Rain...

I had planned on getting out and operating portable this weekend but it is raining. Not just a little but typical Florida rain. I had hoped to set up on Postal Point this weekend. PP is a park on base that has a swimming area, playground, horeshoe pit etc. The best part is that the water is salty which means a lot of fun with QRP and vertical antennas. Whenever the weather cooperates I'll head down there and try to make a few contacts.

Mike KJ4LZD is setting up his station this weekend. He will be using a Kenwood 2m tx and a copper J pole antenna. I hope to hear him on the local repeaters today.


Not much else to say right now, because not much is going on. Best of luck and 72.

Steve

Weekend Update

Mike and I went to the PARC (Ft. Walton Beach, FL) test session this past Saturday. Mike is a good friend of mine and a fellow Marine. I have talked to him about becoming an Amateur Radio Operator for a few months. About 3 weeks ago I gave him a testing date and study material and told him to get ready.

We met up at 0730 at the Waffle House to eat breakfast and drink some coffee. It was a good chance for him to ask any last minute questions that he had. We also had a great oppurtunity to talk about how crazy the last couple of weeks at work had been.

At 0830 Mike sat down and took his Technician exam. I took the oppurtunity to stand outside and B.S. with some of the Hams that I knew. About an hour later Mike came out of the exam smiling. Mike said he did well and that he passed.

Fast forward to yesterday. Mike and I looked him up in the database and sure enough there was his name and brand new call sign. KJ4LZD. I made a joke that I would now be calling him KJ4LZD "The Lizard". He got a chuckle out of that.

If you are in NW Florida keep your ear open for our newest ham. Good job Mike and now its time to get after learning the code!

Steve

Busy Part II

The last few weeks have been crazy. All I can say is that I am glad it's over. Between all of the prep that went into the memorial and the working groups this week I have not had anytime for HAM radio. I hope to put a stop to that ASAP.

If I'm not mistaken, Dayton is coming up shortly. I would love go and with a little luck I might be able to put something together. What an experience that would be.

I have not QA'd my PFR-3's BLT yet. I hope to get a chance to work on it this weekend. There may not be anything wrong, but my gut tells me that I did something wrong during the construction. The transmitter and receiver are working perfect which I am very happy about. I'll post more info shortly along with the test QSO's that I made with it on 20, 30 and 40m.

Tomorrow morning I am taking a friend of mine to the local test session. His name is Mike and with any luck he'll be a licensed ham tomorrow.

72 for now.

Steve