Group Effort - 3 Times the fun!

W9BRI and KB9BVN at US-12023

Today we were operating from the Cikana State Fishery in Martinsville Indiana with my friend Steve W9BRI. We were checking our his new setup and hoping to make some phone contacts using his new FT-891 and the JPC-12 vertical antenna.  Steve also had the optional radial ring with four 20m radials attached.  We had some trouble getting thing to tune properly on 20m, not sure why yet but we're checking into a couple things.  I had a couple 40m radials in my SUV so we dragged those out and attached them to the radial ring and we were able to get on 40m with no issues, the LDG tuned that right up.  Steve was down here yesterday and working out some features of this new setup. What he found was when he used the 25 foot coax that came with the antenna, he was able to tune 20m with no issues.  So he made 9 contacts in about 5 minutes, and then Murphy showed and made the battery die.  

The weird thing is when we used the 50 foot coax from ABR the SWR was 14:1 on 20m and no matter what we did, we could not get it any lower.  Very odd.  We were able to get it tuned on 40m today so we went with that. 

FT-891 and LDG Tuner

Here's a shot of his setup with the FT-891 and the LDG auto tuner.  The orange coax coiled up there is the new 50 footer he got from ABR. It has ferrites already on both ends, could this be giving us trouble with the SWR being so high on 20m? 

I think he going to call ABR on Monday to see what they think. Like I said we were able to get it to work on 40m with the two 40m radials I added to the antenna. 

So at about 2PM we were on the air and hunting for POTA parks. We were planning on just hunting for Park 2 Parks today, and the first one we worked was KN4ARI down in Kentucky at US-3782.  We got a 59 from them and they were loud and clear here so we sent a 59 down their way.  We took turns working each station since we were both going to be turning in a log.  The CQWW contest is underway so the band was pretty crowded.  We still managed to work seven other parks for park to park credit today.  But was not like rolling off a log.  

About an hour or so into the activation, none other than Ivin N9IVI showed up on his awesome Honda Cub.  

N9IVI on his Honda Cub - Beautiful day for a ride! 

Ivin suggested we try using his PAR End Fed antenna to see if we could do better on 20m.  He had it deployed in about 10 minutes and we connected it to the station and it was perfect for 20m.  We had to turn the power down to 25w per the PAR documentation.  Didn't hurt us one bit. With the CQWW contest going full blast on 20m we managed to work Germany, France, and Croatia.  Giving us 11 contacts. 

Ivin N9IVI deploying the PAR End Fed 

 

We were able to tie off to the shelter uprights. Perfect. So we were about 25 feet high on the tree end, and about 5 feet high on the shelter end.  Tuned up perfectly. 

Steve had brought some other toys for us to tryout and admire.  This cool little paddle set from Putikeeg is magnetic and sticks to the heavy metal base the Putikeeg sells as an accessory.  

Here's a shot of the kit that the JPC-12 antenna comes with. Orange Coax not included. 

All in all it was a great day.  I made my first ever phone activation, so Steve, Ivin and I were happy with the results of the gear and we will definitely be back soon.  Looks like 70's next week but this is Indiana, we get snow on Halloween pretty often.  So make hay while the sun shines! 

KB9BVN, N9IVI, and W9BRI - what a great day! 

Oh before I forget, here is a picture of our QSO Map.  Pretty cool working Europe on 20m three times. 

Have a great week at work, I'll still be retired and by my calendar every day this week is Saturday! 

73 de KB9BVN

Brian