As you can probably tell from other pages on this website, my extended family and I usually make an annual trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for our vacation. This year, we stayed in a rental home located in Duck, North Carolina, on Currituck Sound. Having stayed here the previous year, I knew exactly what to expect in terms of setting up antennas, situating radio gear, etc.
I planned to do more operating than I did the previous year but there's always so much to do here other than radio. So, whenever I had some downtime, I got on the radio and made some quick contacts. I managed to get in a handful of contacts each day.
For the main station, I set up my FT-817 on a small, portable table in one of the bedrooms on the second floor. The antenna was my "Up and Outer" located on a 3rd story deck overlooking the sound. Although there were some suitable trees for supporting the horizontal wire, I took the lazy approach. (What the heck... I was on vacation, right?) I used a partially extended 20-ft Black Widow pole instead. There was some strong, local noise on 40 meters, so I mostly hung out on 30, 20, and 17 meters.
One afternoon, we noticed the 28-foot Jackite pole supporting the Up and Outer antenna suddenly bent way over. We initially thought it was a very strong wind gust causing it, until it suddenly popped back up. When that happened, we saw a rather large osprey from a nearby nest fly off in a hurry from the deck. It appears that this large bird either flew into the pole or tried to perch herself on it. Either way, the pole was undamaged and didn't even collapse.
The house we were in has a really nice gazebo out in the sound at the end of a long dock. It was about 45 yards out on the sound. I brought some extra equipment along this year to do a little portable operating from out there. For use out at the gazebo, I brought my little YouKits HB-1B (about 4W), Elecraft T1 tuner, Palm Mini paddles and a small Li-ion battery pack. For the antenna, I used a 30-foot wire supported by a 31-foot Jackite pole. I fed the antenna with a 9:1 unun and an 18-foot length of RG-8x coax cable.
I initially tried to attach the pole to the dock railing with bungee cords. They proved to be no match for the strong breezes out there, so I used some long, nylon cable ties instead.
The first night out there was beautiful: quiet and peaceful with a warm, gentle breeze. I made three contacts that night and had some nice rag chews. The next evening was different... I again made three contacts but the wind was so strong it was hard to hear with the earbuds I was using. (Note to self: Bring noise cancelling earphones next time!) My apologies to those stations I was stuggling to hear. All things considered, it was a lot of fun operating from out there.
My casual operating yielded 23 QSOs during the week. Some notable QSOs:
All good things must come to an end and this trip was no exception. I had a lot of fun playing radio from Duck this year and I'm already looking forward to going back again next year. Thanks to everyone who worked me from Duck this year.
73, Craig WB3GCK
LOG: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE TIME BAND MODE CALL RST-S RST-R QTH NAME QSO NOTES ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20130909 1319 30M CW K1YAN 559 579 MA Gary QRPp 500mW 20130909 1606 20M CW W7CNL 449 449 ID Jack 20130909 2352 30M CW N4QR 589 599 NC Bob QRP 5W 20130910 1503 20M CW WA8REI 569 579 MI Ken 20130910 1822 20M CW HA5JI 599 589 Hungary Gyuri 20130910 1826 20M CW N0HYD 559 339 KS Burke 20130910 1956 20M CW AE0SL 569 559 MN Stan QRP 5W 20130910 2334 30M CW IZ2BKP 599 499 Italy Giorgio 20130911 1404 20M CW KC4PAR 569 599 AL Mike QRP 5W 20130911 2045 20M CW N9ODY 569 459 WI Greg QRP 5W 20130911 2336 30M CW N1EP* 569 579 ME Phil QRP 20130911 2352 30M CW N3YWQ* 559 569 PA Steve 20130912 0052 40M CW WB8AJR* 579 569 OH Bill 20130912 1602 20M CW VE1BA 589 579 Canada John QRP 5W 20130912 1828 17M CW CO0CW 599 579 Cuba Ed 20130912 2305 30M CW W8PWQ* 559 559 MI Jan 20130912 2316 30M CW N4QR* 569 599 NC Bob 20130912 2349 40M CW NG2T* 589 559 NY Jeffrey 20130913 1509 20M CW KB0ETU 549 569 AL Phil QRPp 800mW 20130913 2015 30M CW KB4JR 599 579 FL Bernie 20130914 1535 20M CW WA8REI 589 599 MI Ken /P nr Midland, MI 20130914 1556 20M CW WA4ZIQ 599 599 FL Angel 20130914 1847 40M CW K9EZ 569 559 NC Kent SOTA V4C/CM-068 * These stations were worked from out on the Gazebo.