Last May, I spent a month in Englewood, Florida 34224, grid EN63va77nq, running my X5105 at 2 watts output to a Butternut HF6V.? The antenna has had 17 meters added, and has a poor ground radial setup.? But it's only about 4 miles east of salt water, so it seems to be a good location.
I ran FT8 a lot of nights, when I couldn't sleep, and also some daytimes. I managed to work quite a few countries and a lot of states, even Hawaii.
This was using a "homebrew" digital audio adapter, comprised of a small USB hub, with a cheap, small USB sound card and USB-to-serial board, all held inside an old candy tin box (4 x 5 x 2 inches).? The serial board does the RX/TX data and the RTS line controls the PTT.?? Another group user had the same problem I had, with making the 8-pin DIN plug fit into the radio socket, but mine was pretty easy to trim off the interfering plastic.
I logged 221 QSOs during that month in Englewood, and I plan to do more from there this winter.? I will have my X5105, and an IC706MkII (which I run at about 12 watts).
If anyone cares to see the log results, the log will be in the group's FILES section as X5105_Logbook1.pdf
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Doug, K8RFT
