( Part II )
We arrived at the site at shortly before noon and as we turned off the paved
road we ran into some deep snow and mud. Randy used his 4 wheel drive
machine to pack the road down and make some ruts/tracks for the rest of us
to follow in on. The ground was quite cold and the sniow frozen so once
Randy made a path, the rest of us were able to follow in without any
problem. We would worry about getting out after the contest if it snowed
again. We brought enough food for a week so at least we would not be hungry
if we got snowed in. There was quite a bit of snow and all the tree
branches were heavy with snow. I was concerned that the three beverages we
left up would be down. After unloading all the gear and equipment we split
up into teams. Jim W7GNP and Jeff KJ7TX would make up the VK/ZL beverage
and set it up. Randy and Scotty would start setting up the station and I
volunteered to walk each of the beverages we had left up to make sure they
had not come down somewhere along the line. I went off tromping in the
woods through about knee high snow checking the beverages. After about 200
feet I realized that my tennis shoes and Levi's were not what I should have
been wearing. My feet and legs up to my knees were soaked and getting quite
cold. However, I kept trucking and checked out each feed point and
beverage. I did find that on two of the beverages the wire had stretched
down to the ground from snow or ice weight or from Elk in the area as there
were a lot of tracks. I managed to find a large stick to push the beverages
back up into the tree branches and everything was ready to go. As I started
to go back to the cabin I realized that I had made so many tracks I wasn't
sure which way was the return route. So I had to keep pulling up one of the
feedlines to lead me back to the cabin. I then became part of the station
set up crew inside the cabin so I could thaw out and get warm. Jim and Jeff
were still working on the new beverage and decided to use Randy's 4 wheel
vehicle to lay it out. Smart thinking Jim, only a dummy would tromp through
the snow or a crazy contester. The balloon was launched and the top was
flying straight up at 180 feet. We proceeded to check all the equipment out
and checked the SWR . Yuck, the SWR was really high. After some problems
with shorted coax jumpers everything was ready to go about 15 minutes prior
to the start of the contest. So much for relaxing and planning.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART III
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