Solo FD for 2024, once again a camping trip to Carolina Beach state park(POTA US-2722).
The station
Arrived late Thursday afternoon and set up the campsite, had an early evening meal, and a relaxing cigar.
After a mixed night of broken sleep, started setting up radio gear and antennas on Friday afternoon. The station was an Elecraft K3 and an MFJ versa tuner as the antenna switch/swr meter. Tried out a new computer, which flopped big time as it could not connect to either the radio of the winkeyer. Forgot to load the FTDI drivers on the target laptop beforehand, so whipped out the old-n-busted laptop for the duration. Old and busted has charging issues, but it worked well for intermittent sessions with charging during off time breaks. It was easier to use the known computer than waste time on the unknown.
Having decided beforehand to operate mostly during daytime hours, no antenna for 80m was set up. Two trap dipoles were hoisted, one for 40m/20m and the other for 15m/10m. Both installed on separate telescoping fiberglass masts as inverted vees. The masts resulted a height of about 27 feet(~9m) for the centers of the antennas, generally favoring the NW direction. Ran a few test strings and RBN results looked decent.
Its-not-a-contest-its-an-event
Saturday morning had enough time for a good breakfast, a supply/ice run to the store, and plenty of time left over for a few shakedown qsos. Was growing tired as 1800z approached, so got […]
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