Kev's Radio Adventures

For years when I lived in Nevada my Christmas Eve tradition was to go duck hunting. It reminds me of a tradition my mother had told me that her dad had done: Thanksgiving morning was spent deer hunting. Now that I live in the UK, hunting is a bit more difficult so this year I decided to replace it with Ham Radio! My youngest son wanted to come along today. I’m pretty sure he only likes coming because I let him bring his Nintendo Switch, but I’m happy to have his company and spend time with him. He’s noisy and asks a lot of questions so it does make activating a bit more difficult. Even more so with CW where it seems my brain can’t switch back and forth between English and Morse Code very easily.  We were at Lakenheath Fen RSPB which is POTA and WWFF. This counted as WWFF’s Brass Monkey #2 activation for December. I set up the radio in the car with the trusty mag mount and ham stick combo. It’s been a while since I activated CW only so I was ready for the challenge. I planned on 40,...

The winter season makes ham radio portable ops difficult; it's cold, windy, and we get quite a bit of rain in my part of the UK. If everything lines up and it's relatively warm, the wind is calm, and the rain is holding off, it is fine weather for activating in the field. However, these conditions also need to line up with life. I have a full time job, wife and two kids, and attend online university taking two courses at once. I'm lucky to get a day out in nice weather. This is where activating from the car pays off. It shields me from the elements, however after an hour or so, the cold seeps in. I have 40m, 20m, and 17m ham sticks and a mag mount for the top of the car. Not to mention the mobile 2m/70cm radio. This seems to do well enough for the most part and with 50 watts, it doesn't make things too difficult.  The ham sticks are tuned to the low end of the bands as I'm primarily a CW operator. In the voice portion of the bands, even on the low side, the SWR reac...

Thanksgiving is a typical American holiday: stay at home, relax, and spend time with family... and don't forget the food! Lately, I can't seem to stomach turkey or ham, we don't have any family around, and we had no plans to spend the holiday with anyone. This year, we decided we'd head out and take a trip on Thanksgiving. My wife is a big history buff (she'll have her graduate degree in a few weeks) and loves to visit the abbeys in ruins. She decided that we'd stop for the night in Whitby where Bram Stoker was inspired for his famous book,  Dracula , and the next 2 days we'd spend in York. I did some searching on the English Castles and English Lighthouses and found that if I'm sitting at Whitby Abbey (G-01916) on the hill, I'm within 1 km of the 2 lighthouses (ENG-163 & ENG-165). Score!  We left early on Thursday morning towards Whitby and arrived at the abbey in the early afternoon. After getting checked into the English Heritage visitor centr...