[VHFcontesting] W6XM CM93 -- ARRL June 2011

[John Weaver (W6XM)]

The trip and contest went great. At the last moment we invited our friend 
(but not-a-ham) Brian to go with as we had an extra seat on the plane. 
He acted as porter, chef, antenna raiser and photographer. He contributed 
at least as much as Eric and I.

The flight on Channel Islands Air was spectctular. We were on weather hold 
for a while, but we made it out. The pilot pointed out at least a dozen 
blue whales off the coast of Santa Cruz Island. A few minutes later he 
slowed the prop, turned the controls, we floated out of the sky and 
touched down on the dirt strip in one of the smoothest touchdowns I've 
ever experienced.

We operated from a hill that forms the northern half of the valley that 
the campground is in. For six meters we had a five element yagi at 15' 
at more or less a 60deg beam heading. The two meter antenna was also at 
15' on it's own mast with the 432 bouncing between the two as we tried to 
figure out what to do with it.

I've already received one qsl card and I am working on the design for ours 
using pictures that Brian took during the weekend we were on Santa Rosa. 
We made sure to get a shot of the gps displaying CM93xx as we had a few 
incredulous callers that doubted that we could be in that grid.

We had fun, had a great contest and everyone came home safe. Now that we 
know more about what it takes to do a DXpedition, even a mini, we are 
thinking of ways to improve. More at http://w6xm.org/2011.jun-vhf/

---
Bands	QSOs	Value	QSOPts	Mults
50	90	1	90	51
144	35	1	35	11
432	8	2	16	6

Grids activated: 1
Totals:   133		141	68          

Claimed Score: 9588

--
john weaver - W6XM


On Thu, 9 Jun 2011, John Weaver (W6XM) wrote:

> Hello,
>
> John (W6XM) and Eric (KR0VER) will be in CM93 on Santa Rosa Island. We've
> got two 857d's and 10db+ gain antennas on 6m/2m/70cm. A combination of
> lack of power/training/skill prevents us from doing anything other than
> ssb; Maybe next time. Please see http://w6xm.org/2011.jun-vhf/ for more
> details. Good luck in the contest!
>
> --
> john weaver - W6XM
>
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