Since I am down in Florida for a little while and I am finally going to Hamcation, I thought I would do some POTA as well. Today I had a few hours to spare so I went out to K-1829
This is a new “to me” park so I was a little excited to see what it would be like. When I first looked it up, I noticed it has a check in station at the entrance of the park and a campground and lots of trails. This park is quite large too so it was going to be interesting to see where I could find a spot to setup. With gated entrances and check in stations, these parks usually charge a fee to enter them. Not so here, well sort of… You see, as I was getting near the entrance, I noticed this equestrian parking area and when I checked the map, it was fully within the park boundries. I checked the board for parking rules and there were no rules like payment needed or any specific place or anything like that, so I pulled in here as it was right off the main road.
Once I found a spot under a shade tree, I started thinking about what band to start on. I settled on the highest band I have a hamstick for…15 meters.
This is where I learned something today about the setup that I didn’t know before. The coax is what makes this antenna resonant on 15 meters. Yep ,I put the common mode choke at the base of the antenna and the SWR was 1.4 to 1. Move the choke to the other end of the coax and it was 1.021 to 1! I guess I tuned it with this piece of coax in this position or something as I had deployed the 20 meter radials and then the 30 meter radials to help and wiht just the 20 meter radials, the SWR was 1.65 to 1. This is technically usable, but I prefer it to be a better match to the transmitter output impedance, so I kept experimenting till I figured it out.
Below shows the first radio I used today. The TenTec Argonaut 5 is a wonderful little radio. Since I like CW for my activations, this is a great radio for me. I don’t even have a hand mic in the kit (I should change that to be honest)… Today saw me also as the MFJ 941C antenna tuner as well. I don’t need this tuner with my hamsticks as they are resonant antennas, but I wanted to play around with the SWR meter a little and this also allows me to keep an eye on the antenna system too as I can see the SWR changing in real time this was way. The Argonaut 5 has no built in SWR meter so this fixes that shortcoming for me.
Today also saw the re-emergence of my N3ZN CW key as will. It is a wonderful little key and works like a dream. I run this key through a Ham Gadgets memory keyer for my POTA ops. I store all four memory locations with useful data to streamline my activations. I also have two different cables to connect it to the radio with as well. One goes into the back where the traditional key input goes and the other is a hybrid cable that connects to the mic jack on the front of the radio. You can see it in the above photo with the noise suppression toroid inline. I have been so stuck on the sbitx radio lately that I had forgotten how fun it was to use this little radio.
After I worked a bunch of CW contacts, I moved up to the Ft8 part of the band and changed radios so I could work some FT8 contacts while I wrote out my log in HAMRS. Since FT8 is relatively hands off, I can get my log file for the POTA site done while getting some contacts on FT8 as well. I was able to get 19 digital contacts in the log today like this before I ran out of time. Not too bad for a guy who doesn’t know much about digital modes.
Here is a hint about the sbitx. Don’t forget to update the grid in your settings file before you start or you will be handing out the wrong grid… That one is free. Lol.
The one thing about Florida parks that is very different from back home is the presence of aligators in the water. Back home, it is nothing to goto the river with your friends in the summer and go swimming, but here that is a risky proposition. The park warns of it and I am pretty sure that is what I saw out in the water before I left for the day as well. It is hard to tell in this photo but there is a tiny object right in the middle of frame below that was moving in odd patterns around in the middle of the water, could have been a log, but my mind wants to say it was a gator…lol.
Here is another subject I learned about today you might say. I wanted to see how much difference it would make to move the common mode choke from one end of the coax to the other on my 15 meter hamstick as I am pretty sure I tuned it with the choke at the transceiver end of the line. Well, it made a huge difference to be honest about it.
The ground plane makes a huge difference if you plan to run resonant antennas, just keep that in mind while you are tuning up your system. EVERY device in the line will factor into the system impedance and is important. Dont forget that.
The log today shows of many Canadians as well as a Belgian too! I was really stoked to get them into the log as well as Utah and Idaho, those are all pretty long trips for 15 watts and a hamstick, but they made the trip! I am constantly amazed at what you can do with these little diminutive antennas to be honest about it. Just goes to show that about anything that will tune up (with or without a tuner) will radiate a signal and can make contacts. You hear about people having to load their gutters because of covenants restricting antennas and I dont doubt that they make a ton of contacts with them.
All in all, I see that there was no need to get the other antennas out at all. There was plenty going on up on the 15 meter band so I never bothered to move off the band. It was a great time and I hope to replicate it again soon.
Until then 73,
WK4DS