Quail, Deer, Rabbitt, Turkey, Squirrel, pheasant and other animals are being hunted in the U.S. I wake up each morning and check the forecast to determine what type of fowl or other prey I might want to pursue. I go through all of my equipment and gear to determine which weapon I might take.
Here's the CATCH. I'm not your typical hunter. As cold weather has descended upon the Ohio Valley (Kentucky.USA); this old body just doesn't handle the freezing temperatures like it did when it was younger.
This winter I'm scaling back doing Parks on the Air activations. I've made some winter Ham Radio goals. My goals are to do some QRP radio kit building, repairing some transceivers and doing some SSB, CW, FT8, FT4, RTTY, PSK31, Olivia, and Satellite hunting operating. Some of my hunting equipment consists of the following:
I have a several sets of firepower to throw at the Amateur Radio / Ham Radio HF bands. Ten Tec 580 Delta, Ten Tec Omni D, Ten Tec Corsair, Yaesu FT-891, Yaesu FT-817 and when I've had enough with the HF bands, I will likely power up my Yaesu FT-726R All Mode V/UHF All Mode SSB/FM/CW Transceiver, point my Arrow Yagi to the heavens and work some satellites.
CAS-4A QSO August 2018 as KB4FLC with Joe - KE9AJ
Living in an apartment does have its limitations as far as what I can use to seek out my prey. But my Alpha Mag Loop has been my staple for work the world on 80, 60,40,30,20,17, 17, 12 and 10 meters. I've been able to search well beyond the bounds of my abode to the far reaches of the earth for prey that is not indigenous of the U.S.
Alpha Mag Loop 80 - 10 Meters
Some of my resources of ammo I will use this winter hunting season to try and snatch that rare beast are as follows.
CW Club RBN Spotter
https://rbn.telegraphy.de/
RBN / Reverse Beacon Network
https://www.reversebeacon.net/
Parks on the Air
POTA Scheduled Activations
POTA Active Spots
https://parksontheair.com/index.html
Summits on the Air
How I chase Summits on the Air stations
Summits on the Air Spots
Summits on the Air Alerts
Another one of my goals is to hunt more DX. Solar Cycle 25 has presented itself with many opportunities to work DX at different times of the day, different bands and modes here in the U.S.. While doing Parks on the Air activations this summer, I got smitten by DX QSOs from the bowels of a metropolitan urban city POTA site using 5 watts and less. This winter I hope to add to those DX contacts by using these apps.
DXHEAT | DXCluster & DX Research Tool
https://www.dxheat.com/
DxCenter/DxCluster
https://dxcluster.dxcenter.com/
There's one DX callsign, I've got a hankering to get in my logbook. JW5E - Svalbard Amat0rradioklubb SARK in Longyearbyen, where (currently December 2024) the sun will not rise again until February 15, 2025 at 11:42 a.m. local time. JW5E is one of hopefully many long sought after callsigns, be it domestic, club, DX or other presently unknown callsigns I hope to add in my Ham Alert, turn on the app and patiently wait to get that HAM ALERT!
Ham Alert
https://hamalert.org/about
I'm quite sure I've misseda tool. If someone has anymore please free to leave a comment or send an email so I can add them to this post.
Drive Thru Lines, School pick-up Lines, Bank Lines, Grocery Store Lines, Airport Lines and the lists of lines can seem almost endless. Recently I've come to enjoy standing and waiting in what's called "THE GRAY-LINE" or "GREY-LINE". Since I'm in the U.S., I'll use the Gray-Line spelling. What is "THE GRAY-LINE"? For those new to Ham Radio or have not move that far along in their journey of the hobby; it can be defined this way. "THE GRAY-LINE" is a band around the Earth which separates daylight from darkness. Propagation along the gray line is very efficient. The main reason is the D layer of the ionosphere, which absorbs HF signals, disappears rapidly on the sunset side of the gray line and it has not yet built upon the sunrise side. In the YouTube below Dave Casler explains. I've worked "The Gray-Line" on many occasions over the years but not in the last few years. Here it is August 2025 and August is ty...
If any of you follow "LIVE" broadcast of American Football you may have heard the announcers refer to a defense scheme called "Cover Two". It is a defensive setup that uses two deep safeties to protect the two deep halves of the field. This is what I use to describe the "CW MOUSE COVER" for the QRP LABS QCX Mini and QMX QRP Transceivers. Why do I call it the "COVER TWO"? Because it protects the two knobs and two buttons on top of these two QRP radios, The developer of the CW Mouse Paddle and now this cover asked me to test ride his CW Mouse Cover. There are a few of these covers out within our community but this is the only one I've had an opportunity to use. I am not able to compare it with any of the others so the opinions I give are strictly based on my use and how it works for me. The first thing I observed with my test model was it is made from 3D PLA printed material. (PETG material is available upon request). My cover i...
Over the last few weeks all over the planet Mother Nature has been rearing her ugly head with rounds and rounds of different types of devastating effects of Terrestrial Weather. For some of us in the Amateur Radio community Space Weather has not been a bed of Roses either. How does this play into my Amateur Radio operating? It leads me to an ADAGE most of you may have read about in that the MOST IMPORTANT part of your Ham Radio Station is NOT your RIG. IT IS YOUR ANTENNA. I've spent the better part of this summer checking all of my antenna for wear and tear, repairing those that needed and putting each one through their paces on my Nano NVA. Due to unpredictable Terrestrial and Space Weather conditions, my HF operating and Parks on the Air operating have been somewhat diminished during the last few weeks. That has lead me to understand that in the waning period of Solar Cycle 25, I can likely expect the unexpected as we journey on the downside of this cycle. As ...
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