QRP Afield at Bald Ledge
September 2018
What a perfect day for QRP Afield! Tim W3ATB and I hiked up to Bald
Ledge
between Meredith and Ashland and operated for nearly an hour. We
worked
a few QRP stations, but also Greece and Finland.
We set up on the ledges with Tim's KX2. He heaved a 29 foot wire
over a
pine tree and ran it as a sloper. We sat down and tuned around. Mert
W0UFO
in Minnesota was our first contact. He was running 5 watts. We were
psyched.
For a while Mert was the only QRP Afield station we heard, so we
tuned down
the band and started working stations in the Washington State Salmon
Run.
Tim and I passed the key back and forth. I'd work a station, then
Tim would too.
After a few stations we worked Dave AB9CA/0. Dave's an old QRP
operator
who was working the Iowa QSO Party.
Tuning down the band we came across two strong DX stations... OG60F
in
Finland and SV1ENG in Greece. Tim was pretty excited to work them
both.
We had good luck all around even though we couldn't hear
a lot of QRP activity. Here's my log:
15 Sep-18 1730 14.060 W0UFO CW 559 559 MN
5W
15 Sep-18 1740 14.055 W7DX CW 599
599 WA
15 Sep-18 1741 14.051 AB9CA/0 CW 599 599 Iowa
15 Sep-18 1745 14.048 W7FLY CW 599 599
WA
15 Sep-18 1752 14.043 W7VXS CW 599 599
WA
15 Sep-18 1756 14.042 OG60F CW 599 599
Finland
15 Sep-18 1803 14.031 SV1ENG CW 599 599
Greece
15 Sep-18 1810 14.058 WA1CFX CW 559 559 NH 5W
After we packed up our gear we gazed toward the Sandwich
Mountains and the gorgeous view once again. We headed
home. What a perfect day!