March 5, 2018
I participated in the ARRL DX Phone Contest this weekend. The band was full of DX contacts so it was a really fun time. I made 74 contacts in 40 countries over the weekend. Since I had things to do at night I only used 20m so I entered as single operator low power 20m only. If the scores are like…
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February 20, 2018
So I packed up all my portable gear and my new spiderbeam.html) mast but before I left for the park I thought I would lookup the K number for the park. Turns out it was a country park and only state and national parks are part of Parks on the Air. Since it's an awesome park and I had the day off I…
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February 18, 2018
I received my first 2 responses to the QSL cards I sent out. I printed out 20 cards myself just to see if I'd get some back. I've sent out about 7 so far and these are the first two I got back. I bought a page of international stamps for 10 @ $1.15 each and I send out $2 with my card for return…
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February 14, 2018
I found myself making an unexpected trip to Wisconsin so I packed up my POTA radio to see if I could do an activation while I was away. I found K-4300 Kissick Swamp Wildlife Area was pretty convenient to where I was going. I picked the warmest day I was here to try it (43F today, most days didn't…
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February 9, 2018
Hamcation was my 3rd hamfest. I went to the biggest one in Tampa but it was rainy so there weren't many vendors. I went to a smaller on at the Tampa Radio Club as well. I didn't find any deals at these two, people seem to way overvalue their junk. At Hamcation I found some deals though. I had a…
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February 3, 2018
There's quite a bit of noise at my house with all the power lines and neighbors. I also found that my power over ethernet switch causes some terrible RFI right in the middle of 40m and 20m SSB bands. I was reading a lot about Summits on the Air, its sounds really fun but there aren't any summits in…
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January 27, 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! View…
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December 27, 2017
Can't get enough antenna. One end of my lot to the other is 133ft, which is just about enough for an 80m off center fed dipole. This antenna requires a 4:1 balun. I went with an MFJ again because of price and because it had next day Amazon Prime. At some point I will upgrade to a Balun Designs I…
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December 22, 2017
Being in Florida I'm concerned about lightning. Someone at the club recommended the ARRL Grounding and Bonding book which I purchased and read. I followed the information in the book to create a single point ground panel outside the house using a DX Engineering utility box . Coax from the antenna…
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December 3, 2017
It didn't take long for the "more!" feeling and I quickly added 40m speaker wire to the balun and put it on a roof tripod. I did a fan dipole in an X pattern on the roof. This got me on 40m and 20m. I used the 468/f formula to measure out the speaker wire. By this point I also joined the local…
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