Another week of amateur radio has expired. Expired Ham, get it? 🙂
Welcome to another issue of Expired Ham, a weekly newsletter where I discuss the ways I participated in the amateur radio hobby this week.
ARRL Field Day 2025 is in the books. I helped out with the event hosted by the Vienna Wireless Society for the first time this weekend. We had three operating tents and a Get On The Air (G.O.T.A) tent. The operating tents were using the club call K4XY. We were operating phone, FT8/FT4, and CW. It was a lot of fun hanging out and talking about radio stuff with fellow club members and also newcomers and non-hams who came to see what our hobby is all about.
Besides helping my club host the event and meeting new people, I had the goal of operating the CW station for at least one QSO. I’m delighted to tell you that I managed to do just that in the last hour of the event earlier today. I had some assistance with copying the other station properly, but managed to get all the information I needed to get the contact logged. I wish I could share the call of the other station, but in the heat of the moment, it was in one ear and right out the other. Haha. The ice has been broken and so hopefully that fear of getting on the air and working CW will start to crack and fall away.
As far as antennas go, the club set up three EFHW antennas as well as three Buddihex hex beams. The bands were fair enough. We worked 15, 20, and 40, I believe, for the entire weekend. It’s too early for the QSO tally amongst the team. I’m sure it will be shared out this weekend once it’s all compiled.
In other news, I caught the end of the Ham Radio 2.0 / Gigaparts Let’s Make A Deal event that ran for three days earlier this week. I made an offer on the NØSA-designed magnetic mini paddle manufactured by CWMorse.US and managed to get the paddle for a 30% discount. I also bought the ARRL’s Understanding Basic Electronics and Storm Spotting and Amateur Radio books at steep discounts. Events like that are dangerous for hams, I think, but great for ham equipment retailers who sponsor them.
The weather has been nuts recently here in Northern Virginia. It’s either been super hot or super stormy and this weekend ended up being super hot. Nobody ended up experiencing heat stroke or anything else health related, thankfully, but the heat sure takes a toll on you. I’m exhausted! Therefore, I’m going to turn on the fan, pop open a cold beer, and kick my feet up for a bit.
73,
Matthew, K2MAS
K2MAS.net is not affiliated with any of the sites or products listed in this article. All opinions are the author’s own.
As a member of Amazon’s Associate program, I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases made through referrals. This helps offset the costs of hosting this website and are greatly appreciated.
K2MAS.net 