N4KGL RaDAR Round Up for February 2016

This Saturday was the February RaDAR Round Up. I had in mind to work South African stations doing the SARL Field Day. I thought Eddie ZS6BNE might be participating but he was not available. So I chose to start off on 10 and 15 meters. For long distance DX I wanted to take advantage of the salt water effect for vertically polarized antennas. I chose Jetty Park in St Joe Florida where I could get some saltwater along the azimuth to South Africa. I setup my N6BT Bravo 7K on the sea wall at the park.

The South African part did not work out. But it did turn out that 10 and 15 meters were open. On 10 CW I worked YV5SKA in Venezuela, WP3RE, KP4IT in Puerto Rico. On 10 SSB I worked KP3ZE and P40MM in Aruba. I may have been getting help from the salt water on those. On 15 CW I worked SP6JOE in Poland, KB1WOD in Vermont, K5BZH in Texas, WA2CHV in New York, They were doing SKCC. On 15 SSB I worked PI4I and PI4GAC. I am not sure about those calls. Last on 15 SSB was IK2TCV in Italy.

I took an hour off to walk Suzy and the gear over to George Core Park. This park is the location of the Cape San Blas Lighthouse. I used a tree there to support the Chameleon Tactical Dipole Lite. I got on 40 meters CW and worked Craig NM4T in Huntsville, Bob WB4BLX in Panama City and Tom WD0HBR in Dothan. On 40 SSB I  worked Bob and Tom again and then caught KF4ECG North of Birmingham, Alabama. It did get pretty chilly there as the North winds kicked up.

I returned to Jetty Park but this time I used the my cart as a support for a Chameleon Hybrid/Whip as a vertical near the sea wall. I skipped around the bands and worked KD8DEU in Michigan on 17 CW, KP3ZE again on 15 SSB, K6M in California on 10 SSB and K9DAC in Ohio on 20 meters CW.

So I worked no South Africans and no deployed RaDAR Ops but I had lots of good contacts. This was my first attempt at using a Go Pro camera to capture what is goin on. I put a YouTube video together. It has a shot of Suzy leading the way on the trip between the parks. Yes she is well suited for RaDAR.