A few photos from our expedition to Sanborn County Park near San Jose, CA for QRP Afield.
Ops: K1MG and AK1P, assisted by K1MG's harmonic




What a pleasant day we had.

Paul AK1P and I (K1MG) finally got our act together about noon on Saturday, and picked nearby Sanborn County Park in the hills above Silicon Valley for our QRP Afield outing. We drove up and were surprised to find a beautiful grassy glade near the parking lot with picnic tables and a few trees for shade and natural antenna supports, elevation 1500ft. Although we were surrounded with ridges on all four sides, we were high enough up that the takeoff angle from our antenna wasn't too bad. The weather was perfect, sunny and about 80 degrees.

We carefully checked the sun angle and chose a picnic table situated in the shade directly between two medium sized trees. After hauling in all the radio gear, we set to erecting my 20 meter dipole in the trees. After a "few" attempts, I managed to swing a line over both trees, and we hauled up the dipole to about 25 or 30 feet. It took about a minute more to set up the DSW20 and we were on the air.

First QSO was Brian K7RE, who had a booming signal. We worked just about everyone we heard, but it seems that participation was a little lower this year -- or maybe the surrounding ridges took their toll. After a while we ran out of stations to work on 20 and we tried 15 and 40. There we used both a PW1 vertical and a ZM2 to feed the 20 meter dipole as a "T" top loaded vertical. Although it may have been our compromise antenna, we found very little activity on 40 and 15, and managed only one QSO each. We did hear Jim KK6MC on 40, but he QSYed back to 20 before we could catch him. We had fun switching bands, antennas, and rigs to see what would work best. The rigs were my DSW20 and K2, and Paul's Sierra. All three worked very well. We ran 1.5 watts with the DSW, 1.5 to 2 watts with the Sierra, and 5 or 3 watts with the K2 (to save batteries). It didn't seem to make any difference how much power we ran.

It was nice to hear so many familiar calls, including a few mobiles like N2CX and AD6A.

After an hour, my wife and daughter joined us with a picnic lunch. Most of the day we had the whole park pretty much to ourselves, but we did have one group visit us briefly, a young lady and her two kids, all naturists (That means NO bikinis, Doug). I'll leave the details for the photos.

As the sun dipped below the mountain ridge to the west, we figured we had had enough fun, and packed everything up. The nice thing about QRP field operations is how easy it is to set up and tear down.

Final score was 43, with about 15 SPCs from Florida and Rhode Island to Washington and California. Total operating time was a litte less than five hours, including lunch.

So we finished off a very pleasant day with a glass of Napa Cabernet -- QRP Afield, California style.

Mike K1MG


Looking west from our operating site.


Paul AK1P (left) and Mike K1MG


The center insulator of my portable 20 meter dipole. Oops, forgot to remove the pipe that I store it on.


The end insulator of the dipole, made from 1/2 inch delrin rod.


The view south of our site.


These are the rigs we used, a DSW20, K2, and a Sierra.


AK1P mans the paddles.


K1MG works another one.


A young lady and her two kids visited us.




The end of a fun day draws near.






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