[Elecraft] K1 does FB /P at lake in NH

[Wallace, Andy]

Went to a lake in NH for R+R.  Took the K1 along. I strung up a 
60' randomwire from the porch of the cottage to a flagpole 
down by the lake -- probably 7' off the ground at most. 

Worked MUCH better than I expected! In fact, I had not brought along a ham
prefix list because I did not expect to work any new countries! I figured I
would be lucky to work France or something else pedestrian like that. 

Places I worked were: (new ones for me in all caps):

Florida, COLORADO, Texas, Georgia (the state), NEW MEXICO, Germany, Canary
Islands, Croatia, European Russia, Yugoslavia, ALBANIA, Massachusetts,
SCOTLAND,
Poland, Illinois, Czech Republic, Denmark, Slovenia, IOWA, Ukraine, Bosnia,
Hungary, MAURITIUS, MADEIRA ISLANDS (still need Portugal!!!), Bahamas,
Norway,
Italy, GEORGIA (the country), LATVIA, Canada, Yugoslavia, England, Sweden,
Maryland, MOROCCO, Algeria, and CHILE. I tried working a guy from Alaska
sending
CQ CQ CQ FROM ALASKA at about 8wpm but he originally gave me a signal
report,
then asked me to QRS and gave up -- he never did get my call. Oh well. 

Mauritius (3B8/W8MV on 20m) astounded me. All in all, an excellent trip.
Just
goes to show what 5W and a lousy antenna will do. My K1 has the built-in
internal automatic antenna tuner and it had no problem tuning the
randomwire.
Did not even bother with a counterpoise ground -- just stuck the wire into a
banana plug and then into a BNC<-->SO239 adapter. When the bugs got bad, I
dragged the K1 into the cottage and operated from the coffee table. What
fun!

This makes 67 ARRL DXCC countries using the K1. 

I'd recommend the K1/KAT1 to anyone. And get SOME kind of antenna
up. You'll make contacts, no matter how lousy it is! (almost)

-Andy