches an antenna to the 50 ohms that the rig needs - so they're better described as Antenna Coupling or Matching Units. The exception to this rule are things like a screwdriver mobile antenna or the SteppIR wher the actual element lengths on the antenna change to match the frequency in use.

Do you already have an portable antenna? If not and if you want to buy one, take a look at sotabeams.co.uk in the UK, Richards products are well built. If you prefer to build yourself, an effective, simple, cheap antenna is a linked dipole and Rob has a calculator on his SOTAMaps website here: click on the linked antenna designer tab. In fact you can combine both appraoches as Richard does a kit of parts as well, so you can build your own linked dipole - you measure and cut your own wire and coax and Richard's £17,20 kit provides all the other little bits you need. If you don't have the coax or the antenna wire, he can supply those as well. See what you have and see what you need or make it all up yourself with whatever you can find laying around - I find that's always more fun.


73 Ed DD5LP (G8GLM).
 

Andrea C

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Hi Ed,

Thanks for your suggestions. I have the manual QRP ATU and I still need to build it.
I am looking at this ATU made with Arduino and some spare parts from ebay I have ordered the cheapest toroids I could find and the plan is to unwind and re-build them with the right value. and for the relays I have chosen some 5v latching relays from China
Hopefully I will be able to build something soon.
 

DD5LP

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Hi Andrea,
OK that you already have the manual kit - if you intend to build an aitomatic version, perhaps you could use the torroids from the manual kit? The eBay article doesn't say what ferrite mixture those torroids are so they might not be suitable for HF - however they are yellow and I"think" yellow indeed infers HF compatibility. It looks like they say they'll take 30 days to come from China.
What antenna are you intending to use when out portable? Have you already got one or are you still wondering. the end-fed antennas are good if you have an UNUN on the end of them and you are good at throwing wires into trees. Your other options are a dipole (either lineked or off centre fed to give you multiple bands) - these are normally put up in Inverted-V form so that only one support is needed, or some kind of vertical antenna - these tend to be for just one band and a standard 1/4 wave vertical needs radial wires laid out for it to operate against, so not the easiest antenna to deploy portable. Another vertical worth a look at is a J-Pole which as it uses a half wave vertical element and a 1/4 matching stub, doesn't need radials - but it's not practical for 40m as your support pole would need to be 20 metres high! - so good for a 20, 15 or 10m portable antenna.

Lots of choices - the most used in portable installations I think is the linked dipole in inverted-V format with a telescopic fibre glass pole providing the centre support.

73 Ed.
 

Andrea C

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Hi Ed, I forgot to tell you I also have a full prc320 kit with harness and the dipole that can be also used as long wire (1 half) and the counterpose wires so ground should be guaranteed by them.

Yes the toroids look yellow from the picture and I’m hoping they are t50-6 but for that money it’s worth a try.

As my old licence allowed me from 144Mhz and up, I’m quite a newbie of HF.
I have also to investigate unun and balun stuff and see if I need one between the tuner and the antenna. Thank you for your very useful suggestions
 

DD5LP

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Hi Andrea,

I have to say that I wouldn't try to use a clansman antenna with anything apart from a clansman radio and then only as it would be the "right thing to do" with such a vintage set.

A simple resonant wire dipole will out perform a wide band antenna like used on your PRC-320 every day of the week.

You say your old licence covered you for 144MHz and up - I think the only UK licence to allow that was the Class-B licence of many years ago - have you been away from the hobby and now returned and sat the Foundation exam? If you had a Class B (G8 or G0) license and still have the RAE pass certificate, you ought to be able to get a full licence / call sign from OFCOM.

73 Ed. DD5LP (also still G8GLM).
 

Andrea C

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I’ve also got the dipole and i wasn’t talking about the whip antenna.

I took my license in Italy ages ago. I was IW4EIB then I passed the foundation in the uk when I moved here just to be on the safe side.

I’ve found a nice blog post on the manual antenna tuner with some soggestions.
My question is how do I wind up the toroid? Do I have to make turns as described, than cut the cable and connect it to the switch an to another piece of cable that it will be the new say 2 turns?
 

Andrea C

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This is the link
 

DD5LP

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This is the link
I agree, this sounds complicated:

The T106-2 winding is probably the thing that most will have a problem with and it is worth spending time to get the taps to line up with the switch. You will need 36 turns with taps on the main inductor. This means if you start at one end you are going to be winding a 1.6 metre long length of wire initially. This works but I found it easier to start at about the mid point of the wire provided (you wind the transformer for the VSWR first) and put a twist in (use the switch as a former). This will become the 5th tap point on the switch. Then wind on turns and add taps as needed until you get to the end of the wire (I did this for the 10T tap end first). So counted 3T, tap, 2T tap, 3T tap, 2T tap, 10T and to position 1 on the switch. Then on the other side.... 3T tap, 2T tap, 4T tap, 2T tap, 2T tap, 1T and onto position 12 on the switch.
Do NOT cut off all the 10T end excess wire you will need about 2-3" left on.

Note you will want the taps to be regular spaced to line up with the switch so put them on one outside edge of the T106-2.


Answering your question - yes, I would say you run short lengths of wire from the taps in the coil to the switch.

OK on having an italian VHF licence earlier.

Of course if you have the dipole and make it resonant on the band or bands you want to operate on, you wont need an ATU, manual or automatic. It's very handy to have if an antenna is widebanded though.

73 Ed.

 

tscrim1

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Hi, and PMFJI... I believe there is only one class of Italian licence now. If your Italian licence states that it's CEPT Class 1 equivalent, then you can apply to OfCom for a FULL UK licence.
 

Andrea C

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If your Italian licence states that it's CEPT Class 1 equivalent, then you can apply to OfCom for a FULL UK licence.
I’m not sure about it as when I looked into it the Italian licence wasn’t updated to the latest CEPT recommendations and the mutual exchange was for 6 months only. But it is worth having a look again.
 

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