13 Colony Certificate and scanner antenna install

I received in the mail My 13 colony certificate for this years special event. Managed to achieve a clean sweep and contact the William Penn station but not the United Kingdom. I think that's five years in a row I've participated and I always enjoy chasing the stations around.
Recently I was asked to help setup and program a new scanner for Our system operations center. I didn't have enough time at work so I brought it home and played with it. During the setup of the new scanner I was reminded of a scanner antenna I bought used at a recent swapfest and never put in the air.Its a disconne type ,an Icom AH-7000, and it seemed to be in great shape.
I still have an old pipe on My pole building and a piece of "spare" RG-8u from the pipe to inside My shack so this should be easy to put in service. The coax has not been used for many years so I did a simple test with My MFJ-259b antenna analyzer by putting a dummy load on the pole building end and tested from inside My shack. Coax looks good so I mounted the antenna and again checked with the analyzer although it only goes to about 170Mhz and this wideband antenna should cover from 25Mhz-1300Mhz receive. The setup looks fine for the frequencies I can test and it will only be used as a receive antenna so I'm good to go!
Using an external antenna, especially when My scanner is located in the basement, makes a nice improvement. The little telescoping antenna provided with the scanner if used on the first floor or above does do a good job which surprised Me.
I hope to find time to give a quick explanation of programming the Uniden BCD996P2 scanner soon in a future blog post.
73---Tim

13 Colonies Special Event 2016

This is a sample of the certificate for this special event.

I have participated in this special event for five years in a row.This time I also remembered and started chasing QSO's on the first day. Several Years I only remembered towards the end and had to scramble to try and get a clean sweep.I did manage a clean sweep in 2013 and 2015 but both those years I missed the bonus stations --only managed both bonus stations in 2011 but missed the clean sweep. Sorry- the clean sweep is having a QSO with each of the associated 13 colony stations on any band or mode.
This year as always the station calls were K2A thru K2M representing the original 13 colonies plus bonus stations WM3PEN in Pennsylvania and a new one-- GB13COL in Durham,Great Britain.The event is run from July 1st at 1300 UTC and ending July 7th at 0400 UTC. Just happened to have Vacation from work July 1st and July 5th and of course here in the good old USA- July 4th is a National holiday. Plenty of days to chase these stations and still spend time with My family!
The first day -Friday ,July 1st I managed 5 stations including a bonus station- WM3PEN.The very first QSO was K2A from New York and the operator was Ken. I think this "Ken" is actually the event organizer but definately a good operator! Over the next few days I managed more contacts between chores and family time. Finally on July 5th managed a contact with K2H from Massachusetts for the 13 colony clean sweep. During this entire time I also was chasing GB13COL from Great Britain who was usually on 14285 but could only hear the state side stations clearly. Definately a disadvantage not having a better antenna or more propagation.I only have a ground mounted vertical or dipole for 20m and with sunspots hovering at zero most days, no propagation for 10 or 15m to level the playing field for a small station.
A very fun event overall and I congratulate all the operators who gave their time over a Holiday weekend to make this event bigger and better every year. If You haven't participated I suggest putting it on Your calendar for Next year! I'm sending for the certicate with the $5.00 donation so this event doesn't disappear from lack of support.Besides its a very nice certificate!!
73--Tim