[MRCA] Moose&Squirrel Net from the beach

[MICHAEL ST ANGELO]

When the weather is agreeable I like to join the net from a portable location. I frequently operate from Sandy Hook National Recreation Area using an FT-857 running 40 watts into a Hustler mounted on the car. The locations are about a thousand feet from the ocean.

Having luck operating on 10 through 20 meters from the beach I thought I would try 60 meters. I would have to backpack in the rig and battery so I took my ICOM IC-703 and a 6AH LiFePo battery. I find the lightest and most efficient antennas are wire antennas at least a quarter wave long used against a 4 wire counterpoise. I chose the 703 because the built-in tuner would match to an acceptable SWR. I used a 53 foot wire antenna run up to a telescoping fishing pole. During the nesting season the beaches are fenced off from the nests. I find the fence posts an handy place to affix the pole. I run the end of the wire down to another post. Using only 10 watts I was heard by some participants. Someone asked to see the setup so I have attached a photo.

Hopefully you can see the 703 on top of my backpack and the yellow antenna wire along the fence. I used 4 10 foot ribbon cable counterpoise borrowed from my portable MP1 Superantenna.  The counterpoise radials are gray. I could have used longer radials but I had to watch the backpack weight.

When I operated the tide was lower. I take a tide chart along with me when operating near the water.

I did a similar operation last winter from Vermont. I stuck the fishing pole in a snow bank and strung the antenna out to a ski pole.

I do have two telescoping poles so if I have to stamina I'll try stringing the wire on both poles. The trick is to find an uncrowded beach area but that is challenging on a hot summer weekend.

This setup does have an association with the Cold War. The telescoping fishing poles are Russian. I bought them in Lithuania during a business trip. This was after the fall of the Soviet Union and I was working on a satellite station installation to carry voice and fax traffic to the Teleport satellite station in Staten Island. 

Mike N2MS

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/mrca/attachments/20210618/eaaaca61/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 20210617_60M-Net.png
Type: image/png
Size: 551264 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/mrca/attachments/20210618/eaaaca61/attachment-0001.png>