Pota

York Hamfest

I ran to York for the Hamfest and I saw a handful of new friends from SPARC and 985. I only bought some BNC adapters, a speaker that’s OK but not great, and a wireless keyboard/touchpad for my Raspberry PI projects.

POTA

While I was out, I figured I may as well play a little radio and activate 2 parks.

Codorus, US-1342

I ran the 12.5m EFRW stretched from high in a tree to a picnic table. I started at the picnic table, but moved into the car when it started to rain. To reach the car, I stretched my coax a bit and camped that to the table, and I ended up with no signal. The feed cable (RG174 with SMA connectors) had pulled loose from the SMA connector, so I had to debug that and push them back together. I operated 17m mostly, FT8, and contacts came a bit slow.

Sam Lewis, US-1418

This time I stung up the 21.56m EFRW, 2-3m off ground on ends, stretched between trees, and a fishing pole mast supporting the middle peak. 17m was still a bit slow, but 40m was hopping for FT8. I had a steady stream of contacts.

Before packing up, I spun the dial and found a park-to-park SSB on 40m: 2 operators on one radio at the intersection of 4 parks in Canada, so that counted for 8 hunter points.

We had some time in West Chester to visit Ben and see the new Mini Countryman, so I stopped by Ridley Creek State Park to activate. I had lots of tangles trying to toss my 21.56m EFRW into a tree – it took 30 minutes just to get started, but I had the wire at least 25 feet into the air. I operated FT8 and FT4 on 10m from a pavilion. [Read More]

Matt and I ran to Erie, PA to watch the eclipse, and activated US-1402, Presque Isle State Park before eclipse. 10m was a bit slow, but I got there on FT8. I ran my 71-foot (21.65m) EFRW sloped up into a nearby tree from our station on a picnic table.

I got some audible screaming on the speaker in addition to the normal clicking when I hit the tuner. I usually have a choke near the radio, and that was missing.

It was cloudy and even some rain in the morning, but it cleared and we saw some blue sky before the eclipse started around 2pm.

Totality was at 3:16pm EDT. I have a video in 360 degrees.

This Week in Ham Radio

• I keep tweaking the outside 2m dipole
  • I got it a little higher
  • It tests different day to night
  • Signal is good then gone every so many seconds
  • Checked it for loose connections in the wind. It seems fine.
• I’ve been learning to configure fldigi more
• BARTG RTTY contest over the weekend
  • I finally successfully ran the frequency for a bit calling cq and getting responses
  • I stuck to the 5W QRP class
• I’m scanning more frequencies for satellite repeaters
• Weather is nicer, so I got out on my bicycle. It’s time to activate some parks (on the bike?). The Tram mirror mount for vertical antenna might clamp nicely to the bag rack.

ARRL/FCC/ARCC in Harrisburg

KA3TKW and the 21 repeater group hosted a lunch with representatives from the ARRL, the FCC, and the ARCC.

POTA

I stopped at State Game Land 246 near Middletown to activate on 10m FT8/FT4.

I used 2 different antennas: - initially used Grabil whip fully extended, shorted coil, w/ tuner - 12.5m EFRW thrown into a tree Both antennas seemed to perform similarly. I was skipping far: lots of contacts came from Oregon, Washington, and I even got Alaska.

Clipperton DX

Later that day, I also contacted the Clipperton DX station, TX5S, on 40m via FT8