This was a toroid I wound recently from a Hans Summers 160m MEPT kit. I figured I would demonstrate the ‘chopstick method’ for your edification and amusement.

This morning I was grabbed on QRSS. Let me explain: QRSS is CW sent REALLY slow (hence QRSs) using automated low power transmitters. I built one of the Hans Summers MEPT kits for 30m and have had it running when I’m around the shack:

My QRSS MEPT for 30m, puts out an astounding 100mw

“Grabbers” are stations that are listening using programs like Argo or QRSS viewer or MultiPSK to analyze a very tiny sub-band (like 200 Herz or so) and do a screen-capture, or ‘screen-GRAB’ of the waterfall at regular intervals. A ‘grab’ is someone seeing your callsign in their grabber archive.

W4HBK, who runs the ‘Pensacola Snapper‘, sent me an email this morning with this attached:

K6JEB received at W4HBK

My QRSS ‘beacon’ puts out a ‘whopping’ 100milliwatts.  It is connected to an Inverted-L cut for 160m but tuned with an antenna tuner for 30m.

Here’s a close-up of my signal from the W4HBK 10-minute archives:

K6JEB received at W4HBK, my signal is at 10.140050-10.140055