Flight of the Bumble Bees 2006
Wow! What a day in New Hampshire.
Absolutely perfect. In the 80s and clear
blue sky.
Dick, N1LT and I hiked up to a remote cabin
on Knox Mountain in Sanbornton, New Hampshire.
It's about a half hour walk along a beautiful stream. Lots
of little waterfalls, sparkling in the sunlight...
the stuff of pictures.
Here's a shot of the pond in front of the cabin.
We set up two antennas. The first was a 44 foot dipole running
East and West fed with 300 ohm ribbon. The second was an
inverted L up about 30 feet and running North and South about 60 feet.
There was a 20 foot counterpoise.
We operated on 20 and 40 and switched between the two bands.
Dick ran an FT-817 and used the 44 foot dipole. I ran an ATS-2
on the inverted L.
I'm pretty sure the dipole outperformed the L
on both bands. At least signals sounded louder on the dipole.
Here's Dick operating on 20 meters.
I made a total of 21 QSOs... 11 QSOs on 20 meters and 10 QSOs
on 40 meters. We operated about 2 and a half hours. I worked
14 bees and 17 SPCs. Most memorable, PEI, WY, CO, FL and
WA. QSB was pretty rapid on both bands. I really thought we'd
work more stations. But as you can see in the shot below, we
had a fantastic time.
Thanks to all those bees out there who pulled our weak signal
out of the wilds of Knox Mountain. 73 Jim W1PID