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Hanz W1JSB and I hiked along the river in Bristol this afternoon. We worked Germany, Lithuania and the Balaeric Islands.

On the Old Back Road there are lots of unused mill buildings along the river. Hanz discovered a trail there last year and we went to explore it today. We walked along a narrow footpath across some rocks and cement dam structures that hung out over the river. Soon we came to a trail that lead south right along the river. It was glorious.

After walking a mile or so we started looking for a place to set up our gear. We found a flat outcropping that just happened to be under a large, over-hanging maple tree. Voila! Hanz threw his water bottle over the branch and hauled up a half wave wire for 20 meters. He used the Par End-Fedz and had a perfect SWR. He operated with his souped up SWL rig.

After tuning around a bit, he made a quick contact with DF5DM, Wilfred in Germany. Happy smiles!

Then I set up my KX3 and clipped onto his antenna. I listened on 15 and 17 meters, but didn’t hear much, so I switched to 20. That was very active and I made two quick contacts. The first one was with Pranas, LY2J in Lithuania. He was a 599 and gave me a 559. Then I worked Keith EA6/G3SZU in the Balaeric Islands. Keith was 589 and he gave me a 459. With that we packed up our gear and headed back toward Bristol.

As we got there, the sun was just setting and I snapped a quick shot of the falls above the river.

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