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.
Setting up our homestead! . Talkin’ to the fellas and staying connected from 1,100 miles away! Our set up at the Expo. No hookups at this Expo solar panels are in order to keep the batteries charged. . Lots of sweet overland vehicles at the Expo. These are Global Expedition Vehicles made in the USA. . Can’t forget about the two wheeled vehicles. The adventures of Robinson FUSO! An old ambulance makes a great platform Read More …
When all else fails use Ham Radio right? This is the way I’ve been keeping in touch with the fellas back home when on the road. Just throw out a wire and start talking. Only a 12 foot fiberglass painters pole with a 20m homebrew dipole tied off to BBQ pit on one side and tied off to a rock on the other side fed with an ancient ICOM IC-730 doing about 70-80 on a Read More …
A painters pole antenna mast seemed like a good idea. My wife & I are going on a trip soon and I wanted to take my HF radio with me. I did not want to spend the money on a Tarheel or a screwdriver antenna yet so I opted to make a portable lightweight antenna and mast. I had been doing some research and found several people had been using a fiberglass telescoping painters pole Read More …
On Saturday, we made the trek to Claremore, OK for the Green Country Hamfest. This was the first Hamfest I’ve been to that I didn’t have take a test. I’ve only been to four Hamfests total. The first three Hamfests I was committed to taking tests. Now that I have my Extra, I could really enjoy myself and mosey around and shop. It isn’t the biggest, but so far it was the biggest I’ve been Read More …
Finally, I did it…I took the plunge and got my amateur radio license. The bug actually bit me way back in high school. I thought I’d get my license back then, but let the morse code intimidate me. Needless to say, I put it off. Then, life happened. I pushed it to the back of my mind. Then, 19 years later, my interest surfaced again. I realized that morse code wasn’t required, so I got to studying. Read More …