St. Vincent Island USI Qualification Expedition Succeeds

I love it when the plan, the weather, and propagation come together!

A team from Panama City ARC successfully qualified St Vincent Island, Florida, FL006, for the US Islands Award Program on Saturday, Sept 30th. The team members included Jim K4LIX, Bob WB8PAF, Bob KK4DIV, Phil N4STC, Greg KG4LFS, Dennis WA6QKN and Greg N4KGL. The qualification required 25 contacts. However, the team made 128 contacts in just over two hours including 29 states, Canada, Germany, and Belgium. The contacts also counted for Parks On The Air KFF-0257. St. Vincent is only accessible by boat. The team used the St. Vincent Island Shuttle to get to the island. Our time was limited to four hours on the island and two hours operating time. The team is eager to do more expeditions.

An outstanding video by Bob KK4DIV

I chose to take the Icom 7100, a Bioenno 40 AH battery and my 100-foot loop matched with the Icom AH-4 Tuner. This combination worked fine business on 40 meters and 20 meters. We were making one contact per minute average. We made 50 contacts on 40 meters to my surprise. It helped we got mentioned on the North Florida HF Traffic Net. It also helped that the recent solar activity had the SFI at 90 and the critical frequency was above 7 MHz. It was easy to make the short contacts back to Panama City and neighboring counties. The 100 ft loop is 30 feet across, 20 feet high and the bottom is 10 feet above the ground. It has proved itself as an all-around performer since the last Field Day. The footprint is 30 feet long which was chosen to fit in a camping spot at Falling Waters State Park.

Thanks to the team for making this expedition a success!

Three 30 foot poles supporting the 100-foot loop

The Icom AH-4 tuner matches the loop at the center bottom via a short 300-ohm feedline.

The base of the Icom 7100 and the Bioenno 40 AH battery.

Bob WB*PAF operates and Dennis WA6QKN logs.