Us-1356

I visited Gifford Pinchot State Part, US-1356, and strung up the EFHW from a picnic table to a tree. I managed it in 1 throw to a nice spot. I made 20 contacts:

• 18 FT8
• 2 CW, including N4T, the Dry Tortugas DXpedition

Using R1CBU 0.29.1, I knew to pay special attention to undo the AM bug from SWR Scan by switching through modes after an SWR Scan. In this firmware, though, WSJTX would set digital mode (USB-D) and it would bounce back to USB, which doesn’t take sound from the connection to the computer. I had to work around it by disabling WSJTX’s ability to set the mode. Then I could set USB-D and it would stay there.

US-1356 Pinchot

I setup at a pavillion far away from everyone else, so as not to burden anyone wondering what I was doing. Putting up the 20m-long EFHW, I got the socket and throw line stuck in a tree. I had to cut it loose.

I tried 10m for 2 FT8 contacts, but that’s all the further I could stretch that band. The rest of my contacts came on FT8 40m, and one P2P SSB contact on 40m before I packed up.

US-1418 Sam Lewis

At the second park, I operated mostly 20m with the GRA-1900 coil and whip. I was struggling to get that to the right settings, so I finally just extended it and hit the tuner on the radio.

I accidentally crossed the 0000UTC mark into the next day, which means it’s a new activation. I scrambled to try to complete the new day, but fell short.