I spent some time playing around with APRS, which is all new to me, as is the rig. Slowly we're figuring out things, and more to the point I actually have the radio sending out beacons now. By the way, if you get an FT2D - get rid of the stock antenna and get an after-market one. The stock whip is not good at all.
The other thing I got to do was 2m CW. I suppose as are most areas, 2m is pretty quiet these days, so I wanted to see what I could do. In this location, I've never heard of anyone doing either CW or SSB on 2m..........so I had to try.
It took about 10 minutes of calling CQ, but I did get a response from Ron VE3GO, who was a very long 3 km from my location.......However, I'm sure that CW contact was actually long path !! 😆The bad thing of the day was the fact that I had forgotten my 22-foot painter pole and only had an 8-foot version with me. I used my short Buddipole whips to make a 2m dipole and made the contact on that. Worked great !!
I was so excited at finally getting back out to the park that I forgot to write down the SFI of the day.........I do know that it wasn't very good.
Looking forward to many more of these events in the local parks and on the local islands. It's a great way to spend a Sunday.
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| The operating location - the back of the van. |
