ARRL Field Day - 2023
Call: N8KD
Operator(s): K7DR
Station: N8KD
Class: 1E LP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
160:
80: 22
40: 227
20: 83
15: 19
10:
6:
2:
222:
432:
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
----------------------------
Total: 351 0 0 Total Score = 702
Club:
Comments:
IC-7000 approx 40 watts - 80M EFHW Inv Vee at 35 ft
Geneverse HomePower One Battery/Inverter
N1NN+ Logger.
Had a few problems to deal with before my first Q. Wednesday my laptop decided
it wasn't going to turn on, even with adapter/charger. Google told me to try
resetting the battery, due to possible problem on battery sensor. I had little
hope that would solve it. There is a very small pinhole, just big enough to use
the end of a small paper clip to hit a reset button for 30 seconds. Flipped over
the laptop hit the power button and she was ALIVE... back in business!
I did some configuring to use DXLog for FD and had it all set on my laptop,
sending CW, taking to the radio, all good. I was going to setup portable on
Friday, but it rained all day, so I figured I could still get going on Saturday
morning, but, MORE rain up to an hour before starting time. I'm almost 70 and
not motivated as much as I used to be at my first FD in 1970 when I was 16, so
decided to operate 1E from the house using my battery with the Icom at 40 watts
and the laptop, not the regular station.
As start time was approaching, the bands were dead, a few stations making test
QSO's but not strong and WWV was very weak on 15 MHz (usually S9+) I tried
calling a station on CW, but my computer was sending screwed up CW, speed going
up and down every few characters. When I tested it out I was running 2 watts, I
couldn't believe 40 watts was killing it. The SWR was low. I had another CW key
interface, I swapped it out, same result. I tried loading up N1MM instead,
worked like a champ, at any power level. I reconfigured for N1MM and was ready
to go. The bands were still bad, so decided I have other things to do I'll come
back later. Caught a quick nap and came back about 6pm (22z) 40M was sounding
good. I found a frequency and started calling CQ, worked over 200 in next three
hours with just 40 watts, so I was getting out. Rate started slowing down so I
did S&P a little on 20 then 80 before I quit for the night. My battery was
down to 40%, I plugged it into a 12 volt outlet in my Equinox for the night.
Sunday morning it was back to 70%, enough to last until the end. I did all
S&P on 40/20/15. I checked 10, heard ONE station. A few gulf coast stations
were coming in on 6M FT8, but not enough to bother, NO CW/SSB on 6M at all. It's
been a weak Es season on 6 so far this summer.
To top of the weekend, as I submit this I'm using my FD battery power to run a
few things in the house because we had some storms come through and knock the
power out at midnight.
Oh well, still worth it this weekend, will be back again next year.
73
Dave - K7DR (at N8KD) Near Detroit.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|