Portable Ops...

It was a great day here today.  I managed to get out and play portable radio in the local park.  First time out playing radio this year, other than Winter Field Day.  There were not too many people at Lake Ontario Park, and nobody near me, so it was safe enough.  In fact it might be safe enough to start operating there on a semi-regular basis...unless the city regulations change again

Not many contacts made it into the logbook as the bands were not in the best condition.  The QSB on 20m was particularly bad, stations went from an S9 to S0 in seconds.   The propagation numbers were:  SFI=68, SN=0, A Index=4, and the K Index=1 at 1730 UTC.

Radio in use today was my KX3 which performed flawlessly as usual.  The antenna today was the Packtenna Mini, cut to 41.5 feet.

Supposedly you do not need radials with this antenna, but I find it works better with them.  I use a large alligator clip and attach it to the outer ring of the BNC connector as you can see in this picture.

While I normally homebrew my antennas, this one was certainly worth the money I paid for it.

Don, VE3MNE, came with me and worked on a new antenna project he has in the works for Chillycon this year.  So far it looks very promising, a few more tweaks and it will definitely give Eric, VA3AMX, a good run for his money if we can run the event this year. 😆

Once in a while I mention LIDS, and today we had a doozy, a G3 station (I have his full call) from Birmingham, England, called for over 20 minutes on top of a YL net.  The G3 knew the YL's were on frequency as he told them to go away while he tried to work DX.  I guess he must be special and owns his own frequency.  Good on the YL's for ignoring him and continuing, and I hope they send a recording of his behaviour to OFCOM.

VE3MNE working on his new portable antenna.

Today's operating position