QRP from the North Field
September 2015
Judy and I hiked a couple of miles over Shute Hill to Swain's north
field this afternoon.
What a stunning day! I worked Tennessee on 20 meters and
Massachusetts on 40 meters with
the little MTR at 3 watts.
The trail goes south and east through the woods and meets up with an
east/west range road on
the other side of the hill. After a short distance we come to the
north field on Swain's dairy farm.
I tossed a line over a maple branch at the edge of the field and
pulled up the LNR endfed antenna
and set it up as an inverted vee.
I pulled off my sweater and sat down at the edge of the field. WZ4L,
Sam in Tennessee was just finishing up a QSO and I called him. He
gave me a 559 and we signed after exchanging info about our gear.
There were a only few weak stations on 20 meters, so I switched to
40. There on 7035 NM1I, Butch was
just finishing up a QSO. He wasn't far away in Massachusetts and we
exchanged 599 reports. His signal
was excellent. He often operates QRP while on canoe trips with a K1
or an ATS3 so he was curious
about my setup. We chatted for nearly 10 minutes before signing.
I packed up the equipment for the hike back. But I got one more
snapshot before heading back into the
woods.