Friday I went out to Anclote Park for the monthly NAQCC-WFL outing. NAQCC-WFL stands for North America QRP CW Club – West Florida. Being in Lakeland, I can attend the WFL or FL outings as they both are just as far from me. I almost wonder if we need a Central Florida chapter, but thats a subject for a different post.

It was almost a 2 hour drive and I left the house a little before 7:00 am for the 9:00 meeting. The only other member that showed up was Ron, N9EE. Three members if you include Sam! It is the first time I’ve met Ron and we had a good “meeting of the chapter.”

Ron set up his FT-817 and wire dipole and I set up my KX3 and Buddipole antenna. Band conditions were not that great and we had our antennas too close as we both got interference from each other even when

on different bands. I made one solid contact to Mark, AF4NW, in North Carolina. Ron had made a few contacts. Ron also had he friends mag loop antenna and he tried that out. We were not very successful and we were not 100% sure we were tuning it right. Receive signals were a good 2-3 S-units lower than his dipole.

Overall, I had a good time. It was a long drive. In fact, drive time was greater than the time spent with the radio. Yet, I plan on attending these on a regular basis. I think its good to get out and meet other people and have some fun on the radio at the same time.