Fun day up at the Lake

Sunny and beautiful up in Lake George, NY.  It was in the mid to high 80s today and the kids had a great time enjoying the water.

I brought the Kindle along with three freshly loaded books and am already a quarter way into the first one.  This is the life and I am going to squeeze out every nano-second of enjoyment that I can!

I even got on the air today!

That's the Buddistick set up behind the cabin.  I brought along the 12' painter's pole mast and I set up for 20 Meters today.  I used four 11" arms, the coil and one of the extra long black whips.  I had a quick QSO with KD4NUL in Georgia; but the band quickly changed and did in our QSO.

I handed Randy KB4QQJ a contact for the SKCC Weekend Sprint.

The most gratifying QSO was a ragchew with Marc W4MPS who hails from Clayton, North Carolina.

I learned during our QSO that Marc and both call East Brunswick, NJ our hometown!  Marc moved to North Carolina in 2009 after retiring; while I moved to South Plainfield in 1998 after getting married.  But we both claim East Brunswick as "home".  What a small world!  A QSO from Lake George, NY to Clayton, NC to talk about East Brunswick NJ.

I started the day using the K1; but changed off to the PFR-3A, as it's nice having those paddles attached to the unit.  I was putting out about 5 Watts to the Buddistick using the small SLA that you can see in the upper corner of that plastic bin which I used as an operating table.  Using the Autek antenna analyzer that you see next to the SLA, I was able to adjust the Buddistick down to an SWR of about 2:1.  The built in tuner in the PFR-3a handled that with ease.

Later this week, I still plan to go across the street with the end fed wire and Fuchs tuner to see how that works as an "all band" antenna. But today is considered a success and I had fun; and got a little sun burnt in the process.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!