I did receive the 300 unique parks hunted award from Parks On The Air (POTA). That was a good thing!
Unfortunately RI took a big hit from Tropical Storm Henri. We were without power for about a day and a half (could have been worse), had a large oak split about 25 feet off the ground (the remaining 75+ feet fell into my neighbor’s backyard), and a couple more oaks in our backyard woods got topped. That oak was one end of my inverted-L, which survived, but needs a new anchor.
With most of the parks full of summer visitors, I haven’t attempted any park activations since April. However, I’ve been slowly hunting parks. This morning I received confirmation that I have made contact with 300 unique parks. It usually takes a day or so for the certificate to appear.
This morning, I completed my 50th CWT contest. With 19 more Wednesdays left in 2021, that’s a potential of 57 more. I just earned the Bronze Medallion, and my goal is to complete at least 80 to qualify for silver. Given Tropical Storm Fred is heading into the area tonight, I suspect I might make the 1900Z contest then ground the antennas.
My appreciation goes out to CWops and the CW Academy instructors (Thanks Joe)!
Despite the fact that Windows has a built in automatic time sync function, it doesn’t work as one might expect. Unless the difference between the NTP time server and the local clock is large enough, both the manual and automatic sync will not update the local clock.
A very simple way to get around this is to right-click on the time area, select “Adjust date/time”, then turn “Set time automatically” off. Use the Set the date and time manually “Change” button, then adjust the minute either 2 minutes ahead or behind. Finally put the “Set time automatically” feature back on. This will immediately sync the local clock.
There are plenty of ways to do this automatically, but sometimes I like to avoid installing new software (I’ve been bit by serious bugs on more than one occasion).
In April of 2013, I purchased parts to build my own 60 AH LiFePO4 battery. Back then it cost about $440 – about $100 more than a comparable battery can be purchased for today. That said, it has served me faithfully for those years, and seems to still be doing just fine.
I don’t use the 60 AH battery often, having discovered much smaller batteries better align with my operating style in the wild (why lug a 60AH battery around when you are using less than 3 amps/hour for a POTA activation?). The last time I charged the battery was October 28, 2018, or 994 days ago.
LiFePO4 batteries are coulometric efficient, with high efficiency of 99%. Because of cell balancing circuitry, which tends to bleed off some power, in reality, the amount of energy you put in will be a few percent higher that what was consumed.
Today, after recharging the battery, it took 1.08 AH. So in 994 days of sitting idle, it only lost 1.8% of its capacity. That’s about 1 mA of discharge per day. Talk about a low self-discharge rate!
This just confirms one of the many advantages of LiFePO4 batteries – you can charge them and leave them sitting for a LONG time and still expect them to be useful. A lead-acid battery left on a shelf for 3 years would be dead flat, and likely unable to be charged to any useful capacity.
60 AH 4-series LiFePO4 battery, first purchased in April of 2013.
Six meters is open to the mid-west. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many stations decoding. I noticed that 10 meters was also quite hot today.
Boy Cycle 25 is getting hot, even here close to the bottom!
The screen shot below shows 47 decodes. It looks more like 20m on a weekend, than 6m.
Since I started participating in the CWTs back in April, I wanted to break 60 QSOs/Hour in Search/Pounce mode. I’ve been getting closer. This morning, during the 1300Z contest, I made 68 contacts in an hour. And this afternoon, 1900Z, I made 60 contacts. So that’s one mental barrier down, and many more to go!
Couldn’t have done it without CWops CW Academy.
The count keeps going up. At 14,002 as of this afternoon:
At the end of last year I was at 12,000 QSOs, so that’s +2,000 in a half year (my goal was 1,500 for the year). Much of that is due to participation in the CWTs, which are held at 1300Z, 1900Z, and 0300Z on Wednesdays local time.
Since taking CWops CW Academy, I continue to try to participate in as many “CWT” mini CW contests as possible. The 1900Z one today was my 30th for the year (I was also on in the morning at 1300Z, but only for 30 min). I came so close to a goal of making 1 QSO per minute as a Search & Pounce station today – I finished with 59 Qs in a hour). I have to try running sometime as that should double my rate.
I’m hoping I can finish 50 more contests by year’s end (there are 26 more Wednesdays left in the year and 3 opportunities a day, so 78 remaining). We shall see!
I was only able to attend part of Sunday. During that time I worked 3 CW and 5 PHONE Satellite contacts for the bonus, ran the alternative power QSOS for the bonus, and assisted my friend Ryan KC1KUF for his 2-hour SSB session.
Despite baking heat back at my home, it was about 12 degrees cooler at Glen Park.
I also used Winlink VHF to send email messages to friends and updated my Twitter feed while I was at the park.
IC-7300 feeding Arrow Crossed Beam (3×7) and a Toughbook CF-31 running SatPC32
