Got a new QSL card from the VP6R DXpedition. I made so many contacts with them it required 2 cards. First time that’s happened.
VP6R QSL Card
K-3624 Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail
This was my first activation where I got the required 10 QSO’s using CW. I was sitting on a bench so I wasn’t the most comfortable working the key but I got it done. I seem to have an issue sending CQ POTN instead of CQ POTA. I’ll figure that out eventually. This part of the trail I went seemed to be abandoned. I saw a couple people ride by on bikes, two of them just as I was pulling up, luckily I was going slow. I liked this spot, it was peaceful and quiet, good spot for activating. But I have a thing for abandoned places. We had lunch…
ARRL DX CW 2020 – 121 contacts
I did this one remotely since I’m attending a wedding in Jacksonville this weekend. I brought along my old Windows laptop so I could run N1MM and Smart SDR for the Flex Radio. It worked really well remotely from the AirBnB. The only issue I had was I setup the “FL FL” macro for repeating my exchange on F11 and there’s a WiFi on/off button right next to it and I disconnected myself during transmission, hopefully they got my exchange. I don’t have remote rotator control setup so I had a little trouble with some of the South American stations since I have the antenna pointed towards Europe. My rates…
K-3638 Majorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park
This park is a popular boat launch site. It was drizzling a little when I arrive so I turned on the lightning detector. It didn’t give any warnings and the rain cleared up. I was trying for an all CW activation for my second time. I got 9 over more than an hour, mostly out west, then I woke W4MMY in the car for some FM contacts to finish it off. I’ll try another one on Monday. I’ll also be in the ARRL DX CW Contest this weekend.
K-4632 Myakka State Forest – first CW activation
I’ve been setting more and more challenging goals for my Get On The Air goals for my CW Academy Intermediate class I’m taking. This weeks goals is to do some POTA activations using CW. I made 4 contacts with CW on this activation. I was going for 10 but I stopped getting responses to my CQ’s so I switched to SSB to finish the activation with 17 QSO’s. I was a bit delayed in getting out due to meeting up with the club about tomorrow’s antenna project. I planned to arrive at the park before the CWT started but ended up doing my activation during it. The CWT is a…
Hamcation 2020
This was my 3rd Hamcation and the most crowded one. Took almost 30 minutes just to get into the parking lot. I went to the contest forum first. There were 4 presentations, first about DXpedition for the CQ WW CW contest from 3B8M, then one about doing QSO parties mobile, one about emcom in the Virgin Islands after the hurricanes and then Claudio I4VEQ gave presentation on WRTC 2022. I’m looking to go over to Italy for that and volunteer for their antenna teams. I picked up another Spiderbeam 12m mast to use to setup multiple antennas for my Parks on the Air work, also got a WRTC 2022 shirt….
Club tower damaged in tornado
The club tower was bent badly during a storm that came through on Thursday night which had a tornado. The club weather station clocked the wind at 65mph. It’s bent at the first extension so we can’t lower it. We’re working on what to do next to get it down. Local news article on the storm: https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2020/02/07/storm-damage–reports-of-a-tornado–downed-trees–damaged-homes
QSL cards from DL0ESA European Space Agency and TX7T Marquesas Island
I received a nice package from DL0ESA, the European Space Agency, for a contact way back in April 2018. I remember I was pretty happy to get this contact as they had a huge pile up going. They also sent some bookmarks and stickers which was nice. I also received a card from TX7T, the DXpedition to Marquesas Island. This was the most contacts I’ve made with a DXpedition (11) at the time. With the current HU1DL DXpedition I’ve broken this record, more on that when I get their card. Marquesas Islands
Winter Field Day 2020
Once again we had Winter Field Day at the Clearwater Fire Training Facility. It’s a great location and they give us the run of the training areas. We setup a beam, a rotating dipole, 2 slopers and an off center fed dipole. We ended up with over 1200 contacts and covered every US section. It was a really nice day but rather cold once it got dark. I worked almost exclusively on the CW station and found I was able to keep up with the slow field day sending speeds. I think it was a success and everyone had a good time.
NAQP CW January 2020 – 79 contacts
I’ve started the CW Academy intermediate class and my advisors have asked us to set weekly goals and then report on them. For my first week I set a goal of 50 QSO’s in the NAQP CW contest. I was able to get 79 QSOs. I found that I’m getting pretty good at copying callsigns, even the fast ones. I’m not too bad with states but I’m not good at all at copying names. Names like Al, Ed, Tom or Bob are pretty easy but ones like Bryant, Niz or Tree threw me off a lot. It was a fun way to practice my CW. I sent my name as…