[Elecraft] WB3AAL Appalachian Trail 1 Jan 05

[Ron Polityka]

Hello,

 My two hikes and operations in the past week were very enjoyable. Who would 
have thought we would have 50'F temperatures in January and no snow. I will 
never get to use my snow shoes.  :-)

 29 Dec. 2004 Operation

 Ed, WA3WSJ and myself, WB3AAL, hiked in the mile to the pond area near the 
Fort-Deitrich Snyder monument. Unfortunately this day was not so warm, maybe 
in the 40's. Ed did not bring his dog Trevor because of the hike and then 
sitting around in the cold. Ed is in progress of purchasing a coat for 
Trevor, maybe it should be made out of Gore-Tex to keep him dry. Anyway we 
had to watch where we were hiking due to the trail had ice on the path. When 
we arrived at the locations we started to setup our stations. Ed stayed up 
on the hill above me near the tree line and I setup on the edge of the pond. 
We both found the ground frozen solid. Ed used rocks to support his VBWFPA 
antenna and I had a metal steak that I drove into the frozen ground.
 Ed made a few QSO's on 20 meters towards the mid-west and the last one was 
with myself. I was on 40 meters and I made the following QSO's.

QSO # 397     KW3U Jim in PA
QSO # 398     W2JSF Bob in NJ
QSO # 399     K8CV Walt in MI
QSO # 400     W3EEK Carl in PA
QSO # 401     WA3WSJ Ed in PA on the AT

 By this time the wind was blowing and my fingers were becoming very cold. I 
had gloves but I never put them on.  :-o  We did meet one day hikers with 
his dog. This guy was loaded up with cameras. He asked if we have seen any 
wild life, I said no. But he has seen and took pictures of herds of deer, 
Coyote's and Bobcats at the pond through out the year. Hum, I will have to 
keep a better watch next times.

1 Jan 2005 Operation

 I hiked in and found a major change in the trail from the other day. Now 
the temp was already 45'F at 15:30 UTC and the path was muddy that I was 
sinking into while hiking. I setup my station at the same location again and 
this time I could drive my antenna support into the muddy ground. I was on 
the air and calling CQ on 20 meters by 15:55 UTC. I made the following QSO's 
with my Small Wonder SW-20+ rig and 3 watts into the VBWFPA antenna. Oh, Ed 
WA3WSJ produces this antenna and it could be found at www.wa3wsj.com . I 
made the following QSO's on 20 m.

QSO # 402  KS4L Randy in AL
QSO # 403  K9EW Ed in IL
QSO # 404  N0TK Dan in CO
QSO # 405  N0UR Jim in MN

I switched to 30 meters and called CQ for a while with no response. I went 
to 40 meters to find it packed full of signals. After finding a semi-clear 
spot I called CQ with my K1 now at 5 watts. I made the following QSO's on 40 
m.

QSO # 406  N3IW Chip in PA
QSO # 407  N3AO Carter in VA
QSO # 408  W2GIW Ken in NJ

I did have one contact with K3ESE but I never heard him come back to me. The 
bands were up and down. I found if you chatted for more than 15 minutes, you 
lost the station due to QSB in the QRM and QRN.

 Anyway I just wanted to say thanks to all the station that I worked and the 
ones that tried to work me. I will continue to go out on the Appalachian 
Trail (AT) for months to come. So far I have been out on the AT once a month 
since March 2000. I am hoping that March 2005 has another warm day so I can 
sit for a few hours and make a lot of QSO's. Hopefully by them I will have a 
logging program that will work on my Palm PDA that gives me the "Worked 
Before" information like the JR-EQF logging program. Now I am going to spend 
my last day of vacation making the upgrade to my K1's four band board.

Hope everyone's 2005 is joyous and prosperous.

72 and Thanks,
Ron Polityka
WB3AAL
www.wb3aal.com
www.n3epa.org/