Perfect Fall Color at Swain's Farm
October 2021

Judy and I walked up the range road to Swain's hay field this afternoon.
The fall colors were perfect. I operated in the CWT sprint and made more
than a dozen contacts including Croatia and Germany. What a day!



Tyler Swain was just getting ready to rake a fresh cut of hay. I set up under a maple tree on
20 meters. I was using the QCX-mini and a plain dipole. The antenna was set up as a sloper.
I powered the rig with 8 AA cells.



I started at 3:00 pm sharp. The first station I worked was 9A1AA in Croatia. Nice surprise.



The CWT sprint is a fast event. It only runs for an hour, but when it starts,
the band suddenly jumps to life. Here's my log:

13 Oct-21 1900  14.0 9A1AA CW 599 599 Croatia Ivo  
13 Oct-21 1902  14.0 WP3C  CW 599 599 PR      Al  
13 Oct-21 1903  14.0 N9TK  CW 599 599 IL      Jim  
13 Oct-21 1906  14.0 DK9PY CW 599 599 Germany Armin  
13 Oct-21 1908  14.0 N0TA  CW 599 599 CO      John  
13 Oct-21 1908  14.0 K9ZO  CW 599 599 IL      Al  
13 Oct-21 1909  14.0 K5PI  CW 599 599 TX      Rob  
13 Oct-21 1910  14.0 KM0O  CW 599 599 MN      Tony  
13 Oct-21 1912  14.0 N4KS  CW 599 599 FL      Ken  
13 Oct-21 1915  14.0 N5KB  CW 599 599 IA      Mike  
13 Oct-21 1916  14.0 N5RZ  CW 599 599 TX      Gator  
13 Oct-21 1918  14.0 K4EU  CW 599 599 FL      Steve  
13 Oct-21 1921  14.0 K4WW  CW 599 599 KY      Bo  

I've altered my log to show the location of each station. In the
sprint only the name and the CW Ops member number are
exchanged.

The color in New Hampshire will be at peak in a few days.
But we're not likely to get a day this warm again. It was
73F and beautiful.