I’ve been going to the Sea-Pac Ham Radio Convention for a decade, and I finally was able to set up my portable station on the beach. While I didn’t contact any one, I was able to hear a ham in the Caribbean on 20m PSK31 who was conversing with hams in Italy. I haven’t yet got the macros programmed for FLDigi on my tablet, and it is very hard to type on the pop up keyboard and still see what is going on, especially at sunset on the beach.

My portable station consists of an AMP-3 Tactical Transceiver pack, my Buddistick antenna, a Yaesu FT-817, Signalink USB, and an Acer Windows 8.1 tablet. And yes, I can fit all of that into the pack.

I decided to setup my Buddistick today. It’s on the 8-section 11in. shock-corded mast. Two 11in. arms, the mini-coil, and my new 5-section 11in. shock-corded whip.

The interesting part is that changing the radial length affected the SWR more than changing the tap on the mini-coil.

Not quite here yet

Just launched this site. I will be putting things on here relating to ham radio.