I just stumbled onto this blog. I had forgotten that I started it  back in 2008. Shortly after that my job situation changed  and I just didn’t have the time to get on the air. Most of the guys I hung out with on the local 2m repeater either moved away or had other issues like work kept them from being active. A few even went silent key (Rest In Peace Alan and Chris).

I had  a few different jobs and then some health issues and my ham equipment got shuffled off into storage. Time passed. I grew older, (and healthier) until I finally retired this year. Being retired has given me lots of free time and now my interest in ham radio has flared again so 10 years later  I am back at it as I try to get my shack up and on the air again. My interests have changed some and I will need to get all new antennas setup and tuned. But I’m really looking forward to the challenge.

I’ve developed an interest in Summits on the Air and thus an interest in QRP. I’m looking to get a QRP rig as packing my FT-857D up to the top of a mountain for activation isn’t something I look forward to. I figure the hiking part will help keep me healthy and in good shape as well as combine two things that I like to do (I have always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail). But, I have a bad knee left over as a reminder of my service time in the US Army. So, we will see how all the hiking goes. Unfortunately, I am in Florida and there are no SOTA peaks within 300 miles of me. Someday soon I will relocate to the area around Greeneville TN and I’ll have all of the peaks I want to deal with. In the meantime I’ll chase summits and work on getting the right equipment setup for a SOTA activation.

Edit 11/05/2020: I recently discovered Parks on The Air (POTA) and that seems like it might be easier than humping up to the top of some mountain.

73

W4MKH

It has been a busy two weeks around the shack. I’ve been too busy to post but I want to update everyone and catch tings up before I get too far behind.

First we have a visit from tropical storm Fay who hit Florida a total of 4 times and just would’ t go away. It was a slow moving storm and dumped 25 – 20 inches on some parts of Florida. St Johns county activated their emergency operations center (EOC) and opened 3 shelters. I spent 7 hours handling communications form one of the shelters plus numerous other hours working the repeaters from home in support of the EOC. We had several of our ARES members that were activated and put in long hours. Everything went well and while we had damage from wind and flooding in the area things could have gone a lot worse.

Then this weekend my friend Doug (N4FPS) came over and helped me build a J-pole 2 meter antenna out of an old scanner antenna that I wasn’t using. I don’t have an antenna analyzer so Doug brought his so that we could tune the antenna and it turned out well.

We also hung an 80-40-20-10 meter trapped dipole up in the trees in my back yard. That was a fun exercise. We hung it as an inverted V with the legs running north and south. The vertex i sup at about 40 feet and the two ends are around 13 feet. It seem to be working well but I haven’t made too many contacts yet. I also put up a temporary mount for the J-pole and now I have two BHF radios in the shack so that I can monitor and work the ARES repeaters in St. Augustine and Jacksonville at the same time.

I may need that ability soon as hurricane Hannah is out in the Caribbean and headed this way. Current forecast has the eye hitting about 175 miles north of me but 5 day forecasts have a away of changing. Time will tell what Hannah does and Eric too (following in Hannah’s path)

I made my first 6 meter contact today. I had a QSO with VA3DX on 50.140. He gave me a good report on the audio and a 57 signal report. He was located near Niagara Falls so that was a distance of about 1600 miles.

On another interesting note I had a QSO with 4L4WW in Georgia last Thursday evening on 14.270. The next morning I woke up to the news that Russia had attacked Georgia. I’m not up on the politics of the situation but I do hope that Gia (4L4WW) is okay. Ham radio has a way of making worked events more personal.

Installed a Spi-Ro multi-band trapped dipole in the trees this evening. The center is up about 30′ and the ends are around 15′. It runs in NW to SE direction. The FT-920 can tune it on all bands though the SWR is fine on most of the bands with no tuner.

I’m still not getting out the way the way I think I should on 80 meters as I’m having a hard time talking with local ham friends. I removed the MFJ 969 tuner and things got better but still not happy with how it is performing. I had to disconnect my Hustler 5BTV as I needed the coax to connect to the dipole so the vertical is not operational at the moment. I need to check the coax as it may be causing problems.

I’m a ham operator living in northeast Florida. I’ve been around ham radio since I first got interested in the early ’70s but I didn’t get licensed until May of 2006 when I took my Technician test. Since then I have been active on the local repeaters. In July of 2007 I tested for General and’passed while attending a hamfest in Asheville NC. I’m heavily involved with ARES in St. Johns county Florida as well as SkyWARN and you can usually find me on the 145.210 repeater or one of the other local repeaters.

My pride and joy it the Yaesu FT-920 that I picked up last weekend. I just love this rig. The receive is awesome and the radio reports I get say that I have great audio. Currently I’m running an Icom IC-2200H on 2 meters and I have an Icom IC-718 for field work.  My hope for this site is to provide information about ham radio in northeast Florida and document my journey. I will be including pictures of my shack, software that I use and a blog of my on-air activities. I’m not into contesting (yet) but I do like chasing DX as well as just rag-chewing.