While waiting for the train in Exton, PA, I looked up Amtrak frequencies for the Keystone corridor and found they’re mostly all 160MHz-161MHz, so I scanned there. I didn’t hear train traffic in the time, but I heard Chester County emergency dispatch on 160.185MHz. I can also hear it at home with an outside antenna.

We discussed meshtastic as always. I’ve been seeing more nodes, especially in York.

I re-soldered and terminated my small 1:1 chokes, since the ends had ripped off on last activation.

When activating US-1418, Sam Lewis, I accidentally split the activation across 0000 UTC. Fortunately, I still got enough for the second day. I found some of my chokes broken, so swapped cable around a bit. I threw the 40M EFHW into a tree, and got 12 contacts, on FT8, on 15M and 40M.

I went back to my favorite 71-ft EFRW for the home antenna wire. The EFHW was requiring tuning, so I figured it may not be worth having.

I further tested my UV-PRO to find it was transmitting less than 250mW when set to 5W. I compared it to another radio using a nearby tinySA. I RMA-ed it and mailed it back to BTech for repair or replacement.

My Weeks in Radio

• traveling
  • Chino Hills State Park near Los Angeles
  • 2 activations
  • hiked and biked my gear in on my back
• Field Day QRP, emergency power, on the patio, at home, 50 contacts = 650 pts

Others

• W8CRW, CR:
  • 985 field day
• KC3HQZ, Jean:
  • 985 field day
• AC2EG, Eric:
  • new the group and field day
  • rather build than buy, but using echolink right now
• AA3LH, Leon:
  • mostly dups at field day
• KV3JGB, :
• KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • 10 meter antenna mast assembled and ready to go
• KC3WWC, John:
  • (making it in over RF)
• KC3TYX, Vic:
  • field day in maryland
• NA3CW, Chuck:
  • Field day prep, operation, cleanup
  • PM/AM Net on Sunday
• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • hosted a modified roundtable on 985 simplex, since power was out on repeater
  • simplex net
  • field day
• KD3EMS, Chris:
  • 985 field day observing AF3Z operate along with NA3CW
  • 7-8 contacts
  • need to get general license
• AF3Z, Jim:
  • field day
    • CW with luke
• W3KZG, Scott:
  • 985 field day
• KC3SCY, Luke:
  • 985 field day
  • logging had some trouble
  • pretty smooth, otherwise
  • working on CW
  • planning to chase 13 colonies
    • work them early in the morning
• W3QP, Tim:
  • K3H, Pennnsylania Homestead Festival in Kutztown
    • looking for operators for the weekend
• W3MFB, Mike:
  • heard VHF packet propagation, so made some contacts
    • 6m
• WA3VEE, Ron:
  • 1400 contacts total at field day
  • collecting photos from field day for the smugmug gallery

Questions

• KC3HQZ, Jean:
  • Why does a GOTA station have a different call sign from field day activities?
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • GOTA is meant to encourage newcomers and guests.
    • It’s a bonus station that doesn’t count in the total simultaneous stations.
    • May be worth more points on its own.
  • W3MFB, Mike:
    • helps keep count of contacts made by newbies and guests.
• KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • Considering changing from a Windom to a Hex Beam (25lbs) with a 1-foot base pole to the rotor, Would a small ChannelMaster TV antenna rotor work without a thrust-bearing at 30 feet?
  • KC3OOK, Bill:
    • Bill is new, but…
    • 25lbs sounds like a lot for an antenna, so might tend toward the better rotor.
  • W3MFB, Mike:
    • Agrees with Bill, spring for the better rotor.
    • Has seen a TV rotor drive lighter (6lb) antennas, but that’s much lighter.
    • TV antennas are only 10lbs or so.
  • N3OGF, John:
    • destroyed a radioshack rotor in high wind with a kushkraft
  • W3ZKG, Scott:
    • rotor doesn’t have a weight spec, but try to keep the rotor as close to the antenna as possible.
    • 25lbs seems heavy.
    • lesser rotors use plastic instead of bearings
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • some specs on google suggest 15lbs capacity.
    • consider the extra weight of ice
  • KC3SQI, Wayne:
    • may try the thrust bearing and lighter rotor
• KC3WWC, John:
  • I have a long EFHW for 80M, but it’s hard to get lined up on all bands, so I need the tuner to touch it up for half the bands. If I need the tuner for some bands, is there much benefit to this EFHW over a 71-foot random wire I really liked.
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • RG58 is giving loss
    • Generally, you don’t want to tune high SWR through “thin” coax
    • tuning at the wire would be better
  • W3QP, Tim:
    • It’s normal for EFHW in trees to not necessarily line-up
    • Don’t know efficiencies of 49:1 vs 9:1 vs 64:1. That could make a difference.
    • stack cores to handle more power in the transformers
    • there are ways to measure with nano-vna.
    • it depends what SWR you’re pulling on each band.
    • transformer has different effeciencies on each band.
• KD3AIS, Tim:
  • As a newer ham, not a general yet, listening on Yaesu FT-991A to traffic, is an external screen useful?
  • W3MFB, Mike:
    • He operated the 991A at field day, and the waterfall is pretty low-res, but wouldn’t bother with a larger screen.
    • recommends using ears and turning the dial
    • listen and make sure he can understand the station, write it all down, then contact.
  • W8CRW, CR:
    • agrees with Mike, listen
    • but also has a display connected to his radio as a bonus
  • W3KZG, Scott:
    • also has a DX-10 with the built-in display and an external screen.
    • didn’t miss it on or off on field day
    • use a DDI cable to ensure no feeding voltage back into the radio
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • had Ron’s 710 with the little screen, plugged into a big screen.
    • easier to see settings and meters
    • especially when visitors were trying to see
    • bandscope got sort of useless with higher noise levels
    • for bands that come and go (6m, 10m), it’s good to see intermittent traffic
  • KC3WWC, John:
    • I like the waterfall, so I spot activity, like lots of CW.
• W3MFB, Mike:
  • Are 6M and 2M beams at field day site always available for use?
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • as long as it’s up, it’s available
    • it’ll need coax

My Weeks in Radio

• traveling
  • Chino Hills State Park near Los Angeles
  • 2 activations
  • hiked and biked my gear in on my back
• Field Day QRP, emergency power, on the patio, at home, 650 pts

Others

• K3EA, Greg:
  • in charge of antennas at local field day
  • 13 colonies coming up: https://13colonies.us/
  • Marconi Memorial contest
  • see the calendar
  • monitor FT8 or calling on 6M
  • good HF this week
  • Guyana: 8R1TM
  • Russians in Mozambique: C94RRC, C93RRC
  • LotW is undergoing maintenance
• KB9AWS, Bernie:
  • hearing VHF openings in the morning
• KC5DRI, John:
  • conversations with truckers while traveling NC on simplex
  • travel using repeaters
  • got to dayton this year
• KA3TKW, Tom:
  • SSTV coming around july 4 from ISS, watch email
• KK4KKW, Steve:
  • POTA Hunting
  • visited SPARC for field day
• K3DMM, Denny:
  • heard lots of ISS contacts on field day
  • saturday is firecracker hamfest: postal picnic grounds
• KC3NWN, Jim:
  • contact from a mobile at camp right now
• VE3HOH, Pete:
  • local field day in macadoo
• KC3VZU, Bob:
  • setting up a wire antenna and an HF rig
• W3MW, Don:
  • lots of work getting antennas up
  • trying 10GHz, but blocked by foliage

I operated the last 3 hours of ARRL Field Day. My station was at home on emergency power and QRP, so 1E class. I made 50 contacts so that earned me 650pts.

I activated Chino Hills State Park, US-1139, twice while in Los Angeles. I hiked in 1.5 miles for one activation, and biked half way up one of the hills 5 miles for the second.

My Week in Radio

• 80M EFHW out in the elements
  • needed cleaning/repair for corrosion and high SWR
  • interesting to reintroduce pieces to see their effect:
    • counterpoise
    • capacitor
• checked into the APRSThursday net right away in the morning
  • automatically stayed subscribed for 12 hours
  • received 174 messages over 12 hours
  • across the US and rest of the world
• headed to Los Angeles for 12 days
  • find some parks
  • get back for 1 day of field day

Others

• W3CRW, CR:
  • Chuck’s presentation on connectors
• W1RC, Mike:
  • fiddling with allstar
• N3RBN, Paul:
  • back on the air with pass-through panel in the window
• NA3CW, Chuck:
  • busy with coax
  • inherited lots of coax from a SK in West Chester
    • we don’t want the RG-11 (75ohm)G
    • tangle
  • used it to demo the new and old connectors and repairs
  • more cable and connectors after breakfast
• KB3ILS, Keith:
  • drawn back to the radio for field day
  • bands rough for low power work
  • learning about bandpass filters, and their design
    • induction and capacitances
    • measuring with nanovna and oscilloscope
• KC3YSM, Steve:
  • learned about the coax connectors
• WA3KFT, John:
  • finishing touches on shack
    • shortening cables, etc
  • has a set of tools that makes it really easy to terminate PL-259
• KC3OOK, Bill:
  • attended the connector course
  • learned to analyze coax
  • Saw Ron’s article about ARRL Chester County Field Day on MSN news: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/arrl-amateur-radio-field-day/ar-AA1GIEyc
• KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • base for tilt-over mast is in concrete
  • tilt conduit mounted
  • figuring out locks
• WA3VEE, Ron:
  • helped restring a 40M dipole at field day site
    • resonant right at 7MHz
    • took 6-inches off each end to get to 7.150MHz
  • everyone encouraged to visit field day
• K3FHA, John:
  • working on some test equipment
• KC3RFG, Jim:
  • repairing a mobile antenna
  • getting some good distance on 6M for the first time
• W3KZG, Scott:
  • building camper/comms trailer
    • will bring it for field day

Questions

• N3RBN, Paul:
  • RJ-something microphone connectors and cables, is there a way to straighten the coiled part to attach a new connector?
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • don’t know about straightening, but has wired a new cord to the mic.
    • could buy a cheap mic and steal the cable
  • W3KZG, Scott:
    • seconds buying a cheap/clone mic for the cable
• KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • What’s the connector number for PL-259s Chuck used?
    • Chuck will email links.
  • Going to a mast that can support more than one antenna. should he pull a whole run for the 2M antenna, or try to route it through the remote switcher that’s good to 6M?
    • WA3VEE, Ron:
      • try to go with as few connectors as possible, especially on VHF/UHF
      • also, respect that 6M limitation on the switcher
    • KC3RFG, Jim:
      • home run is always better
      • the switcher may bleed signal to other lines
    • WA3VEE, Ron:
      • try to operate to the middle of the specs of gear
    • WA3KFT, John:
      • 14 coax runs into the shack
      • 14 switches for choosing radios
      • favorite switch is from Waters.