Monday, March 13, 2006
(From 3/13/06)
Got out of the house on time, dragging my Yaesu FT-817 and newly created Power Pole power cord with me.
Got the 40m ham stick out of Inga the Wonder Saab's hatchback and popped it into the lip mount I installed on Saturday afternoon. It looks rediculous and is probably mechanically unsound, but hey... It's on the air.
Tuned initially to 7.250, but the LSB sounded low, so I went up to 7.251 and lo and behold there was the Gordo "Rescue ARES" Net.
I was in business.
Following the "Listen, listen, listen then talk" philosophy I monitored for about 10 minutes, until he was asking for Bay Area check-ins.
Called once. He came back to somebody else.
Tried again. Hey, that's MY callsign! So I checked in and reported the snow on Bear Creek Rd in the Santa Cruz mountains.
Fine Business. It works!!! Not bad for 5W, eh?
I'll try the noon-time net today too.
Lessons learned:
The mount isn't mechanically sound. Need a better one.
Need a portable log book.
I heard some alternator noise, need to investigate the noise blanker and maybe direct routing the wiring to the battery. (Sorry Dan).
Got out of the house on time, dragging my Yaesu FT-817 and newly created Power Pole power cord with me.
Got the 40m ham stick out of Inga the Wonder Saab's hatchback and popped it into the lip mount I installed on Saturday afternoon. It looks rediculous and is probably mechanically unsound, but hey... It's on the air.
Tuned initially to 7.250, but the LSB sounded low, so I went up to 7.251 and lo and behold there was the Gordo "Rescue ARES" Net.
I was in business.
Following the "Listen, listen, listen then talk" philosophy I monitored for about 10 minutes, until he was asking for Bay Area check-ins.
Called once. He came back to somebody else.
Tried again. Hey, that's MY callsign! So I checked in and reported the snow on Bear Creek Rd in the Santa Cruz mountains.
Fine Business. It works!!! Not bad for 5W, eh?
I'll try the noon-time net today too.
Lessons learned:
The mount isn't mechanically sound. Need a better one.
Need a portable log book.
I heard some alternator noise, need to investigate the noise blanker and maybe direct routing the wiring to the battery. (Sorry Dan).
