Remote

This is my experience and adventures in Remote operation.

My QTH is in the country, and despite I can work pretty good signals coming from the West, like USA, Canada, all Caribean and parts of South America, I have a mountain that blocks me the path to the West, and having my work QTH in the South West part of the island, and just 150m from the sea, that maybe I could install a Remote station there, were I have nothing that disturbs me.!

1- RemoteRig Boxes

Back in October 2023, I collected all the necessary stuff to run a Remote station in my Work QTH, running RemoteRig boxes.

It wasn't easy to fix things as it needed a lot of time to configure the system, and lots of help from friends and RemoteRig Forum.

But finally I could complete the installation and run the station.

The station is an Elecraft K3 radio, very simple, with not many extras, but working pretty good.

That was a Low Power effort as I didn't have Amplifier nor tuner were to operate remote.

I had lots of problems with the antenna, a SpiderBeam for 5 bands. The wires supplied are made of some mix of steel and copper, and because I am so

close to the salty Mediterranean sea, almost all the dipole connections broke at some time. Man! that was awful as everytime we needed to do some

work in the antenna, we needed to download the mast that supports it, and i needed the help of at least 2 more buddies.! That was done at least 3-4

times during the winter season, from Oct-Nov to May, that is the time I can have the Remote Station up and running.

The season was good and I was very pleased on how the station worked, so I decided to improve the station for next season with an Amplifier and Tuner

that I could control remotely.

I was lucky to find an Elecraft KPA500 Amplifier and a KAT500 Tuner, so now and for my second season, I could use High power if needed.!

The station has been improved so, for next season, 2024 - 2025, I will be ready to run High Power.!!

For Season 2024 - 2025 I had to modify the wires in the dipoles as I didn't want more troubles with the old ones. I could get from a friend some

1,5mm gauge wire so I re-did the dipoles and I installed in the antenna, crossing fingers and hoping for good results.!

In October 2024 the antenna was raised again in the mast, having around 12 - 14m hight from ground, now with the new dipole wires.!

Those dipoles were cut somewhat long, but the tuner worked good and the station run good. After 1 month of operation something happened to the

amplifier, and I could not run it in that band. Oh gosh.! Well, all other bands were OK so I did nothing. I contacted Elecraft and they said a capacitor or

a relay had been probably blewn. But the problems had just started.! A strong wind storm blew over the area, and since the site is not protected by hills

nor anything, the fiberglass arms of the antenna........collapsed.! That was the week before ARRL 10m Contest, which I expected to be QRV.

Soon, I recovered and re-assembled an old 3 element Yagi I had at home, and installed at the remote site. Few days before the contest, the station was

ready to go, of course, only on10m.!! The ARRL 10m Contest was a success, that little antenna performed pretty good, and despite de Low Power used,

I could do around 700+ QSOs from the Remote site.!

By the time, I contacted SpiderBeam and ordered replacement for the fiberglass arms as well as some plates, etc... to make the antenna HD this time.

The parts arrived soon so in about 3 weeks, the antenna was up again.

The station has been running great after those issues happened, no more problems till today.! Just some Internet conexion issues in the last week, but this

do not depend on me but the ISP.

May 2025.

The KPA500 has been sent to Elecraft Italy for repair, and after a couple of weeks, is back home, repaired and with all the updates needed.

PAGE WORK IN PROGRESS