Imabug's journey into electronics and amateur radio as AB4UG and VA6BUG
While looking up the details for the 2024 SC QSO party, I saw the results for the 2023 SC QSO party, which I had forgotten to look for earlier.
W4BXC did reasonably well with a total score of 9696 points, 78 QSOs and 500 bonus points. That was good enough to put us in the top 20 for the Fixed Station (Phone) category (143 stations in that category).
The 2024 SC QSO party is coming up Feb 24. Looking forward to that and the NC QSO party the next day.
This year, W4BXC was on the air for Field Day as a 1E SC station after we noticed one of the Field Day FAQs said
Convenient access across one’s backyard to their home station facilities is not in keeping with the spirit of Class A or Class B portable operations. Such convenient backyard operations on property of home stations remain either Class D (commercial power) or Class E (emergency power), even if home antenna structures are not used.
ARRL Field Day 2023 packet
Like last year, we had the radio running on three deep cycle batteries connected in series, and they had no problems providing enough power to keep the radio transmitting at 100W the entire time we were operating.
I also set up a recently acquired Kenwood TM-221A 2m radio to monitor repeater activity.
I noticed this computer speaker used a 9V DC power supply, so I decided to power it with a 9V battery and connect it to the radio. Worked out pretty nicely. Note: if you notice that the noise characteristics from the speaker have changed, it probably means the battery is going dead and needs to be replaced. Took me a while to figure out what was going on.
The bands were crowded but pretty mushy during the day on Saturday. Lots of noise, quiet stations fading in and out, and only a few really loud ones. Things started getting better into the late afternoon and early evening and stations out on the west coast in the LAX and SDG (San Diego) sections started coming in pretty well. We waited for the ARRL Field Day bulletin and copied it down before calling it a night.
The next morning I got back on the air and worked a bunch more stations. A nice mix of sections across the country and into Canada. All the contacts we made ended up being on the 20m and 40m bands. Made a few forays up to 10m, but heard absolutely nothing there which kind of surprised me.
Ended up with a total of 106 contacts in the log for a total of 212 QSO points. 350 bonus points brought our total score up to 562 points. Final score might end up being a bit higher, because this year we’ve got some of W4BXC’s non-local members participating as well.
Got my Begali Camelback straight key wired up with a standard 3.5mm TRS cable, and made up an adapter cable to connect it to the Heathkit HD-10 keyer.
I’ve been really enjoying practicing Morse code with the Camelback. The solid, weighty base gives it a super stable feel and a nice satisfying thunk-y sound as opposed to the more clack-y sound from the J-38 key. I’m sure if I mounted the J-38 on a more solid base, it might also have a nice thunk-y-er sound. I’ll have to look around for something heavy to attach the J-38 to now.
The Camelback is hefty enough that it doesn’t move around while I’m keying. The Vibroplex bug is also pretty hefty, but will slide around a bit while I’m using it. I probably need to replace the feet or put some grippy pads on them to keep it from sliding around.
The special event station to commemorate the Yorktown’s 80th anniversary went reasonably well. It was a nice day and good weather for operating on the ship. Ended up with a total of 5 other people joining me to run the station. Two of us were operating, and the others shared logging duties (two were new-ish hams and didn’t want to get on the air yet).
Ended up operating for just under 4 hours and got about 27 contacts in the log, all on 20m. Even had a bit of a pile-up going for a few minutes at one point.
Heard lots of POTA and Michigan QSO party stations while tuning around the band. It was an interesting day on 20m. The stations I heard and contacted were either super loud or really faint and hard to hear, without much in-between.
Even though we didn’t get as many contacts as I expected, it was still a fun day of operating. It’s been a while since I was last operating in the club room. I think I need to spend more time playing on the radio there.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the commissioning of the USS Yorktown (CV10). Like I did 5 years ago for the 75th anniversary, I’m planning to run a special event station from the club room (WA4USN) on the ship.
My current plan is to get started around 10AM or so, and operate probably until about 4 or 5PM. Activity will be on 10m, 20m, and 40m, depending on how the bands are behaving that day. We’ll also be listening on the 2m repeater.
Patriot’s Point will also be commemorating the occasion with reduced admission and events on the Yorktown throughout the day.
