[PPRAANet] Swapfest is site of rare Pedestrian to Pedestrian mobile contact

[W0rw at aol.com]

w0rw makes a rare Pedestrian Mobile contact with England using a 45 foot 
corner reflector from the Swapfest on Saturday.
The site was the annual Pikes Peak RAA Swapfest.
The usual gathering of HF Pack Pedestrian Mobile stations was in progress
in the parking lot.
Jake, N0LX/Bike Mobile, said he just heard Tom, G0SBW/Pedestrian Mobile on 
18MHz.
i thought it was a joke, the bands seemed dead at 1700z.
Then Gary (N5ANF/pm) heard him and he was really there.
i tried to contact him with my Backpack radio but he could not hear me.
The high school has 2 baseball fields near by, 
so i headed for the field. 
i heard Tom calling and walked to the focus of the baseball backstop fence.
It was about 45 feet high and 'pointed' northeast.
Tom heard my call and responded. It was weak but readable.
i saw another 30 foot backstop that was 'pointed' in a slightly different 
direction and walked over to it, it worked much better.
Tom was able to understand that i was in a Cricket Field.
The backstop was a truncated corner reflector and the focus gave me
+6 to 10 dB gain by ear. 
(It was kind of like standing in front of the FPS-50,  in Clear, Alaska).
Mark, KI0PF, took some great pictures of the operation.
(Tom was running a 50W backpack in Essex, UK. He usually operates from a salt 
marsh/bog).
Gary, N5ANF, tried to make contact with his QRP pedestrian mobile with a half 
wave antenna but Tom could just barely hear him in the noise.
This baseball backstop is the ultimate HF Pack antenna accessory.
The grounds keeper did want to know what was going on.
Paul  w0rw