Suckage

Well, I guess I'm not such a good blogger just as I suspected. Things have been busy though. I spent Father's Day weekend shooting a softball tournament and I've spent this week so far playing catch up with other things.

I did finally do some radio stuff. I've been looking for a good portable HF antenna for use with Field Day, emergency deployment, and just plain whatever. I wanted a Buddistick but decided on the P1 system from Blue Star Antennas. This antenna gets good reviews at eHam and for the same price as the Buddistick I was able to add the 80M coil. Having 80M capability is really a big deal for me. The North Florida Phone Net is run on 80M and that's where I'd be looking to pass health/welfare traffic through NTS.

Blue Star is only a couple of hours south of my QTH and I already have a shipping notification and tracking number. I don't see why I wouldn't have it by tomorrow. That's good since I have a wedding Thur and won't be able to try it out. Its first field trial will be this weekend from the campsite. Really looking forward to heading out.

My dilemna now is power. I have a 65AH Optima that's a beast to haul around and a meager 10AH that wont give my much operating time with the 718. I'm thinking of picking up another 10AH and running them in parallel but I've already spent a good bit on pre-camping goodies and that's another $30. I may cheat and throw the one 10AH on the charger since we'll have AC. Of course, I'm really trying to do this w/o using such luxuries. We'll see how it works out.

Well, that's it for now. Next update will probably be from the campsite ... if I have cell service. :D