Field Day 2025

W4BXC was on the air for another backyard Field Day, this time from Stan’s (WA4BXC) back yard in Ooltewah, TN. This year we were operating as 1E TN. Present for Field day were Stan WA4BXC, Connie NR4CB, and Eugene AB4UG. We had several friends show up, including one of the neighbours, Steve KQ4SMI, who got on the air for his very first Field Day. In between operating stints, there were breaks around the fire pit for roasting hot dogs, marshmallows, and making s’mores.

Solar panel used to charge the batteries used for Field Day.  The panel consists of four smaller panels and is propped up on a hand truck to face the sun.
Solar panel used to charge the batteries, with manual sun-tracking.

The antenna was put up between two large trees with the help of Stan’s “air cannon”. It did a pretty good job getting the ends of the antenna up to a decent height, although overall antenna height was a bit limited due to the presence of other wire antennas. The center of the dipole ended up about 20 feet in the air. Good enough that the radio’s tuner didn’t complain on the 40m, 20m, 10m, and 6m bands.

Dipole antenna suspended in the air
Dipole antenna suspended in the air
Air gun constructed from white PVC pipe used to hang the antenna in the air
Air gun constructed from white PVC pipe used to hang the antenna in the air

Band conditions were decent. Not the greatest, but not awful. Propagation seemed to disappear in the late afternoon/early evening, but then improved later into the evening. Bands on Sunday morning were pretty good, but then faded a few hours before noon and didn’t improve much the rest of the day.

Operations were interrupted briefly for a couple hours when thunderstorms rolled in late Saturday afternoon. Thankfully the really heavy rain moved around us instead of over us and we only got rained on a little bit. Wouldn’t be Field Day without thunderstorms.

For logging, not1mm was used instead of the usual N1MM+ that has been used previously. It does a pretty good job at replicating most of the features that makes N1MM+ a good program for contest logging, but is Python based and runs well under Linux.

Field Day wrapped up with 123 contacts, 21 more than last year. Contacts were made mostly on 40m and 20m, with a handful on 10m. The radio was powered entirely on battery power (a 100 Ah LiFePO) that had been charged with solar power, which qualified us for the natural power bonus (100 points). The battery had no problems keeping the radio going at 100 W, and I don’t think we made much of a dent in the battery’s charged capacity.

Field Day 2025

BandQSOs
781
1436
286
Total123
Field Day QSO summary

On the air for SKYWARN Recognition Day 2024

I had the 7-10 AM shift with Tom AJ4UQ at the NWS Charleston office for SKYWARN Recognition Day 2024. Tom was already there when I arrived, and mentioned the previous shift was having SWR issues with the HF radio and antenna. Stations were really quiet and they weren’t able to make any HF contacts.

The HF antenna is a ground mounted Butternut vertical. After the sun came up a little more, we went to check out the antenna to see if we could figure out what was going on. Didn’t take long to find the problem.

Broken feed line connection at the base of a ground mounted vertical antenna.

The feed line connection to the antenna had corroded away and was completely broken off. It was a pretty cold day and we didn’t have any tools, so the repair will have to wait for a warmer day.

Without HF, all we had were the VHF DMR and FM radios so we threw out the WX4CHS call periodically and managed a couple dozen or so contacts from across the state through the statewide linked repeaters over the three hours we were there.

The staff at the NWS Charleston office are great, welcoming, and appreciative of the amateur radio operators that volunteer there. Always a fun time operating there.

SC QSO Party 2024 results

Just saw that the SC QSO Party 2024 results are available.

According to the results, W4BXC had 115 QSOs, 58 multipliers, 29 counties, scoring 21498 points (including 850 bonus points). Looks like 4 QSOs got busted or something.

That got us to 13th place in the Phone only category.

This year’s SCQP had a total of 406 logs submitted and 27468 QSOs this year.

Next edition of the SC QSO party is February 22, 2025. Looking forward to it.

CW key collection: Begali Camelback

The Begali Camelback is the newest addition to my straight key collection. I had been wanting to get a Begali straight key for a while and finally got one at Hamcation last year.

Begali Camelback straight key
Begali Camelback straight key

If any company can lay claim to being the Cadillac of CW key makers, I’d say it would be Begali. The Camelback isn’t their most expensive key, but it’s still beautifully made and crafted. It’s a nicely designed key with a simple, elegant aesthetic. It is without question my favourite straight key in my collection to use.

The Camelback weighs in at a hefty 1.8 kg (4 lbs), by far the heaviest of anything in my collection. The weight means it’s not moving anywhere on my desk while I’m using it which is good because you definitely don’t want this thing sliding off your desk.

Begali Camelback straight key
Begali Camelback straight key

Two knobs at the rear of the key make it easy to adjust the contact spacing and spring tension to fit your preference.

Like most straight keys, it’s pretty simple and there’s not much to it. The wiring connections are made by soldering wires to terminals in a recessed channel at the bottom of the base. The cable is routed through the channel to the back and makes things nice and tidy.

Bottom view of the Begali Camelback showing the terminal connections and recessed channel for the cable
Bottom view of the Begali Camelback showing the terminal connections and recessed channel for the cable

It makes a satisfying thunk-y sound while I’m tapping out Morse code, as opposed to the more clacky sound that the J-38 makes. This is just a really comfortable key to use.