We had a rather warm day for February (41F) which made for great operating conditions but unfortunately not so great a multiplier for FYBO.
I operated Pedestrian (walking) mobile using my Elecraft KX1 at 3 watts. The antenna system was a 24ft vertical wire and a 28ft trailing counterpoise wire connected directly to the KX1 and matched via the internal KXAT1 antenna tuner. My power supply consisted of eight AA Lithium cells in a holder in my jacket pocket.
I call this my KX1 Expedition Grip. I fashioned this out of a small plastic Ikea cutting board. The grip is made from a piece of broom handle secured to the bottom with glue and a screw and wrapped with Bicycle handlebar tape. The KX1 is secured to the board using shock cord, which also doubles as a tether or lanyard to keep me from dropping the whole thing into a snowbank. I find this much more comfortable than holding the rig in my hand for extended periods of time and it also provides a reasonably stable platform for logging.
This shot gives you a idea of the physical size of the antenna. The support structure is a 24 foot long medium duty fishing pole which is attached to a MEC Cycling Hydration Pack. The pack has a slot up the side, including velcro straps to hold a full-size bicycle pump and I have found that when the base of the pole is wrapped in pipe insulation it fits quite nicely. I can actually walk around with this, although it isn't terribly stable in any sort of wind.
My total operating time for this event was limited to about 1.5 hours. Propagation on 20m was not great initially and most of my 9 contacts were made on 40M in spite of pretty heavy QRM from a RTTY contest.
Thanks to those few folks that managed to pull me out of the ether! Especially my friend Ken, WA8REI (the dude!) , John, VE3JC (operating VE3QRP) and Ken, VE3ELA (operating with the Durham Region QRP club as VE3QDR).
Michael VE3WMB / pm