August 11, 2023: Dingle Park, Oakville, ON. Part of Great Lakes Trail Recreational Site (VE-6003)

Today was the first time activating with the Elecraft KX2! I put the antenna up in a short tree, and did not have much luck, so I re-deployed to a larger tree and had better, but not stellar luck. I was there for about 90 minutes and only got 10 contacts. I was actually worried I would not get the full 10 to make it an official credit-worthy activation!

A link to the map of the park is here. Quite a nice park with several picnic tables to use.

Pretty good range of distances, considering it was 10w for an hour or so, and then down to 5w when the battery was partially depleted.

I have to get my setup a little better as balancing a laptop and the radio on my lap was awkward. But the comfortable chair was a nice anchor. I used a end-fed random-wire home-made antenna with a 9:1 transformer. The transformer is hanging such that it appears to be directly over the water, but it wasn't. It was a great day to take a few hours mental-health leave and sit near Lake Ontario.

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