April 30, 2019

Tower Antenna Party

I helped as ground crew installing a new tower at Tom NY4I’s house today. Dan K1TO is a very experienced tower installer, he made it look easy. It was my first time seeing how a gin pole works. We pulled up 3 sections of Rohn 55 tower onto about half a section that was above ground as the base. There’s still a last mast to be installed at the top of the tower which will hold the main antenna, but they’re saving that for another day. For now Dan installed a 2m/70cm vertical. It was an interesting day seeing how it all goes together. Here’s a video of the tower…

Read more

written by AA0O - Posted in Antennas, Club

April 6, 2019

Florida QSO Party 2018 First Place for the club station for SPARC

At this months SPARC Club meeting they showed the plaque for the club winning the Florida QSO Party contest in the Florida club category. This was before I changed callsigns and I was KX4HL. I’m still waiting for the full results to come out to see how I did in the individual category as I worked this contest from my home station also. The next Florida QSO Party is in a couple weeks. I’m working on getting out to operate it from a rare county and maybe link that with a Parks on the Air activation.

Read more

written by AA0O - Posted in Club, Contests

March 2, 2019

GPS Clock presentation for SPARC club homebrew night

Tonight, I showed my GPS Clock that I built, at the SPARC Club meeting homebrew night. I had been wanting a clock to show UTC time in my shack. When I went on Amazon, clocks are $20, looking around my workbench I figured I could just build a clock. I had a couple GPS receivers from a project I had worked on years ago and I know GPS provides UTC time along with latitude and longitude so I used that to get the time. This way I don’t need to set it, and it will always be right. Here’s the parts list (the exact parts I used not available anymore…

Read more

written by AA0O - Posted in Club

February 2, 2019

Drew KO4MA gave an AMSAT presentation

Drew KO4MA, VP of Operations of AMSAT gave a really good presentation on Amateur Radio satellites at this month’s SPARC club meeting. He even brought everybody outside and made a couple contacts during a pass of XW-2B. I built my own antenna for working satellites but it’s not working very well. I can hear the satellites but my transmissions don’t make it. I’m in the market for a D72 full duplex radio and then I’l buy the Arrow antenna. Drew said FM satellites are like a gateway drug though. Then I’ll need another radio to work the linear (SSB) satellites. This ham radio rabbit hole is deep.

Read more

written by AA0O - Posted in Club

January 28, 2019

Winter Field Day 2019

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…

Read more

written by AA0O - Posted in Club

November 30, 2018

One year as a ham

A year ago today my original callsign(KX4HL) appeared in the FCC database after 9 long days of waiting.  It’s been quite a year, as of this morning I have 2411 QSOs. Here’s some of my QSO cards:   I’ve moved from just a wire antenna to a hex beam on the roof, put up a 2m antenna, built a AMSAT antenna.  I’ve done 11 Parks on the Air activations (and doing another today at K-1909 Oscar Sherrer State Park, look for me around 14.287).   I participated in winter and summer field day with the St Pete Amateur Radio Club (SPARC), there’s a meeting tonight also.  Been to 9 ham fests,…

Read more

written by AA0O - Posted in Club, CW, Hamfests, Parks on the Air, QSL

November 13, 2018

New (to me) 2m antenna

At last weeks meeting of the SPARC Club they had a couple 2m radio, I picked up the Icom for use in my shack.  Over the weekend was the yearly SPARCfest, where I picked up a 2m antenna.  I put it up against my fence on some of the military camo poles I have left from Hamcation.  I got on the SPARC net to try it out tonight and it worked great.  Much better than trying to do it with the Baofeng HT. Here’s what the grounding panel looks like now, room for 1 more antenna (I already have the lightning arrestor for it 🙂  

Read more

written by AA0O - Posted in Antennas, Club, Hamfests

April 7, 2018

Florida State Parks on the Air 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 about that park.   We had 2 spiderbeam poles.  I setup with 40m wire vertical and they setup with an end fed for 20m.  We each got about 30 contacts.  It was a fun day and a really great spot to setup. SPARC also contacted me about this activation and posted and article at http://sparc-club.org/pat-kx4hl-and-friends-activate-egmont-key-state-park/  

Read more

written by KX4HL - Posted in Club, Contests, Parks on the Air

January 27, 2018

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!  

Read more

written by KX4HL - Posted in Club