ToddDubya
NES Member
I got my ticket about 8 years ago and have never gotten over mic fright until a few weeks ago. I figured a good way to break the seal would be to hunt some POTA (Parks on the Air pota.app) activators. They're looking to make contact, exchange calls and signal reports, and move on. No pressure to hold a conversation or anything, and you're doing them a favor. So that's what I've been doing and it's a shit load of fun.
I just finished an end fed half wave for portable use. It seems to work great, but isn't winning any beauty contests. I would have liked to build KM4ACK's kit but it's been out of stock forever. So I built it from scratch onto some kydex and it mostly does the trick, minus wire winding capability. Another good option would have been the kit ARRL is selling.
Anyway, after I got the antenna trimmed to a decent SWR across the 40/20 (and quite possibly 15 and 10) meter bands I took it up on a mountain last night and oh man is it nice without an S8 noise floor. I got rained out pretty quickly so today I hiked into to another spot and set up shop. It's a contest weekend so the bands are packed, but I made 8 POTA contacts before the rain chased me away again. I wasn't 100% sure I was in a park so I didn't attempt an activation. And I'm not sure I'm confident enough to manage a pile up.
Right now I've got my Yaesu 857d and a Bioenno 12Ah battery in a backpack along with the antenna/coax. My throw line is bulky as f*** so I carry that separately but I've got something new in my amazon cart. I'd like to find a bag that is more appropriate for the task. I've seen purpose built bags for radios like the Icom 705 but not for your standard shaped mobile. Ideally I'd be able to operate without unpacking to connect everything up. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them.
I've seen a few guys just using 24-hour packs that will clamshell open all the way. That might be a good solution, especially if I use an antenna that requires a tuner and need a little more room. I've seen this DDT model in a few videos.
I just finished an end fed half wave for portable use. It seems to work great, but isn't winning any beauty contests. I would have liked to build KM4ACK's kit but it's been out of stock forever. So I built it from scratch onto some kydex and it mostly does the trick, minus wire winding capability. Another good option would have been the kit ARRL is selling.
Anyway, after I got the antenna trimmed to a decent SWR across the 40/20 (and quite possibly 15 and 10) meter bands I took it up on a mountain last night and oh man is it nice without an S8 noise floor. I got rained out pretty quickly so today I hiked into to another spot and set up shop. It's a contest weekend so the bands are packed, but I made 8 POTA contacts before the rain chased me away again. I wasn't 100% sure I was in a park so I didn't attempt an activation. And I'm not sure I'm confident enough to manage a pile up.
Right now I've got my Yaesu 857d and a Bioenno 12Ah battery in a backpack along with the antenna/coax. My throw line is bulky as f*** so I carry that separately but I've got something new in my amazon cart. I'd like to find a bag that is more appropriate for the task. I've seen purpose built bags for radios like the Icom 705 but not for your standard shaped mobile. Ideally I'd be able to operate without unpacking to connect everything up. If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them.
I've seen a few guys just using 24-hour packs that will clamshell open all the way. That might be a good solution, especially if I use an antenna that requires a tuner and need a little more room. I've seen this DDT model in a few videos.