Digital FT8 in the Park 10/12/2017

Just sitting and thinking...

Good morning, folks.

KK4DIV here once again from the keyboard.  I do not sit here and blog as much as I'd like.  Time is usually one issue.  Another is I usually get more enjoyment out of the video side of blogging, or vlogging if you will.

However, today I thought I'd type a little something up as it is my first day of vacation and we are under a tropical storm warning.  That's right, Hurricane Nate is in the Gulf of Mexico as I type this and charging his way toward the northern Gulf Coast.  Fortunately this time around the storm looks like it is going to miss Florida and mainly affect Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  I feel for the folks over in that direction.  Fortunately it is not a strong hurricane and hopefully there will not be much damage from it.

My main purpose today is to comment on our great expedition to St. Vincent Island as I look back on it one week ago today.  If you haven't seen the video, I have it posted on my YouTube channel qwikslvr74.

or you can just click on it right here...
W4RYZ expedition to St. Vincent Island

We had 7 hams from our club travel over to the island located between Port St. Joe and Apalachicola, FL.  It was an early morning for us, however this did not affect me as I usually am up early.  It seems the older I get the earlier I go to bed and rise in the morning.  I guess I can understand my dad a little better now.  Anyway, I digress.

It was a great trip, with 128 total contacts.  We only needed 25 to activate the island under the US Islands program.  So, there was no problem there.  My only issue was with my QRP portable setup.  I ran my FT817, the Windcamp 80 meter off-center fed dipole and laptop for PSK31.

In the 2 hours, I logged only 2 contacts with PSK31.  This was very disappointing for me as I was hoping for at least 20 contacts over the 2 hours of operating time we had.  I do not understand the poor performance.  There were plenty of signals on the waterfall, perhaps they were drowning out my mere 5 watts.  More testing of my setup may be required.  Stay tuned to my YouTube channel for testing and updates on my PSK gear.

For now, we all are basking in the glory of our success and happy we could bring the W4RYZ callsign into the spotlight.

...and looking forward to our next activation.  Stay tuned!

73!
de KK4DIV
My YouTube Channel

W4RYZ St. Vincent Island Expedition 9/30/17