Blog
2025 VP5/KD8RTT DXpedition Debrief
I am now back from my Turks and Caicos trip and settled with all my logs uploaded. It was a great vacation with plenty of beach time, exploring, and enjoying a respite from the cold Kansas City winter. While my daily update posts shed a little light on the trip, I...
2024 Field Day Report
For Field Day this year, I participated in the Waypoint Amateur Radio Club, WA0RC, operations from the club shack. WA0RC is the club of Garmin employees in Olathe, Kansas, and has a new, dedicated shack space that was just opened earlier this year. We previously had a...
2024 June VHF Contest/EN20 Grid Expedition/POTA US-2619 Report
For June VHF this year, I decided to put EN20 on the air (after my previous failure) due to its relatively rare status for being a midwest grid as reported by FFMA chasers. My plan for this contest was to use my general setup from previous roves including my 25 foot...
DIY Paddle Interface for VBand CW Practice Website
UPDATE (5/12/2024): Turns out my little DIY project below is not so novel. Check out OZ1JHM's website to see their solution which is basically the same solution as mine, but posted long ago! I recently came across VBand, CW Hotline, and the USB Paddle Interface sold...
2024 WA0RC 2m Simplex Contest
The Waypoint Amateur Radio Club, WA0RC, made up of Garmin employees at headquarters in Olathe, Kansas, held a 2m Simplex Contest on April 13th. As Vice President of the club for 2024, I decided to take the lead on this event after seeing some examples online and...
Failed SOTA Activation – W7A/CS-066
Earlier this month, I spent a week in Flagstaff, AZ finishing my Hybrid Wilderness First Responder course and wanted to try a SOTA summit before I headed back to Kansas City. After searching around for summits nearby (of which there are many), I decided to try...
2023 Kansas QSO Party Report
This year for the Kansas QSO Party, I participated as a Kansas rover station with plans to hit several counties throughout the weekend under the 1x1 N0S. This had me generally setting out to the east from Kansas City early...
2023 Kansas QSO Party Plans
On August 26th and 27th, I will once again be participating in the Kansas QSO Party as a rover hitting up several counties around Kansas! This year, I will be using the call sign N0S and operating from the following counties on 20m and 40m: Saturday: Riley...
2023 June VHF Contest Report
After my recent few attempts at VHF roves in 2022 (2022 CQ WW VHF Contest Report and 2022 September VHF Contest Report), I decided to try again with a different mindset for activity. I've long considered a method to mount antennas to my car so that there was no setup...
2022 September VHF Contest Report
Well, my first September VHF Contest could simply be described as rough. Unlike my other reports, I’ll cut to the chase up front and say I only made six contacts during the weekend with a claimed scored of 42. While this probably...
Fixing LiFePO4 Batteries That Won’t Charge
As is the seemingly the craze in ham radio, I recently picked up several LiFePO4 batteries of varying capacities to use with my Yaesu FT-991a. I was able to get these as part of the Amazon Vine program, so there is no particular reason I chose the models in question:...
2022 Kansas QSO Party Report
Another Kansas QSO Party is in the books! I had a great weekend traveling through southern Kansas activating six counties along the way as 1×1 W0P. I used the same setup as described in my 2022 Field Day Report except I operated from the backseat of my car instead. I...
2022 CQ WW VHF Contest Report
For my first CQ WW VHF contest, I decided to try my hand at some VHF roving. I set out to hit four grids around the Kansas City area using my Par Electronics 6m Moxon, Diamond 5 element 2m yagi, Max-Gain Systems mast, new Yaesu FT-991a, and new 10 Ah and 16 Ah LiFePO4...