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Way back in my Novice days during the late 1980’s I used to have a ton of fun working 10 meters SSB during the summer evenings with sporadic E band openings.

With a new TECH in the family, I thought this would be a good way to get him excited about HF and upgrading to General.

I have not even listened to 10 meters in the evenings.

Have there been any of these openings this summer?  I will start looking and let you know when I find them!

even when it seems like there’s nothing out there.  You never know what might come up!

It’s a beautiful sunny day here in Central NJ, so as per my custom, I headed out to the Jeep, the KX3 and the Buddistick at lunchtime.  From the get go, it seemed very disappointing.  There wasn’t a whole heckuva a lot of DX activity. What I was hearing were stations I have worked before and you don’t want to keep pestering guys on the same bands, just to get a contact in the log.

I started calling CQ at the 20, 17 and 15 Meter QRP watering holes with no takers.  I was slightly discouraged (Momma said there’d be days like this), and was ready to pack it in and head on back to my desk, slightly early.  That’s when I decided to give 17 Meters just one extra twiddle before coming in.

Bam!  There was TM70UTAH loud as all get out!  This is a Special Event station, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Allied landing at Utah Beach on D-Day in 1944.  First call and they were in the books!  I have to admit, I was so excited when I heard them that I had to send my call a few extra times as I fumbled it in my eagerness to work them.  I did hear a confirmation of W2LJ come back to me and I was smiling ear to ear. Next,  just a few KHz down, I heard SP3DOF calling “CQ DX”.  One call and I was in Jerzy’s logbook.

 

Wow! A WWII Special Event station and a Polish DX station worked within a few minutes of each other – a red letter day as far as I’m concerned.  And all this was after I was tempted to throw in the towel for the day. So it’s a good reminder (to myself included) to keep throwing that fishing line back into the water.  You never know what’s going to land on the hook.

The funny thing is, that TM70UTAH wasn’t even mentioned in that ARRL article on D-Day Special Event stations that I posted from the ARRL just a few days ago.  So in addition to TM70JUN, keep an ear open for TM70UTAH. I would like to work both of them!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Between 10 and 12 o'clock UTC there was a great opening on 6 meter. I worked TA1BM with JT65 on 50.276 MHz. 2233 km. It was my 28th DXCC on 6 meter. Also worked LZ2FP.

This afternoon Tim W3ATB and I went canoeing on the Pemi. It was a perfectly stunning day. I worked Brazil, Italy and France from a small island in the river.

We started out at Profile Falls, a little south of Bristol in my aluminum Grumman canoe. We had a little less than eight miles to go to reach our take-out at Shaw Cove in Sanbornton.

The sounds of red wing black birds clucking from the marshy shore filled the air as we rounded the bend near Hill Village. A pair of ducks took off as we approached and flew south several inches above the water. The old bridge abutment came into view soon after.

The bridge led from Sanbornton to Hill before it was torn down in the 1940s to make way for a flood control area. We started looking for a suitable place to operate. We needed trees, and a breezy place where the mosquitoes couldn’t feed on us. We found it on an island around the next turn in the river.

We pulled the canoe up to the shore and tied it to a log. After jumping out, I tossed a line over an arching maple branch and pulled up a half wave wire for 20 meters.

I sat down on a log, which no doubt landed on the island during spring flooding, and set up the KX3. We had left an hour late and were a bit rushed. At first the band seemed dead, but I found a few strong stations. The first one I called was PV8ADI in Brazil. There was a pileup, and I was surprised when he answered me. We exchanged 599s and I tuned around some more. Here’s my log:

1 Jun-14 2208 14.026 PV8ADI CW 599 599 Brazil
1 Jun-14 2215 14.017 F6FZG CW 579 599 France
1 Jun-14 2222 14.012 IZ4BEZ CW 599 599 Italy
1 Jun-14 2223 14.001 I8GMG CW 559 579 Italy

We clambered back into the canoe and headed downstream for the final leg. The saturated colors of the early evening were dazzling. We started looking for Shaw Cove. It’s just around the next bend, I would say… but it wasn’t.

We found it finally… honestly we were relieved and a bit sad at the same time. We were both long overdue at home… but it was an adventure that will stay with us for a lifetime.

Marv K2VHW and I met this afternoon to scope out the two parks we have in mind for Field Day. As I had mentioned before, our first choice is Spring Lake Park, which is the property of Middlesex County. That gazebo is huge! It can easily accommodate two large tables for operating, as well as supply space for observers and guests. In addition, there are trees that are close enough to support a full sized G5RV and another to support the EARCHI end fed (more about that later).

The other venue possibility, Putnam Street Park, is another excellent site. There is plenty of space, it has high visibility and plenty of traffic. Trees are plentiful and there are restroom facilities on hand. There’s only one drawback – a lack of shelter. We would have to borrow or rent a multi-person tent, to have a place to operate in the case of inclement weather.

After I got home from our scouting trip, I decided to play for a bit, and try out that 53 foot radiator for the EARCHI antenna. I was hoping that if all worked out, this would be our CW Field Day antenna, as well as what I would use for FOBB and the Skeeter Hunt.

My experience today shows that that chart published by Balun Designs was spot on! I quickly got excellent matches with the KX3’s auotuner on all the bands almost instantly. 17 Meters was the hardest band to match and that only took about two seconds to accomplish.

I made contact with Josh 6Y5WJ and CO0SS on 15 Meters and a PY2 station on 10 Meters. These were made with the antenna at a less than optimal height too, as I used my Jackite pole as the support. Once I get this baby up properly in a tree, it should perform even better.

After that, I worked on a design for a banner that we will use on Field Day. This is what I have come up with so far:

This is an 8 X 3 foot banner made from heavy outdoor vinyl, with grommets and wind slits. If I get approval from the rest of the Field Day Committee, I will place the order tomorrow evening.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!