Hello, Before I departed the home QTH for the Appalachian Trail I took one last look at the weather radar. I was glad I did that when I did because I would have been driving into rain and I would have not gotten out on the AT at all today. So I headed towards the East in PA land.
I arrived at the trail head parking lot around 14:30 UTC. I have hiked thru this area about two years ago but I did not remember if there were any good operating locations. I hiked South on the Appalachian Trail with out my gear for about 1 mile. No good operating sites and I was going down in elevation. I hiked back to my car and put the back pack on and headed North. I hiked in around 3/4 of a mile and found a nice spot to setup. I started calling CQ on 14.060 around 15:30 UTC. I did not have any luck. I tuned around the band and I did not hear too many signals on the CW portion of the band. I went over to 7.040 and I heard Pierre de VE2PID calling CQ. We had a nice chat before the QSB was playing with my signal. After Pierre and I signed I did hear a couple of stations sending just their call. Since Pierre was calling CQ on the freq. I moved up to 7.042 and called CQ. I worked Art de K8CIT in Hillman, MI. We had a nice chat until Art said he had to go QRT due to the heavy QRN in his area. At this point in time I took a few pictures and had my snack. I could not find any Salmon to eat at 1,400 feet in elevation. So I had what the cousin black bears eat, dried berries and fruit. I will post a picture later. I called CQ on 15m for a while, I tired but there was no signals. I started calling CQ on 14.060 again and I thought I felt some rain drops. So while I was calling CQ I turn on my cell phone to see if I had a signal. I did so, I checked the radar and I seen a large dark green patch moving in my direction. Then I worked Steve de NU7T in NV. He was running 900 mW into a beam. Great signal Steve but the QSB seemed to be the spoiler today. I packed up and hiked back out to my car. While driving down off the mountain the skies open up and it started to rain. What timing. I did not make many QSO's today but I did get out onto the trail and made 3 contacts and that is better than making no contacts. I did notice one thing while I was out on the Appalachian Trail today. There were a lot of women hiking in groups or by them selves. They were not out for a day hike because they had large back packs on with gear hanging off the packs. One group of women had way too much perfume on and that could mean trouble for them over night. If you were looking for me, I want to thank you for taking the time to do so. 1,180 QSO's from the AT. 72 and Thanks, Ron Polityka WB3AAL K1 - SN 01011 K2 - SN 01392 ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
