February 17, 2020
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…
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February 16, 2020
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…
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February 15, 2020
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…
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February 13, 2020
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…
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February 9, 2020
This was my 3rd Hamcation and the most crowded one. Took almost 30 minutes just to get into the parking lot. Car line to get into Hamcation 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…
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February 9, 2020
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. https://www.sparc-club.org/sparc-tower-damage-from-pinellas-park-tornado/ It's bent at the first extension so we can't lower it. We're working on…
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February 5, 2020
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…
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January 28, 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…
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January 12, 2020
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…
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December 23, 2019
I received my ARRL Volunteer Examiner credentials today. Now I can proctor the amateur radio exams the club puts on every 3rd Tuesday of the month.
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