XPost: rec.radio.amateur.moderated

W2LJ QRP - When you care to send the very least!

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FOBB 2021

Posted: 25 Jul 2021 03:33 PM PDT http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/feedburner/KhQX/~3/o5q3kAAPx78/fobb-2021.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email


The weather held out, although it was mostly overcast, with some breaks of
sun - and hot and kind of muggy. I'm not sure what the humidity was, but it
had to have been up there.. No records of any sort were set - only ten Bee stations and two POTA stations worked in the time that I put into the
effort.
As planned, I set up in the backyard at the patio table. Set up was quick
and easy. The antenna was the one described in K4SWL's POTA video. Like
his, my KX3 was able to match it quite easily on 40, 30, 20, and 15 Meters.


The antenna went up lickety split and it's so light that it didn't put any
bend into the Jackite. Unlike Tom K4SWL, I didn't bother with banana jacks.
I inserted the wires directly into the binding posts.

The key that I used was my Bulldog Clip paddle. Tiny, lightweight but it
has a super feel to it, almost as good as any full sized key.

I did mention it got hot, right? A couple minutes after I snapped this
photo of my little Radio Shack clock with built in thermometer, the
temperature jumped past 90F.

I had to leave in the middle for a little over an hour to drive my wife
over to her boss's house. She was throwing a BBQ for the staff and my wife hates to drive, so .............
The bands were not in great shape by any means. Signals were down and I had
to work to dig them out of the muck. Judicious use of the KX3's roofing
filters helped with that. QSB was fast and deep. There were very few loud
QRP stations this time around. Among others, I was able to work a few
familiar calls, N0SS, AB9CA, N4KGL, K4BAI, and N3AQC.
The K4SWL antenna, as I will call it, did an OK job. FOBB was an experiment
to see how well it would work. Well enough, I dare say, that I wound it up
on a kite winder and stuffed it into my portable ops backpack. It's a good
wire to bring along on vacation. It doesn't require a gigantic tree as the
wire is only 28.5 feet long. A throw bag or a water bottle and some line
should be able to get it deployed easily. If worse comes to worse and there
are no trees around for whatever reason, the Jackite supports it like
nothing is there.
72 de Larry W2LJQRP - When you care to send the very least!

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