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Tomorrow is Field Day for 2010. I’ve had a Miracle Antenna MMD ordered for a week….the MMD 17 so it will tune several bands….but nothing in the mail box yet! Robert at Miracle Antenna wrote me this morning that it should make it from Canada today. If it doesn’t, I’ll revert to a hamstick dipole using an MFJ dipole mount. It’s my first Field Day so I would like to get on from either the Atlanta Radio Club site or from a local area with some SHADE!
I bought a World Pack II with the battery power supply for this kind of thing. I’ve been testing it with my daily commute from Buford to downtown Atlanta where I work. I bought a Yaesu FT-2800M from an eBay auction and run it into an MFJ HT antenna mount that clips onto the passenger window. I have a Smiley Antenna HT that I screw into this mount…Smiley Antenna says it is rated to 50W, unlike most of the ratings that I’ve seen with other HT antennae. I run the power on the 2800M anywhere from 5W while I’m downtown to the full 65 watts as I near Buford while connecting to the ARC 2M repeater, W4DOC. Thus far, I can do a week’s worth of commuting QSOs on a single charge. I trickle-charge it overnight from a walwart in my garage. The Power Port Store’s product line seems to be what they say it is.
So, if the weather’s not too hot (and I’m not too lazy), I’ll try to get on tomorrow with my Icom IC-706 using portable power and the LDG IT-100 auto-tuner and try out the Miracle Antenna MMD end-fed dipole. See you on 20M or 40M tomorrow!
73s, K4FMH