Tuesday, October 24, 2006

 
Tried to get XF4DL on 80m CW.

Too much ewwwww! (He was only working EU stations).

So I hopped up to 40m and made a DX contact with exotic Pasadena. That's OK he was a physics prof at CalTech.

That counts, right?

Heard the illusive Japanese maritime mobile again. JH8FNB/MM.

He comes up, makes a contact and seems to go away. I've heard him three times now and called twice.

THAT'S the sort of thing I can get into hunting.

++++++

10/22/06

Spent the past couple of days at Sierra Sky Ranch in Oakhurst CA.

I was able to get on the air for at least one contact each day.

The Yaesu FT-817ND was the rig for all my HF activities. (I also had my mobile dual-bander in the truck, but couldn't find anybody to talk to on the local repeaters...)

Thursday I put together my Pac-12 antenna first thing in the morning and checked into the "Gordo" net. Later I pulled out my 50' No Counterpoise antenna and checked into the Noon Time Net.

I tried to make a QRP CW contact for 3 hours before hooking up with a chap in Chico, CA.

Friday and Saturday I used my Appalachian Trail dipole (a 40m doublet) as an inverted-vee. The "water bottle" method managed to get the center point up 35' or so.

It was pretty humorous, the total span of the antenna and support lines was 150' or so. I had to go way, WAY out to get the guy lines above head height.

Anyhow. The dipole is the gold standard of antennas. The Appalachian Trail dipole was head and shoulders above the other two antennas. The additional height and apateur might have helped... ;-)

My Friday contact was made even before I got the antenna tuned in.

Saturday was harder. There was a RTTY contest going on. So? So I got killed on 40m then jumped up to 20m and had a nice QSO with a guy near Houston, TX.

No big DX. No huge numbers of Qs. But I did have fun and operated QRP portable in the great outdoors. (3 more logged CW QSOs and 2 new FISTS numbers. wo0T!)

Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?