[K3PZN-List] Vacation 40m CW QRP QSOs

[Philip Karras]

Hi all,

I was on vacation between Oct 15 & Oct 22. I took my mfj-9040 QRP CW rig with me as well as my 40-m vacation dipole, which I designed to work from 15 - 25' without a tuner on the CW portion of the 40m band, which was a bit wider when I did that. 7.000 - 7.150 MHz (we lost 25KHz to phone, sort of.

Anyway, I managed to get the antenna up on Wednesday & listened around & copied the mail between four stations but didn't have time for my own QSO.

On Friday I did manage a short QRP-QRP QSO with AG4T & when I went to look him up on QRZ I noticed he had a logbook right there on QRZ! So I started one of my own. It looks like there are more features available probably if you are willing to pay a fee?

Anyway, there was too much QRM after awhile so we had to call it quits, the bigger guns must have thought we were too far away to matter.

On Saturday between our swimming for the last time & while all the grand kids were napping, which I should have done as well, I managed one more QSO with K3KYR who was up in NY. he was running more power than I but he managed still better than I did. The three+ years I've been goofing off have taken their toll in my CW copying abilities! I'll have to find some time every week to get my skills back up to a solid 20WPM, I'm not even solid at 15WPM any longer!

None the less, Jeff slowed down for me & I did OK except for the QSB. I was also having problems with my right ear being all clogged with water but I don't think that was a real excuse for missing almost all of 10+ words in one of our exchanges.

I'm sorry I didn't have more time & that I was unable to catch any of you on the air at the time. Next time I'm really able to vacation & play radio I'll let everyone know when I plan to operate & where so you can try for a QSO if you're interested.

Having 3 of the grand kids the entire time & a fourth for two days but a big limit on my radio time.

Oh, just a cool note, my eldest granddaughter (she'll be 6 this October) asked me on the way home when we had three radios going, an old CB, the FRS walkie-talkie between the two cars on the way home, and the 2m rig, "pop pop, why are you so radio active?" is that cool or what? We've joked about the term "radio active" in ham circles & I know I've never uttered the phrase within her ear range so both my YF & I got a kick out of her coming up with it all on her own.

73 de ke3fl
Phil