This was a fun one. I went out to Terra Ceia Preserve State Park. It’s less than a 30 minute drive and not much of a park, more of a swamp with a dirt road you aren’t allowed to drive on. I had a failed attempt at an activation in Big Cypress due to being too close to the powerlines I think so I didn’t want to operate from the parking lot on this one. For this activation I packed everything into a backpack, it weighed in at over 20lbs. My girlfriend and I walked in just under a mile, that’s about as far as I’d want to go with…
Upgraded Antenna
I used some military camo poles I picked up at Hamacation to make a higher mast for my 80m OCF dipole. This added about 12ft to the top. I don’t notice a huge difference and the SWR got worse which was unexpected. I’m still able to get through pileups into Europe and have been making contacts. I’ve got my eye on a hex beam with a rotor for the next antenna. I’ve been using the club station remotely and rotator with gain makes a huge difference.
“Ice Station” W0JH QSL
I received the QSL certificate from W0JH. They noted that they had their pre-meeting breakfast at the same restaurant I ate at in Stillwater when I was there two days before the QSO. Small world.
ARRL DX Phone Contest 2018
I participated in the ARRL DX Phone Contest this weekend. The band was full of DX contacts so it was a really fun time. I made 74 contacts in 40 countries over the weekend. Since I had things to do at night I only used 20m so I entered as single operator low power 20m only. If the scores are like they were last year I might get my callsign mentioned in the QST magazine score results for the Southeast region in that category. The usual winner P40L claimed 10584 contacts which is crazy. This was probably the most fun I had operating since I started.
Not POTA
So I packed up all my portable gear and my new spiderbeam mast but before I left for the park I thought I would lookup the K number for the park. Turns out it was a country park and only state and national parks are part of Parks on the Air. Since it’s an awesome park and I had the day off I went anyway. I got a great spot. First I setup a 40m vertical with 2 elevated radials. I made one contact about 20 miles away and couldn’t make any others. Then I switched to my trusty 20m dipole. Connected to the top of the spiderbeam I was worried…
QSL Cards
I received my first 2 responses to the QSL cards I sent out. I printed out 20 cards myself just to see if I’d get some back. I’ve sent out about 7 so far and these are the first two I got back. I bought a page of international stamps for 10 @ $1.15 each and I send out $2 with my card for return postage. The one from Australia is a picture of a local surfer wearing a watch that the VK2DX made, he’s a watchmaker. I contacted him on 12m FT8. My method so far has been to send cards to DX SSB contacts or special event US…
POTA K-4300
I found myself making an unexpected trip to Wisconsin so I packed up my POTA radio to see if I could do an activation while I was away. I found K-4300 Kissick Swamp Wildlife Area was pretty convenient to where I was going. I picked the warmest day I was here to try it (43F today, most days didn’t get over 20F). I bought some fishing line to pull up the dipole center. I have a slingshot at home I bought to use to do this but I didn’t think it would get through the airport so I didn’t bring it. I think I got the antenna up about 20ft….
Hamcation 2018
Hamcation was my 3rd hamfest. I went to the biggest one in Tampa but it was rainy so there weren’t many vendors. I went to a smaller on at the Tampa Radio Club as well. I didn’t find any deals at these two, people seem to way overvalue their junk. At Hamcation I found some deals though. I had a list and I got everything on it but the MFJ-1026 Noise Canceller I was hoping to get to try and filter some of the noise at my QTH(I bought a used one from QRZ For Sale when I got home, I’ll make another post about that when I get it setup). I…
Parks on the Air – 1st activation
There’s quite a bit of noise at my house with all the power lines and neighbors. I also found that my power over ethernet switch causes some terrible RFI right in the middle of 40m and 20m SSB bands. I was reading a lot about Summits on the Air, its sounds really fun but there aren’t any summits in Florida. I heard about [Parks on the Air](https://parksontheair.com/) from the [Ham Radio 360 Podcast](http://hamradio360.com/index.php/2017/02/21/ham-radio-360-w-w-f-f-aka-parks-on-the-air/) and was very interested. I purchased a Yaesu FT-891 radio for portable work and built a 20m dipole using an SO-239 connector, a plastic gelato ice cream top and speaker wire to use for activating parks. I…
Winter Field Day 2018
A few local clubs joined forces for the Winter Field Day. We setup outside the fire department training building and used the buildings to hold up antennas. We ran 3 stations with a 80m OCFD, 40/20m fan dipole and a trap vertical. I had a few good runs CQing and also made a contact with W1AW!