We went for the Thanksgiving week to New Smyrna Beach, the coastal town just North of Cape Canaveral.

I used the opportunity to test my portable setup with AGM battery (this one in this box):

The battery worked as expected; my Icom 7300 had no problem transmitting at full 100W output.

I recharged the battery with this charger:

The charger is extremely noisy and heavy at 10 lbs / 4.5 kg, but reliable and fast; I also use it for car's battery when needed.

I deployed 2 antennas: MFJ-2220 portable monoband dipole for 20m (AKA "hamstick dipole") and MFJ-17754 20/40m trapped wire dipole. I installed both on top terrace of the house we where staying at:

I used MFJ-1918EX tripod to support the 20m MFJ-2220 dipole and 3 fiberglass fishing poles like these to spread the MFJ-17754 wire dipole; some bungee cords helped stabilize the system. Antennas worked as expected, but the local environment was extremely noisy most of the time which affected the wire dipole much more then it did the 20m portable dipole and because the wire dipole was my only option for 40m, I finally re-deployed it in vertical/sloped from the roof configuration, which helped with the noise issue somewhat:

The electromagnetic weather wasn't the greatest during our stay, but I made number of contacts, stateside and DX, here is the map:

My Extra privileges kicked in during our stay and I enjoyed the new bands very much; most of the contacts I made wouldn't be possible had I only had a General. So, if you have one, get yourself Extra fast, its great to have all this band space at your disposal!