Welcome, we're a slow, but steady, group. I've moved recently, and need to get an antennae in the air. The good news is I'm hundreds of feet higher in elevation, so my DX should improve considerably.

being former military and a prepper, awesome!

Gil, I really enjoyed your maritime videos. I'm looking for a Compac 19 or something similar to trailer. Looking forward to getting on the water. Your videos are an inspiration!

watching I Survived now. nice video. I'm looking for a trailer sailor now, maybe a com-pac or catalina.

following seas!

Our club met up at the EMS Administrative Building where we maintain a radio and vertical antennas. Strung up a 40m and 80m dipole, fewer than we normally have for ARRL Field Day. Saturday evening, I made contacts on 80m mostly regional. On 40m, the US East Coast was getting into Italy. Overall, a good time.

I passed this along to our local radio club, thanks!

Gil, thanks for keeping in going. I enjoy your content on YT.

Congrats on passing! We have technician, general, and extra in the US. Passed my general a year after getting my license with a minimal passing score.

I'm ok with not upgrading to extra. Maybe one day. The important thing is to get licensed and get training/practice. Applies equally to radios and firearms.

I'm a fan of baofengs, have a btech dual band mobile used daily while commuting, and several HT's.

I bought a mirage dual band amp years ago for using the HT as a mobile, before getting the btech, my frankenrig. These amps work nicely with HTs.

I've never found a decent mic to use with the baofeng HT's, so I got a BTech (same company) dual band mobile.

Love nmo mounts, but currently using a mag.

Check out the BTech mobiles.

Happy New Year!

Winter Field Day 2018 is coming up at the end of this month.

I've been using PSK-31 for a couple of years, and tried JT-9 and JT-65. Last weekend updated WSJT-X on my linux box and started making contacts.

FT8 supports up to 28 characters in 15 second send/receive intervals. It's necessary to keep your clock synced within 1 second of UTC. According to the documentation, FT8 is not as sensitive as the JT protocols, but is much faster.

While it's a fun, fast paced protocol, I can see it's usefulness in a grid down situation for sending abbreviated messages.

The time syncing issue has me thinking how would one accomplish syncing their computer without an internet connection?

Anyone else trying FT8 and what do you think?

Been following this story, somewhat, since it was first reported. There are many inconsistencies in their story, but there's no disputing the fact they were found drifting in the Pacific. The boat is still drifting.

I follow several boating forums as my retirement dream is to sail the ICW with the seasons in 10 years or so. They're lucky to be alive.

A couple of recent articles on SurvivalBlog,

https://survivalblog.com/radiation-issues-nuclear-blasts-part-1-dr-bones-doomandbloom-net/
https://survivalblog.com/radiation-issues-nuclear-blasts-part-2-dr-bones-doomandbloom-net/

I haven't prepped for NBC, or EMP, for that matter. Anyone else have surplus equipment stored in faraday cages?

Same site as previous 3 years, local EMS center. 6m opened up on Sunday around 10 a.m., made about 50 contacts or so up until 2 p.m.

We had 2 stations, one voice and one CW/Digital, plus 6m. More operators than radios. The local club has it down to a science, di-poles for all bands, no tuners, and a switch panel for running coax to antennas and radios. So when you work all the stations on one band, coordinate switching bands with the other station, and it's easily done at the switch panel.

The EMS center is going to let us setup a permanent station on site. We'll likely install an HF antenna in addition to the UHF/VHF already installed.

That makes Winter Field Day and ARRL Field Day both successes this year. Looking forward to next.