September 2003 WV Expedition
The September 2003 WV Expedition was a great success. N3MK and I both set new personal records for number of contacts from our portable stations.
Friday night we arrived about a half hour behind schedule. We had a little bit of a delay right before we turned off the pavement onto the dirt road. What makes some kids not mention their impending car sickness until after the back of the drivers seat is covered with bodily fluids? Anyway, since it was already dark we didn't get any antennas set up. We searched for a campsite and met up with the other folks that were there to help us out.. Geo made some chicken noodle soup that took the chill off the air and the stiffness of the ride from our bodies. We set up the tents and spent the rest of the evening looking at the stars, playing with the night vision and lasers, and talking.
Saturday morning came real early. Early enough to see some planets (probably Jupiter and Mercury) in the east. Breakfast was cereal bars and cartons of milk. After spending a little time at the bird banding station, Don and I began to get some tarps and antennas set up. Most everything went as planned, but the Carolina Windom Short 80 was a bit of trouble at Dons nearly treeless campsite. We ended up using an MFJ-1910 for the center support, and another one for the 'short' end of the antenna. The long end was sent over some trees and into the area behind an adjoining campsite. The center support pole could not be held in place by the 'lantern' poles the forest service has at each campsite. The 'lantern' pole was too tall and not really in line with the ends of the antenna. It is also metal and we were afraid that it would interfere with the Short 80's vertical resonator that must hang in the clear. So we ended up standing the pole up and installing a couple of guy ropes. We anchored the bottom of the pole with two stakes and more rope. We completed the installation of the Short 80 sometime in the early afternoon.
Saturday afternoon I got my delta loop up and we both started making contacts. I was surprised to find that my CAT/CI-V interface was not working. All other parts of my interface were working fine, though. Making band changes on MixW had to be done separately from the radio band changes. This also makes those little 'bookmarks' in the waterfall quite annoying since they collect in one spot and have to be manually removed.
Lunch offered a choice of Shirley's chipped ham BBQ or her sloppy joes. Both were very good. Rain came in the afternoon just as I was settling in to make a good 'contest rate' of contacts. This wasn't a problem until the lightning started. When the lightning passed over we both got back on the radios and things were good. Even though our antennas were about 200 yards apart, we worked different bands at all times. We used our Rino 120 FRS/GPS radios to coordinate band changes and other things (like 'food is on' calls). Some might ask why we didn't use our 2m HT's. Well, our 2m HT's have proprietary batteries that are hard to charge on a 12v gell cell. The Rino 120's use 3 AA batteries, and a set of Duracell's will last all day with the GPS and the FRS turned on. Also, the rest of the folks are using FRS so it's the best way to keep an ear on the kids.
Dinner Saturday evening was Geo's chili. This was very good in the cold, dark rain. By Saturday night everything and everyone was soaked. The kids failed to heed warnings to move their clothes and sleeping bags into the vehicle before the storm, so a couple of them didn't have much of a place to sleep that night. They ended up sleeping in the car while the other two more experienced campers roughed it in the wet tent. The radios stayed dry in spite of the tarps trying to let in just enough water to pop an amplifier. Contacts were made well into the night.
Sunday morning the rain let up and the sun popped through a couple of times. Shirley and Geo made some wonderful corn meal pancakes before the kids and Lindy headed off to Bear Rocks. Don and I jumped on the radios and started working the world. Very few domestic contacts were made by either of us during the trip.
Sunday lunch came a little late as Lindy and the kids were enjoying the sunshine and playing on the rocks. But the New England clam chowder and grilled cheese sandwiches were really good. Just as lunch was finishing up the rain started again. We ran to pack up what we could before the sky opened up. After a while, it was time to tear down and head for home. It seemed to take just as long for me to disassemble and pack away my equipment as it did to set it all up. Don's station came down a lot faster and easier than when it went up.
A couple of things we learned:
Radio Works has come out with a Carolina Windom series in an "LP" class. LP is for Low Profile, not low power. These LP antennas can handle 600 watts of SSB and CW! We are currently in the early stages of testing the Carolina Windom 40 Plus LP version of the antenna for our portable operations. Look for N3MK on the air from Assateague Island National Seashore October 10-12, 2003. 14.070MHz PSK is always the best place to look for him.
Well, it's back to Dolly Sods, West Virginia! The Brooks Bird Club is doing the bird banding again (as they have for as long as I can remember). So what better reason to load some kids into the family truckster and head for a cold, rainy, windy mountain top.
And where there is camping, there has to be radio! Antennas strung through the trees. Solar panels topping off batteries. The crazy duck-talk of SBB, strange warble of PSK, and the clandestine sounds of RTTY emanating from three campsites away. There's no better way to spend a weekend.
Don's new setup is the FT-857 and a Carolina Windom Short 80. We hope this works out well. With over 400 amp-hours of battery power, we should be ok on power. I plan to stick with the tried and true IC-706mkII and delta loop antenna.
Our intention this year is to have two campsites far apart to avoid the front end overload problems we've had in the past. Even on different bands, we were not able to use more than one transceiver at a time with the single campsite setup.
Look for us on 14.070MHz and 7.070Mhz for PSK31. We will work other bands and modes, but we usually start with these every time.
The Date:
September 26, 2003 01:00Z to September 28, 2003 19:00Z.
The Location:
Red Creek Campground in Dolly Sods Wilderness Area, Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia. Grid square is FM09.
See the Google search on 'Dolly Sods'.
The Operators:
Support Staff:
Radios:
Antennas:
Processors:
Power:
Modes: