QRP from the Seashore
July 2017
Judy and I drove over to the beach today. It was glorious! We got
lots of sun, had a fantastic walk,
and I operated in the CWT sprint for a few minutes. The highlight of
the operating was making a
beach-to-beach QRP QSO with K4KRW in North Carolina.
We drove over to Rye Harbor in the morning and had a picnic lunch as
soon as we arrived. Then we
walked a couple of miles along the beach. After this Judy lay down
on the shore to soak up
some sun. I rode my bike about a half mile inland to play radio for
a while. I'd brought a kite, but
there wasn't quite enough wind to lift an antenna... so I went in
search of some trees. I found a wildlife
area not too far from the road. A narrow path leads through
the woods to a platform overlooking
a beautiful inland marsh.
Except for the heat (high 80s in the shade), the spot was perfect. I
had a 30 foot tree nearby and
set up the wire as a sloper. The little deck even had a chair and a
bench to operate on. I ran the KX3
on 20 meters and right away worked IK0YVV in Italy. Marco gave me a
559. Then I worked Gilly,
WA5SNL in Texas. He also gave me a 559.
After signing I tuned up to the QRP frequency. K4KRW, Richard, was
calling CQ. To my delight,
he was operating from a beach in North Carolina with a KX3 and an
end-fed wire. But... his wire
was lifted by a kite! After arriving home, I found an email from
Richard with a photo of his
operating position.
We had a great QSO and exchanged 559 signal reports. What a thrill
to work another
KX3 operator on the beach!
Now the CWT sprint had started and I joined in. I only operated for
10 minutes,
because by now my shirt was drenched and I'd had enough of this
heat. Here's
my log. I've changed it to reflect the other station's QTH instead
of the CWOPS
member number used in the real exchange:
19 Jul-17 1840 14.028 IK0YVV CW 559 579 Italy
Marco
19 Jul-17 1848 14.029 WA5SNL CW 559 579 TX
Gilly
19 Jul-17 1854 14.060 K4KRW CW 559 559
NC Richard
19 Jul-17 1902 14.036 AA3B CW 599 599
PA Bud
19 Jul-17 1903 14.035 K9CT CW 599 599
IL Craig
19 Jul-17 1903 14.034 AD8J CW 599 599
NC John
19 Jul-17 1905 14.032 K4RO CW 599 599
TN Kirk
19 Jul-17 1907 14.026 N4ZZ CW 599 599
TN Doc
19 Jul-17 1908 14.036 N2SR CW 599 599
NJ Tom
19 Jul-17 1909 14.034 NR4M CW 599 599
VA Steve
With this I packed up and headed back to Rye Harbor. This is really
a beautiful spot.
Wild rugosa roses form a hedge along the road and fill the air with
fragrance. Next to
the harbor is a little state park with facilities. It's a perfect
place to spend the day.
