May 29, 2020

Graduated CW Academy!

Last night I completed the CW Academy Advanced class, which is the 4th CW Academy class I’ve taken. I highly recommend the CW Academy for learning morse code. The reason it worked for me is the accountability. There’s 4-5 other guys in the class, and it’s a video chat so they can see you, and it definitely shows if you don’t practice during the week. This makes a nice feedback loop where everyone pushes everyone else to get better. I’m able to send at 26 words per minute and my copying speed is higher, though I still get a little lost during longer raw chew sentences at higher speed. Big…

May 22, 2020

POTA K-1928 Werner-Boyce Salt Springs State Park

I took a day off from work and decided to get out for an activation. This park takes only 2 turns from my house but is around 45 mins away. I scoped it out via google maps and went to the North entrance as I prefer to activate in out of the way locations. I used my foldup cart to haul the gear via the Black Rail trail into the park. Like most of my activations lately I started on CW and then switched SSB. I had a decent pileup going on CW. I can handle about 20 minutes of that before I start getting CW fatigue and my sending…

May 2, 2020

CQ WW 2019 Contests – 1st Place Rookie!

I saw someone else posted their CQ WW contest certificate so I checked and I had two, I got 1st Place Rookie – Low Power in North America in the CQ WW SSB 2019 contest! and 1st Place – Rookie in the #4 Call Area for CQ WW CW 2019!

May 2, 2020

POTA K-6317 Moody Branch WMA

Finally got out of town, probably should have just been doing parks this whole time, there was the normal (large) amount of traffic on the Skyway bridge heading over to Parrish, FL where this park is. This is one of the newly added Wildlife Management Areas in Florida and it hadn’t been activated yet. When I arrived there was a woman on a horse. She said she’s been around there for 6 years and I’m only the 4th person she’s ever seen there. The was also a children’s playground that looked like it had never been used. There’s a covered pavilion right at the entrance, no table but I brought…