I didn’t prepare much for Septembers VHF contest. I threw together a 6m dipole and I already had a 3el 2m beam that I hadn’t used much yet! So that was my total preparation. My wife had some family property that was only a few minutes away from our QTH that was at a higher elevation than we were at home. So that is where we found ourselves with the Jeep and the rooftop camper. I only Read More …
Simple 6m copper dipole I made for the September VHF contest.
Field Day is a day I look forward to and making a bunch of contacts all over this wonderful world. Last year’s field day, I was with a local club in west-central Missouri. We made just a little over 100 contacts — all on battery and solar power. This year, I had different plans. My wife and I needed to be in Tennessee. She had a conference in Franklin the same weekend as field day. Read More …
From time to time, I like to reflect on where I’ve been with my Ham radios. Here are some pictures from 2016 until now of some of my activations. None of them are NPOTA (National Parks On The Air) and none of them are SOTA (Summits On The Air). They are just plain old QSO’s and to keep in touch with my friends in Missouri & Tennessee when I’m traveling. Lost Dutchman’s State Park – Read More …
I purchased this single lever paddle kit from QRPGUYS website a couple of days ago. It was a simple fun kit to build and took about an hour to do the build. I tried to remember to take pictures as I was doing this build. As you see, it fits nicely in an Altoids tin…..
I heard about Winter Field Day about late November 2016 and I decided that I wanted to get in on the action. I didn’t prepare too much for this event because I usually do portable operations anyway. As you can see by the picture below, we threw stuff in the car and went to some family property nearby and set up in the middle of a field. First things first is to set up camp. Read More …
Portable HF has always been a fun thing to do. A couple of weeks ago we had a 4 day weekend. So the wife and I packed up the car and drove till we got tired. We stopped for the night in a very historic town of Clear Lake, Iowa. In addition, Clear Lake, Iowa is also the town where Buddy Holly, The “Big Bopper” and Richie Valens played their last gig before their fateful Read More …
I recently purchased a “cheap Chinese radio” Baofeng UV5R just to use while hiking and portable operations. I already own the Yaesu FT-60 handy talkie and love the heavy duty construction.
Wishing everybody a happy and safe Fourth of July!
Recently I’ve had some people interested in my solar & battery power setup I use to power my radios and sometimes our portable refrigerator in our vehicle. Power Guard 27 battery box. Morningstar Remote Meter is capable of monitoring a dual battery setup. It keeps track of battery charge maximum and minimum on both batteries as well as amp hours charged to each battery. Holding the two outer buttons will reset all values. . I do Read More …