As part of the wedding festivities, Connie and I decided it would be fun to get on the radio for a special event the morning of wedding day (July 19).
We don’t have a special event call sign and are just going to operate on the radio using our regular call signs (AB4UG and NR4CB).
We’re only going to be on the radio for a couple hours (band and frequency pending, but anywhere between 40m to 6m but not 30m) from 11AM-1PM EDT (1500-1700 UTC). We’ll be self-spotting ourselves on Twitter, so follow me (@imabug) or Connie (@NR4CB) to find us. We’ll also use the #CQMahWedding and #WATwitter hash tags. We’ll stay in the general portion of 40m-12m and in the tech portion of the 10m band so that everybody will be able to join in the fun. If you’re near the radio, tune in and work us!
We’ll also make some QSL cards using some of the wedding photos so if you’d like to get one, send us a card.
Over on the right side is a link to my ham radio calendar. It’s just an embedded Google Calendar where I’ve been putting radio related things like nets and contests that are of interest to me so that I remember them. Most of the contest type events come from the ARRL’s Contest Corral listings.
I don’t always participate in everything I list, but I like to have them in the calendar as reminders, in case the urge strikes me to go play on the radio.
Decent weather, no rain and partly overcast skies kept Field Day today from being too sweltering hot and made operating tolerable. Spent the bulk of today logging, and got on the radio for the last hour of Field Day to make a few more contacts. The club managed to get a little over 500 contacts on the SSB station and I think about 80 or so CW contacts.
I was even hearing a little bit of activity on 6m through my HT, which is something I practically never hear around here. I couldn’t make out much of anything, but I was able to tell that it was Field Day activity. No idea where it was coming from though.
Having a little more radio experience under my belt made this Field Day a more enjoyable experience than last year (not that I didn’t have a good time last year). Knowing a little more about what’s going on really helps and I feel like I was able to make more of a contribution this year.
Looking forward to Field Day next year.
A view of the Charleston peninsula and Charleston harbour from the USS Yorktown hangar deck
A view of the Ravenel bridge and the Charleston harbour from the hangar deck of the USS Yorktown
Had a most excellent time at Field Day yesterday on board the USS Yorktown with CARS. I was put in charge of IT, which meant setting up the two laptops and a little local wifi network so that they could communicate and share a log file.
At 1800UTC (2PM EDT), the chaos the activity started. I spent the first few hours in seek and pounce mode (S&P), tuning around 40m at first and then moving up to 20 and then 15m. Was able to rack up a bunch of contacts, but it wasn’t easy. Thunderstorms to the southwest and in Georgia were causing static crashes because of the lightning. I’d be trying to work some strong stations, then 20-30db of noise would just wipe everything out on the frequency for a second or two. That went on for a few more hours, and then the rest of the evening was relatively clear. Then the problem went back to trying to pick out the Field Day exchange with neighbouring stations or groups of Boy Scouts stomping by behind us drowning everything out (the usual chaos).
I stayed on the Yorktown until around 10ish. A few other club members operated and got some pile ups going. I spent some time hanging out at the CW and digital station, taking photos and helping out with the logging on the phone station.
Field Day 2013
Field Day on the Yorktown offers a great view of the harbour and the Charleston penninsula while we’re operating.
Field Day 2013
This is the CW and digital station in action. Last year the CW station was set up in the club communications trailer out on the pier, but didn’t work out so well there, so it was brought up to the ship this time. The digital station was having a similar problem with noisy bands that we were having on the phone station so I don’t think there were too many contacts being made there.
Field Day 2013 CW/digital station
Back for more Field Day fun today until 1800Z (2PM EDT) and then breaking everything down.
If you’re on the air for Field Day today, listen out for WA4USN. It might be me that’s operating!
Finally got around to playing with the antenna analyzer I picked up at the Atlanta Hamfest. Came with batteries installed and a wall wart so it was ready to go out of the box. First thing I tried out were the inductance and capacitance measurements. Grabbed random wire wound inductor out of the junk box and put it against the antenna connector.
Random inductor on the MFJ 259B
13 μH at 7.06 MHz. A pretty decent amount of inductance. It’s got a lot of windings and came out of a dead laptop power supply I think. Next I put a random capacitor on it. Capacitance meter told me it was around 216 pF. At 7.06 MHz, the analyzer measured 177 pF. Not too far off and something that I might expect at high frequencies.
Random capacitor on the MFJ259B
The analyzer will also measure the amount of coax loss at different frequencies. Put a 75′ length of RG-8X to see what I’d get. At 7.06 MHz, a respectable 0.3 dB loss. At 146 MHz, though, 2.8 dB. Will have to make sure to keep the coax relatively short for whatever VHF/UHF antenna I decide to build.
Coax loss with the MFJ256B
Measuring coax loss at VHF with the MFJ256B
Time to bring it in and try it out on the antenna. I know the antenna works really well on the 40m band, and the analyzer confirms it. SWR of 1.1 and 50Ω impedance at around 7.2 MHz, pretty much smack dab in the middle of the band. SWR ranges from 2.1 to 1.5 across the band.
Measuring the antenna with the MFJ259B
Next I want to go through and record some more detailed measurements about the frequency performance of the antenna and maybe graph some things out. I’m sure that will look interesting.
I wonder what the analyzer will tell me about my HT antennas…Analyze ALL THE THINGS!
