A lot happened since the last blog post.

My inverted v antenna was down as the bamboo got bent and couldn't handle the pull from the two support wires and finally gave in.

So, I hired a local building contractor and got a 20 feet GI pipe with a pulley at the top made. This was installed a couple of weeks ago. Two days ago, I finally got some time and adrenaline to do some work to get the antenna back in shape, so I bought some nylon ropes (not UV resistant unfortunately, so this is something I will have to change soon..).

After turning the radio on, I looked at the power meter with the paddle pressed and it did show some reverse power. But overall the SWR seem to be below 1.5. The other problem I have is that the powersupply is unable to supply 2 A consistently and the voltage goes down as I draw 2 A. So, the maximum power I can push out is only around 5 Watts. Good enough! So, I tuned around the band and saw VU2UKN calling CQ at around 20 Words per minute. I returned the CQ and was pleasantly surprised to hear him call me back. So, we had a nice QSO. Unni is 700km south near Thiruvalla in Kerala.

Since then, I have added a CW learning mode in the ubitx firmware for those who want to practice sending by only generating the side tone and not transmit it.