It had been a while since my last portable outing, so I was itching to get out today. The weather forecast, however, was calling for periods of heavy rain and gusting wind. Fortunately, I had a plan in mind to deal with the weather.
I made a quick trip up to nearby Evansburg State Park (K-1351, KFF-1351). It was rainy on the drive there, but tapered off by the time I reached the park. According to the weather radar app on my phone, another round of nasty weather was likely.
In order to use my usual truck-mounted antennas, I have to open up the tonneau cover. I had some things back there that I needed to keep dry, so I opted to set up under a large picnic pavilion. It’s no surprise that it was unoccupied. Who wants to hold a picnic on a rainy day in October, anyway?
I pressed my Alexloop into service today, so I could keep my whole station under cover. Since my TR-35 doesn’t have an SWR indicator, I used a homebrew resistive SWR bridge. The resistive bridge is a little too sensitive on 40M and 30M, so I have to reduce the TR-35’s output power in order to see the null on the LED indicator.
I started out on 20M, and things got off to a quick start. I logged seven contacts in the first few minutes. After that, it dried up. I picked up two more on 30M, but I was wondering if I was going to make it to 10 contacts before the next band of storms moved in.
I dropped down to 40M, and the activity picked up again. Even though it’s the least efficient band for the Alexloop, I always have good luck there. It was my most productive band today.
The rain wasn’t the big problem today; it was the wind gusts. I had to stop twice to pick up things that blew off the table. So, after just under an hour, I called it quits. I finished up with 21 contacts in the log. I had one park-to-park contact today (that I know of).
Despite the inclement weather, it wasn’t a bad day.
72, Craig WB3GCK