Club | N4BC

What happened to Spring?

We had a few nice Spring days, but it seems like Summer has arrived about a month early. Temperatures and humidity here in coastal Virginia have been Summer-like already. I sure hope this is not a taste of an unbearable August.

Saturday, we had our annual Southeastern Virginia Ham picnic at Deer Park, in Newport News. It was a nice get together, with a chance to put faces to some of the calls I hear on the local repeaters. We had hamburgers and hot dogs with a few sides, and just generally relaxed and got to know each other a bit better.

Field Day is approaching, and once again our club, PARC, will do a joint venture with SPARK at the usual Hampton location. Things will be as usual, but I don’t think we are going to run a GOTA station this year. Last year we had zero luck with that. We are always looking forward to improving every year, and hopefully we can make a better CW showing this year.

I still haven’t had a chance to get an 80M antenna up in the air yet, but with the good weather, I’m going to have to get out into the yard and just do it. I’ve got the wire, 9:1 UN-UN, rope, coax, and slingshot, so the only thing holding me back is lack of motivation! I’m going to go out on a limb here (not literally!) and promise myself to GET THIS DONE!

I’ve recently started trying to make a contact or two at lunchtime from work, using the HB1B from the truck, but not a lot of luck so far. Yeah, I’ve gotten a couple of contacts, but with only a half-hour for lunch, it’s difficult to get some food into myself, get the rig connected and then dismantled, and not feel terribly rushed. Maybe it’ll get easier as I get more familiar with it.

73 de Dick K4FTW

Spring!

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and my sinuses are dripping because of allergies … Spring is officially here now! I’ve started digging through winter storage boxes to collect my portable QRP goodies so I can once more play radio from the great outdoors.

I was going to operate while on a Scouting weekend last week, but it was cold and rainy … not a great experience. As it turned out, I was pretty busy as well, so time was at a premium. Everything seems to work well set up at home, so I’m going to at least get out into the back yard and test things in an actual field setting on Saturday or Sunday.

I have been on 20M CW recently, and worked a few Europeans. The signals have been a bit poor when I was able to get on, but the QSOs went OK. I hope to get organized enough to be able to operate /P from the parking lot at work at lunchtime soon. I think that affords the best chance for a regular radio session.

We’re still looking for a location for our 2M repeater (W4MT). We lost our site a couple of months ago and are working several possibilities now. There are several other repeaters in the area that we can use, but it’d be nice to get ours up and running again.

73 de Dick K4FTW

Field Day 2014

I had hoped to help more with the club Field Day, but too many other things going on this weekend. I did get down to help set up on Saturday morning, but unfortunately, wouldn’t make it back to operate. I had my granddaughter’s fifth birthday party to attend, and that’s very important. I also had to buy a new dryer for the wife, since our 20+ year-old drier finally reached the dreaded “point of no repair”. I did get a good deal, though :-).

W4MT Field Day Site, Northampton Church of Christ, Hampton, VA

I did get a chance to operate some from home as a 1D station, but it’s not quite the same. I worked probably 75 stations, mostly on 20M CW, but also some on 40M and 80M CW. It was a good run, but alas, no elusive ND section :-). Propagation was good … I can’t complain.

73 de Dick K4FTW

Progress report

All in all, the bands have been in pretty good shape lately. Good openings on those above 20 meters, and the usual suspects 20 meters and down. I’ve certainly enjoyed listening and operating after work in the evenings.

There’s a solar storm going on now, so I’m not sure what the bands will be like tonight. I’ve got a radio club meeting tonight with dinner beforehand, so I doubt that I’ll get much chance to try operating this evening. But, I’ll at least check the bands. Just like a fisherman, you never know what you’ll catch until you put your line into the water :-).

I was just thinking the other evening … yeah, sure, I miss the operating with a few hundred watts and a tribander at 75 feet when I was exotic DX, but I’m having lots of fun with my height-challenged Windom and 31-ft vertical at ground level. I guess it’s all relative … even with limited antennas I’m doing a lot better than those with a license and no antenna (thus, no operating :-(). I’m not a fanatical op, spending hours every night at the rig, but I do enjoy it when I have a chance to get on the air … and, I do snag a few good ones.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that you can’t work ’em unless you get on the air. Good operating practices can boost your signal a bit at the other end. Having been DX, I can say that power and S-units aren’t all that matters.

73 de Dick

Club Meeting

I’ve missed talking to others face to face about radio. Having been absent from the hobby for a while, I’ve not had much opportunity to meet others, so last night i went to a local club meeting. I used to be a member but dropped out some time ago. There were some familiar faces … albeit a bit older … and fewer than we used to have, but still really great folks (as are MOST hams). It was nice catching up and renewing acquaintances. Definitely need some young folks though 🙂 .

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