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On Tuesday and Thursday nights my daughter takes Tae kwon do at the local YMCA.  I typically run a few miles while she in class, but last night I decided to setup portable and play a little radio.  The SKCC sprints run from 7-9pm once a month local time, and her class starts at 7:00 pm.

Since I would like to participate in these sprints, I have been looking for a location in the parking lot I could do this while she was in class.

The parking lot at the YMCA is large and at one end there are zero cars parked.  There are small trees that I can attach my portable antenna to.

So last night I decided to test it out.  The antenna strapped easily to a small tree and the coax easily reached in my car where I operate.

I made one contact…

AC4FZ (4987T) – Wally was working another station on  10.120 and once the QSO was over, I gave him a call.  He was nice and loud here in Kansas.  Wally was in North Carolina and had a nice signal and fist – with just a slight bit of QSB.  He was a 559 here and he gave me a 549 – I am constantly amazed and just what 5 watts can accomplish!

That was it for the night, but I am glad I tested the setup for the SKCC sprint at the end of April – I will be active!

On Tuesday and Thursday nights my daughter takes Tae kwon do at the local YMCA.  I typically run a few miles while she in class, but last night I decided to setup portable and play a little radio.  The SKCC sprints run from 7-9pm once a month local time, and her class starts at 7:00 pm.

Since I would like to participate in these sprints, I have been looking for a location in the parking lot I could do this while she was in class.

The parking lot at the YMCA is large and at one end there are zero cars parked.  There are small trees that I can attach my portable antenna to.

So last night I decided to test it out.  The antenna strapped easily to a small tree and the coax easily reached in my car where I operate.

I made one contact…

AC4FZ (4987T) – Wally was working another station on  10.120 and once the QSO was over, I gave him a call.  He was nice and loud here in Kansas.  Wally was in North Carolina and had a nice signal and fist – with just a slight bit of QSB.  He was a 559 here and he gave me a 549 – I am constantly amazed and just what 5 watts can accomplish!

That was it for the night, but I am glad I tested the setup for the SKCC sprint at the end of April – I will be active!

This post is a two-fer, I didn’t get a chance to write up #11 portable operations, so I just decided to combine them.

Do you ever have one of those QSO’s where everything seems to go wrong??  I did when I worked WB3GCK.  Right now I don’t have a true straight key, so I use one lever of the paddles on my KX3 set to HAND mode.  Sometimes the contacts don’t make great connection and they dits and dahs sound funny.  Well during this QSO this was happening a bunch!  On top of that my KX3 started complaining about the voltage level of the battery.  So mid QSO I had to attached my external battery which required me to change where the KX3 was sitting – it was just a mess!

But Craig WB3GCK seemed very gracious and we just carried on.

So who did I work??

3/29/13 – I just had about 30 minutes to play between meetings….so just two contacts…

KG7VTO (14714) – Bob had a great signal from Oregon on 20 meters, plus a great sounding fist.

KK6GLP – I have worked Mike before and his signal sounded great as usual from California.

3/30/13 – Had a ton of fun this day!  These were all from me calling CQ on 18.080…

N1WPU (1312) – Ted answered my CQ from Maine!  He was running 75 watts into a G5RV and had a really nice signal and fist.

WB3GCK (15052T) – Craig came back to my CQ and he was also QRP at 5 watts.  Craig is also a fellow blogger, and a blog I frequent!  He has just recently obtained Tribune status in the SKCC.  From reading his blog it looks like he was bitten by the same SKCC bug I have been bitten by!  You can read his blog here http://wb3gck.craiglabarge.com/.  This is actually the second time I have worked Craig.  The last time was back in 2013 when he was vacationing in North Carolina!

WB1AJX (12872T) – The last contact for the day was with Howard running his KX3 at 5 watts.  We had a nice exchange from Rhode Island to Kansas for another nice 2xQRP contact.

So for this day it looks like there was a pipeline from Kansas to the far Northeast of the USA.  I had never worked Maine or Rhode Island before – so that is awesome.  Plus to have two 2xQRP contacts was a real kick as well!

The main reason I moved to 17 meters was because there was at least one VERY LARGE pileup going on 20 meters – it ran from about 14.035 to 14.057 – completely spread out!  I never did figure out the DX everyone was trying to work – but the pileup was destroying the band.

This post is a two-fer, I didn’t get a chance to write up #11 portable operations, so I just decided to combine them.

Do you ever have one of those QSO’s where everything seems to go wrong??  I did when I worked WB3GCK.  Right now I don’t have a true straight key, so I use one lever of the paddles on my KX3 set to HAND mode.  Sometimes the contacts don’t make great connection and they dits and dahs sound funny.  Well during this QSO this was happening a bunch!  On top of that my KX3 started complaining about the voltage level of the battery.  So mid QSO I had to attached my external battery which required me to change where the KX was sitting – it was just a mess!

But Craig WB3GCK seemed very gracious and we just carried on.

So who did I work??

3/29/13 – I just had about 30 minutes to play between meetings….so just two contacts…

KG7VTO (14714) – Bob had a great signal from Oregon on 20 meters, plus a great sounding fist.

KK6GLP – I have worked Mike before and his signal sounded great as usual from California.

3/30/13 – Had a ton of fun this day!  These were all from me calling CQ on 18.080…

N1WPU (1312) – Ted answered my CQ from Maine!  He was running 75 watts into a G5RV and had a really nice signal and fist.

WB3GCK (15052T) – Craig came back to my CQ and he was also QRP at 5 watts.  Craig is also a fellow blogger, and a blog I frequent!  He has just recently obtained Tribune status in the SKCC.  From reading his blog it looks like he was bitten by the same SKCC bug I have been bitten by!  You can read his blog here http://wb3gck.craiglabarge.com/.  This is actually the second time I have worked Craig.  The last time was back in 2013 when he was vacationing in North Carolina!

WB1AJX (12872T) – The last contact for the day was with Howard running his KX3 at 5 watts.  We had a nice exchange from Rhode Island to Kansas for another nice 2xQRP contact.

So for this day it looks like there was a pipeline from Kansas to the far Northeast of the USA.  I had never worked Maine or Rhode Island before – so that is awesome.  Plus to have two 2xQRP contacts was a real kick as well!

The main reason I moved to 17 meters was because there was at least one VERY LARGE pileup going on 20 meters – it ran from about 14.035 to 14.057 – completely spread out!  I never did figure out the DX everyone was trying to work – but the pileup was destroying the band.

Wow, today was the most fun I have had in a while on the radio – the bands seemed decent today.  So with my freshly charged KX3, and beautiful spring weather I set about to make some contacts from the local park.

N8XI (15024T) – Rick was calling CQ on 20 meters looking for SKCC members.  I gave him a call and we had a quick exchange from KS to MI.

Then I started calling CQ….

KF8DA – Roger gave me a call from Ohio and QSB was really bad on his end, but we got the contact done.

NX3Z/QRP – Jim answered my CQ and was right down there in the noise most of the time.  He was QRP from Arizona using a KX1 – it took many repeats but we finally were able to finish the QSO.  Jim emailed me and said that even though he is an SKCC member he was using the keyer on the KX1 so this won’t count for an SKCC contact – but I always love 2xQRP contacts!  Thanks Jim!

K7EP (1683T) – Art answered my call from Washington state with a nice signal and a nice fist.

WH6LE (13533S) – Last up for the day was Pete from North Carolina for a nice quick contact.

It was a fun day today – much better band conditions than last week.  Thanks to everyone the found me!  I did go up to 15 meters right at the end and called CQ a couple times with no takers.

I also made some SKCC contacts over the weekend, so right now I am sitting at 27 SKCC contacts as I work towards 100 for the Centurion award.

Wow, today was the most fun I have had in a while on the radio – the bands seemed decent today.  So with my freshly charged KX3, and beautiful spring weather I set about to make some contacts from the local park.

N8XI (15024T) – Rick was calling CQ on 20 meters looking for SKCC members.  I gave him a call and we had a quick exchange from KS to MI.

Then I started calling CQ….

KF8DA – Roger gave me a call from Ohio and QSB was really bad on his end, but we got the contact done.

NX3Z/QRP – Jim answered my CQ and was right down there in the noise most of the time.  He was QRP from Arizona using a KX1 – it took many repeats but we finally were able to finish the QSO.  Jim emailed me and said that even though he is an SKCC member he was using the keyer on the KX1 so this won’t count for an SKCC contact – but I always love 2xQRP contacts!  Thanks Jim!

K7EP (1683T) – Art answered my call from Washington state with a nice signal and a nice fist.

WH6LE (13533S) – Last up for the day was Pete from North Carolina for a nice quick contact.

It was a fun day today – much better band conditions than last week.  Thanks to everyone the found me!  I did go up to 15 meters right at the end and called CQ a couple times with no takers.

I also made some SKCC contacts over the weekend, so right now I am sitting at 27 SKCC contacts as I work towards 100 for the Centurion award.

Friday was a bit frustrating – the bands seemed really weird, and not much if any activity was heard here in Kansas.

I did manage one and a half contacts!

N5NAA – On 30 meters I worked Steve down in TX for a 2xQRP contact.  Steve was running 3 watts and even mentioned that he reads my blog!  Hi Steve!

VE4CWF (10492T) – I replied to Chris calling CQ.  He came back to me and gave me all his specifics, and then just as I completed sending our call signs back, my battery died in the KX3!  I admit it, I had operated probably 3 portable sessions without charging the internal pack – my fault.  So….sorry Chris for dropping you like a hot potato!  Hopefully we can connect down the line.

Thats all for today, I hope to have some time this weekend for a bit of SKCC CW!