Hf

10 meter started opening today. With 5 watts, I got to Hawaii and Greenland.

I got in W1JMA’s log when they were activating US-7545. on 7047.5kHz. They looked me up in QRZ, so knew my name and location. I sent 599 and received 599. It was a super-minimal exchange, because I fumbled a lot.

I had to read a bit about how to correct errors, and I soon stumbled into AF3Z on 7036kHz, and I saw a funny series of attempted corrections: “a littr eee a littr eee a bit”

Later, I Got a second contact, KV4UD.

I used the EFHW for everything. I activated 4 park entities:

• Caledonia State Park after riding the Michaux GRVL ride.
• Michaux State Forest from the ATV trail parking on the ridge.
• Kings Gap Environmental Education Center late in the day, so I raced a little.
  • antenna up in about 8 minutes
  • 10 contacts within 26 minutes
  • on the road again 14 minutes later
• Pine Grove Furnace the next morning, where I ran out of battery, so I did the whole thing with 1W FT8. I practiced a bit and started putting out my call on CW to see if RBN would pick me up, but kept it to a shy 1W. It didn’t pick me up.

I setup camp at Marietta Riverfront Park with the EFHW stretched from the pavilion to the nearby tree. I was expecting to get rained out, but it never came.

I got 23 FT8 contacts on 20m and 3 SSB contacts on 40m and 20m at 10W. I also spoke to a nuclear ship in Baltimore, and I heard some light house special event stations. It was so quiet there at the park compared to my desk full of computers that I thought the NR was stuck on.

W3FIS, Dr. Paul Ross, stopped by to activate, so we chatted a while after nearly 25 years since I last saw him when I was in college.

Ben and I grabbed dinner and headed to the Columbia Riverfront Park to activate US-4567, Capt John Smith Trail.

Since there were more people around, I setup the simple GRA-1900T next to our picnic table instead of throwing wires. 20m was very busy, so I was getting a bit lost in all the traffic. I moved to 40m and re-tuned to rack up my more local contacts. As the sun set, our reach got better on 40m. Of course, I accidentally crossed 0000UTC again into the next day, so it was 2 activations: one (incomplete) with 5 QSOs, and the other with 14 QSOs. I operated all digital, since it got dark, and we were looking to pack up soon.

I headed back to US-1418, Sam Lewis to tried a quick activation on my way to my parents’ house, but I got sidetracked. KN3A, Scott, was already there, so I chatted with him for a few minutes, and then setup my station on the other side of the park. I used my GRA-1900T for a quick setup on 20m. I saw Scott hunting up the band with his big, very local, signal, and then set out to do some FT8. The band was busy, but then just shut off nearing 1900UTC.

I heard about a storm coming from the local repeaters. I tried a bit on 15m, but decided to pack up as I heard more thunder. I only got a few contacts, since I didn’t give myself near enough time.

At US-1418, Sam Lewis, I tried setting up down near the low playground on the corner near the road. There were no trees with good spots. All the viable branches were very high, and I couldn’t quite get a line over them.

I resorted to an inverted-v supported by fishing pole in the middle at 9ft or so. I operated mostly FT8 on 15m, 20m, and 40m, and I did a little SSB on 40m. I got Canada, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, etc.

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.

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

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.