I had originally planned on operating at N6BT's QTH, but when Tom put up the
6m antenna, he discovered constant S9 line noise, which pretty much took
care of any hopes of operating at his place. I was happy to hear that a
Thursday morning Email to Dave, W6NL, netted a positive reply to my last
minute call for a QTH to operate from. Many thanks to Dave and Barb for
hosting me at their wonderful mountain top home. Their location in CM97 is
at 3400' on a mountain that overlooks both the Pacific Ocean, the entire SF
Bay area, with line of sight into Sacramento to boot.
On Friday afternoon and Saturday morning Dave and I installed my entire
station plus 3 Yagi's on the existing towers. Many thanks to Dave for
climbing the towers in support of this operation.
I don't normally operate VHF from the West coast, but I got bit by the 6m
bug while in Jamaica a few weeks ago. I didn't think that conditions were
all that great based on my limited knowledge. Saturday was fairly
unremarkable in terms of propagation, though the evening opening into KL7
was fun. Sunday morning there was some double hop Es with a lone VE3, and a
few eastern EN and EM's in the log. Then the band died out, and got really
slow, so I took a 1.5 hour nap. Well as in all contests, you tend to sleep
through the openings... when I awoke, 6m was hopping, and I was having my
highest rate of the contest when I got back on the band! The opening faded
quickly, but I occasionally worked some double hop into Florida up to the
end of the contest.
6M: 384 QSOs x 126 mults
Equipment:
JRC JST-245
Acom 1000 with 1 KW on 6m
7 ele M2 rotatable at 40'
5 ele Cushcraft @ 20' fixed at 60 degs
3 ele Cushcraft @ 20' fixed S/E
The Acom just sat there as usual and was quiet as a mouse. That amp has
performed well on my 2 Jamaica trips and the 6m operation from Jamaica as
well as W6NL's. Seems to be a FB traveling amp!
73, Kenny K2KW
www.k2kw.com
www.dxholiday.com
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