This year we setup for Winter Field Day at the Clearwater Fire Training Center again. It was a joint efferent between the SPARC, CARS and UPARC clubs. We put up a 20-15-10 beam, two end fed slopers in different directions with remote tuners and an OCF 80m dipole antenna. These fed into a patch panel so we could move the antennas to any of the 3 stations we had setup. I operated for the first hour but I had another engagement so I had to take off after that. I started calling CQ with my personal call 5 minutes before it start to try and hold down a frequency but…
HF Weather Fax
I saw a post on reddit about WEFAX so I looked into it. National Weather Service broadcasts weather related WEFAX images and text in various different HF frequencies from different stations around the world, pretty much constantly. Using fldigi, I was able to decode the signal from Boston and New Orleans and get a few different images. You need to tune about 1.5kHz below the list frequency using USB. Fldigi has some adjustments on the bottom for adjusting the angle and position of the image. It’s mostly related to maritime weather. Over a year in the hobby and I keep discovering cool new things to do in radio. Most of…
North American QSO Party SSB Jan 2019, 101 contacts
Did some of the NAQP SSB contest today. Came out with 101 contacts. This is a more leisurely contest. I ran a cable from my antenna ground panel on the side of the house over to the porch and did some of the contest from there with my POTA radio (FT-891). Started to get warm here in FL so I moved to the shack. I had plans at night so I only worked about half the contest and then watched a boxing match.
New QSL cards
E44WE sent a magnet with his card from Bethlehem, which is great because I like magnets. Also got a card from a DXpedition to Barbados. I’m seriously considering a vacation there and bringing my radio.
ARRL RTTY Roundup 2019 – 496 contacts!
I put some serious effort into the first contest of the year and came out with 496 contacts. This is by far my largest number in a contests(its 18.5% of my total contacts in ham radio). Really pushed at the end to get to 500 but couldn’t quite get there. It’s a 30 hour contest and you’re allowed to operate for 24 hours of it. I slept for 6 hours but also went to a 2 hour class and to a party Saturday night, I also made ribs, and took a break for some Xbox on Sunday. I fell pretty drained and I still hear the RTTY sounds. Last year…
12 Days of Christmas Special Event – Clean Sweep
I like these special events where you have to contact a bunch of stations. I got all of them again, 2 on CW. Someday I might like to run one of these, I’m going to look into it. https://www.qrz.com/db/k2ryd