Ham Radio in the Park - Rockwall

Saturday was a full and busy day for me. To start the day, I helped with communications along with other ham's for the CASA Fun Run in Rockwall. It was similar to other events the club participates with here locally. A good way to test out the radios to see if they are working and training for R.A.C.E.S.

After that, I met up with my Dad and we went to the RARC sponsored Ham Radio in the Park. Several hams from around the area came to Harry Myers Park in Rockwall for this event. And you couldn't ask for better weather especially in November except for a little wind. It was fun to see what other hams had to bring and set up for mobile stations. Along with the Buddipole that Les Darlington brought (K5RXQ), there was all kinds of attempts at antennas. With the wind, Les put up a kite and the idea came to put an antenna on it. Just as the antenna was attached, the wind died down enough not to support the antenna. Good try though. We brought our new antenna that we just created this week, the Slinky J-Pole. It worked OK, but not like I had hoped. We tried some other configurations with the Slinky's and had some success. We took the long 20' pole and made a 40 meter vertical dipole and made a couple of state side contacts and even heard a station in Spain. We also trying a 40 meter inverted V that worked well also. Have to do some more work with the j-pole idea, but we are convinced it will work very well once we get it logistics of it tweaked a little better.