Getting back to the filming with a new knee board design — Sleepy Hollow State Park

It’s been a while since I had the opportunity to film a video for YouTube. I’ve been a little busy and most my activations have been relative impromptu ones lately. But I had just designed a new knee board for when I use my Helinox Chair Zero, I figured I’d take the time to film this one.

I was also testing out a new antenna I had just made and trimmed the wire for. Sleepy Hollow being my trustee proving grounds for most of my new gear, I knew I had to get this one on the air.

Setup

I pulled up to my usual activation site at Sleepy Hollow State Park. The park is very RF quite, so it is the perfect place to test out some new gear.

• Antenna: KM4CFT QRP EFHW Linked for 30M and 40M. Fed by a 15ft run of RG-316 from ABR Industries.
• Radio: QMX was the perfect pairing for the new new board. Powered by a Nitecore NB Air 5000mah battery.
• Logging: Ham2k PoLo

I turned to PoLo for this activation. Although there should be enough space to hold a note pad on the board, I mainly plan to log on my phone when I use this set up.

Spotted myself through PoLo just after 23:00 on 10.114.5.

30 Meters

30 meters was fantastic. It was quiet and it didn’t take long for the hunters to start coming through. I was getting somewhat okay RST reports coming back. But most hunters were coming in quite strong. 30 meters is one of my favorite bands to use. When it’s open, it’s a fun band with quite the reach.

20 Meters

Switched to 20 just to see how it was doing. It was a little rough. It doesn’t seem to be that well towards the afternoon here. There’ll be a few hunters heard here and there, but not many. Especially running 5w. I snagged 2 more QSO’s and moved over to 40.

40 Meters

40 meters was quite lively. Almost immidietly I had a pile up on my hands. One of the joys of living in the midwest is that it is very ham dense. So making a QSO on 40 doesn’t take too long. In 9 minutes, just before starting the next zulu day, I got 9 contacts. I called QRT after I had finished up handling the pile up and started to pack up.

Wrap-up

Packed up at 00:00 UTC, 08:00 EST. 21 QSOs total, Activated, and tested a new setup. The knee board performed just as expected. The antenna did as well. I have a feeling I’ll be reaching for it a lot more! Total time on air: 45 minutes.

Notes for Next Time

• Try another paddle. I was feeling some weirdness in the key I was using. I am wondering if there was some RF coming into the radio or the key itself.
• Bring a tuner and try out 17 meter on the 30m link of the antenna. I was at around a 4:1 swr, so a tuner should match that without a problem.

Overall

It was a great activation. It was nice to get a new activation for YouTube. Hopefully I can get out regularly now that summer is at full swing!

72, Zeus K8CES