Hi All,
Many of you know John Grebenkemper, KI6WX, mastermind of several
improvements to the K2, designer of the Tandem Match, and frequent
contributor to ham journals.
John is an avid hiker, and embarked this weekend on a challenging trek
into the mountains of Wyoming. He's in Pinedale today, preparing for an
assault on Fremont peak later this week. If he makes it, he may be the
first to operate an HF rig from there. I found a web site with some
great photos of the area he's headed for:
http://www.chem.utah.edu/news/activities/WindRivers_1998/
John's principle means of communication will be an Elecraft KX1. He
designed a minimum-weight center-fed antenna that's optimized for use
with the KXAT1 internal ATU, and appropriate for the treeless, rocky
terrain. He'll be using the rig with internal batteries and the keyer
paddle. John's not exactly a CW buff, and will probably be getting by
at 10 WPM or so.
Tom Hammond and I are tasked with fielding John's daily reports via HF,
starting tomorrow night. He'll be sending his QTH, GPS lat/lon, and
status. This info will be relayed to his wife, Mary, who will call
search and rescue if we don't hear from him at all by next Saturday.
Since HF conditions have been very poor, Tom and I would really
appreciate having some help listening for him. Here's his schedule for
each evening:
0200Z, 10108 kHz
0215Z, 14062 kHz
0230Z, 7040 kHz
Once he's made contact with either of us, or a QSP station, he will not
continue on to the other frequencies.
If you don't hear him successfully contact N6KR or N0SS, please feel
free to give him a call and copy his info. You can then e-mail it to
me. To get his attention, you might try "KI6WX QSP DE {your call}" a
couple of times. Please use 10 WPM or so!
PLEASE don't transmit until it sounds like he's having trouble
contacting us. If all goes well, perhaps some of us will have a chance
to have a more casual QSO with John. But the primary goal is to get the
lat/lon data accurately so Mary can keep track of him ;)
On the day that he climbs Fremont peak, he will also try calling on
10108 between 1800Z and 2100Z. But this is more for fun than for status
reporting.
John's outing is precisely the sort we'd designed the KX1 for, and
we're excited about being able to help him stay in touch via ham radio.
Thanks in advance--
Wayne
N6KR
---
http://www.elecraft.com
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