Wednesday, June 07, 2006
OK,
Things haven't slowed down any, but I'll spend a couple minutes anyway...
I got to Murphy Park a bit early and started to set up.
It was clear and mild but a bit breezy. Just enough to blow bags away and make keeping the log book open a chore...
First thing up was the JacKite collapsing fiberglass pole. After a bit of scouting I decided to duct tape it to a garbage can between two trees.
The pole (still collapsed) fell over twice while I was attempting to tape it. A couple at a nearby table was starting to get amused. Next I pulled the Appalachian Trail doublet out of its bag. And of course the wind caught the bag and carried it 50 or 75 yards before I could catch it...
(More amusement for the bystanders)
Next was to put up the dipole. I used my ever popular water bottle sling. Unfortunately the water bottle came off on the first attempt. A second couple started getting amused.
After 4 or 5 attempts the first half of the antenna was up. So I went to the second tree. It took 4 more attempts. Two VERY amused couples.
But at this point I was able to put up the JacKite mast and things started to come together. Out came the "big black bag of QRP-goodness" and the Yaesu, Palm Paddles, 2 A-hr battery and antenna tuner all set-up very quickly. Amusement was turning to interest.
The Appalachian Trail doublet tuned up just fine on 40m, but the best I could do on 20m was "four bars" on the Yaesu. That's bad. Perhaps it had something to do with the 20 feet of 300 ohm feed line that was lying on the ground?
Note to self: I need to ask what to do with "extra" twinlead. Scott WA6LIE might know...
Anyhow there were LOTS of loud signals on 40m. Also lots of signals on 20m, but they all sounded sort of muffled. Could it have something to do with the "four bars?"
The signals were loud, but also, REALLY fast. This led me to what I now believe was a critical mistake. Rather than being patient and slowly teasing out the exchange of those fast stations, I went tuning on trying to find stations that I could easily copy. Next month I'll be patient and "Listen, listen, listen" and get those stations in the log.
So, at the end of the day there were 4 contacts in the log. CA, UT, CO and NV. 30 on 40m and 1 on 20m. Pretty cool, eh? 5 watts outbound, some 5W and some 2W inbound. From here to Colorado with 5 watts from a park bench!
Everything came down much faster than it went up.
So, there ya go. The story of my second Spartan Sprint. I'm REALLY looking forward to the third one.
73 de WyreRider
Things haven't slowed down any, but I'll spend a couple minutes anyway...
I got to Murphy Park a bit early and started to set up.
It was clear and mild but a bit breezy. Just enough to blow bags away and make keeping the log book open a chore...
First thing up was the JacKite collapsing fiberglass pole. After a bit of scouting I decided to duct tape it to a garbage can between two trees.
The pole (still collapsed) fell over twice while I was attempting to tape it. A couple at a nearby table was starting to get amused. Next I pulled the Appalachian Trail doublet out of its bag. And of course the wind caught the bag and carried it 50 or 75 yards before I could catch it...
(More amusement for the bystanders)
Next was to put up the dipole. I used my ever popular water bottle sling. Unfortunately the water bottle came off on the first attempt. A second couple started getting amused.
After 4 or 5 attempts the first half of the antenna was up. So I went to the second tree. It took 4 more attempts. Two VERY amused couples.
But at this point I was able to put up the JacKite mast and things started to come together. Out came the "big black bag of QRP-goodness" and the Yaesu, Palm Paddles, 2 A-hr battery and antenna tuner all set-up very quickly. Amusement was turning to interest.
The Appalachian Trail doublet tuned up just fine on 40m, but the best I could do on 20m was "four bars" on the Yaesu. That's bad. Perhaps it had something to do with the 20 feet of 300 ohm feed line that was lying on the ground?
Note to self: I need to ask what to do with "extra" twinlead. Scott WA6LIE might know...
Anyhow there were LOTS of loud signals on 40m. Also lots of signals on 20m, but they all sounded sort of muffled. Could it have something to do with the "four bars?"
The signals were loud, but also, REALLY fast. This led me to what I now believe was a critical mistake. Rather than being patient and slowly teasing out the exchange of those fast stations, I went tuning on trying to find stations that I could easily copy. Next month I'll be patient and "Listen, listen, listen" and get those stations in the log.
So, at the end of the day there were 4 contacts in the log. CA, UT, CO and NV. 30 on 40m and 1 on 20m. Pretty cool, eh? 5 watts outbound, some 5W and some 2W inbound. From here to Colorado with 5 watts from a park bench!
Everything came down much faster than it went up.
So, there ya go. The story of my second Spartan Sprint. I'm REALLY looking forward to the third one.
73 de WyreRider
