Only managed a little over an hour with the ARRL DX CW contest this weekend but made 57 contacts. Added some new DXCC’s on 10m with Greenland, Kenya and Mexico, probably some others as well.
ARRL DX CW 2023 – 57 contacts
Hamcation 2023
Hamcation fell on the 2nd weekend in February again this year so I was able to attend both Friday and Saturday since the club meeting is on the first Friday of the month. I picked up a N3ZN CW key to add to my collection of expensive CW keys. I also attended the FCG contest dinner where I won a Heil headset for Yaesu HT, of which I have one. I sat with the Icom reps at the dinner and AA4TI, who was sitting at my table, right next to the main Icom rep, won the grand prize of an ICOM IC-7610.
Loop on Ground RX antenna
I’ve been thinking about a 2nd antenna since I’ve got a Flexradio with a lot of antenna ports and only one connected. I came across a receive only antenna called a Loop on Ground. It’s like a poor man’s beverage antenna as it is only 15’x15′ square. Matt Roberts KK5JY has a great write up on it at his website http://www.kk5jy.net/LoG/. I built it just like he did. Here’s how it looked installed, you can see the yellow tent stakes at the corners: The transformer box is in the bushes so I don’t run it over with the lawnmower. I used 14guage THHN wire and tacked it down with landscaping…
NAQP CW Jan 2023 – 211 Q’s
Was on team W1YL Memorial-8 with the Florida Contest Group. This is a new personal best in this NAQP CW contests with 24,687 points. Though I might have less than that officially because I’m not 100% sure I got South Dakota on 80m because a lid doubled on the op. Didn’t operate for 5 hours while hosting a show with my other hobby, and cut out 50 mins before the end.
ARRL RTTY Roundup 2023 – 132 Q’s
Didn’t go hard on this one but it was fun. Got The Gambia on 10m, pretty sure that’s a new one for me.
Bureau cards!
2022 Year in Review
I did a lot of stuff with the radio club this year, I wrote a Year in Review about it on the club webpage. My big radio things this year were going to the FCG Contest Dinner at Hamcation, usually it’s on the same day as the club meeting. I got to meet quite a few people I knew from on the air and online only, also I won a power supply in the raffle. Hamcation is on the 2nd weekend in February for 2023 and I’ve already got my tickets to this year’s dinner. I also drove up to Dayton this year and did POTA camping on the way….
K-8348 Fort Drum Marsh State Conservation Area
Made a quick stop at K-8348 on a drive across the state to do an activation. Didn’t have tons of time, got 12 contacts then had two people call on top of each other for 5 minutes straight so that I couldn’t copy either of them and both responded to any partial call I gave, so I packed it up. Nice enough spot besides the bird poop on the table.
K-6700 SPARC in the Park
We had another SPARC in the Park event with the club. Decent turn out and lots of contacts got made.
CQ WW CW 2022 – 675 contacts!
I set out with a goal of 600 contacts, last year I got 371 and I wasn’t very focused. Ended up with 21.5 hours according to N1MM+ out of the 48. After the Saturday night I didn’t think I was going to make 600 but things got easier on Sunday and I moved right along. The only one I think I missed that I saw was UP0L in Kazakhstan, just couldn’t get through the pile.