13 Colonies Special Event - Always A Fun Challenge

From ARRL:

The annual Original 13 Colonies Special Event will mark its 10th anniversary this year. The event gets under way on July 1 at 1300 UTC and runs through July 8 at 0400 UTC. Event Manager Kenneth Villone, KU2US, reports that 127,132 contacts took place during the 2017 13 Colonies event, down from 139,772 in 2016, owing in part to poor band conditions.

Special event stations with 1 × 1 call signs will represent the original 13 US colonies, plus bonus stations WM3PEN in Philadelphia and GB13COL in Durham, England. Each special event station will have its own QRZ.com profile page. Participating stations try to contact all 13 Colony Stations plus the two bonus stations.

Call signs and their respective states are K2A, New York; K2B, Virginia; K2C, Rhode Island; K2D, Connecticut; K2E, Delaware; K2F, Maryland; K2G, Georgia; K2H, Massachusetts; K2I, New Jersey; K2J, North Carolina; K2K, New Hampshire; K2L, South Carolina, and K2M, Pennsylvania.

I have the Clean Sweep a few years ago with 100 watts and a wire. The ALS-600 may help a little for my second attempt at all 13! This is a fun event and you will never hear pileups like the pileups you will hear with the 13 Colonies Event.

Additional information is on the 13 Colonies website.

SEKARC Field Day 2018 Update

The SEKARC Field Day 2018 was a success! Well factoring in the weather it was. Sure we did not make enough contacts to reach our goal. But I would say the 80m Delta Loop antenna performed like a champ, the 1,000 foot long wire antenna was INCREDIBLE and a great time was had by all that attended, got on the air and/or helped setup and takedown! Here are some photos from the event.

If you have some photos you would like to add to these, send them my way and I will get them included!

ARRL Field Day 2018 plans for SEKARC

THIS WEEKEND is 2018 Field Day and SEKARC is making plans for a busy and fun weekend! We will be operating again from the Big Brutus site and using multiple antennas attached to the tower from the Crawford County Emergency Management office! Special thanks to Jason the county manager.

Operating FD times are 1800 UTC Saturday and running through 1800 UTC Sunday. Or 1pm Sat until 1pm Sunday.  We will have several radios setup and available from the SEKARC inventory including the GoBox FT-891 and other ICOM and Yaesu radios. We hope to be doing all modes as we are making arrangements for Greg WI4T and anyone to operate CW, we will also have SSB, PSK31, FM and FT8. This is the first year for FT8 to be included in FD so that will be interesting. Anyone that wants to help make some contacts please come on out!

You really shouldn't need to bring your own radio and antenna out but you can. We will arrange the bands and modes for everyone out there. We will be operating as a 2AKS or Two Alpha Kansas station. There will be plenty of operating time to share! For SSB it is always nice to have two operating that station. One on radio and one logging. SO if you come out and we hope everyone does it should be a blast!! If you want to camp, we do have 3 spots reserved and there is plenty of room for tents as well. I gotta tell you, you cannot beat the night sky at Brutus on a clear summer evening.

Here is a link to a detailed list of equipment, radios, antennas, modes, PCs, logging and more. We can talk more about the food (did someone offer to make pancakes Sunday morning?) the setup and how you can help at the coffee QSO Wednesday 9am at Otto's Cafe. If you want to see what we have documented so far click the link below. Pretty impressive setup for a FREE club that charges NO DUES. Well done group...
Google Doc Field Day 2018 <click here>

Friday late afternoon/evening
meet Jason at Brutus to set up trailer.
Set up some equipment setup depending on weather and the crew on hand.

Saturday morning
Finish setup
1pm Field Day begins

Sunday
Operate until 4pm (weather permitting)
Trailer will be picked up when complete.

If you cannot make it to our Field Day station..... here is a map of most FD stations put out by the ARRL!
ARRL Field Day Locator

New SEKARC Facebook Group

Many in SEKARC are using Facebook so a few years ago I created a page for SEKARC on Facebook. Today I moved that over to be a Facebook Group. Where members can post, interact and have another way to stay in touch with members and friends of the SEKARC. If you have a Facebook account look us up and join!

CLICK HERE --- SEKARC Group on Facebook

Hamvention Yaesu Fusion Presentation

Here is the presentation by the Yaesu rep at the Xenia Hamvention last weekend. There is some news here including the ability for more radios with firmware upgrades to be set up as NODES.