Archives: 2018
June 1, 2018
I made it through the CW Academy level one Skype course. 4 of us met with the instructor twice a week for 8 weeks via Skype, typically for 45 minutes or so. It's not easy but I definitely feel like I have a better handle on the code now. I studied between 30 minutes to an hour each day. I like that…
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May 11, 2018
Activated 2 parks in north Florida while camping this week. K-4472 Osceola National Forest from the Ocean Pond campground and K-1902 Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park. Not too many contacts but the state park was mostly DX. Both spots had good views. K-4472 Osceola National Forest - Ocean Pond…
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May 8, 2018
The Hexbeam is working good. I made a bunch of new DX contacts this week that are new to me, El Salvador, Uruguay, Moldova and Estonia, all on 20m SSB. I was trying to get A66A in UAE for about 20 minutes but the pile up was too big and I had to get going. I also picked up W1AW during the NE QSO…
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April 27, 2018
This is the most cards I’ve received at one time. 5 are from the Rookie Roundup and the Canary Islands one is a reply to one I sent out.
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April 26, 2018
So I got the hexbeam installed, took quite a bit of work but wow the reception is significantly better than my old off center fed dipole. This is the NA4RR model. The hexbeam itself was really easy to put together. I had issues with the mast. Lots of issues. The previous antenna was built with…
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April 24, 2018
I got 5th place in the ARRL Rookie Roundup SSB contest. I had 66 contacts. It was pretty slow going for the beginning, the first hour it was lightning so I stayed off the air, then I got 20 contacts the next 4 hours and 46 contacts in the last hour. Here's my first contest certificate:
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April 20, 2018
I’ve ordered the hexbeam and rotor. I already received the rotor cable so I figured I’d get that prepped now, the rest of the stuff should be here Monday. I'm hoping to have it setup next week to use in the Florida QSO Party. In an effort to keep lightning out of the house I’ve added a terminal…
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April 14, 2018
The International Space Station was broadcasting SSTV images on 145.800MHz this week. I knew it was coming and did a little practice with my Baofeng UV-5R beforehand. The ISS made 1 good pass each day and I was able to get images on 2 of them. I connected the Baofeng to my MacBook Air with a cheap…
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April 14, 2018
Tampa Amateur Radio Club Fest XLI. It's a small hamfest, this is the 2nd one I've been to so they must do it a lot. I picked up some connectors and talked with some people I knew. I'm starting to know people. They have some nice towers
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April 7, 2018
I joined up with N1COR and WU2F to activate Egmont Key State Park K-1863 for the Florida State Parks on the Air event. I've been to this park a couple times and thought it would be a great place to activate. It's only accessible by boat, we took the ferry from Fort Desoto Park, see my Not POTA post…
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