Saturday Morning Ham Radio HF Live Stream with AF0F 2026-05-09 14:45 UTC

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:29]Stand Bringing you a glimpse of the airwaves from the heartland of America.

[00:00:42]>> Alpha Fox Zero Fox.

[00:00:43]>> Alpha Fox Zero Fox. Good to hear you.

[00:00:45]Five night.

[00:00:46]>> Uh, there we go. Alpha Fox Zero Fox.

[00:00:47]>> I'm Michael. Alpha Foxtrot Zero Foxtrot.

[00:00:51]>> Are you live streaming this?

[00:00:53]>> Hey, good morning everybody. Welcome to another live stream of Harland AM radio.

[00:00:57]My name is Michael. My amateur radio call sign is AF0F Alpha Foxtrot0 Foxtrot. I'm coming to you live today from my home QTH here in Kansas City.

[00:01:05]Happy Saturday to you all. Uh if you're new to amateur radio, um we live stream usually on Saturdays and we hang out here in the shack and sometimes we're contesting, sometimes we're doing parks on the air, uh all sorts of stuff. So we just hang out here, have fun, uh enjoy each other's company and share a little bit of this hobby we call ham radio. Uh today we are going to be hunting uh parks on the air activators. These are folks that are have taken their amateur radio equipment out into the park and they're trying to make contacts with folks like us uh from those parks. Uh there's also a cuso party this weekend.

[00:01:36]There's the Canadian Prairies uh Cuso party. Uh so that one is going on this weekend. Uh last weekend was a big one.

[00:01:43]There was like 15 different states that were doing Cuso parties. So not as big as last weekend. Uh but had a lot of fun with that one last weekend. But uh we'll uh probably be focusing on Parks on the Air today. Uh I'll be narrating as we go. But if you're new to amateur radio or parks on the air or contesting or if you have any questions about what the heck it is I'm doing, just let me know in the chat or the comments. Uh let's see what's new in the shack. It is the weekend before Ham Venshin. Uh if you're not familiar with Ham Venshin, it is a uh big amateur radio hamfest that is held in Ohio, Dayton, Ohio, the suburb of Zena. And uh that is next week. So, I'm going to be headed out on Wednesday uh to Ohio for Ham Venshin. Uh it's going to be a all day drive. I think it's like 12 or 13 hours from here in Kansas City. So, it'll be a long day, but uh Thursday I'm going to be in Contest University. Contest University always happens the day before Ham Venvention opens. So, I'm going to be doing that all day on Thursday. And I'm super excited about this. Uh there are breakout sessions on all sorts of topics around contesting. and I'm really looking forward to uh learning uh from some of the best contesters in the world. Uh so I hope I get some tips and tricks and can bring those back and apply those into my next contest. I'll be doing that on Thursday. On Friday, Ham Venvention opens. So that's probably the busiest day of Ham Venvention from what I understand. I have never been before. I've been a ham radio operator for over 30 years and I have never been to the Dayton Ham Venion. So I am super excited about this. Uh it opens on Friday and goes uh Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I will be there Friday and Saturday. Uh I have to head back on Sunday, probably after breakfast sometime uh cuz I got a long drive back to Kansas City to be back in town for work on Monday. Uh but that's my plan.

[00:03:24]So I'm excited. No live stream next Saturday, but uh I'm going to do my best to try and maybe post some shorts or something from Hamvention in Ohio. So we'll see how that goes. And I'm super excited to uh meet some of you all.

[00:03:37]Several of you have reached out said you're going to be at Ham Venion asking if I'm going to be there. Uh if you see me, please say hello. You guys know what I look like. I don't always know what you look like. Uh please introduce yourself, say hi, and uh I would love uh to do a face tof face uh meet with uh with some of y'all. So, I'm I'm super excited about that. Uh kind of in that same theme, uh big thank you to everyone that tunes in and supports me in the channel. Uh this started as something I wanted to learn how to do, and I thought I might just try it for a couple months.

[00:04:03]Uh, but I didn't expect to make such amazing connections with you all and the knowledge sharing that goes on. It's just pretty dang cool. So, I've enjoyed sharing this hobby with you all and I appreciate you taking a little bit of your valuable time and hanging out with me here in the shack on Saturday. I always love getting your comments and your feedbacks. Uh, feedback. I'm good on QRZ if you want to email me after the show. Uh, if you're new here, don't forget to hit that subscribe or like button. And, uh, if you subscribe and do an alert, you'll never miss out on one of my live streams. All right, I got my radio on. Let's see who we can get in the log this morning.

[00:04:35]>> All right, unmute this in my ear. I see some activity on the waterfall already.

[00:04:41]>> We got Tyler in the chat already saying hello. Hello. Hello. Good morning to you.

[00:04:46]>> Happy Saturday from Kansas City.

[00:04:50]>> This sounds like a rag chew going on here on 225.

[00:04:57]>> Hey, we got Nate in the chat as well.

[00:04:59]Good morning, Nate. Happy Saturday to you.

[00:05:06]>> There was a POTA spotted there. I'm not hearing him.

[00:05:10]Those guys on 225 might be kind of drowning them out.

[00:05:18]>> Anybody got any fun projects going on in their shack?

[00:05:24]And now uh the uh price has really gone up um in my in my um >> sounds like another rag tube on 6849 North Carolina 6849.

[00:05:37]>> There sounds like a POTA 6849 November Charlie.

[00:05:52]You're on your bike. You might turn you in.

[00:05:57]>> I think that was the park to park.

[00:06:01]>> Yeah, it was. It was a park to park. I didn't get the park number, but when I was pulling up the spot information in my scratch space, it was like, I don't hear the activator there. All right, let's keep rolling.

[00:06:11]>> Michigan QSL.

[00:06:12]>> Uh, there's Delta Fox Trot.

[00:06:16]>> Those guys are there most Saturdays.

[00:06:19]Kuster State Park, I think.

[00:06:22]>> Thank you and have a great one.

[00:06:28]>> They might be at a different park today.

[00:06:33]>> Somebody's right below him. Just wipe them out.

[00:06:44]>> Somebody's running some power here.

[00:06:48]Is >> that ragu running some power >> park US 4239 country trail Michigan.

[00:07:01]>> Hey, they're in a different park.

[00:07:04]>> Hey, we got Daniel in the chat. Good morning.

[00:07:07]Hey, I was glad to get you on uh FT8 yesterday. I was uh poking around here and uh saw you on there. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I was doing some other stuff."

[00:07:15]uh when you switched to CW. I uh I I had already was running off to do something else. I didn't get you on CW, but uh thanks for saying hi this morning, Daniel.

[00:07:24]>> Hey, we got Kyle with his new call sign.

[00:07:26]NN9 Zed. Good morning. Good morning, Kyle. Hope you're doing well.

[00:07:37]>> Tyler said, uh soldering iron disappeared. Haven't used it a long time. Uh, so once that comes in with the antenna making stuff, I have a QMX Plus to build and then I'll finally play around with some HF. That's awesome, Tyler.

[00:07:50]>> Yeah, I had to get a new soldering iron when I uh was doing my uh DX Commander build. So, it had been a while. It had been so long I hadn't used a lead solder before.

[00:08:06]That's how long it had been since I had soldered. So, Delta Hotel 1 alpha Oscar says QMX plus heart.

[00:08:17]Got some QMX fans in here. I see a lot of those especially in uh Pota Sierra QR three Sierra. That sounds like a special event.

[00:08:30]>> Uh it's again >> Armed Forces. So what is this? Armed Forces Day. Awesome. by handing Oscar.

[00:08:40]>> He's pretty strong. We get a special event in the log here.

[00:08:43]>> Okay. Kilo Echo 9 Echo Bravo. Oscar, you're 5 and N when you're in the clear.

[00:08:48]Nice signal here into Annapolis, Maryland. Over.

[00:08:55]>> Yeah, glad to hear it. Your audio is pretty nice, too. Thank you. 73 from November 3C Norway. Should I >> jumped in there? I was had my fingers not on the >> station free solders from hell. Smiley face.

[00:09:14]>> You're five and nine though. Nice signal.

[00:09:16]>> Yeah, I definitely I I think I figured out definitely needs a little hotter iron for sure. And then uh figured out I need to use a little flux with it.

[00:09:28]>> I am not a great solder. You'll get a nice card if you uh if you ask for one.

[00:09:32]I think the QSL manager is Kilowatt 3 London Uniform. K3LU will be the uh QSL manager.

[00:09:43]>> Okay. 73 from Kilo 3 Sierra.

[00:09:45]>> Alpha Fox Zero Fox.

[00:09:48]>> Alpha Fox Zero Fox 59.

[00:09:50]>> QSL, you're 59 into Kansas. Kilo Sierra.

[00:09:55]>> Hang on a minute till I fumbled your call. Thanks for that report. You're 59 here in Maryland >> QSL. Thanks for the 59 59 Kansas. Thank you. 73 >> from Kilo 3 November 3 and 3 from November 3.

[00:10:16]>> Hello CQ calling CQ November 3C.

[00:10:19]>> He's loud. Sounds good.

[00:10:26]Alpha Fox Charlie Romeo 58.

[00:10:30]>> Alpha Fox trot zero. I was like, "What?

[00:10:32]What? What did he not get me?"

[00:10:37]All right. He's loud though. He sounds good. Good audio. There's Papa Romeo Delta.

[00:10:44]I can hear him.

[00:10:53]Uh, should I be using a lead free solder? No, I mean all the solder was leaded when I uh when I was soldering.

[00:10:59]You can still get leaded solder. Um, some of the some of the countries have like the removal of hazardous substances and some of those. So, some of those will require not using um, you know, a leaded solder. But, you know, for a personal project, there's no problem with using a leaded solder as far as I'm aware.

[00:11:20]I'm just going to spin the dial here just to see who else we got here.

[00:11:26]See several folks spotted. Not hearing a ton. Noise isn't too bad this morning here on 20.

[00:11:38]>> There's somebody maybe really light.

[00:11:46]Yeah, it's very intelligible, which is, you know, better than being very loud.

[00:11:51]Is if if you can't understand it, you can't talk to them.

[00:11:57]>> Yeah. Roger that. I think we're fading in and out, but audio.

[00:12:04]Thank you.

[00:12:09]Alpha Fox Zero Fox.

[00:12:19]I lost him in the QSB.

[00:12:22]I didn't come back to a Bravo in the call. So, I don't think that was me.

[00:12:26]Anybody else going to Ham Venvention this week? This upcoming week.

[00:12:31]>> I'm like both nervous and excited.

[00:12:35]my 40,000 closest ham friends descending on the suburb or the metropolis of Dayton, Ohio.

[00:12:47]>> I'm car pooling with a couple guys from the contest club. So, that should be fun chatting with them for a little bit on the drive.

[00:12:56]>> There he came back up a little bit.

[00:12:59]>> Uh I'll also be hanging out at the WRL booth. um volunteered to help uh help in their booth. So, uh feel free to stop on by and say hello if you're there.

[00:13:18]>> Ah, Peter K0 Papa Lima Tango Shack project installing Zoran on my old laptop. Get FT8 installed and connect to my IC75 via Wi-Fi. Nice. Sounds like a good project.

[00:13:31]Hey, we got Poland in the chat saying hello. Good morning from Poland. Sierra Papa Zulu.

[00:13:37]>> Maybe if I'm extracting the call out of the name there. Right.

[00:13:41]>> We got Randy in the chat. November Delta 9 golf. Hello Randy. Are you working this weekend or uh you have a weekend off?

[00:13:52]>> See Tyler said I can't go. I had to use a bunch of PTO from work. I just found out I don't have time to take off Friday and Monday. Yep, I get that.

[00:14:03]>> Yeah, I'm super excited about Contest University. Um, I really looking forward to hearing some of those speakers. You see some of these uh some of these folks on uh you know, channels like Q5 and some of those. It'll be it'll be really awesome. Uh I think um there's a contest dinner. I think that's Saturday night.

[00:14:20]So, I'll be at the contest dinner and then um Flex Radio is doing two dinners.

[00:14:25]They got one Thursday night and one Friday night. I picked Friday night. I kind of wish I would have picked Thursday night because they're going to have some of the Bouvet Island folks on Thursday night. Um, so I wasn't sure after a day full of Contest University, you know, they gave an option. I was like, well, I'll do Friday cuz I didn't have anything planned for Friday, but uh I'll be at the Flex dinner on Friday night. And uh not sure what the plans are on Thursday night. Uh, Saturday night, uh, the Kansas City DX Club sponsors a CW pileup contest in the contest suite, and they do a big, uh, competition on how many call signs you can decode out of a out of a pileup, uh, madeup kind of pileup situation. So, I'm excited to observe that. I There's no way I can participate in that. My CW is nowhere close to contest level, but uh, it'll be fun to kind of meet some folks.

[00:15:15]And uh I I know a lot of folks look forward to that pileup contest every uh every uh every year. So uh Randy going to Dayton uh next week, one day only. Randy, I hope I run into you. Been a longtime supporter of uh of me streaming here in the channel. So I hope we can uh uh at least uh bump into each other briefly.

[00:15:40]>> Hey Gary Kila Romeo 4 uh Juliet Golf Delta saying hello this morning. Morning Gary. Hope you're doing well this Saturday.

[00:15:48]>> Chatting about Ham Venin this morning.

[00:15:58]>> Alpha Foxtrot Zero Foxtrot.

[00:16:02]>> Alpha Fox.

[00:16:07]>> QSL. I got you 55 into Kilo Sierra. 55 into Kansas this morning.

[00:16:12]for that. Thank you.

[00:16:14]>> Have a good one. 73. Good luck.

[00:16:16]>> 73.

[00:16:20]>> He's a new activator for me.

[00:16:26]He >> is light but readable. We had a little bit of QSB trouble with him.

[00:16:30]>> Get him respotted here. 55 from Kansas.

[00:16:35]I sometimes get the question uh you know what's the benefit to respotting? Um, for me the respot helps because I can see a check mark next to them. And if we're going to sit here for a couple hours and kind of go through the bands a couple times, uh, if I respot them, it crosses them off on that band and mode so that I can try to reduce, not that it hasn't happened, but try to reduce my potential for duplicating up on somebody. So, uh, that's that's one of the reasons I respot. The other benefit is to other hunters out there, right? so other hunters can see that that person has been recently heard uh you know on that mode and frequency. So, you know, letting others know they're still out there. I think it I think they stay on the page uh for up to 30 minutes. So, if they don't get respotted for 30 minutes, I think they fall off. But, uh I guess unless they do QRT, if you mark them QRT, you can filter the QRTs out. But, uh that is the reason I do the respotting.

[00:17:34]Randy says, "I'm hoping to run into Salty Walt and get his new book."

[00:17:37]Awesome. Yeah, I've got uh Hang on a second.

[00:17:42]>> Not sponsored, but I have his uh portable antenna book here. Uh I've not read it in detail. I've flipped through a couple times. I love the sketches. I love the pictures of the food and stuff after he goes out and activates and and all that stuff. So, that'll be cool.

[00:17:58]>> Not sponsored, but I got the book. Let's see. Nate says, "I wish I was going.

[00:18:05]Always coincides with an annual vacation." I think I had the same problem last year, Nate. Um I uh I had an issue with uh you know, something I had previously scheduled before and then it was too late. Like the hotels and stuff just get crazy in Dayton around that time obviously. So I had the same problem last year.

[00:18:27]And let's see here. Gary says, "Uh, been getting contacts with my DM32HT on 52."

[00:18:33]Awesome.

[00:18:36]>> Randy, get it autographed. That's a great idea, actually. Maybe I should uh should pack it and see if you can autograph it for me. That'd be kind of cool. That's a great idea, Randy.

[00:18:50]Daniel says, "Activators definitely appreciate the respot because a lot of hunters sort the page by recent spots."

[00:18:55]Yep, absolutely. Good call out, Daniel.

[00:19:02]Andy says book two is out. I didn't know that he's got two books. Is there a second edition of that one or another version?

[00:19:13]>> Hey, John's in the chat. Good morning.

[00:19:15]My wife Michelle and I are both going to Dayton Zena late Friday night for Saturday. Hope to see you floating around. Yeah, absolutely. If you see me, please say hi. Uh, like I said uh earlier in the open, uh, you all know what I look like. I don't always know what you guys look like. I may recognize your voice or call sign, but uh, please say hi if you do see me.

[00:19:36]Please, please, please say hi. I'd love to uh, happy to take a picture with some of y'all. I had someone reach out like, "Hey, if we meet, is it okay if I take a picture?" Yeah, that's fine. Absolutely.

[00:19:45]Just hit me up.

[00:19:49]Randy says, "Suppos having a book signing." Awesome. I have to check that out. I have to add that to my packing list.

[00:19:56]All right, let's see what else we can get here.

[00:20:01]>> I still don't have my loop on the ground installed yet. Uh kiddos are here visiting this weekend.

[00:20:07]My son said he might help me uh get the uh get the coax run outside. Be an extra pair of hands. So, we'll see how things go. I probably won't be able to stream real long today. We've got some uh graduation parties early this afternoon.

[00:20:17]since we got some family coming into town and we're going to hit some uh graduation parties. So, uh I won't be able to stream too long here this morning. But >> we'll see how tomorrow morning goes.

[00:20:29]Maybe if we get some of the antenna work done later today, we can do a stream tomorrow. We can uh see how uh see how maybe the loop on the ground stuff works.

[00:20:45]Can't tell if that was the activator or the or the uh some sort of hunter. I think it was a Randy trying to find out when and where something about the ARIRL booth. I think you're right. I think I did see something. Um I've downloaded the ARIRL app for the event. I just haven't had a chance yet to go through and uh um look at the details around that. I I'm going to guess some of that stuff will be in the app, but uh we'll see.

[00:21:17]>> Somebody from that same park a moment ago.

[00:21:19]>> Oh, John says go to his YouTube channel.

[00:21:21]He has a vid schedule for Dayton. Oh, awesome. That'd be great. That's a good tip there, John.

[00:21:26]>> So, glad y'all are coexisting in the same park. So, good deal. Y'all have a great day in 73.

[00:21:39]>> Uh he's kind of faded on me there.

[00:21:44]A little bit of QSB today. A little bit of signals fading.

[00:21:49]>> Andy says there's an app for event.

[00:21:51]Yeah, it's called um let me see here.

[00:21:53]>> Uh A RL event >> is what it is at least on my iOS device.

[00:22:01]So yeah, it's got like a >> it's downloading updates, but yeah, it's got like a schedule and uh exhibitors and maps and all sorts of stuff there. So yeah, it's I think it's called a it shows up as a arl event in my uh >> my device 131 98 >> alpha foxtrot zero foxtrot stand >> QSL I got you 57 into kilo Sierra 57 Kansas this morning. Thank you. We're 573.

[00:22:50]>> 73. Have fun.

[00:22:52]>> All right, Martin. Go ahead.

[00:22:54]>> All right, we got him on the upswing.

[00:22:56]5759.

[00:22:58]Let's see here. Last work. Preston. Uh, one of my activations in Missouri, >> South Carolina today. First time I've caught him in a park. Okay, for Zulu.

[00:23:10]Okay, >> that's probably a new park for me. I don't recognize that part.

[00:23:26]>> Uh Tyler says, "Maybe a dumb question.

[00:23:28]There's no dumb questions." Uh I'm new ham. What is the mechanism that makes more solar activity increase the range of the transmissions? Okay. Well, I'm going to caveat this with I am not a propagation expert, so I'm just going to caveat that. There's probably a lot of folks in the chat that can probably explain this a little bit better, but there's a couple different layers in the atmosphere that impact um how radio waves u travel. And uh depending on the solar activity, um there's magnetic activity, the sunspots, all the various things uh can influence how uh those layers of the atmosphere are acting. And depending on the band, the frequency, the mode, um a lot of those can can impact things on on how far a signal can travel. So, uh, one of the things that's really, really interesting and just the awe and wonder for me of this hobby is I've been in some contests before where I have heard uh, a station uh, with a very with- with like an echo. Uh, and when you hear that, you are hearing them both short path and long path. Uh, which is always really interesting. Um, so you know, you hear them both crossing short path and passing long path. When I was talking to some of the guys in the contest club, uh, when Bouvet Island, which was a a a big deex expedition that happened recently, um, a lot of them were struggling to get contacts with them on the short path. Uh, I believe most of them when they were finally able to make contacts were swinging their beams around 180° and sending long path and having more success. uh which is just really crazy. So it's just the the ph phenomenon and physics of all of that is just amazing. But uh yeah, there's different solar um you know values uh that impact radio. Um I'll put a link here. This is one that I use. I'll share it here in the let me let this load.

[00:25:19]This is the Noah um which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration here in the United States. Uh there's other entities globally but in here it will show uh some of the key uh uh some of the key pieces like uh x-ray flux uh the solar uh proton flux and then the geomagnetic activity like the K index and so you can kind of see here when it's green and red and you can kind of follow you know the solar activity. Another big uh piece of uh factor is like uh the sunspots, the number of sunspots and and all of that. So uh that a lot of those influence a lot of pieces of of all of that. The big things that um the ham radio operators typically care about is like the A index, the K index, and the SFI. So those are kind of the three the three values. Um SFI is just like solar radiation levels uh that impact the uh the atmosphere which is one of the layers in the atmosphere. The higher the SFI means better propagation on the higher bands like 10 m 15 20. U so anyway SFI is important. Uh the K index shows like geomagnetic disturbances.

[00:26:32]This is how much geomagnetic activity is in there. if there's a solar flare or a coronial mass ejection, you know, and that hits the Earth, it can create very loud staticky conditions on it. And then there's the A index, um, which is the geomagnetic activity over a 24-hour period because after something happens in the atmosphere, it can take time for things to either dissipate or or or flow out. So, uh, the K is more of a short-term index and the A is more of kind of a 24-hour index. Um, so anyway, you you kind of want those values as low as possible. And then you want the SFI to kind of be as high as possible. Uh, during peak solar cycle, it's not uh uncommon for SFI to be like well over 200. Uh, let me look. This morning, I think it's like 117. Yeah, it's 117 this morning. The K index is three. The A is 7. So anyway, uh there's all sorts of stuff in there that you can you can look at. Um, a lot of like uh uh open ham clock and some of those a lot of those uh grid tracker for FT8. A lot of those will have solar uh condition overlays that you can put on there. But uh great great question there. And so there's no dumb questions, >> Tyler.

[00:27:46]>> Yeah. Delta Hotel 1 Alpha Oscar says there's one time I heard my own CW two times spinning around the world two times. Yeah, it's crazy when you when you experience that for the first time.

[00:27:54]It's like what is going on here? And it's like, oh my gosh, I'm hearing the signal twice. Um, so, and the other thing that's really interesting to me is, uh, when you get auroral flutter.

[00:28:05]So, you'll you'll be working a station and you'll get this really like kind of, you know, kind of auroral just kind of flutter on their signal and it's just kind of this fading that's kind of in and out. Different than QSB. It's it's hard to describe, but it it's just a really interesting phenomenon.

[00:28:28]HF pirate says Noah draft page is extremely useful as well. Yeah, there's so many resources out there for like solar conditions and and propagation stuff. So, uh yeah, just do some Google searches and you'll you'll find all sorts of stuff. So, >> uh Delta T1 Alpha Oscar says, "I recommend ham dash."

[00:28:46]>> Thank you.

[00:28:47]>> And then John says, "Solar ham is another great page." US 138.

[00:28:52]>> Yeah, northern lights sound almost scary here in the north. Yeah, I bet. I I can't even imagine being at uh at those latitudes where you know it's like right right there on you.

[00:29:14]I love chatting with you all and then I get distracted playing radio.

[00:29:25]>> Okay, got my scratch space all cleaned up here. I was taking some notes on some spots on CW here. I don't know if we'll do any CW this morning. See if we hear any of these folks.

[00:29:44]There's WZTX.

[00:29:47]A little bit of QSB on him.

[00:29:54]We got some CW activity going today.

[00:29:58]It's harder for me to chat with you all and listen to the CW.

[00:30:05]RCQOTA.

[00:30:13]We got a lot of CW ops.

[00:30:17]John says, "Hearing AU is weird. Voices like underwater and CW's like listening to a piece of sandpaper on wood. It's really bizarre. I I It's hard to describe. Uh, but there's been a couple contests where I've been live streaming and you can hear it. It's just really weird.

[00:30:34]But it's also kind of cool once you kind of know what's going on. It's like wow.

[00:30:38]Like the just the way the physics of all this works is just I find fascinating. I don't understand it. Like barely understand it. And it is just so freaking cool, especially in an era now with like internet and stuff and like, you know, we can just be a couple, you know, 500 milliseconds away from a message getting across the world, right? And then you've got this, you know, this hobby where we can, you know, transmit out a signal with a piece of wire in our backyard and bounce it off a layer in the atmosphere and work somebody 10,000 mi away. It's just like, this is so freaking cool.

[00:31:25]John says, "Had a ball plane with 6 m on AU." Yeah, if you get um if you get a big uh CME or something and their royal activity, you know, fires up, uh 6 m can be a lot of fun. I think it was like the day there was a pretty big uh CME event.

[00:31:40]I think it was in January and I was up here late. Uh it was during the week. I was up here late and I was like I had my spots up and I kept seeing 6 m 6 m 6 m.

[00:31:53]This was like 9:30 at night local time.

[00:31:55]It was like 6 m spot, 6 m spot. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, six must be open." So I went and I was hearing all sorts of South and Central America just like they were right next door. It was incredible.

[00:32:07]And it was like the night after the CME event had happened. It was It was wild cuz a lot of times those 6 m sporadic E openings will be like during the day.

[00:32:17]Like we're kind of coming into summertime now. So there'll be some there'll be some openings during the summer on 6 m. But uh I could hear just tons of North America calling these guys. I couldn't hear them at all, but I could hear them like they were sitting next door. It was it was incredible for like, you know, essentially VHF, right?

[00:32:35]I mean, that's there's a reason they call it the Magic Band.

[00:32:39]So, if you're not familiar with that, a lot of times you'll hear the uh 6 m band referred to as the Magic Band. So, I'm going to adjust my uh spotting filters here.

[00:32:51]Since I'm not going to work in ACW, I'm going to just not not do those. Okay.

[00:32:59]Lots of folks spotted here. Let's run up here through 20 m again.

[00:33:11]>> Armed Forces Day. Uh this is a special event. November 3 sugar. November 3 Sierra.

[00:33:17]>> There's still 10 over nine. We already got them in the log earlier.

[00:33:22]Loud, man. They are >> November Sierra.

[00:33:27]>> They're probably like >> four or five kHz wide there.

[00:33:32]>> I apologize.

[00:33:36]Delta Fox trot still there.

[00:33:48]Utah.

[00:33:49]>> Oh, I hear that one. I hear the Utah station. I want to step on Whiskey 7 Golf.

[00:34:01]A Bigfoot National Sasquatch Awareness Day special event. We got them uh two years ago.

[00:34:09]Let's see if it's the same one. So, special event call signs, they're, you know, they're not exclusive to them. So, um, you know, you can use be used for different things. Yeah. So, this is the Golden Spike Special Event Station.

[00:34:25]Ogden Amateur Radio Club out of Utah.

[00:34:34]>> Yep. Golden Spike. Ah, they're really light. I can see if I could get him.

[00:34:40]See if we can catch them on the upswing here.

[00:34:46]It looks like they're in a park, too.

[00:34:47]So, that's kind of cool.

[00:34:59]Oh man, I lost him.

[00:35:02]Not there anymore.

[00:35:10]Delta Fox Trout. Looks like they slid up there.

[00:35:20]It's kind of beautiful hearing the Aurora sound on in the RX and looking out the window and seeing it. Yeah, I bet. We've had a couple in the oh gosh, last year or so. Some that have made it all the way south to Kansas City. Even being here in the city, you can see it.

[00:35:35]It's It's pretty cool. So, got some family that lives up in Iowa and and the pictures from up there are just amazing.

[00:35:42]And that's just, you know, a couple hundred miles north. So, but even with the city lights, um it's pretty dang cool to see.

[00:35:52]Uh Randy says, "I see your S meter steady at a five. Is that called the noise floor?" Yeah. Um the Smeter reading, uh there's a little bit of nuance here with the uh Black 8600's. um they have some higher order filters in them. And so there's uh yes, generally that would be the noise floor. You say, "Hey, I got an S5 noise floor." But if I like even disconnect the antenna, it's like at an S3. Let me just do that quick here. I'll flip the antenna. You can see here it's kind of at an S3. So I got about an S2 of noise uh on my signal. Uh Flex has a a complicated um uh uh article, not complicated, but like a good explanation article on on why that is. And it has to do with the uh 8600 series having those uh higher order filters in them for the contest bands and um the like adjusting the the amp levels or the uh yeah like the preamp levels kind of going into the the radio and and things like that. So, there's a there's a way you kind of adjust it. Um, but yeah, you can kind see here it it does does bring up the uh S units a little bit. I'll have to see if I can find that and see here. Flex uh radio. Um, see if I can find this.

[00:37:18]Yeah, I think it's this one.

[00:37:25]Oh, nope. That's a That's a community post.

[00:37:39]What do they call that setting? It's the uh It's in here somewhere. Got to be just missing it.

[00:37:56]Darn it. Where do I set that?

[00:38:03]It's not there. Not there.

[00:38:07]It was in here.

[00:38:11]Anyway, in the upper right corner, you can see I got plus 8 dB of gain turned on. So that there's a there's a good article that describes why that is. So >> let's see. HF board night recently listening to lightning and national natural atmospheric phenomena like sprites, whistlers, etc. Pretty cool stuff. Oh, that would be really cool.

[00:38:38]I've heard recordings of it. I've never never heard some of those uh sprites uh you know live. That's that that's a cool idea.

[00:38:48]Andy says, "I think my 7300 would do the same thing." Yeah. Uh some of them call, you know, some of it refer to it as a preamp and some of that is bugging me. I can't find this. Um I think it's like RF gain or something like that. Let me see if I can find this.

[00:39:12]Yep. I'll put it in the chat. I don't know if anybody else is a Flex operator or not, but this is the this is the help desk article. But if you scroll down, it's like there's a question here. It's like, why on the Flex 8600, 6600 are noise levels 10 dB higher versus what I see on a 65, 67, 64, or 84. And it has to do with the seventh order band pass filters on the contest bands.

[00:39:35]And uh the seventh order filters provide greater than 50 dB of band-to-band isolation between contest bands. but at a cost of higher insertion loss. So, it's great for things like field day or SO2R uh or if you've got another high power station that's nearby. So, I've got a couple guys in the contest club that live I'll call it within a mile or two of me and oftent times they run um linear amps and run uh near legal limit I would assume. And when I had my FTDX10, if they were on the same band and they were running high power in a big contest, I had to be very far away from them. I mean, they they would just wipe me out. Um, since I swapped out to the 8600 with the higher order filters in them, uh, it's no problem. They can be on the same band. I certainly see them, but they do not impact me on the same band like I saw with the FTDX10.

[00:40:30]So, uh that was one of the reasons I went with the um the 8600 uh versus the 8400. But, um uh that and I also wanted to play with SO2R, which is single OP 2 radio where you can kind of uh you can you can have the Flex operate like two different HF radios. It's only got a single transmitter, but um you can actually have two since it's got two uh spectral capture units in it, you can actually be on two different bands on the same time on the same antenna. So, it's kind of um one of those things that stepping up to that um that that higher model unit with the two SCUs in it, uh you get some additional filtering. The 8600 I've also had asked like why is the 86 so much more than the 84? It includes the higher order filters on the contest bands. The Aurora actually has the higher order filters on all the bands.

[00:41:25]So, not just the contest bands. Uh, but the 8000 series is only uh on the 8600 is only um on the contest bands. Uh it's got the two spectral capture units. It's got an auto antenna tuner and the higher order filters. So, that's what that's what you're getting. Uh you can't run SO2R with a 8400 uh or a 6400. So, Yeah, Randy asks, "If I'm doing FT8, my contact gives me say plus 0, does that mean my signal was right on the noise floor, in this case minus 115 or S5?"

[00:42:01]Um, I can't I I'll be honest, Randy, I don't know like how the signal to noise ratio report in FT8 like the interworkings of that of like where that's at in the signal level. I do know that like I think audibly like in your ear around minus5 is about what you can hear I believe audibly. Uh it's my understanding and you know with FT8 you can get down to like I had one this past week where I sent a minus 255 which is about as low as I think you can get um at least with my setup. So, I think minus 25 is about as low as I could get, but I couldn't even hear it. Like, I couldn't hear it in the audio that station. So, but it was able to pull that out of the noise. So, hey, Mike 3, Tango Lima Juliet, I believe. Good morning. Hello. Thanks for saying hello this morning. Hey, we got Kid in the chat as well. Kid, howdy.

[00:42:58]Howdy. Hope you're doing well.

[00:43:02]All right, let's keep rolling here.

[00:43:05]We get distracted chatting with you all and >> Julia Romeo Julia 55 Wisconsin you're 575 New Jersey >> New Jerseymber July Let me see.

[00:43:38]See if I can alpha alpha4. Bravo. Bravo. You >> kid says, "I'm good. Getting my ham radio fixed via your channel. Waiting on the next big D- expedition contest before I fire up my station again."

[00:43:59]>> Okay. 55 Georgia. I appreciate it. Did you get your uh connector fixed? Was it a connector on your antenna? I believe, kid, I can't remember. Uh the alpha gov.

[00:44:11]>> Alpha foxtrot zero foxtrot.

[00:44:16]>> I got a alpha foxtrot.

[00:44:18]>> Alpha foxtrot zero foxtrot.

[00:44:22]>> Alpha foxtrot zero foxtrot. You're 59 Wisconsin.

[00:44:26]>> QSL, you came up to 59 as well into kilo Sierra 59 Kansas this morning.

[00:44:31]Okay. Hey, thanks for the Kansas. You have a great one. 73.

[00:44:34]>> 73. Have fun.

[00:44:38]>> Worked Rick a couple times before. In the log three times, Charlie is >> Let's get Rick responded here.

[00:44:49]>> Why don't you come and visit me?

[00:44:51]>> I'm thinking about that. I'm really thinking about that. I want to get you worked all bands though, right?

[00:44:56]>> Okay. I'm only working 20.

[00:45:00]Well, I got you on both. Hey, are you uh which uh which location are you at? Are you by by Big Big Mosquito Lake on the west side?

[00:45:08]>> Yeah, I'm on the west side. I'm I'm on Parker Road.

[00:45:12]>> All right. All right. Cool. Good luck in your activation.

[00:45:15]>> Okay. Hey, talk to you later.

[00:45:20]>> All right. Kid says, "Yep. End connector loose. Bad. Haven't fixed it. Turned on a couple days ago. Spun the antenna. No issues."

[00:45:27]So, if it's only seemingly broke, >> photo.

[00:45:33]>> All right, we got another one in the log.

[00:45:36]>> I'll probably be able to go by it maybe another 30 minutes here or so. We'll see before folks start to show up here at the house.

[00:45:50]Copy that. And thank you very much for joining us today. This is November 1 kilo Sierra Charlie.

[00:45:57]>> Okay, give me one second. I got to meet somebody at the door. Give me just one second.

[00:46:02]>> Whiskey echo.

[00:46:05]Nice and loud in here.

[00:46:08]I need the rest of your call. You are 5 by 9 plus launch complex 26 here at the US Space Force Center in Florida.

[00:46:17]of this morning here.

[00:46:21]Victor Whiskey Echo 86 VW and you are a good 59 here in >> Thank you very nice nice uh thank you very much Dan. I'm sure you're having some nice weather up there. Starting to warm up down here and thanks for joining us today. Kilo 6 Victor Whiskey Echo.

[00:46:45]This is November 1 kilo Sierra Charlie.

[00:46:49]>> Thank you.

[00:46:54]>> I heard a Victor.

[00:46:56]>> Okay, I'm back.

[00:46:59]>> Got a delivery just a little sooner than I was expecting it. So, hey, we got Paul in the chat. Good morning. Kilo Echo 9 Bravo Hotel November.

[00:47:07]>> Very nice audio. You are 5 by8 into launch complex 6 at the historic United States Space Center. My name is Peter and I'm a member of our club here and I work I worked on the Artemis 2 mission and we're busy building Artemis 3.

[00:47:24]>> Oh wow, that's cool.

[00:47:28]Worked on the Artemis 2 mission and we're currently working Artemis 3. Kind of a special event. And I might have missed it.

[00:47:36]If I heard the call sign before I ran downstairs, I uh missed it.

[00:47:41]I don't remember it.

[00:47:42]>> Thank you very much. Well, you have to visit Florida and get out here. They have some great tours out here on the space center and they get good view of everything. Uh can we get your name for the log, please?

[00:48:01]>> Copy that, Denny. Thank you very much.

[00:48:03]Do you have a good afternoon sir? This is November 1 kilo Sierra Charlie from the launch complex 26 on the NASA on the air weekend. QRZ >> alpha foxtrot zero foxtrot.

[00:48:22]>> I'll take it. Mr. QRP, go ahead.

[00:48:29]I'll >> look them up on QRZ real quick.

[00:48:34]Kennedy Space Club, Amateur Radio.

[00:48:38]Kennedy Space Center, Amateur Radio Club. Sorry, I read it. I said it wrong.

[00:48:42]>> Alpha Tango, can we get your QTH and name, please?

[00:48:47]>> They got some pictures on their QRZ page here. I'll pull this up so you guys can see it along the stream.

[00:48:55]It's pretty cool. They got some cool pictures there.

[00:49:01]Copy that, Dave. Thank you very much.

[00:49:03]You have a very good day, sir. This is November 1 kilo Sierra Charlie from the famous United States Space Force Center launch complex 26 where launch explorer one launch and a bunch of tents. My name is Peter QZ.

[00:49:22]>> Alpha Foxtrot Zero Fox Trot Uniform.

[00:49:28]Go ahead.

[00:49:31]Paul asks, "Is this SSB POTA?" Yeah, we were doing some uh Pota SSB. Yep.

[00:49:36]>> Hilo Fox echo tango uniform.

[00:49:38]>> Hey Fox into complex 26.

[00:49:43]>> Hello from South Carolina here for my sister's graduation. Awesome. You going to do any uh park activations while you're out there? Fox David Victor 1 Delta Fox Charlie. How goes the hunting? Not too bad this morning.

[00:49:57]Not too noisy here on 20. We're seeing some activity. So happy with that.

[00:50:01]>> I hope you guys are having a good time as well over there. Thank you very much.

[00:50:05]This is November 1.

[00:50:08]>> Alpha Foxtrot Zero Foxtrot.

[00:50:14]>> November golf. November golf. Go ahead.

[00:50:20]Checking my audio settings here.

[00:50:25]So they're at launch complex number 26 at the Kennedy Space Center.

[00:50:30]>> Very nice audio. Thank you very much.

[00:50:32]WD9 GNG. This is November 1 kilo Sierra Charlie QRZ >> Alpha Fox Trot Zero Fox Trot.

[00:50:43]>> I heard a whiskey.

[00:50:47]>> Tyler says, "Man, this is such a cool hobby. Every part is so interesting. I really wish I tried harder to get into it when my granddad was a ham and was alive. Better late than never.

[00:50:57]>> Just a warning, it's kind of addictive.

[00:51:00]>> Now, I got I got my license when I was 13. Uh pretty active through college and then after college, you know, just career and uh life and family and all of that. And uh just recently kind of got back into it here in uh 2023. So, uh, always renewed my license, but just wasn't super active or doing a lot. And, uh, was kind of getting back into things in the summer of 23 and I was like, well, this DMR thing came out, so I wanted to kind of try that. So, I kind of played with that a little bit. And then I was playing with that and I was like, you know what I really miss? I really miss the contesting and HF. Is there a way I could kind of get this back? And so, uh, the rest is history. I started with a N 36T NFED in the attic and then uh from there it went to a I got a I put a dipole in the attic and then put an offcenter fed in the backyard and then now I have a DX Commander and uh you know I had an FTDX10 that I used for a couple years and then was wanting to kind of outgrew the capabilities of that radio wanting to do more advanced stuff with contesting and so made the jump into the flex realm and here here I am. So, uh just like any hobby, you can spend uh as much or as little money as you want, but it tends to be uh uh it can very quickly uh get up into the uh into the uh upper ends of uh of spend for sure, but it's just like that for golf or boating or uh camping or you know any of that stuff. So, um, >> alpha foxtrot zero foxtrots.

[00:52:33]Oscar Victor. Go ahead.

[00:52:36]>> Paul says, "Come to Morris code. It's the best part of ham radio."

[00:52:40]>> I I do agree, Paul. I do like that aspect. I've been getting back into CW.

[00:52:45]I uh passed my general back when I you had to know 13 words a minute here in the States for the general. And so, it was up here somewhere. And I've been kind of dusting off uh dusting it off a little bit with my small pistol station here. Uh just 100 watts and a and a simple wire vertical. Uh you know to be on some of these contests. I'm I'm going to have to you know get the Morse code piece back in there. So uh I've been trying to slowly do that. Last weekend on the 7 QP, the New England QP, Delaware QP, what other state was in there? It was uh Indiana. It was Indiana. I think that was the other uh Qo party last weekend. It was after the stream, but I did some Morse code in the afternoon. U still kind of lean on a skimmer a little bit on the Morse code for me, especially at speed. Uh but I tell you what, just like making a couple hundred contacts and like it starts to it starts to click and you kind of start to get into that mental mindset and you can start to hear it and it's just like I was hearing it do it, you know, just in my sleep. So, you know, 5N. So, it it it does come. So, I think Paul's got a point there on the CW part. So, and you can do a QRP, too, like you can get these like QRP radios and go do park activations uh and just make, you know, dozens of contacts with just five watts in a real simple setup. So, CW's a lot simpler, a lot thinner, a lot less uh uh bandwidth and power required to get through than voice. And so, there's there's elements of the CW that are they're really nice.

[00:54:19]Oh, Tyler already starting to learn it.

[00:54:21]Awesome.

[00:54:23]Fox says he did an activation Wednesday, one on Tuesday in Georgia. Awesome. I was pretty busy at work this week. I didn't get a lot of ham radio done. I did some uh FT8 in the evenings, but uh was doing a college visit with one of my kiddos. Uh so was out of town for one of the days. So I broke my streak on WRL. I think I had like a 40ome day streak going for Starlink Z.

[00:54:48]>> Alpha Fox trot. Zero Foxtrot.

[00:54:53]>> Zero Fox.

[00:54:54]>> Uh, Alpha Fox 0 Fox.

[00:55:01]>> Oh, it wasn't me.

[00:55:02]>> Go ahead with your rest of your call, sir. You are five and seven.

[00:55:07]>> Thought you heard me.

[00:55:09]Let's see. Uh, Delta Hotel 1 alpha Oscar. Same for me. Coming back after 25 years of dark ages.

[00:55:21]Paul, >> I'd never won a contest against you, especially with that >> weighted low. Yeah. You know, that was one of the reasons I did the vanity call. Uh, as I was starting to get more serious on contesting, my old call sign was N0 Ymss and it was bittersweet cuz I'd had that call for over 30 years and it was only mine. It had never been issued to anybody else. And uh, I was just like, but what's your name? No, you know, already the zero is two syllables for voice weight and then I had, you know, uh, November and then zero, uh, and then Sierra, you know, so it was just like the voice weight for N0 YMS was just so so heavy. But I tell you what, Alpha Fox Zero Fox, you can get that out real fast. So, little bit hot, a little bit more on the on the CW weight, but uh, it's uh, I don't know.

[00:56:10]I' I've kind of gotten the it it is kind of a I don't know to me it does kind of flow really nice on CW. So, >> thank you very much Jerry. We appreciate everyone and we appreciate it.

[00:56:21]>> Uh Tyler, do you know the logic behind removing CW from the test? I think it was to encourage folks to you know keep people in it. Um you know starting to decline the number of folks and uh I think it was try to kind of remove some of the barriers to it is my understanding. Um I don't know all the intricacies of that. So Alpha Fox trot zero foxtrot >> zero foxtrot. There you are again. Go ahead, sir.

[00:56:46]>> Uh, it's alpha foxtrot zero fox trot.

[00:56:52]>> Alpha fox zero foxtrot QSL. You're 59 into Kansas. Name here is Mike. Mike India kilo echo. You're sounding great into Kansas today.

[00:57:04]>> Excellent to hear, Mike. Excellent.

[00:57:06]That's our first Kansas. We do appreciate it and you have a great day.

[00:57:11]This is November.

[00:57:12]>> All right, we got him.

[00:57:16]>> That's pretty darn cool.

[00:57:21]I'm going to tell him good luck on the uh Artemis 38 launch complex. My name is Peter.

[00:57:33]I'm going to >> put Peter's name into this log here.

[00:57:47]How cool is that? Kennedy Space Center amateur radio group. That's awesome.

[00:57:51]>> Very good, sir. Very good. You sound uh very strong there.

[00:57:55]>> Oh, Paul FB fine business. Oh, yeah.

[00:57:56]Fine business call. We waited load.

[00:57:58]Yeah, that's cool. Not a pota, but kind of a fun contact to me. You never know what you're gonna find on the bands here.

[00:58:21]>> Sound like maybe a rag. It's close to a spot there for.

[00:58:28]All right. So, if I get my loop on ground installed, I might try to do that today if we get some time. We'll see how things go and what the what the weather's doing. Uh, I don't want to be sunburnt and out in the sun, but we'll see. It's supposed to be in the 80s, I think, here today, Fahrenheit. Um, but if I get that done, I want to play with the diversity receive setup. So, I should be able to use that loop on ground and, uh, do some noise, uh, cancellation. Uh, so I want to play with the diversity receive if I get that thing set up. So, uh, I've got everything mounted, uh, to the ground bar, uh, behind me. I've got a little crawl space in my attic here and a little walk catwalk. Uh, so I got all that. I've got the new coax run. I've got the other spools of LMR 400. I don't know if we'll get the LMR 400 pulled to the antennas tonight uh today, but maybe we'll get the uh the RG6 quad shield uh which is 75 ohm cable, which is uh typically what you use for receive antennas. And then I've got the uh matching transformer. And then I've got my Let me just show you this. Hold on.

[00:59:23]I'm going slide off camera here just for a second.

[00:59:29]Of course, when you're trying to unspin a coax connector in a hurry, it never works.

[00:59:50]Okay, so I got my uh this is my uh uh I'm going to do 15 ft on each side. So, I've got my DX10 wire here that I've used. That was the wire that uh works with the DX Commander. Uh I am going to use a uh DX engineering uh matching transformer. This is a beverage actually a beverage matching transformer, but it works for loop on ground as well. Uh I could have built it myself, but like I I'd rather have somebody that I know knows what they're doing on the windings. Um and then I've got a weatherproof enclosure here. And so it's just a F connector here to 75 ohm coax.

[01:00:25]The two terminals for the loop. I'll build it in a uh 15 meter square. I'm gonna put it in the front yard so it's away from the transmitting antennas as far as possible and hopefully I can use that to null some of my noise out especially at 40, you know, 40 and 80 m. I think that should help a little bit. So, we'll we'll see how it goes. Um, but my um I am using uh let me see if I can find it here real quick.

[01:00:52]Yeah, I'm using uh the KK5 JY's uh loop on ground design.

[01:00:58]>> Um and so I put a link in the chat there. That's uh that's the design I'm basing this off of. And he's got some great pictures and and all that. And you can certainly build the uh um the isolation transformer uh yourself if you're good with winding uh and all that. So I I'm more of an appliance operator. So, if somebody's professionally built one of these matching transformers, I'm just going to spend the money on it, especially in a weatherproof box and all that. But, you could probably build that thing for just a I don't know, probably five bucks or something like that if you wanted and do that yourself. Um, but uh yeah, I wanted I I went ahead and bought the DX Engineering one. They they build it here in the US and they got um you know, it's already in a stainless steel uh enclosure. It's weatherproofed and and all that. So, I I definitely trust them more than I trust uh trust myself. So, uh but yeah, it's it's marketed as a um a beverage feed point uh matching. So, for a beverage antenna, which is a different kind of receive antenna. I just don't have the real estate for putting a beverage antenna up. I thought about like stringing some wire maybe along my back fence or something uh to do the beverage, but u I'm decided I'm going to try this loop on ground first cuz I need like 300 some feet for a beverage. Um depending on the band, but like for where I was wanting it, I needed to be like 300 some feet long.

[01:02:21]And it's just like this isn't going to work right. And I can't get it oriented the way I need it to get oriented like towards Europe and uh all that. So, I'm going to build the uh loop on ground with the main loes pointed towards um Alaska, Japan, kind of that direction to the northwest. And that should get me a good chunk of South America to the south. Um the way I have to put the transformer and the way it comes out of the house and the orientation, I'd love to kind of get Europe if if I could um a little bit better, especially like um um you know, UK area and all that. For some reason, that one's really tough for me on voice. Um, so we'll see if this works really well. I could build another one.

[01:03:02]I have two receive antennas, uh, dedicated receive antennas on the, uh, on the flex that I could use. So, you know, I could certainly build another one that has the lobes in a different direction. Uh, but we'll see how this works. I'm just going to give this as a try and we'll we'll see. We'll see how it goes.

[01:03:19]I see CW so much fun. Last week did a cusso from North Sea Danish border on the boat to Iceland. 5 watts QMX Plus.

[01:03:27]That is awesome. That is awesome.

[01:03:31]Let's see. Fox, uh, getting into CW. I hunt CW before I start SSB ops on each band I run. That's a good idea. Uh, the cool thing I love about POTA is it's kind of a predictable exchange. And so, you know, you know, it's a it's a good way to kind of get started with CW because you kind of know the order it's going to be. And uh a lot of the ops will slow down for other ops that are, you know, either if you're the activator, they're operating slower. Um you can, you know, just operate uh they'll they'll bring it down.

[01:04:01]Everybody's just I don't know. I've just found the the POA CW community to be very accepting and forgiving. Um that's not always the case in high stakes, high rate contests. So, uh, it's a great way to just kind of get started in CW and and, uh, you know, have a predictable exchange and not worry. At least for me, like I have the anxiety of like, oh my gosh, I'm going to have a cuso with this person and, you know, thinking about what I'm going to say and getting the letters out and all of that. You know, it's like, okay, I'm just going to dip my toe in with some of these POD activations and some of these parties is is kind of how I'm doing it. So, we'll see. Uh, in Dayton, I'm going to see if I can find a key. I've got a Vibroplex.

[01:04:41]um a double key. So, I've got both a straight key and a paddle um that I use uh quite a bit. Um I'm going to see if I can find a different paddle. Uh like they've got some really cool magnetic ones now that are just like a lot lot lighter weight and not as much like you know wrist movement and all of that. So, um I'm going to look at you know it's it's so subjective like you want to kind of try them before you use them. And so I I thought Dayton would be a good way for me to like maybe like feel the the tactile feedback and balance of some of these uh keys and see if I can find one that would just be a paddle. Um cuz the the double key takes up quite a bit of space cuz it's got both a straight key and a paddle on it. Um I love the Vibroplex. It was the first key I ever bought. Um you I learned Morris code with a straight key, so I was a little nervous about the paddle. So that's why I went with the double paddle or the double keys that had both the straight key and the paddle. I I would I think most operators will tell you even if you learn on the straight key, the you know the paddle is definitely way faster and definitely a lot cleaner, but there's like straight key nights and all that where people uh either use a straight key or they'll make a straight key and and all of that. So uh you know, you got to time the dits and the daws uh appropriately and uh so uh those are kind of fun to listen to as well.

[01:06:04]Paul says, "I'm still new enough to ham radio to believe these QRP contacts work." That's amazing. Yeah, it's it's incredible. Uh I love watching some of the YouTube uh channels out there where they're doing photo activations with like 5 watts or one watt, you know, with these little tiny transceivers and, you know, they're they're getting activators and working DX and that's just really really cool.

[01:06:34]Hey, we got Rob in the chat. Kilo2 Whiskey Romeo Delta. Good day to you as well. Hope you're doing well, Rob.

[01:06:42]Yep. NE8R says, "Double key is nice and heavy." Yeah, it is heavy. It is. It weighs a lot. Um, you know, I think at the time because I was in college when I passed my general, you know, for a college kid, that key was a lot of money. And, um, I'm so happy. There's several times I'm like, I should just sell this. Like, I'm just hauling it from move to move to move. And I was like, no, just hang on to it. Um, so I've held on to it. And then when I kind of got back into things and wanted to start doing CW this year, I pulled it out of the box and and I was like, oh, I'm so glad I held on to this. And now I see the prices of these things and I'm like, "Oh, I'm very thankful I held on to this." So, so crazy. Yeah, it is.

[01:07:22]It's heavy. It does not slide around.

[01:07:24]It's got nice feet on it. Um, yeah. So, uh, I I like it a lot. It's, uh, it's really cool. I just, um, I I definitely want a paddle that, you know, feels nice that I can kind of operate and not have the straight key be in the way. So, we'll see. I'll be on the hunt. We'll see. I I'll keep you posted after I come back and we'll see if we uh if we find a new paddle for uh the CWA QSL at Park US 3861 in North Carolina >> 293 I don't see them spotted.

[01:08:13]QSL. Thanks for the 55 73 QRZ dead.

[01:08:21]>> CQ Pota. CQ Pota CQ parked on the air.

[01:08:25]This is November for Romeo Alpha Lima.

[01:08:31]>> A LQ POTA seek parks on the air. This is November 4 Romeo Alpha Lima.

[01:08:41]>> Alpha Foxtrot Zero Foxtrot.

[01:08:45]>> Alpha Foxtrot 0 Fox. I have you 59 US 3861 >> QSL. Thanks for 3861. You are 57 into Kansas. 57 into Kilo Sierra today.

[01:08:59]>> Thanks for hunting. 73. Good day.

[01:09:01]>> 73. Have fun.

[01:09:05]CQ >> get them spotted here. New activator for me.

[01:09:13]>> And they are not spotted. So where is that park? Little River National >> North Carolina Romeo Alpha Limo.

[01:09:27]>> Then I'm going to spot them.

[01:09:31]Whiskey 5 whiskey echo delta QSL.

[01:09:35]>> So I add a spot here. Activator is November 4 Romeo Alpha Lima >> and they are on 14 293 >> US sorry >> 3861 >> US 3861 in North Carolina.

[01:09:51]>> We'll get them spotted and that should send some people their way. 73 QZ CQ Pota CQ Pota CQ parked on the air.

[01:10:06]This is November 4 Romeo Alpha Lima.

[01:10:14]>> Number four, Juliet Zulu Zulu. I have you 59 at Park US 3861 in North Carolina.

[01:10:25]This might be their first activation. I don't see them with a POTA account.

[01:10:28]Usually they would have an icon next to them.

[01:10:32]See if I >> Thanks for hunting 73. Good day.

[01:10:37]>> I can't see him in there.

[01:10:41]>> Let's see. Paul says, "I strongly recommend Tony November 3 Zulu November.

[01:10:44]I'm on a Zulu November 9 Plus. That's 3.5 lbs, but you might be a single lever guy since you contest." Uh, yeah. I don't know. I could probably do a single lever. I've used the double um and I don't use the squeeze on the on the double paddle. So, um you know, maybe that maybe that would work. So, I might I don't know. We'll see. A lot of times on the contests, you know, I'll use macros uh for the exchange and stuff like that, but uh so probably not as big of a deal, but it's always good to have the key there in case you have to repeat something or, you know, sometimes you'll get a dit dit back and you you want to dit dit back to them kind of thing, although that's usually avoided during contests. But yeah, I'll check out Tony's uh stuff if he's uh I'm sure he'll be at Dayton potentially.

[01:11:30]I'd love to kind of try one and see what it feels like.

[01:11:33]>> Hey, we got Chris in the chat. Good morning, Chris. Hope you're doing well.

[01:11:38]>> This is November 4 Romeo Alpha Lima.

[01:11:43]>> Ah, Charles radio uh Raleigh Amateur Radio Society. November 5, Tango Expo. I have 59 at Park US 3861 in North Carolina.

[01:11:55]>> That's you got better conditions near you for sure. Check out November Juliet 2 Bravo Bravo battleship New Jersey. All right.

[01:12:04]>> And we got Pedro in the chat. Hello, greetings from Spain. Echo Alpha 1 kilo bravo rodeo. Uh Romeo, I guess rodeo works too.

[01:12:13]>> Hope you're having a great day too, Pedro. Romeo, Alpha, Lima.

[01:12:17]>> All right, I think I'm going to have to start. I We got so many people watching, too. It's just like I'm going to have to I got some folks that are going to show up here at the house just real probably within the next five or 10 minutes. Uh so I probably need to wind things down for today. We got some uh graduation parties for some friends we're going to go to this afternoon. And uh so I can't can't spend a lot of time here this morning, but uh I think we'll kind of wind things down. Uh let me get the radio audio here so I can hear myself.

[01:12:45]Uh so I think we'll wind things down for today. I appreciate you all hanging out.

[01:12:49]Um you know I I said this when I open just the the interactions and knowledge sharing that we have uh in these live streams. I just really appreciate uh there's so many knowledgeable people and you all are way smarter than I am on on a lot of this stuff and it's so cool to see uh folks sharing their knowledge with others in the chat and you know that that's a big part of this right is just the community. So, uh, you know, that's, uh, that that's one aspect I I really really love. So, I appreciate you hanging out with me at least for a little bit this morning. I think we went about 90 minutes. Uh, not quite 90 minutes. It was a little bit shorter one today. Uh, got a little bit of a late start this morning, but again, got family obligations. Uh, family coming to the house here just shortly and and, uh, want to want to be down there for them.

[01:13:32]And then, uh, celebrating some graduations with some folks this weekend. So, I'll be doing that. But, I am going to do some antenna work this afternoon. My son is here. He's going to help me uh be a couple pair of extra hands and uh maybe we can get the uh the ground rod in for the grounding project and uh also get the loop on ground and coax pulled for that. So, we'll see how how well that goes. So, we'll see. I might be around tomorrow morning. Maybe we'll do a live stream tomorrow since we're not going to do one next weekend because of Dayton. Uh but uh we'll we'll see kind of how things go. So, I appreciate you hanging out with me even just for a little bit uh this morning. I really really appreciate it. So I think with that I will say 73 for now. I'm Michael Alpha Foxtrotzer Foxtrot. Have fun with your radio. Be kind and stay curious. Until next time 73. Have a good one y'all. Bye.