I just got home from EN39. What a drive! 20 hours there and 20.5 hours back. I
didn' have any problems getting through Canadian or US customs, and no
problems operating in Ontario (I didnt expect any - I havent the previous 4-5
years, but as always - things can change).
I got on the air on 6m with a dipole the first night we were there. I had to
get something set up HI. This prooved to be quite an antenna, however. I
worked my 1 and only pileup on this one.
It took me all day Saturday to set the beams up and get the mast situated. I
had to really use my head to figure it out. I spent half the time walking
around the rock trying to find where to guy it. I couldn't bang steaks into
the rock.. I only had a few trees to pick from, and none of them provided the
correct angles on the lines.
I was supposed to go to a party saturday but I opted out of it because I
knew how much work I had with the antennas - A LOT. Luckily everything went
together with few snags. My tram system worked pretty well.
Sunday morning I got the beams raised and ran those (6m only, though - no
contacts on 144 or 432) from Sunday afternoon through Thursday morning.
Saturday 7/14 was the best day - 6 opened up pretty good. EM's in the
morning and then the band got better - turned to FN's and EM's . Wednesday
7/18 was another great opening - this time CN's. The other days were scattered
tropo and localized Es openings. I didnt get any contacts on Tuesday the 17th
at all.
I set my screwdriver antenna up for HF at first. I tried to get on 40 meters
but the band had S9 noise across the whole thing. The noise didnt let up much
until 20 and above. I cant quite figure it out. I still had noise on 6 and 2
but it wasnt enough to move the meter any. 6 was actually VERY quiet, even
though I had noticeable noise in there.
Thanks to all the stations I worked (about 3 pages in my log)! If I worked
you please send me a QSL card to confirm our QSO with an SASE for a special
card in return - I am going to make one out of some pictures I took while I
was there.
I will post back here a link to my photobucket site once I get my pictures
loaded on there.
73's,
Steve, KC8QVO
---------------------------------
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