AmateurRadio.com

I haven’t been to the Ledges in Sanbornton for several years. The place is beautiful! Tim, W3ATB and I hiked up there today. We worked Macedonia, New Mexico, Germany and England.

We met at 2:00 pm and drove up Wadleigh Road. We went several miles passed the spot where the town stops maintaining the road. It’s essentially a logging road full of ruts and large rocks. Things changed since I was here last, and we took a wrong turn on a new logging road. Fortunately, a man was working with a chainsaw and a skidder, and we hiked in to talk with him. He set us straight and we backtracked, parked the car, and started hiking.

Twenty minutes later we made the final ascent through some huge boulders and tall pines. It was well worth the climb! I tossed a wire over a nearby maple tree, setup the KX3 on some rock, and started operating on 17 meters.

Vinco Z37M in Macedonia was calling CQ, and I answered him. He gave me a 559 and I was thrilled. Working half way around the world with a peanut whistle rig, while enjoying a view to die for… what could be better? I switched to 15M and answered Paul KW7D in New Mexico. Paul gave me a 579 and I promised to send him some photos of the hike. “Solid CPY 5W,” he sent. “I will look for those pics.”

Next I switched to 20 meters. DL1BUG was just finishing up a QSO and I called. Red gave me a 569 and we finished a nice exchange. I called over to Tim and told him to switch to Red’s frequency and give a call. Tim was running an HB-1B with a Par End Fedz. Tim got the QSO… and a 579 report! Better than mine… He was grinning from ear to ear.

With that Tim tuned around some more and quickly made another DX contact… this time with England. G4XRV near London gave Tim a good report and we both packed up.

I think it’s a good bet that we’ll be back when the leaves start changing color. It’s a glorious spot for ham radio.