A failure, and a new adventure

Fall has arrived.  And my goal to operate 100 days portable this year is all but lost.  My motivation was weak and I lost focus sometime through the summer and had no external motivation driving me on.  Unfortunately, there will be no 100 Days of Summer.  That said, I still have the kits from Etherkit that I'd like to give away, so once I figure out how to do that effectively, I will have a post describing how to enter!  Keep an eye out for that.

I found out in mid September that I am going to be permanently reassigned to Rockwell Collins' facility in Richardson, TX starting in November.  This is a pretty big deal, I mean, everything in Texas is BIG!  The good news is, I volunteered so I'm quite excited to be moving someplace warm (and sometimes HOT) that will allow more outdoor activities almost year round.  Not only that, but there are actually people I know living there so it should make my IRL social experience better.  I have had the worst time finding like-minded people here in Cedar Rapids.  I should have much better luck down there.  I could spend a lot of words listing the exciting new and better opportunities I'll have there but you will see them in time as I experience them first hand and report back here and on Twitter.

Of course this move means I have to dismantle my station, which I've already done, save for removing the mast and hex beam.  All the radios are packed up and I'm essentially off the air until we get established in Texas.  Furthermore, we're going to be apartment based until we find a house to buy but as I mentioned, the opportunities for portable operations should be numerous.  I think there's even a fairly active QRP community down there, so maybe I will have some extra external impetus to get out.  It doesn't look like there's any SOTA summits very close so I don't think I'll be doing much of that in the coming months, but flights to Colorado are cheap so I may make it out there more too.

Speaking of travelling, we'll finally be within driving distance of a couple cruise ports (Galveston and New Orleans) so that means we'll probably find ourselves at sea a bit more, which is certainly exciting.  I'm still hoping I can operate /MM one of these days.

I'm still planning on attending Dayton in 2015 with the N0MA Radio Farm group but we will see.  I think money is due soon and we're still trying to figure out how vacation and everything will work when we move but it seems like I'll probably have the vacation to go and I figured it will probably only cost an extra $50 or so to fly than it did for me to drive myself from Iowa.  We will see, when the money comes due, I'll have to decide what to do I guess.  I would really hate to miss it again, it is just too much fun to miss!

That's about it for now, the next time you hear from me, it'll probably be from our new QTH!  Thanks for reading as always! 73 de W0EA/5 (that's going to take some getting used to)

Shack updates

Sorry for the extended delays in posts!  It has been a very busy summer, and as you might suspect, my 100 Days of Summer goal has really taken a hit this year.  With the bathroom remodel and loads of radios to build, I have just not had the get up and go to get portable.  That said, the main goal of the whole event was to get me active, and I have succeeded with that.  My wife and I got Fitbit Flex activity trackers and we're both walking extra every day to reach our step goals.  So while I may not be operating at the end of my walks, I am getting those steps in and I've already lost 7 lbs this summer, well on my way to my goal weight before our cruise in September.

Progress!

Anyway, that isn't what this post is about after all.  Now that I've got my amplifier set up and running in the shack, I have been struggling to get a clean, efficient, comfortable setup at the operating position.  One of the major problems is having access to the connections on my radio.  As you are aware, the weather in the Midwest is quite volatile this time of the year so thunderstorms are a nearly daily occurrence.  This means lots of disconnecting coaxes.  I also find myself wanting to connect another radio to my antennas which usually means I have to pull the 590 out, and unplug stuff.  Not any good.

At the moment, the shack is set up like this:

The rotor controller and power/SWR meter are on top of the 590, and the cables are barely long enough for me to move them to the top of the amp to pull the 590 out when a storm comes through. 

It may not be very obvious in the picture but the amp end of the shelf is about 3/4 inch closer to the desk top than the left side.  My brackets might be a little unlevel but I think the beast is pulling the shelf down a bit!  I decided I'd try to go without the shelf in the new setup.

I've been looking at mounting the monitors on an arm for a while but they are typically pretty expensive.  As luck would have it, Newegg had a crazy sale on this model.  Only $42 with free shipping from Illinois, which I expected would be at most 2 days.  Lo and behold, I got a notification shortly after shipping that it would be delivered overnight!  Free shipping for overnight?  I can't complain!

Anyway the stand arrived in the early evening which gave me just enough time to clear the desk and get things ready.  It took me just a few minutes to mount the arms and re-route the cabling and this is what I ended up with:

Looking pretty good.  Everything is well within reach and I can swivel the monitor out of the way and very quickly remove the connections from the 590 (I put BNC adapters on the 590 for quick RF connections too).  Very slick!  The only remaining problem is I often have the connections falling off the back of the desk, if anybody has an easy/cheap solution to this, I'd love to know.

Quick update

Hey guys/gals - I wanted to put up a quick update to let everybody know what I've been up to the last few weeks.  Before Dayton I started working on remodeling our main floor bathroom and it has been a bear so I've pretty  much been spending all my free time working on that or tired enough that I just want to veg.  I will be getting back to my 100 Days of Summer stuff soon enough though.  Just keep an eye on Twitter for operating announcements!

I did get out to the deck last night while dinner was cooking on the grill.  I tossed my EFHW over the pergola and stuck the end to a 20' crappie pole.  I wanted to try out the Youkits FG-01a antenna analyzer I got at Dayton (well ordered at Dayton, apparently Ten Tec didn't bring anything to the actual hamfest).  Granted the setup was not ideal but I only saw at best 2:1 SWR so I may have to go re-trim or re-cut that antenna once I get out to the park again.  None the less, the analyzer is pretty easy to use and I'll have to do a writeup and/or video on that in the future.

Field report: QRPTTF/SOTA 2014

View from atop Platte Mound

On May 3rd we celebrated the QRP To The Field event by going out to Wisconsin for some W9 SOTA and a spot of portable ops.  I've been out to Platte Mounds, W9/WI-017, before, back when the W9 association was launched.  Read about that double activation here.

This time around I decided I'd just stick to the "easy" peak and make the most of my time there.  I also treated this activation as one of my 100 Days of Summer which was easy since it took me almost exactly 10 minutes to climb the stairs and trek through the wooded area on the peak to find a spot to operate.

Platte Mound is a public attraction so there's a few picnic tables on the top in a clearing.  This is where I operated last time but I thought I'd go into the woods a bit this time for a little more privacy.  It was a very windy day so that location offered a little respite from that as well.

Log where I sat for the duration of the operation - sore rear end.

I brought along my homebrew 2m/440 antenna I use for satellite work too but unfortunately I didn't make a single sat contact.  I had plenty of luck on HF though!  I set up my latest EFHW which uses snap swivels and little bullet connectors to work on several bands.  I'll have a separate post on that antenna.

I put the FT-817 on 17 and started off. I took a bit of video of the event and put it on Youtube.  I included a review of my new QRP portable bag at the beginning.  Check it out:

QRPTTF/SOTA Tomorrow!

Tres de Mayo!

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Wisconsin for QRP To the Field and SOTA activation at Platte Mound.  I was there not too long ago to be the first to activate a W9 summit.  Read about that here.

I plan on being set up and QRV around 9 AM local time.  I'll be taking along my 817 and MTR and wires for 17-40m in addition to my satellite antenna so I'll be looking for satellite QSOs too.  I may scan around on V/UHF simplex too but I doubt there will be any activity.

This will also be a 100 Days of Summer day so I guess I'll have to run around in circles on the peak for 10 minutes before I start!

Keep an ear out for me and have fun tomorrow!

100 Days - 2 and 3

Over the weekend, I completed another 2 days of our 100 Days of Summer operating, bringing us to a total of 3.

The weather on Friday was really nice.  Here's a quick video.

Saturday was also really great, but a bit windy.  I came home from getting groceries and was shocked to find that my new FT-817 had arrived.  I had been expecting it to arrive on Monday, so I was quick to get the thing on the air and went straight to the park.

I didn't know if I'd have any luck with my 8 cell AA pack with the 817 but it actually did pretty well.  I figured I might have a little more luck on voice getting people to get excited about the operation, plus I forgot to grab my portable CW key from the truck, so I didn't have much of a choice.

This is starting to get really interesting though.  I am going to be able to start experimenting with all kinds of different operations.  I'm really excited about trying satellite ops too.

Anyway, here's the last bit of the log for days 2 and 3:

100 Days of Summer - Day One

And we're off to the races!

It was a cool day on Tuesday the 22nd when I decided it was time to kick off the operating challenge of the year.

As a reminder, 100 Days of Summer is a challenge to myself to get out and operate more and most importantly, get some exercise!  The post about that is here.  So I strapped the dog into his harness and took off for Bever Park, my regular stomping ground for portable QRP operations.  The short route takes about 5 minutes, so I looped around a bit in the park before heading up to the top of the hill where I normally operate.  Temperature was about 65 but the sun was out and the dog was having way more fun than I was!

For today's operation, I was carrying my MTR for 20 and 40m and a newly made end fed half wave (EFHW) for 17-30m.  Since I guess I am a little crazy and wanted to start with a bit of a bang, I only had a single, fresh 9v battery to operate from, which would limit my power output to about 2.5w and further limit my duration quite a bit.

Using the tried and true method of golf ball + fishing line to loft my antenna into the tree, I was on the air within a few minutes of the alarm signaling the end of my 10 min walk.  I pulled up HamLog, which I just recently purchased for my iPhone and prepared to log QSOs.  It took a little work but before long, I had my first one with a fellow QRPer, W0CCA, out in Colorado who was testing out a new antenna setup near Four Corners.  Not a bad start!

Unfortunately that was the end of the easy ones!  I resorted to tuning around and answering CQs so I could get my 4 contacts in and call the day a success.  Luckily it only took about an hour of operating to post all 4 of them, then it was time to pack up.

Log for the day

So, there's one day down!  I'm going to try to publicize the operation a bit more, keep an eye out for some more news on that...

100 Days of Summer

I was reading AD5A's (Mike) recent blog post about "Ham Radio and Fitness" and it got me thinking.  I'm a little overweight and I could stand to lose about 20 lbs.  This is not uncommon.  Usually I swing up and down about 10-15 lbs through the year, usually with binge weight loss before our cruises in the Fall and Winter.  I usually gain back any loss during the cruise!

Anyway, I need to be far more active, which brings me to the topic of this post.  I do not have mountains in IA.  I don't have beaches to walk.  I have sidewalks, and small parks, and that is about it.  So unlike Mike, I cannot go hike to the top of a mountain every weekend (oh man would I LOVE that!).  So I have decided instead that I will make 100 trips to operate portable this year.  There's 93 days in the actual season of Summer but I don't plan on waiting until Summer actually starts.  If I hit 100 operations, I'll try to make it another 10 or 20 or however seems reasonable, but I will be getting outside.  A lot.

As you would with a SOTA activation, I am going to be judging the success of these outings by contacts made.  Just like SOTA, 4 contacts are required to make it a day I can count towards the 100.  This should make things a bit more difficult.

Next requirement is that I have to walk at least 10 minutes before I plunk down and start operating.  The park I like to operate from is only a 5 minute walk away so this should help me move to other parks in the area.  If nothing else, it will mean I have to get more exercise!

What do you think?  If you have any other ideas for guidelines I could follow to make the experience more interesting, let me know.