K0SWE Blog

Yesterday was quite a hoot; first I participated in an ARES exercise, then in my first Winter Field Day! For the ARES exercise, our team (R1D6 covering Jefferson, Gilpin and Clear Creek counties) was assisting our neighbors Denver ARES with connectivity checks. I wouldn't say it was exciting sitting in a hospital parking lot and collecting radio checks, but it gave us a lot of great data about where we would and would not be able to reach if the repeaters were down. This could end up being very valuable information should we ever need it. After that, I went and operated outdoors for my first Winter Field Day. I was very thankful that it was a balmy 50°F, but even in nice winter weather like that, I still got pretty chilled sitting around for a couple of hours. I worked some SSB and JS8Call on 20m using my new Lab599 Discovery TX-500, and I'm still in love with the thing! QRP being what it is, I wasn't able to break up dogpiles, but when I was heard, I had no issues.

  I mentioned in an earlier post that I had pre-ordered a Lab599 Discovery TX-500 QRP HF transceiver. I had hoped Santa Claus would put it under the Christmas tree for me, but Lab599 and HRO delivered not long after. I'm so excited! I took it out for a spin for the first time last week. I set up in Founders Park in Superior during lunchtime. I paired the TX-500 with a Chameleon MPAS 2.0 in vertical configuration using the MIL whip and extension, and the combination performed much better than I could have ever hoped. I got my first European contact ever: EA2CCG from Spain over 20m FT8! Yesterday I took it out again, this time in Westminster City Park, and again with the Chameleon MPAS but this time using the SS17 telescoping whip. This time I got my second European contact: LA5KO in Norway on 20m FT8. It really reinforces for me an oft-repeated fact: the antenna is the most important part of the radio. After having never made an EU contact at home with 100W available, I was abl...