Contact made

 First Contact

Well, first contact on HF.  Today there was a HIP get together here for the Be-HIP group I have been involved with.  I took out my gear and totally figured I'd do something and that I would not have everything I need even though I thought I did.  And I was definitely not prepared.   I didn't bring a chair which made it hard to be in the shade...shoot, I didn't bring shade either which I could do and will do in the future.   So I found a table that I figured would get some shade eventually and tried to set things up.  And as I progressed, I got hot...and so did my gear to the point where I wasn't feeling well and I called it.  I packed up my stuff and ended up just talking with the others for a bit more before heading home.

So what did I learn from that.  Bring more water, shade, and a chair.  The city parks are also more restrictive in what you can do.  An prime example is you can't put anything into the ground.  There are trees to use and depending on where we are I can easily make use of my antenna mast and run the wire across to a tree.  I have a tire flagpole stand to help with this.  I'm actually using this in the background for my mast right now.  You can put weight on it or just drive over it and let the weight of your car hold it in place.  So I think next time I'm going to bring shade that can go over the back of my car and beyond so I can sit and stay cooler if it is hot.  I also learned that I should finish getting my nanovna settings all setup and saved.  I have most of them there but I missed a couple and that slowed me down in the heat to figure out what needed to be changed where.  I also had not used the tuner before nor my FT-840 really so I was struggling to figure out how to test my antenna.

When I got home I went directly into my back yard and started setting things up there.   For this I didn't start with my home made antennas like I was trying to do earlier today, I started with my Xtenna EFHW.  I hung the balun from my tree and ran the wire out towards a trampoline we have.   I used the flagpole stand and slid it under the trampoline and I was off.  The next step was to test the SWR on my antenna and get the length where it needs to be.  When you get them, or even when you make them, you start long..it is easier to cut then to add.  So when I started it was off the chart.  I was looking at 20m as that is good day and night right now.   

After about 6 or 7 attempts where I cut a few feet off the wire I got it down to below 1.5 and since I was hot and raising and lowering the wire was a pain in the arse I asked google for validation and it came back and said it was fantastic.  (Don't trust Google, but it does help).   That was at about 1pm.  I pulled the NanoVNA from the wire and hooked the wire up to my tuner which was already connected to my radio.  I did the tune process which I think I did right and then I started hunting.  

I just started using a program called Ham2k Power Logger (Next).  I've had it installed on my phone but I watched a Youtube video yesterday talking about the new version and using it on a Mac.  So I fired that up after firing up flrig which I seem to need for this FT-840.  I also had wsjtx running didn't look at it.  

About 20 mins later I made my first contact.  I had been looking at different frequencies for a while.  Power Logger will show recent spottings so you can see that a specific callsign was just seen on a specific frequency.  It gives you a bunch more info like the POTA information.  You can click on it and it will automatically tune your radio (if you have all of that setup which I do).  So I was jumping around checking different spots.  I was able to hear a few different people in places like Montana, Washington, and Texas some of which were quite loud and clear.  But I was also seeing some of them fading in and out.    But this guy was one that was loud and clear coming out of Texas.  This guy was doing a POTA activation out of Austin State Park and I was able to make clear contact with him.  

I made a couple more contacts over the next 30 minutes give or take before deciding I was sweating too much and it was time to take a break.  I'll leave the antenna up for now so I can plug things in easily tonight and/or tomorrow.  Evening will open up 40m which will be interesting to see if I get anything.

For my testing I just used a tv tray stand and had my radio, tuner, and laptop on it with my battery on the ground.

The Xtenna balun is hanging in that tree.

And you can see my mast there. 

So that is it for now.  It's time to throw my trunks on and hop in the pool

Where my contacts were today.

Ivan