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Assembling a Fox for Fox Hunting

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  Last week I was having a conversation with a friend about what there is to do in ham radio.  One of the things that I always thought looked fun was fox hunting (otherwise known as radio direction finding). Since I tend to be a little spontaneous, I hopped onto the Byonics web site and made some orders. First into the cart was the PicCon Foxhunt Controller, I threw in the cables for programming and power, and an antenna too.  Then I got to thinking how it would be fun to have a micro size fox so once you find the higher power one you have to get out on foot and really work to locate the other.  So back I went and placed another order for a MicroFox.  Cool unit, all self contained, so not much to say about the MicroFox yet.  Will have to break that one in hunting. Finally everything showed up!  I had a few of the needed items already, I had a dusty 6ah LifePo4 battery sitting around, like many people I have way too many Baofeng radios, and I also had ...
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Flying with Ham Radio Gear and POTA in Nevada

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I had a short vacation planned to fly down to Las Vegas and play some video poker, I decided it would be neat to take my ham radio gear and do a parks on the air while I was in town.  Having lived there at one time in my life, I knew the perfect place to visit.  Lake Mead National Recreation Area, lots of space to setup anywhere along the shoreline.  I have put together a nice kit that includes a 6ah LifePo4 battery, the Xiegu X5105 HF radio, a QRPguys antenna, and a small laptop.  The entire HF kit fits into a small bag with molle straps to which I have added a Condor 191028 pouch.  This gives me one more pocket to hold the antenna.  This easily fits in my carry-on luggage.  I prefer not to check a bag, so I decided to use my radio bag as my personal item and put the rest in my carry-on. First stop, TSA.  I had spent some time doing some research and found that the current requirements to carry on a lithium battery is for it to be under 100 wa...
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Parks On the Air Nolte State Park - Smokin' Activation

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  This activation was a first for me.  I had been playing with the Shark HF 20m Hamstick type antenna. It has been a struggle to get the SWR down into a usable range, I prefer to get them down under 1.5:1.  Using a mag mount, I just didn't feel like I was getting a good ground to the vehicle.  So I switched to a stake hole mount.  That seemed to do the trick.   These antennas are a little bit of a pain to trim down the whip.  Prior to switching to the new mount I had used my angle grinder to trim the whip.  Once I switched mounts, I pulled a new whip out of the package but decided not to trim it down.  Sure I know, I had read the instructions and knew better than to let the whip enter the loading coil area of the antenna.  But did I still do it?  Yup, sure did.  What's the worst thing that could happen, a little heat?  LOL!  I'm certain that we all make those mistakes every once in a while.  This one however ende...
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Parks On The Air Fort Worden

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Today we made our way out to Fort Worden State Park to do another POTA activation.  Being a Saturday it was pretty busy.  I found the most out of the way spot that I could and set up the Sota Beams Tactical Mini, Band Hopper. and Yaesu FT-891.  I was hoping to make some voice contacts but the people visiting the park had other plans. About 15 contacts in and a minivan pulls in next to me, one of their kids jumps right out, grabs a stick and starts hitting my antenna.  Asking the dad to not let them do that his response was “you’re in a state park…”. Yup guess that means all rules are off and I can beat your stuff with a stick.  Luckily the kids mom had an ounce of sense and explained to the boy why he should respect other people’s property.  The boy was able to apologize which I appreciated mom actually being a parent. Then the out of the way parking lot that I had found started to fill up.  No longer in a secluded spot and irritated, I decid...
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Parks On The Air Kanasket-Palmer and Federation Forest

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Today I decided to try and activate two parks.  I loaded up the FT-891, Mini Tactical Mast, Bandhopper 2, filled the cooler and headed to the hills.  First stop was Kanasket-Palmer State Park, I got there just after opening and there was only one other car in the lot.  I got everything set up, and started running FT8.  From the time I started setting up until I had the park activated and was packing the truck was roughly an hour and forty minutes.  From there I headed to Nolte state park, unfortunately they had a triathlon that was going to take place so I decided to about the hassle.  I set the GPS to Federation Forest and made my way through Enumclaw. Federation Forest State Park is small, not much room at each parking spot to set up.  But I managed.  I bungee corded the mast to the tailgate of the truck and ran my radials to a couple nearby downed trees.  With the truck smack dab under the antenna my SWR was a little high at roughly 1.6:1....
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Parks On The Air Flaming Geyser State Park

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Today was less of a project day and more getting out and putting my kit to use.  My brother met me at Flaming Geyser State Park to do a Parks on the Air (POTA) activation.  If you haven't heard of Parks on the Air, there are several programs like it, all designed to bring more people into the amateur radio community.  This seems to have caught on like wildfire and I'm having a lot of fun with it.  There isn't much to it.  There are state and national parks on the registry that have been assigned an identifying number.  Find a park near you, take your radio gear out there, and get at least 10 natural (not through repeaters) contacts to consider the park activated.  There are activators and hunters.  If you are an activator, you are physically at the park.  Hunters on the other hand, can be anywhere, and their goal is to make contact with activators.  There are certificates that you can earn for various milestones, but I'm really just in ...
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Hammo Can

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Well, I decided to jump on the craze and create a Hammo Can.  The idea was to put a 2m/70cm radio, a LifePo4 battery, external speaker, microphone, and antenna connector in an ammo can.  Hopefully with enough room left for me to put a small chunk of coax and an easy to deploy J-pole antenna in there.   I surfed around the interwebs and found all kind of examples, some people went over the top with theirs and obviously invested upwards of $1000.  My plan was to keep dollar amounts as low as possible and still end up with a cool product. Off to Harbor Freight I went.  They had a couple different flavors of ammo cans…. I grabbed a couple of each of the plastic ones.   Built the original one in the smaller of the two, but later decided I wanted a little bit more room and moved the entire setup over to the larger can.   Now that I had the cans and an idea of the space I had to deal with I started hunting for a radio.  I landed on the  Anytone AT-7...
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