Winter Field Day 2018 Wrap-Up

WFD 2018 is done!  Well, technically it ends at 1pm CST tomorrow, but I'm done.  With the pouring rain, I just stayed home and used the permanent antennas out in the yard.  But, never being one to take the easy route, I went with the FT-817nd 5 watt radio and – just because why not – ran it on Eneloop Pro AA batteries.  Throw in the speech compressor, and it all came together pretty well.  The results were good without being overwhelming: 14 contacts total, spread over 80, 40, & 20 meters, with both voice and digital modes on each band.  Throw in the bonuses for operating QRP and on emergency power, and it'll total to a middlin'-respectable score.

Two lessons were learned.  First, the speech compressor makes voice communications viable on a QRP radio, even in the current crummy ionospheric conditions.  Not great, but viable.  In a real pinch I'd still want 100 watts, but for just going hiking and playing radio 5 watts is now fine.  Second, using the speech compressor crushes the AA batteries even faster (after which I switched over to the main solar power system, so it still counts as aux power for WFD purposes).  The prior test's three hours on AA batt power is now down to two.  Once again, you can see that there are no free lunches.  On balance though I'd rather make contacts for two hours than try in vain for three.

Well that was fun, if not the backwoods hike I was hoping for.  Here's to better weather next year.

ps 1/28: With 45 minutes left, bagged one more contact on 2 meters.  Just pointed the beam west and gave a shout on the the FM simplex calling frequency, hoping to maybe find somebody in Slidell, and a guy from Maryland happened to be driving by on I-10.  It goes to show that you never can tell, but keep trying anyway.