The Elk log-periodic is simple and useful:
http://www.elkantennas.com/2m4405element.htm

The Gulf Alpha 2m/70cm satellite yagi is pretty nice, too:
http://www.gulfalphaantennas.com/

I have an Arrow, two Elks, and the Gulf Alpha, and am pleased with every one. They're good for different applications. The Gulf Alpha is probably the one you'd want to put up permanently.

Also, make sure to google for "cheap yagi." WA5VJB recently published plans for an Arrow-type crossed dual-band version expressly for sats. The AMSAT Journal  recently published detailed plans for a pair of monoband versions plus mount. I've built at least a dozen of these for various V/UHF bands and they're about as easy to build and foolproof as you can get.

73
Frank
AB2KT

Despite lore to the contrary, this doesn't seem to be a ham thing.

Check out
http://www.radiomarine.org/tales.html
If you look at the transcripts there, you'll see that EE (dit dit) was universal among commercial marine CW ops.

Don't forget the sats. Lots of LEO activity there.

73
Frank
AB2KT

The longer the pass, the higher the elevation, and vice-versa. The tracking program gpredict under Linux lets you prune down the passes by minimum elevation, and it also plots out the path and times of a given pass on a compass rose. Very handy.

73
Frank
AB2KT

Always. Carry minimal gear, set up wherever you happen to find yourself when the test starts, go from there.

73
Frank
AB2KT

The 1959 Handbook had plans for a single-6146 amplifier and power supply giving ~70W out for ~2W in. A reprint is available online at

http://www.arrl.org/members-only/tis/info/pdf/59hb196.pdf

73
Frank
AB2KT

Ian --

Can you hear the qsstv audio transmit output, if you set it up to play back through speakers rather than route it into your transceiver?

73
Frank
AB2KT

I don't know about the "word" thing in all cases. A lot of the time it's knowing the sound of word beginnings, reflexively guessing the likely continuations, and taking a breather while the actual word gets filled out and you anticipate the likely next word based on context.

Regardless, I know for myself the 25wpm head-copy barrier was crossed when I stopped translating into words or letters at all, and just started hearing what was sent directly, like reading in an entirely different alphabet.

73
Frank
AB2KT

Check out http://www.radiomarine.org/tales.html. It's a sequence of true stories by a former Coast Guard maritime radio operator, and it's fascinating.

Anyway, on the specific point here, it's interesting that 'dit dit' was a ubiquitous exchange among the maritime ops. There are a lot of transcripts of real traffic in the articles. In those transcripts you'll see nearly every QSO ending with /EE/EE indicating an exchange of dits between the ops.

73
Frank
AB2KT

Also, check out the Paxon packet terminal program at http://www.paxon.de. There's a tutorial in English, but the program is slick, very easy to set up, and works really well with the soundcard modem.

Right on all counts. I've done it a number of times, for HF bicycle mobile as well as automobile. As usual, performance depends mostly on how good the ground is, and how high on the car body you can fix the antenna mount.

BTW the Buddistick is a monopole. The Buddipole is a dipole.

73
Frank
AB2KT

If you're staying in a hotel, the local EMI and RFI is your worst enemy. Plan to operate away from your hotel, like in a park or someplace relatively (RF) quiet.

A low doublet with a little tuner should serve you well. If you can manage to find a decent spot, you should have a *very* good time.

73
Frank
AB2KT

You're right, nothing special to do. Just tack on the /VE7. I do it often.

Oh, and take the wire. These days even a Buddipole won't cut it much of the time. You'll appreciate the extra few watts out of the SG-2020.

If you have an HT and can make room for it, take that too. There's a lot of repeater activity on and around VI.

73
Frank
AB2KT

The Wilderness Sierra might be a good choice too. It draws 35mA on receive through headphones, 350mA on transmit at 2W. Somewhat less expensive than the K2 or K1, too.

73
Frank
AB2KT

Simon --

If anything the problem will be just the other way around. Airports are huge consumers of power and at times can be huge generators of RF hash. It's very unlikely you can cause them anywhere near the kinds of problems they could potentially cause you occasionally.

73
Frank
AB2KT