QRP Fun with PCARS Every year, the Portage County Amateur Radio Service – aka PCARS – hosts a QRP contest at Fred Fuller Park in Kent, Ohio. This tradition goes back many years and it’s always a good time. Modes come and go and the rules shift a little, but mostly it’s an attempt to…
16th place in the Single Operator – Single Radio – Low Power – In A Park category with 1,053 points. That’s how it shook out. That category is always very competitive. Or maybe I should say that it’s got a lot of entries. It’s the most fun way to run the contest and single operator,…
Ohio State Parks On The Air was 09-Sep this year as it always falls on the first Saturday after Labor Day. It’s a contest whose primary purpose is to get operators out into the State Parks of Ohio and enjoy the outdoor spaces the state has to offer. Last year was the first time that…
Well, the results are in and Team KC8JC, made up of yours truly and my Dad, AC8NT came in third place. Now that’s not too shabby given that we went QRT about an hour or so before the contest ended. It’s also not so bad when we consider that our team did not enter the…
Every year, PCARS hosts a club contest for QRP operations in February. Astute readers of the blog will note that the last one was in…November? Of 2022? Well, things happened back in February of 2022 and the club wasn’t ready, so it was delayed until winter set in. Which, traditionally, in NE Ohio is pretty…
The results are in! My dad and I came in 3rd place with a score of 1,566 points. Not too bad for a day where the propagation was absolute garbage and we were mostly talking to ourselves in the park via phone modes. FT8 was the only way out, sadly. But we stuck to it…
OSPOTA 2022 The first Saturday after Labor Day each year is the Ohio State Parks On The Air contest (OSPOTA). For me, 2022 has been a year of POTA and being as I’m really into it and it’s sponsored by my club, PCARS, I decided to pick a park and activate. I chose Salt Fork…
While logging into the POTA site to get the park numbers for some potential weekend targets, something caught my attention. There was a little rectangle under the header block of my profile. It was an award! A Bronze Hunter Award. I have apparently been a hunter for 10 unique parks. That’s quite a feat given…
I decided to jump in on the ARRL RTTY Roundup this year. My original plan was to get FLDIGI working and/or a combination of logging software with 2tone embedded, but I quickly ran out of time. I’m still very new to RTTY and while I’ve done a good amount of listening, I haven’t made a…