[Mldxcc] Preliminary FD Results

[Jim Venneman]

Greetings,
I don't have all of the final QSO totals yet, but our Field Day score for the MLDXCC operation on Martis Peak is somewhere around 8,000 points. We made a little over 1,900 QSOs over the weekend in spite of mediocre band conditions, including a 6 meter contact with Hawaii off the back of the beam. That's also pretty good considering that we set this whole operation up in just two weeks.
It was a fun weekend. For one thing, we were above most of the smoke that was hanging around during the weekend and the weather was great. I was expecting really cold weather on top of the mountain at night, but it was quite comfortable. Participating in this year's event were (in no particular order) Rick, N6XI; Jim W6EU; Jack, KF6T, Jeff, WK6I; Rich, WC6H, Curtis, KI6ESK; Barry, K6ST, Pat, W6DRX, and Jim, WX6V. This was a good group and we are already talking about doing this again next year. 
This was an "all K3" operation, as we used the popular Elecraft transceivers for all three stations (2 main stations plus the GOTA). This is a nice rig that receives real well. Antennas consisted of a C3 at around 40', a 2-element 15-meter beam at 30', and wire antennas for 40 and 80. The fire lookout station on Martis Peak (elevation 8,655') made a great location for setting up stations. There's even a permanent outhouse there, which solved an ever-present problem when we go to Peddler Hill. We had lots of visitors - at least 29 people signed our visitor's log plus more that didn't sign in because we ran out of sign-in sheets! We also had visits from "served agencies" (CDF Fire and Placer County Sheriff's Office) and one elected official from the Tahoe-Truckee Airport District. There was a FB article about our operation in the local newspaper, the Sierra Sun, that probably contributed to the number of visitors.  
One of the highlights of the weekend was having my wife stop by a local restaraunt in Truckee and deliver a catered Italian dinner to us on Saturday night. There's nothing quite like having spaghetti and chicken parmesan with salad and bread while you are in the midst of a Field Day operation!   
I'll post the final score on the reflector when I finish up the final tally. I will also have a report along with some pictures ready for the next club meeting.
73s,
Jim  -WX6V-