We headed to Caledonia State Park for the Arts & Craft Fair for a couple hours. I threw the 12.5m EFRW into a nearby tree. 40m was dead. 20m and 15m were very busy with SSB contesters for the IARU HF World Championship. Via FT8 and SSB, I could hear lots of EU on 15m, 17m, and 20m, but not much in local signals. Not many people were hearing me, so I only made 4 contacts in the hour or so that I tried.

My Week in Radio

• I had time off, so lots of Parks on the Air
  • The entire Susquehanna River is considered US-4567 as the Captain John Smith Chesapeake Trail
  • I scouted some spots along the river.
  • I’ve been trying SSB P2P contacts first, then digital modes.
• I found Ron, WA3VEE, and other familiar faces at Harrisburg Hamfest.
• I got 9 of the 13 colonies on SSB and FT8, usually at parks.
• That adjacent net on W3HZU was still a problem on my Quansheng HTs.
  • I’m trying the similarly cheap QRZ-1 Explorer tonight. It’s almost as bad.
  • I’m also trying the tape-measure yagi right now for some gain toward 985 and rejection toward 970.

Questions of the Night

• CR, W8CRW: What would an air compressor from UK (230V, 50Hz) do on 240V/60Hz?
  • Induction motor may run 20% faster, out of spec, wear out more quickly
  • Starting capacitor for the motor may not be compatible
  • May be able to introduce a phase change transformer
• Bill, KC3OOK: NVIS experiences for close contacts?
  • Jack, K3YVQ: good experience with “trapezoid-shaped” antenna wire: horizontal with ends dropped at an angle.
  • Harvey, KC3NZT:
    • half-wave above ground for better DX.
    • a second low antenna may not be worth the trouble of installing.
    • wait for a quiet time and get through to your target contact.
  • Jim, KC3RFG: Got 12mi to Philadelphia. Maybe that was ground-wave.
  • Jim, AF3Z: 10ft off the ground, a couple hundred miles
  • Chuck, NA3CW: “intentional NVIS” = 6ft off ground the whole way with counterpoise directly below, parallel to radiator.
  • Harvey, KC3NZT:
    • model verticals in EZNEC software
    • see lobes in radiation pattern
    • can be quite NVIS at some lengths
• Jack, K3YVQ: Mounting and grounding an antenna on a kayak.
  • Harvey, KC3NZT: tape on the underside as a ground plane
  • Leon, AA3LH: glue a plate to the bottom
  • John, KC3WWC: float a wire on something floaty to keep it on the surface, see Coastal Waves and Wires on Youtube.
  • Wayne, KC3SQI: install foil tape like transducer for a fish finder

Firecracker Hamfest

Matt and I wandered around and talked to some people. I only bought a few small things:

• tiny efhw kit.
• nice 65W PD 20Ah power brick.
• broken kenwood HT, won’t power on, but charges. (took a chance, but no plan.)

US-4356, Boyd Big Tree Preserve

• EFHW from pavilion, across side trail entrance, into a tree.
• Rough time with SSB to start. I couldn’t be heard. I’d stalk these multi-operator activators for 10 minutes, prepare my logs, and then not be able to contact them.
• Operated all FT8 on 40m.
• One SSB P2P at the end.
• It was very hot.

While operating, I got an email from a contact, so I sent a photo and explained my setup with WSJT-X and the x6100.

US-4567, Capt John Smith Chesapeake Trail stretches from New York to the Chesapeake Bay following the Susquehanna River, so that means we can activate from any public land within 100ft of the river. I drove from Turkey Hill to Bainbridge evaluating spots along the river:

• Riverfront park in Columbia would be nice
• The boat launch on south side of Marietta has a nice bit of beach.
• The park on the north side of Marietta is a bit too busy, but did have a nice area of grass and trees.
• I setup at the Riverfront park in Bainbridge.

I threw the EFHW into an inverted-V in tree and back down to a bench. I worked SSB first for some park-to-park activations, and then switched to FT8 on 40m.

There’s a special event contacting stations the 13 Colonies for the week over Independence Day in the US.

I contacted the following stations by SSB and FT8 over my couple days at home and out in the parks:

• K2A
• K2B
• K2C
• K2D
• K2E
• K2F
• K2G
• K2H
• K2I
• K2J
• K2K
• K2L
• K2M
• KU2US
• GB13COL
• WM3PEN
• TM13COL

Matt and I activated POTA US-1743, White Clay Creek, DE. I deployed the 20m-long EFHW into a tree, which worked nicely with no SWR. Matt deployed a telescoping dipole on a mast. I worked only 40m, and Matt ran 20m. We didn’t interfere with each other at all. I forgot my 5525 power splitter to run both the laptop and radio off 12V battery, but fortunately I didn’t need it for the computer.

My Week in Radio

• outside wire broke and rehung a couple times
  • avoiding tension on it
  • cheap throwing weight from big sockets from Habitat Restore
• my first summer of HF: May not be as exciting as past Winter/Spring
• tape measure yagi for direction-finding/tx
  • Quansheng shows dB and S-level of the signal, so going to work nicely for direction-finding
  • found a direction-finding map application for my phone to help with triangulation: SigTrax
  • may go chasing a curious source noises in my area
  • local club is gearing up for a tx hunt
• POTA / Field Day on the National Mall in DC
  • GRA-1900t whip with coil with jumper
    • noted resonant frequencies at each jumper fully extended, so lookup, jumper, then shorten to tune.
  • ran out all the batteries, but got the park activated
• POTA around York/Lancaster
  • oops, tick bite and lyme disease
• sorting all the gear for radio, electronics, other hobbies.

Other Info

• packet radio
  • 145.010 FM 12db digipacket
  • 28.105 USB 300bd digipacket
• 13 colonies activity this week
• Firecracker Hamfest this weekend
  • Triangle Communication will have lots of gear to unload
• satellites
  • ISS
    • 145.800mhz
    • 145.825 digipeater packet
    • 437.800 fm repeater
    • Monday morning
    • Tuesday morning
    • Wednesday morning
  • AO-91
    • Monday
    • Wed
    • Thurs
  • SO-50
    • Tues 7pm
    • etc

I was traveling to DC the weekend of ARRL Field Day, so I found some time e-bike from the hotel to activate US-0655, the National Mall from a park bench at the mall. I clamped the GRA-1900T right to the bench. Field Day was happening, so traditional bands were very busy. I jumped to 17m for a quieter, POTA-only experience. The LiFePO4 battery hadn’t been charged in a while, so it went dead by the end of my activation. It was a bit of a race against the dwindling battery. With the battery completely exhausted, and running on the internal battery of the x6100, I got to 12 contacts.

I had played with the radio the night before. I tried my gra-1900T and the 12.5m EFRW in the hotel room. We were on the 9th floor of 10 floors in Downtown DC. I barely got out for a moment on 40m with the wire, then nothing. The whip did absolutely nothing.

My 12.5m EFRW at home broke again, so I needed to restring it. The wire breaks at the tie point up in the tree. The kids and I failed to launch it again over the tree with slingshot out the window. I had also tried some small 3d-printed s-biner clips, but they’d release as soon as I launched with the slingshot I got the wire running flat through the other tree instead of up and over.

That didn’t last too long. The wire broke again at the tie point, so I launched it from the street again with the throw line and sockets. I kept it a little looser and switched to a bungee cord to keep it tensioned with some play.

There are easy instructions to build your own yagi on Instructables. I had just picked up some hose clamps and had the other necessary pieces: a broken tape measure and some 3/4-inch schedule 40 PVC and connectors; so I was ready to build.

The wiring on mine is held in place by the clamps and banana clip adapter. I always like those for prototyping. As directed, I tuned the antenna by moving radiators in and out and measuring with the NanoVNA.

The antenna is noticeably directional, so I can use it to find directions of signals. The S-meter and dB signal strength numbers on AUBS firmware make it easy to evaluate strength and direction.

I transmitted with it to the K3IR repeater as a test during a net.