Been working on a winter project. This is a 3 band HF receiver kit from Dick Smith Electronics in Australia. 1st thing is to do inventory. This was an open box kit so I am still sourcing parts as I write this. Only a few items to source and it will be done and ready for use.
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.
I got up semi early and made the 85 mile trek up to Warrensburg Hamfest. It was held at the Johnson County Fairgrounds just outside of Warrensburg. Also you never know what you might find or who you might see at these smaller hamfest. In conclusion, do yourself a favor and go to the smaller hamfest and support the little guys. Check out some of my other Hamfests I have attended.
Wishing everybody a happy and safe Fourth of July!
Field Day is something that I have been looking foward to for quite sometime. Being a relitively new ham, I was excited to go to my first Field Day. It was nothing like I had envisioned, but at the same time it was way more than I thought it would be. We set up our portable tower in a local park in El Dorado Springs, Missouri. The park had a pavillion and power to run our Read More …
I don’t know about you but I am ready for Field Day this year. I’ve been working on my set up for portable HF operations for the last couple of months. It is nothing elaborate or even remotely fancy. It does work and that is good enough for me. List of items I will be using at Field Day 2016 • Icom IC-730 HF Transceiver • MFJ Versa Tuner II • Homebrew – 80m dipole, Read More …
That’s right . . . I put up the homebrew 80m HF dipole. Roughly 132 feet of wire strung out from the top of a 12 foot fiberglass painters pole while we stopped in Enders, Nebraska. Threw out the solar panels. I use a metal S carabiner to attach my 1:1 balun to the painters pole. These little reusable zip-ties are handy. Beautiful sunset!
There was plenty of sunshine! Trekking poles are also good for propping up solar panels. Hung out on 40m for most of the evening. Got most of my stuff to fit in a soft sided cooler!
The bands were in terrible shape this day! Just barely made contact on 20m that day. Also had the newly purchased Baofeng – UV5R HT. The fellow ham I purchased it from at the Expo already had it programmed with all repeaters in northern Arizona.