Some operating time in the park.

The setup in the car

It was a great day today even though they called for rain  it was just overcast and very nice cool temps in around 17C. I was off work today and after I had completed the chores around the house it was time to get out in the outdoors for some ham radio. Since there was a chance of rain I decided to not set up outside and get rained out but instead I took my car and set up the Elecraft KX3 mobile from one of our near by parks on lake Ontario. I set out on my way and checked and double check all my items (last weekend I forgot   a coax connector and the portable op's came to a fast end) I arrived at the park around 13:00 local time and began to call CQ 20m I had no takers and decided to spin the dial to see who I could find. I did come across some DX stations calling CQ but was not able to be heard and some had very long waiting lists wanting to contact them. I then came across Bernie KB4JB from Florida and we had a very nice 20 minute QSO. The CW speed was in around 14 WPM and both of us were able to share station, location and other information before conditions changed and we both faded out. The KX3

20m mobile whip 

operated just fine for over an hour and a half on the internal batteries at 5 watts output. At one point during my QSO with Bernie for some reason my KX3 key was just not sending what I wanted. As time passed in our QSO I noticed my headphone cord was under the KX3 Key and causing the troubles. Once that was dealt with the code improved minus the headphone cord! I only made one QSO for the outing but it was a long one and the speed was at a very comfortable.  The antenna was a mono band 20m whip, the power was 5 watts from the internal rechargeable batteries and the radio as was mentioned the Elecraft KX3. It was time to head home and get dinner going for Julie's home coming from work.