|
Review of operation:
34 of the toughest contacts ever made!
It started off bad for me, I over slept and just about got
on Edmonds ferry, instead of the Mukilteo ferry. If you know the area,
that's a major mistake to make. What a knuckle head.
So needless to say, I was very late for the event. My mentor,
N7UK/Kirk, set up all the equipment and antennas before I even arrived.
Of course, Kirk and his lovely wife Lisa arrived before the crack of dawn,
so they were hours ahead of me.
The location was perfect though, up on a hill overlooking the water,
surrounded by trees, nice picnic table and barbecue, and a tarp that Kirk
had put up to protected us from the Northwest drizzle. Yes, it rained most
of the day. I hear it was sunny in Seattle though?
Thank God Kirk brought along mosquito repellent - they were THICK
where we were. I think when we left, none of us had been bitten though.
We started tuning the dials around 9:30 (contest started at 5:00am).
Stations were coming in crystal clear, almost booming in on 20 meters.
As the day would progress though, we would find that we could hear them,
but they couldn't hear us. After an hour or so of limited contacts, I decided
to start calling CQ. Finally, some action! The only problem was that after
a few minutes another station started calling CQ right on top of us. Well
since we weren't a Big Gun, I decided to move up the band a bit. Bad move,
we never did get the same action again, but we sure tried!
We did have a chance to work a rare IOTA DX location - W7W was operating
from Tatoosh Island. Very remote part of the country.
Kirk and I got a chance to try out Kirk's new Kenwood TS-870S HF
radio. Nice rig, and it's got all sorts of nifty features on it, including
a CW sequencer, which Kirk had a chance to use on this contest.
After 6 hours of contesting, we decided to close up shop and try
to make the ferry before the lines started getting too long. I'm sure that
taking down the equipment was a lot faster than putting it up, it only
took 45 minutes or so and we had a ton of gear up there!
Final thoughts - Bigger antenna! We're going to bring out the Mosley
for the Washington State Salmon Run. It should make a difference!
Until next time, 73!
HEF - KD7E
|