This Winter Field Day I wanted to do a Parks On The Air activation in conjunction with WFD. The POTA activation was US-7659 Huckleberry Ridge Conservation Reserve. I ended up making 100 total contacts during the event on a 15 foot vertical whip and a doublet antenna. My ICOM 7300 was used as the transceiver for the event.
It’s been a while since I’ve had done a VHF contest. It’s been since September of 2018 since my last VHF contest which you can read about it here. I actually took some initiative and set up a 3 element 6m Yagi and a 3 element 2m Yagi. The 6m Yagi was mounted on a 10 foot tall mast. The 2m Yagi was mounted on my 12 foot painters pole. Neither one was extremely difficult Read More …
We made this area our work week area. It is nice and secluded away from pretty much everything. We only had one vehicle drive by the whole week we were there. While Gayla was doing her video presentation I setup HF radio outside and activated the POTA park US-4403. I had 154 total unique contacts. It was a beautiful day to be outside in Wyoming. I used the 44 foot line wire to the 9:1 Read More …
Thanksgiving portable in the backyard of the daughters house in Aurora, Colorado. I had the ICOM IC-706 with the MFJ 904H manual tuner with a wire going to the gutters. I had never tried loading up gutters before, so I figured why not. Using my MFJ antenna analyzer I tuned them up on 40m and made a few contacts. Then I loaded the gutters up on 20m and checked in to the Maritime Mobile Net. Read More …
We camped a few days around Granite, Colorado. During our stay there we explored the Stone Cabin that was near by. Furthermore the Arkansas River was within walking distance. I did some HF radio and made a few contacts including one to my brother W0EGT back in Missouri on 40m. I used my ICOM 706 and my MFJ 17 foot vertical attached to my homebrew induction coil. Our campsite the 2nd night. Beautiful area!!!
Subsequently it has been a while since I’ve been on mobile HF radio. I was really missing it recently and decided to install it in our new vehicle. However I still have some more grounding to work on but the radio is happy, the antenna is happy and there is no crazy things happening in the vehicle. Meanwhile I am still using my homebrew loading coil that I made several years ago. On top of Read More …
I have been wanting to try FT8 on my ICOM IC-706 for quite some time. Recently my brother finally got his ticket and is a General Class. He also purchased a Yeasu FT-450 as his first HF rig. In the past I have done a few digital modes such as PSK31, SSTV, and some RTTY! But for the life of me I could not get FT8 to work with my ICOM IC-706. My brother did Read More …
Here is a visual look at the 2019 Joplin, Missouri Hamfest! There was a ton of neat stuff for sale and on display here. Furthermore, if you are in the area you might as well stop by the Joplin hamfest.
For several years I have been using my HM-103 microphone on my ICOM IC-706 with no tab to lock the RJ45 microphone tab in place to the transceiver. In addition, I recently ordered a cable crimper from Amazon for about $19.00 that also came with a cable tester and 100 pieces of RJ45 connectors/plugs. After a little bit of some research on Youtube. I found some videos on how to replace network cables. I had Read More …
Well not exactly! I thought I let the magic smoke out of my ICOM IC-706. Furthermore, I was messing around the back of the radio with it turned on I bumped something and POOF! Radio shut down and would not turn back on. I checked the fuses on the power cord and they were fine. I opened up the chassis and peeked inside and found nothing out of the ordinary. Then I spotted a fuse Read More …