I had a blast at field day!  Thanks again to W3COB for an awesome job organizing a great event for W3RRR!

I was only able to participate for the day Saturday, but I still had a blast.  Since I never get to play around much on 6 meters, that's where I spent the day.  I didn't make many contacts, but it was fun being on a band that was new to me, and learning the sounds and behaviors of SSB on VHF.  

Hopefully everyone made it through field day in one piece, and had as much fun as I did!

Earlier this month (Fathers day weekend) our family took a trip to Cape May.  Cape May is probably our favorite beach town, because it suits our style perfectly - it's a historic town, quiet, family friendly, and close enough to drive to, but far enough away that it feels like we really went somewhere.

Usually there wouldn't be much "ham radio" related activity to write about in regards to these trips. Normally the most I do is make a couple contacts on the local repeaters from the beach, while the kiddos play in the sand.  This time however, I decided to sneak in a quick POTA activation.  Since POTA only requires 10 contacts for an activation, the family agreed to let me play radio while they poked around the museum and overlook platforms at the Cape May Point State Park. 

So, while the family spent some extra time enjoying the sites and sounds of Cape May Point, I parked under the shadow of the Cape May Lighthouse and made some contacts:

During this activation, I had a thought.  I'm not sure exactly what seeded it - but I suspect it was a conversation on the POTA Slack Channel that I had with W8TAM about QSL cards and lighthouses.  I enjoy QSLing, but I don't normally do it for my POTA activations unless someone sends me a card first, because sometimes there's a pretty good pile-up, and the postage could add up if I tried to send them to everyone.  I decided to do something as a fun middle-ground on my next few activations - since 10 contacts is what we need for a successful POTA activation, I'm going to pick up 10 post cards that are representative of the place I was activating, and then send those 10 post cards as QSL cards to the first 10 people to contact me on any given activation.  With that thought - if you happened to be among the first 10 to contact me at K-1610, watch the mail for a card (probably with a picture of the Cape May Point Lighthouse on it!)

Our trips to Cape May always feel short because time flies when you're having fun, and I can't think of a way to have more fun than to combine the beach, time with the family, ham radio, and an old-fashioned carnival on the lawn of the inn. (Do you think those strings of lights would make a good NVIS antenna?)

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     Since I've been slowly building my ham shack, my temporary location for radio operations continues to be the master bedroom closet.  For HF this isn't too bad, because it is only a short distance to the feed-point of the long-wire antenna I'm temporarily using for those bands (I talked about putting up my current version last fall.)  For VHF/UHF however, I've been limited to this arrangement:

    While this has worked fine for the local repeater, it limits me because:

• Indoor antennas for VHF and UHF are almost always poor performers
• Its only like 2 feet from my head, so I'm rather restricted on the power I can run through it.

     Ultimately, the plan was to put my VHF and UHF antenna's on a mast on the roof, because I'm fortunate enough to live right near the crest of a small hill, in a relatively flat area, which means I don't have to get very high to be clear of obstructions for quite a few miles in all directions - in fact, I only need to get a few feet above my own roof to clear my own trees!  

A while back I decided to just get the stuff ordered to put the mast up, figuring that I can feed the coax into my temporary shack while I continue work on the permanent one in the basement.  With that though, I was off to the roof!

Per the directions, I started by holding the top bracket in place at the peak of the eve, and using a torpedo level to make sure it was straight.  After marking the holes, and pre-drilling, I installed the bracket (with just a dab of silicone to seal things up!).

Putting this bracket on first, allows you to assemble the bottom bracket, attach it to the mast, and then position the bottom bracket by sliding the mast up through the top bracket and tightening it down.  This basically "hangs" the bottom bracket from the mast and top bracket, so that you can freely position, level, and then screw the bottom bracket fast.  Easy!

After tightening everything down, I have a mast in place!  Like many other hams, time is limited, so it will probably be a couple weeks before I order an antenna and get it mounted (or even just temporarily mount the thing that I'm using inside.)   I think I'm going to claim that the delay is on purpose - this way if any neighbors complain about interference, I can shoot them down - "There's not even an antenna on it yet!"
     That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

     No no no, not radio pirates making illegal transmissions - I'm talking about peg-leg, eye-patch, hook-hand, swashbuckling pirates!

     Now that I have finally finished up my Information System degree, my evenings and weekends are (hopefully) just slightly less busy, so I'm actually going to be able to participate in Field Day this year.  The club I am a member of (well, usually a member, I think I still need to send in my dues for this year!) is the Red Rose Repeater Association in my home-town of Lancaster PA.  This year, Doug, W3COB, volunteered to coordinate things for us (thanks Doug!) After the emails bounced around about who had what equipment, and what types of stations we wanted to set up, we landed on that I would be using some of my equipment to set up a station to do 6m SSB.  The core of the station will be my Yeasu 857d, and my Buddie-Pole (configured as a 6m beam.)

     Am I planning on dressing like a pirate?  Certainly not (probably not?  maybe not? I might....) but I have found that with our club's callsign - W3RRR - I do end up sounding rather pirate-ish when trying to work fast.  Saying W-3-R-R-R during a contact often ends up sounding W-3-arrrrrrr in a contest-like environment:-)

     I know of at least one other pirate station out there(K3RRR).  Are there more?  Maybe we should start an HF net on Talk Like a Pirate Day...

​Arrgh! See Ya Chum!