[Elecraft] WA5ZNU 1B1B K2 Report

[Leigh L Klotz, Jr.]

I used my K2 solar at 5W (due to the 1B1B rules; wish it were 10 for 
SSB) and operated almost exclusively 20m CW to my new Buddipole and a 
44' inverted vee I made yesterday morning and ran up the flagpole at the 
local elementary school.  This year I put PowerPoles on a few pieces of 
300 ohm window line and used Velcro tie wraps to hold the powerpoles 
together, so I could adjust the length as necessary.  I tried a BL2 but 
found that Alan's Balun (WB6ZQZ) worked best, ebem though both were set 
for1:1.  I don't know why, but that's why I have more than one balun.  
(Maybe when I get the VNA I will find out.)

There are pix of all this at http://wa5znu.org/log

Unfortunately, 1B1B doesn't allow a GOTA station, and if you hand the 
mic to someone else you are 1B2, so the amount of public outreach I 
could do and not sacrafice points and standing was limited (another 
minor beef with the rules here), but I spent a lot of time talking to 
people passing by.  As a result, I got interviewed by the San Jose 
Mercury News and photographed by the Palo Alto Weekly for their website 
paloaltonline.com.

I also had a visit from the director of communications (police, 911, 
etc) for Palo Alto who inspected my quick-deploy station gear before I 
unpacked, the director of the local Red Cross chapter (the Palo Alto / 
Mountain View / Los Altos), 2 inactive hams who left with contact info 
for the local PAARA club, an OM who was interested in getting his 
license, and 2 other people who talked about their plans to take the 
Palo Alto neighborhood emergency disaster response team training 
(PANDA)

Not bad for 1B1B!

Oh, and I made some  QSOs as well.

Leigh/WA5ZNU