Ben Stevinson W0ARR

Slow Speed Test - September 7th 2026

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Date: September 7th, 2026
Event: K1USN Slow Speed Test
Bands: 40m
Modes: CW
Contacts: 21
Radio: Flex 8600
Antenna: 80-10 End Fed Half Wave
Power: 100 Watts

Slow night on 40 meters but picked up at the end. 100 watts on the Flex tonight.

Contact Map

September 7, 2026 Slow Speed Test contacts.

Slow Speed Test - August 31st 2026

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Date: August 31, 2026 (0:00 UTC)
Event: K1USN Slow Speed Test
Bands: 20 & 40m
Modes: CW
Contacts: 22
Radio: Yaesu FT-710
Antenna: 80-10 End Fed Half Wave
Power: 100 Watts

Great night on the FT-710 in the shack tonight. I've been re-organizing the shack so I can either operate the Flex 8600 from my second floor office or from my workbench in the basement. I put my 710 in the basement for the time being.

Contact Map

August 31, 2026 Slow Speed Test contacts.

Slow Speed Test - April 27th 2026

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Date: April 27, 2026 (0:00 UTC)
Event: K1USN Slow Speed Test
Bands: 20m & 40m
Modes: CW
Contacts: 28
Radio: Flex 8600
Antenna: 80-10 End Fed Half Wave
Power: 100 Watts

Here's my Sunday night results for the K1USN SST. I love the SST, it's a fun easy way to make contacts and practice first names.

I started on 20 but hopped to 40 once the sun got a little bit lower. Plenty of static crashes on 40 meters tonight with storms all across the midwest.

Contact Map

April 27, 2026 Slow Speed Test contacts.

Lake Zorinsky Activation #34

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Date: April 19, 2026
Park: US-5658
Bands: 17m & 20m
Modes: CW
Contacts: 25
Radio: Yaesu FT-891
Antenna: Yaesu ATAS-120
Power: 100 Watts

I was able to sneak out to Lake Zorinsky for a quick activation before running errands. Zorinsky is my most activated park and this was activation #34 in the books.

To make things quick, I ran 100 watts CW with my favorite easy combo — Yaesu FT-891 and the screwdriver antenna that Yaesu makes, the ATAS-120a.

I made quick work with 25 contacts in the logs before I had to take off.

It's been a while since I've used the hood mount on my car and I had some issues with it staying attached. When the wind blew against the antenna, it pushed the antenna back a bit which caused some signals to fade and SWR to go up. Another project for later!

Contact Map

April 18, 2026 activation at US-5658 Lake Zorinsky State Park.

Tough band conditions at Fort Edgecomb State Historic Site

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Date: July 19, 2025
Park: US-7859
Bands: 20m
Modes: CW, FT8
Contacts: 2 CW, 23 FT8
Radio: Icom IC-705 & AH-705 Tuner
Antenna: 9:1 EFRW with a 29' vertical
Power: 10 Watts

Here's the second field report of our July 2025 Maine vacation! We like seeing multiple places when we go on vacations and we split our trip to Maine by staying in Portland for the first half and Boothbay Harbor for the second.

The day after our visit to Two Lights State Park, we made the trek up to Boothbay Harbor and stopped at Fort Edgecomb State Historic Site along the way.

Fort Edgecomb is only a few acres with an incredible view over Sheepscot River. It was originally built to protect neighboring Wiscasset against the British and then later re-activated during the civil war.

We learned a little bit of history and checked out the fort itself.

The fort was designed for cannon fire out of the top floor with carronade cannons which were smoothbore cannons designed to smack targets broadside.

If you weren't on cannon duty, you'd be lining up against a gunsight and firing out with a musket.

We set up down by the river and I got to work. I set up my Icom IC-705 and the same 9:1 EFRW with a 29' vertical I used at Two Lights. The POTA33 mast was easy to just lay against a tree and I tossed my radial wire down in the direction of the river.

It was slow going on CW for the first 25 minutes. I started out on 5 watts QRP without much luck and plugged in a 3Ah lifepo battery to get the full 10 watts out of my 705. Thanks to Steve K9IS and Doc W4SV for getting me. While my wife is extremely patient while I do radio on vacation, I do like getting to ten contacts as quick as I can so I know we can leave at any time.

While I prefer to do exclusively CW activations nowadays, I was glad I threw in a USB cable so I could do some FT8. I switched over to the laptop and watched the contacts roll in.

I don't do many digital mode POTA activations and while I know FT8 is always busy, it was surprising to see just how many stations immediately called me back. I know FT8 and other digital modes are increasingly popular but it did make me wonder a bit about CW fading away.

The highlight was getting one DX contact on FT8 — Ian G4IIY from the UK came in strong on 20 meters.

All in, 25 contacts in the logs before we headed to Boothbay Harbor.

Ocean Views & QRP CW at Two Lights State Park

Sat, 19 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Date: July 18, 2025
Park: US-2412
Bands: 20m, 17m
Modes: CW
Contacts: 24
Radio: Icom IC-705 & AH-705 Tuner
Antenna: 9:1 EFRW
Power: 5 Watts QRP

Hello from Maine! My wife and I are on vacation this week checking out both Portland and Boothbay Harbor. We stopped for some Parks on the Air at Two Lights State Park, about 20 minutes outside of Portland.

The park is located directly on the coast and the views are spectacular. Contrary to the name, there aren't any lighthouses in the park, which the park ranger at the gate pointed out to us on our way in. It does, however, feature an unused fire control tower and battery left over from World War II.

Setup & Gear

We found some shade and I used my new POTA33 mast I brought with me. This mast is excellent — it's lightweight, easy to put into my checked luggage, and sturdy enough to be free standing if you lean it against something. I paired it with a 29' end fed random wire with a 9:1 unun and a 17' counterpoise.

I used this trip as an excuse to only bring wire antennas and I wanted to run 5 watts QRP as much as I could. Even with that constraint, I still ended up bringing more gear than I needed.

This trip is also the first field activation I've done with a key from Modern Morse. Aaron over there is doing some really great work and I really highly recommend getting one of his keys. I placed an order for a white and red storm trooper style key a while back and he called me to tell me that he was having a lot of difficulty to get the white cases to all match up with some being a mismatched off white.

He was great to work with and gave me a bunch of options for colors which led me to this green and black combo that came out really well. As of writing this, it looks like he's paused new sales to get caught up on the backlog. My key took over a month to arrive and I was happy to wait.

Activation

About halfway through the activation, two park staff came up to us and were curious about what we had in the tree. They were great — but they had seen it from far away. Walking back up, I could see why they noticed and came to check us out:

The mast was all but one section extended to accommodate the 29' random wire antenna and was very visible.

I put 24 contacts in the logs between 20 and 17 meters. I started on 10 watts but switched to 5 watts halfway through the first contact and had no issues running QRP the entire time.

A pretty good spread on the map but I was pretty concentrated on the east half of the country: