Ham Radio on the Road…

By Gary Stone, N5PHT

n5phtgs@gmail.com

22 July 2013

After 3 months on the road with RV’ing and hamming I thought it might be interesting to prepare and share a brief report. I have had lots of fun with the ham radio and made over a thousand contacts.

Setup: I have a desk in my 5^th wheel camper. (Montana High Country 343RL). The desk has plenty of room for the ham station and the laptop. I am using an ICOM 746PRO and 100 watts – no amp. I use a light switching power supply under the desk on a shelf. I connect to the antenna on the truck with 50 feet of RG8X. If I have a solid Internet connection I upload every contact in real time to Club Log and it shows up on my QRZ page. I also upload to LOTW every few days.

Some observations:

1. A screwdriver antenna must have a good ground plane – my tow truck is great but the 5^th wheel is difficult to get a good ground plane.
2. The physical location of the truck (where the antenna is mounted) is very, very important for overall performance. If you can get it in the clear a bit signals improve.
3. The 12 foot whip on the screwdriver is a great improvement over the standard whip. That enables you to use less coil in the screwdriver and you get better efficiency. The whip is telescopic and reduces to only about 30 inches for traveling. With the 12 foot whip I can tune to 17 meters and my 746PRO internal turner will match on 15 to 10 meters. However, I can see a 1 to 2 S unit improvement if I go out and lower the whip so that the screwdriver can match on those bands without use of the internal turner on the 746.
4. I love my "wireless" remote to control the screwdriver – so much better than trying to run 12 volts to the operating position with a dc cord. Send me an email if you want details.
5. I have suspected for many years and now have no doubt in my mind that when a major contest is happening on the bands the actual band conditions improve. I suspect (no evidence or scientific proof) that all the RF in the ionosphere effects the overall bands. Someone should conduct a scientific study on this in my view. I know that during a major contest there is simply more stations on but I certainly feel more than that is happening. Most of my contacts are not contest contacts but I do try to make a few during major contests.

I learned the hard way to make sure:

1. The 12 foot whip is down before traveling – I was lucky I only went a few miles and had minor damage.
2. To disconnect the coax from the 5^th wheel before driving off!! I was really lucky that I "only" ripped the coax into two halves instead of pulling apart the side of my trailer!

Well, with those notes I have the following stats from about 3 months on the road:

• Number of QSO: 1311
• DXCC Worked: 112
• US States Worked: 50
• Zones Worked: 27
• Breakdown by band:
• 10 meters: 30 qso in 16 dxcc
• 12 meters: 15 qso in 12 dxcc
• 15 meters: 166 qso in 41 dxcc
• 17 meters: 180 qso in 65 dxcc
• 20 meters: 583 qso in 71 dxcc
• 30 meters: 196 qso in 44 dxcc
• 40 meters: 139 qso in 12 dxcc
• 80 meters: 2 qso in 1 dxcc
• 160 meters: none
• Modes: 100% CW

Log Book of the World (LOTW): This gets a lot of use worldwide and a very good way to confirm contacts. I upload to LOTW every few days when I have Internet and I already have 422 contacts confirmed on LOTW of the above 1311 contacts.

So, hope you enjoyed the report and see you on the air…down the road.

Gary, N5PHT