N7CW FD report

[James N. Price]

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Hi gang,

I joined Bud--N7CW, Rich--KI6ZH (the local wunderkind), and
several others for FD from Hot Springs Mtn near Warner Springs in
northeastern San Diego County. (Yes, we *felt* both earthquakes
big time!) We entered class 2A plus a novice/tech station.
Initial merge on CT looked like about 2100 Qs and 6K points, not
bad I guess.

What made this FD a little different, besides the earthquakes, was
our primary HF antenna.  See this guy Harvey, KD6QK, is a gadget
builder.  He constructed a trailer to hold an enormous (by FD
standards), collapsable tower, plus carefully constructed boxes to
house coax, ropes, tools, a cooking galley, etc., etc.  And I was
nominted to tow this sucker up the mountain with my 4WD drive pickup.
We made it up and down OK, but it was kinda hairy.

Anyway this mast was used to hold a 6 element (!) tri-bander at
about 40 feet.  It took *hours* to assemble, raise, peak and
tweek, etc.  But it WORKED!  We had some incredible runs on 10 and
15 meters.  In fact 10 opened about 5 p.m. on Saturday, mostly to
W4 land, altho we worked lots of E. Coast, too.  We worked over
300 stations on one freq. in the novice phone band in just over
2 hours.  It was a feeding frenzy.  I didn't know that many KB4,
KC4, and KD4 calls had been issued!  We had a similar experience
on 15 meter SSB on Sat. afternoon, and again on Sunday morning.
In fact the pile on Sun. morning was so deep that the operator was
working by call districts for a few minutes!

We hadn't intended to make so many SSB Qs, but the rate during
those stretches was so high that it was probably justifiable.  20
was never that great.  Lotsa Qs, but no feeding frenzies.

Wx was superb--clear, about high 70s in day, low 60s at night, and
*no wind*.

I'm not convinced that this trailer/beam combo was quite in the
"spirit" of FD due to length of time it took to get it on the air.
But I understand some people do pre-tuned mono-banders at 70 feet
for FD, and that isn't either.

Anyway, it was quite an experience, and no major glitches.

73--Jim, K6ZH (CQ FD, this is N7 Charlie Whiskey)

P.S. to N2IC--I passed ur msg to Bud, and he returns the greeting
and memory.
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Addressees in 'derek' are:  oo7 at astro.as.utexas.edu