FIELD DAY 2025 @ KA2BEO

This Field Day, the only antenna was my 18.5-foot long 20m Slinky Junior dipole, which measured 2:1 SWR. See the TinyTenna link for details. The tiny radio was a QRP Labs QCX-mini 20m CW transceiver. The portable iambic keyer paddle was a GHD GM702. The battery was an Anker PowerCore Select 20000 (A1363H11-1) power bank rated for 20Ah, 18W that I purchased at Walmart. Its output was converted from 5Vdc to 12Vdc by a Baofeng USB 12Vdc 1A power adapter (a DC-DC boost converter). The overall results were okay considering that I operated only a third of the event time, the low output power (2.5W), single band and operating mode, antenna size, and antenna height (7'). I made 44 contacts, but no Canada or west coast this year. Considering the high SWR, I was only running 1.25W into an electrically-small, linear-loaded dipole antenna on the 20m CW band. I operated for about eight hours total, averaging a contact about every 10 minutes. The weather was very hot and extremely humid. Unfortunately, the heat was so unbearable the previous week as well that it killed another one of our chickens (RIP Ophelia APR 2022 to JUN 2025). The two birds passed within a year of each other by just 3 days difference. We're down to only 2 hens now, Natalia and Cordelia. 73 fer now de Rob, KA2BEO.