It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten a QSL card, not sure why it’s slowed down so much, I used to get them all the time. This is a nice one: Thanks Steve!
QSL card from Panama
SPARC Fest 2019
This past weekend was the annual SPARC Fest, the club’s hamfest. It’s free for vendors so we keep getting a great turn out. 65 vendors showed up. As the new President I ran the club table, we sold quite a bit of stuff. It’s interesting what people will buy. I also made a post on the club website: Next ham fest we’ll be doing is the Tampa Bay Ham fest in Plant City on Dec. 13th
AAØO elected President of St Petersburg Amateur Radio Club
At tonight’s SPARC meeting I was elected as club president. I am looking forward to leading the club and getting even more involved in the hobby. The first event after my election is next Saturday 11/9 for the annual SPARCfest at Freedom Lake Park in Pinellas Park, FL, it’s free so come on out.
CQ WW SSB 2019 – 230 contacts
I spent some more time on this contest than last year and had much better results. All sorts of DX. I had quite a few contacts on 15m which is new to me, usually it’s pretty dead. I had my typical troubles on 40 and almost none on 80m due to the low height of my off center fed dipole. Summary:Band QSOs Zones Countries—————————— 80: 5 4 5 40: 36 9 27 20: 139 16 58 15: 48 13 32 10: 2 2 2——————————Total: 230 44 123 Total…
It’s DX season
For the past couple months things have been pretty slow in the QSO department. I made a few contacts here and there but not much new was happening. I think summer is a slow time for ham radio, which is unfortunate since I’m in Florida and it’s too hot to go outside a lot of the time. Anyhow, last week my Parks on the Air activation got all sorts of long distance (DX) contacts and this week there were a few DXpeditions that I’ve been picking up contacts with. VP6R, Comoros, and 5K0K are DXpeditions, Seychelles is really far way over 9,200 miles. I had a contact with San Andres…
POTA K-3656 South Fork State Park
It’s starting to cool down a little in Florida so I went out for a Parks on the Air activation. At 82F it was still sweaty but bearable. A little down the road from park K-3607 that I activated previously, is South Fork State Park, K-3656. This is land that I think they are reserving for a future park, or protecting it from becoming farmland by calling it a park. It’s part of the Southwest Florida Wildlife Management District, which I needed to walk through to get to the state park land. It’s an oddly shaped park due to the WMA and farms around it. This map doesn’t show the…
Radio clubs in the park
Once again the St. Pete, Clearwater and Upper Pinellas radio clubs joined forces for a radio clubs in the park event. We met up at Eagle Lake park in Largo, FL. This is a nice county park so it doesn’t count for Parks on the Air but it was still a fun event. Unlike Field Day where we setup specific antennas and radios to compete in the contest, everyone was encouraged to bring their own equipment to this event. I setup my 40ft Spiderbeam mast with a wire dipole antenna. Other people brought end fed antennas, ham sticks and a dual Wolf River coil. Band conditions have been really bad…
POTA K-1219 Golden Gate Canyon State Park
I’m not loving the KX2 and Wolf River Coil combination. I’m able to make contacts but it’s hard. I bought it specifically for travel. I think I need to look more seriously into the loop antennas. The coil puzzles the TSA x-ray guys so about half the time I get my bag pulled for additional questioning. I tell them it’s a ham radio antenna and then they look at it funny and send me on my way. After 3 failed activation attempts I was able to get a successful activation, getting 11 contacts in 2 hours at Golden Gate Canyon State Park in Colorado. The views are amazing here. I…
WWV Fort Collins
I was in Colorado on vacation so I drove past the WWV site outside Fort Collins to check out the antennas. Wikipedia has more info about it. You can’t get very close because it’s a secure facility but I got some shots from the fence:
K-3013 Galveston Island State Park – Fail
I arrived early on a business trip to Houston so I decided to try out the KX2 at a park in Galveston since I’ve never been out that way. I had trouble with transmitting. I brought my Antenna analyzer and was getting a decent SWR on that but the radio was showing an infinite SWR. It was extremely humid so I gave up after about half an hour. I think my coax might not be good. I’ll try it another time (maybe in the winter), I come to Houston often.