AmateurRadio.com

Busy making contacts

The idea was floated earlier this week about going to the beach on Thursday. The weather looked great I had Thursday and Friday off so the decision was made! There is a nice spot that Julie and I go to all the time called Port Dover on lake Erie. This town is famous for it's Friday the 13th motorcycle gathering. Thousands of  bikes head to Port Dover for a massive get together.  On most weekends the beach is packed so going during the week we were not expecting huge crowds and hard to find parking. Turned out the crowds were small and I was able to park right at the beach with only a 10 pace walk to the car to get anything we needed. The wheels started to spin in my head on Wednesday evening about making this an HF/beach day. I have the Elecraft KX3 and it's all charged up this time, but I also have my extra battery I purchased. Julie thought it was a great idea as long as HF did not take over the day. So with moderation in mind I packed up the KX3 along with the extra battery. The antenna was going to be my mobile whip antenna with coax out to my rig. The Alexloop would have been nice but not knowing how crowed the beach was I left it at home.

back on the beach

I set up the rig, antenna and the lawn chair just beside Julies car....oh as a side note we had to bring both our cars as Julies relatives are in from England for a few more weeks. Our cars would not fit us and the beach gear........... I drifted a bit back to radio. The antenna was on the back of my car and with the pressing of two buttons on the KX3 the HF adventure began.
I was calling CQ at the 20m QRP watering hole and I first had N0FKC come back to me Piether was just outside Minneapolis I gave him a 559 report but once I gave it back to him the conditions had drastically changed. He was in at the noise floor and I must had been the same to him. He was in the process of sending me 73's. So that QSO did not last long at all.

View from the patio

I then put my call out again and KA3LOC came back to me with a 599 signal. We were able to spend more time in a QSO. Eric was in Kansas  and also gave me a 599 report. He was running 5 watts compared to my 3 watts. We said 73's and it was time then for me to pack things in and go back to reading and relaxing. Then it was off to the local watering hole for the famous Lake Erie perch dinner on the patio that looks out over the beach.  I was nice I had about a total of 2 hours on the radio and some great beach time.