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Field Day at the Beach Jun 2009 — Hammock Mobile?

kmack — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:41:52 +0000

The last couple weeks have been busy at my office. This weekend we took some time off and headed to St Petersburg Beach. Since it was ARRL Field Day and I have not participated in that great event in almost 30 yrs, I took my Wilderness Sierra and Buddistick antenna and did some LAZY operating from the beach. My little 2.5 watts out didn’t break through too many pileups, but I had a great time listening to all the activity and being at the beach too.

You can only take so much Florida sun in one day… gets might hot. So I found a fine alternative and perhaps set a historic way to use the Buddistick. Check out my Hammock Mobile operating site. Buddistick is on the support pole.

Successful Walkathon

kmack — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:04:04 +0000

Saturday 28 March we participated in a walkathon at our ministry. To spice things up, I went Pedestrian Mobile on 20m and had fun. The CQ WPX contest crowded the bands with high power contesters, but I had fun walking and listening to the good dx. My new configuration worked well but I have more ideas on how to keep improving the mix and making the rig more stable in the high winds we often get here.

After the walk was completed, I helped my friend, Matt KC8IWD align a newly received NorCal 40 with the Buddistick clamped on the balcony railing of our ministry’s prayer tower. Boyz n toyz…

73,

Kelly K4UPG

Ready, set, GO!!!

Hello CQ!

Watch out for my counterpoise!

Just one more qso before I quit...

Tweaking the new Norcal 40

Pedestrian Mobile Honeymoon Island, Florida Mar 21, 2009

kmack — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:24:54 +0000

After taking a few laps of the tailgate vendor area at the Gulf Coast Amateur Radio Club Hamfest in New Port Richey, my wife, Connie and I drove down to Honeymoon Island State Park and Beach on the Gulf coast north of Clearwater/St. Petersburg. This was my first time out with the new setup for pedestrian mobile. I learned a lot and had a blast despite semi-poor band conditions and a very windy day.

I was using a MFJ 9420 on 20 meter SSB to my Buddistick mounted on my backpack frame. I connected with several HF-Pack members on the 14, 342.5 MHz hangout or there abouts… heard lots of others too. Budd Drummond, W3FF was spotting and helping the portable and mobile stations make connections. Budd was pounding in at 20 over S9 from California and had the best signal I heard all day. Lower on the band I heard good signals from Spain, Azores, and a few G3′s but my 10 watts didn’t compete with the contest crowd today at least.

Here’s some photos of the setup I used. Will refine it to prevent some of the wind related problems I experienced today and post more detailed photos in case someone is considering a similar rig. The wind load on the Buddistick and bicycle flag combination was a real surprise and caused a number of issues for me.

Honeymoon Island initial testing.

First contact brings a smile to my face!

Tweaking to compensate for sun caused vfo drift

Working the HF Pack 20m frequency

Wind forced me to the pier