Hello,
My two hikes and operations in the past week were very enjoyable. Who would
have thought we would have 50'F temperatures in January and no snow. I will
never get to use my snow shoes. :-)
29 Dec. 2004 Operation
Ed, WA3WSJ and myself, WB3AAL, hiked in the mile to the pond area near the
Fort-Deitrich Snyder monument. Unfortunately this day was not so warm, maybe
in the 40's. Ed did not bring his dog Trevor because of the hike and then
sitting around in the cold. Ed is in progress of purchasing a coat for
Trevor, maybe it should be made out of Gore-Tex to keep him dry. Anyway we
had to watch where we were hiking due to the trail had ice on the path. When
we arrived at the locations we started to setup our stations. Ed stayed up
on the hill above me near the tree line and I setup on the edge of the pond.
We both found the ground frozen solid. Ed used rocks to support his VBWFPA
antenna and I had a metal steak that I drove into the frozen ground.
Ed made a few QSO's on 20 meters towards the mid-west and the last one was
with myself. I was on 40 meters and I made the following QSO's.
QSO # 397 KW3U Jim in PA
QSO # 398 W2JSF Bob in NJ
QSO # 399 K8CV Walt in MI
QSO # 400 W3EEK Carl in PA
QSO # 401 WA3WSJ Ed in PA on the AT
By this time the wind was blowing and my fingers were becoming very cold. I
had gloves but I never put them on. :-o We did meet one day hikers with
his dog. This guy was loaded up with cameras. He asked if we have seen any
wild life, I said no. But he has seen and took pictures of herds of deer,
Coyote's and Bobcats at the pond through out the year. Hum, I will have to
keep a better watch next times.
1 Jan 2005 Operation
I hiked in and found a major change in the trail from the other day. Now
the temp was already 45'F at 15:30 UTC and the path was muddy that I was
sinking into while hiking. I setup my station at the same location again and
this time I could drive my antenna support into the muddy ground. I was on
the air and calling CQ on 20 meters by 15:55 UTC. I made the following QSO's
with my Small Wonder SW-20+ rig and 3 watts into the VBWFPA antenna. Oh, Ed
WA3WSJ produces this antenna and it could be found at www.wa3wsj.com . I
made the following QSO's on 20 m.
QSO # 402 KS4L Randy in AL
QSO # 403 K9EW Ed in IL
QSO # 404 N0TK Dan in CO
QSO # 405 N0UR Jim in MN
I switched to 30 meters and called CQ for a while with no response. I went
to 40 meters to find it packed full of signals. After finding a semi-clear
spot I called CQ with my K1 now at 5 watts. I made the following QSO's on 40
m.
QSO # 406 N3IW Chip in PA
QSO # 407 N3AO Carter in VA
QSO # 408 W2GIW Ken in NJ
I did have one contact with K3ESE but I never heard him come back to me. The
bands were up and down. I found if you chatted for more than 15 minutes, you
lost the station due to QSB in the QRM and QRN.
Anyway I just wanted to say thanks to all the station that I worked and the
ones that tried to work me. I will continue to go out on the Appalachian
Trail (AT) for months to come. So far I have been out on the AT once a month
since March 2000. I am hoping that March 2005 has another warm day so I can
sit for a few hours and make a lot of QSO's. Hopefully by them I will have a
logging program that will work on my Palm PDA that gives me the "Worked
Before" information like the JR-EQF logging program. Now I am going to spend
my last day of vacation making the upgrade to my K1's four band board.
Hope everyone's 2005 is joyous and prosperous.
72 and Thanks,
Ron Polityka
WB3AAL
www.wb3aal.com
www.n3epa.org/
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