EN39 trip completed - what a TRIP!
Unfortunately my post on going to EN39 did not get out until just now, so that is old news. That said, I am back from the trip and I had a lot of fun!
If you worked me and want a QSL card please send me an SASE to my address listed here. Please NOTE: ****I do not E-QSL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*****
Here is a look at the operating position and the antennas:
Main table: IC-718 on the left, TS-2000 right, Yaseu rotator control box between, Heil GM-4 mic on the boom, K8RA P4 key, Astron PS below
Right side table: IC-207h top, RCI-5054dx below, Cobra 29wxnwst CB under the paper, misc. tools/boxes/junk
Antenna farm: M2 440-21ATV 432 beam up top, Cushcraft 13b2 2m in the middle, Cushcraft A50-5s 6m bottom, homebrew Crappie pole antenna for HF to the left.
I was on the air for 8 days and racked up 3-1/2 pages of QSO's on 6 meters in my regular log. I made 30 some QSO's in the VHF contest - all but one 2m QSO were 6m, and only 11 were SSB - the rest were CW! Running CW in the contest was great practice. I can send fluently at 25-30wpm but I can't recieve very well. So passing calls and grids made it a lot easier on me to make QSO's - as opposed to sitting there ragchewing for 2 hours. If I can run 20-25wpm on 6m passing calls and grids more often I should start to get more comfortable at regular code. I might even be able to run a normal ragchew at 10-15wpm right now, I just haven't tried since the test HI.
6m propagation was king most of the trip. If there was any band to make QSO's on it was 6m. In fact, I only made ONE 2m QSO the entire trip - and that was after 30-45 minutes of calling CQ! 432 was totally dead. There were several nice openings on 6m. I worked down into Texas a lot and found out I was the only opening a few times. It is nice to run 100w on a 5 element beam - I can get a signal through marginal propagation, although more power and a bigger antenna would be even better! Propagation worked out well for me - I usually made QSO's when I wanted to and was able to get out and enjoy the lake and the island when there wasn't any propagation.
The contest brought some nice openings on 6, but for the most part was a pain. I have operated contests where I could spin my antennas and snag everyone on 3 bands everywhere I pointed - all through the night. Being way up North I didn't have the concentration of Hams to be able to support that kind of "shooting fish in a barrel" affect. I had to wait for band openings to make any QSO's and it was very irritating sitting in front of the radio WANTING to work everyone but either I had already worked them or the band was so dead I couldn't bust through.
My first QSO was with K5QE. Having Marshall on the other end for once was an unusual occurrence. He usually has a crew of contesters running the bands. That was my only QSO until several hours in to the contest. Then the fun started!
I worked my first Aurora opening. I just kinda stumbled in to the opening. I was monitoring 50.125 and heard some strange noise. So I started hunting to figure out what it was. It sounded like CW so I went to CW and copied KM0T in EN12 - due South. When I turned my antennas down his way he went away! Back around the antennas went to find the signal. When I got to North he was VERY loud! I snagged a QSO and on I went working some more stations. I only got one SSB QSO on Aurora. It was very irritating listening to it. Frankly, it gave me a headache! CW was irritating enough to copy, at least I wasn't trying to copy spoken words. CW can be sent and copied in any kind of "noise" - I don't think the same can be said for voices!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also worked coast to coast on one frequency back to back in the log. I heard W1XR calling on 50.150. So I called back several times. No answer. The band just wasn't strong enough. Then, WB6AAG popped up right on 50.150 off the back of the antenna. I spun the antenna around and his signal went way up. So I called back and snagged CM95. I could still hear W1XR so I spun the antennas around and a few moments later I got FN55! California and Maine on the same frequency - pretty cool!
The weather on my trip was terrible. Absolutely terrible. There were three nice days and two of them happened to be set-up day and tear-down day! For the most part it was WINDY, cold, rainy, windy, cold, and... more rain. I am very lucky that I got my antennas up and down without needing my rain gear and 6 layers of clothes underneath. We experienced a down burst this year. I was standing on the porch watching the clouds and rain when it started up. The wind was gusting before so I was watching the antennas and they were bouncing around a bit. Then we got a gust - one that wouldn't let up. It was about 15-20mph sustained for a couple seconds. Then it picked up nice and steady and I started getting pelted with rain drops. So I ducked inside the cabin. The door started vibrating and the floor boards were humming. It was quite a blow. There were no loud crashes, luckily. The next day I looked at the antennas real quick and my 432 beam (on top) was moved about 20deg off the rest of the antennas, no biggie. I am sure lucky that is all that happened!!!!!!!
What can I say? Sporadic E enhanced 6 meter propagation and Wind enhanced H2O propagation!! At least one I could take full advantage of and totally avoid the other sitting in a nice toasty-warm cabin. Looking to the South off the front porch.
So why is this in with the "bad" weather? Note the two layers of jackets. What you don't see are the other two layers of shirts and 4 layers of pants below. And I was still cold.
We had a down burst back in 2001 that was very bad. There was widespread damage - trees were snapped off like toothpicks, boathouses got wings, and the power was out for a week. I have never heard such strange, scary sounds coming from wood before! That year I didn't have any antennas up, it was before I was really in to Ham radio like I am now. The blow this past trip was not nearly as bad but it was a very similar situation in the way that the wind came. When you hear wood creaking and vibrating like I did in both blows you are remembered REAL quick you are in a LOG cabin! The structural integrity is not the same as in a modern house. After going through the blows it makes me wonder how the original cabin is still standing after nearly 100 years! I hope old man Murphy doesn't read this...
On the good weather side: Set-up day was interrupted by this guy.
Jack tying up the airplane, Mom and Grandpa to the left. Jack is a long-time family friend from over at Northwest Flying. He heard we just got in town and decided to jump over here from another lake and say Hi.
The airplane is an old Piper Supercub, PA18. It was sitting around for about 15 years. Jack refurbished it and rebuilt the engine - now it files!
Aside from the lost time, I didn't mind Jack's visit one bit!
About half-way through the trip we got a real nice sunny day again. I got the sailboat out for a few minutes, but it was too breezy to be comfortable. I went for a swim a few years ago when this little boat went over.
The trip there was an interesting trip. My brother moved to Chicago a couple weeks before. So I pulled a Uhaul trailer with some stuff in it to Chicago the first day. My grandpa lives at the cabin in the Summer time and stopped in Ohio on the way up. So we went up together. My mom and grandpa drove in one car and I drove in the truck - with all the crap. As if my truck wasn't loaded down enough with MY crap, I had a trailer to pull also.
Going back to the wind. I don't mind pulling trailers. I like pulling trailers. There is something about a truck with a bunch of stuff that intrigues me. I like the maneuverability challenge and needing that extra sense to do it right. But in the WIND?!? HOLY SH##! I fought a good stiff 30mph head wind all the way to Chicago. I have NEVER driven in wind like that before! My truck has the 5.3L V8 and I was only pulling a 5x10' single axle trailer. I never would have guessed my truck would be worked so hard before. I have never run in to a horsepower issue and never thought I would. Boy did I learn a lesson! The weight I was carrying was one thing (both in the truck and in the trailer) - I could have managed with that. With the added wind resistance I had an entirely other-worldly driving experience.
I had to add the red strap across the bed/cap (the reason for stopping here) because the latches on my cap vibrate loose and wind got underneath nearly tearing it off the truck. It was quite scary to look back and see the cap up 2' on one side!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it was 90 degrees outside too. Air conditioning to the rescue!! NOT! I tried to drive with the A/C on the first part of the trip. Once I was on the highway it became entirely clear that I had two choices:
1. Enjoy the nice cozy cool ride in A/C AND ride in 3ord gear at about 3500-4000rpm trying to stay at highway speeds or,
2. Scrap the A/C, open the windows, and at least TRY to keep the truck in 4th gear.
Well, I took #2. I still bogged down climbing hills and had a few semi trucks pass me, but I didn't blow my engine or transmission. As for the gas - there was no saving fuel on this leg of the trip! I didn't even bother with calculating my mpg, however later the second day (no trailer) I calculated it between 16-17 mpg - a good 3mpg less than normal. Again - the head wind.
I have an external el-cheapo cell phone antenna I used on the trip. It came stock with a 3" mag, but after it blew off the truck 3 times in one day off went the 3" and on went a 5". When I stopped in Duluth, MN for the night I noticed it had a funny lean to it. It was literally bent back from the force of the wind!
The antenna that goes up next to the name on the hotel is the cell antenna - back right of the truck roof. Note the other two antennas are straight.
Another funny spectacle that happened was my full-size 102" whip on a spring mount wanted to be a horizontally polarized antenna. It usually lays back quite a ways going down the road, but with the added wind it truly went horizontal! After watching the antenna in the mirror it became quite obvious why all the cars behind me either hit their breaks or sped up and passed me with strange looks on their faces.
Nothing worthy of mentioning on the way home, other than the flooding in Wisconsin. I-94 North was closed here for many miles due to a couple of streams that were over-flowing. Here we are stopped in traffic. Dump trucks were hauling some materials and needed to cross over in to our lane to deliver it. That lead to BOTH lanes being closed.
So now I am back from my great adventure. After tearing down the station, loading the truck, an 1100 mile drive home, unloading the truck, and getting an "I need some help" call from a buddy doing construction work the day after I got home that turned in to a 14 hour day... I need some rest!! Then I get to repeat all the work and effort for Field Day next weekend (minus the drive). Yay. Lets just hope we don't get all the WIND again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you worked me and want a QSL card please send me an SASE to my address listed here. Please NOTE: ****I do not E-QSL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*****
Here is a look at the operating position and the antennas:
Main table: IC-718 on the left, TS-2000 right, Yaseu rotator control box between, Heil GM-4 mic on the boom, K8RA P4 key, Astron PS below
Right side table: IC-207h top, RCI-5054dx below, Cobra 29wxnwst CB under the paper, misc. tools/boxes/junk
Antenna farm: M2 440-21ATV 432 beam up top, Cushcraft 13b2 2m in the middle, Cushcraft A50-5s 6m bottom, homebrew Crappie pole antenna for HF to the left.
I was on the air for 8 days and racked up 3-1/2 pages of QSO's on 6 meters in my regular log. I made 30 some QSO's in the VHF contest - all but one 2m QSO were 6m, and only 11 were SSB - the rest were CW! Running CW in the contest was great practice. I can send fluently at 25-30wpm but I can't recieve very well. So passing calls and grids made it a lot easier on me to make QSO's - as opposed to sitting there ragchewing for 2 hours. If I can run 20-25wpm on 6m passing calls and grids more often I should start to get more comfortable at regular code. I might even be able to run a normal ragchew at 10-15wpm right now, I just haven't tried since the test HI.
6m propagation was king most of the trip. If there was any band to make QSO's on it was 6m. In fact, I only made ONE 2m QSO the entire trip - and that was after 30-45 minutes of calling CQ! 432 was totally dead. There were several nice openings on 6m. I worked down into Texas a lot and found out I was the only opening a few times. It is nice to run 100w on a 5 element beam - I can get a signal through marginal propagation, although more power and a bigger antenna would be even better! Propagation worked out well for me - I usually made QSO's when I wanted to and was able to get out and enjoy the lake and the island when there wasn't any propagation.
The contest brought some nice openings on 6, but for the most part was a pain. I have operated contests where I could spin my antennas and snag everyone on 3 bands everywhere I pointed - all through the night. Being way up North I didn't have the concentration of Hams to be able to support that kind of "shooting fish in a barrel" affect. I had to wait for band openings to make any QSO's and it was very irritating sitting in front of the radio WANTING to work everyone but either I had already worked them or the band was so dead I couldn't bust through.
My first QSO was with K5QE. Having Marshall on the other end for once was an unusual occurrence. He usually has a crew of contesters running the bands. That was my only QSO until several hours in to the contest. Then the fun started!
I worked my first Aurora opening. I just kinda stumbled in to the opening. I was monitoring 50.125 and heard some strange noise. So I started hunting to figure out what it was. It sounded like CW so I went to CW and copied KM0T in EN12 - due South. When I turned my antennas down his way he went away! Back around the antennas went to find the signal. When I got to North he was VERY loud! I snagged a QSO and on I went working some more stations. I only got one SSB QSO on Aurora. It was very irritating listening to it. Frankly, it gave me a headache! CW was irritating enough to copy, at least I wasn't trying to copy spoken words. CW can be sent and copied in any kind of "noise" - I don't think the same can be said for voices!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also worked coast to coast on one frequency back to back in the log. I heard W1XR calling on 50.150. So I called back several times. No answer. The band just wasn't strong enough. Then, WB6AAG popped up right on 50.150 off the back of the antenna. I spun the antenna around and his signal went way up. So I called back and snagged CM95. I could still hear W1XR so I spun the antennas around and a few moments later I got FN55! California and Maine on the same frequency - pretty cool!
The weather on my trip was terrible. Absolutely terrible. There were three nice days and two of them happened to be set-up day and tear-down day! For the most part it was WINDY, cold, rainy, windy, cold, and... more rain. I am very lucky that I got my antennas up and down without needing my rain gear and 6 layers of clothes underneath. We experienced a down burst this year. I was standing on the porch watching the clouds and rain when it started up. The wind was gusting before so I was watching the antennas and they were bouncing around a bit. Then we got a gust - one that wouldn't let up. It was about 15-20mph sustained for a couple seconds. Then it picked up nice and steady and I started getting pelted with rain drops. So I ducked inside the cabin. The door started vibrating and the floor boards were humming. It was quite a blow. There were no loud crashes, luckily. The next day I looked at the antennas real quick and my 432 beam (on top) was moved about 20deg off the rest of the antennas, no biggie. I am sure lucky that is all that happened!!!!!!!
What can I say? Sporadic E enhanced 6 meter propagation and Wind enhanced H2O propagation!! At least one I could take full advantage of and totally avoid the other sitting in a nice toasty-warm cabin. Looking to the South off the front porch.
So why is this in with the "bad" weather? Note the two layers of jackets. What you don't see are the other two layers of shirts and 4 layers of pants below. And I was still cold.
We had a down burst back in 2001 that was very bad. There was widespread damage - trees were snapped off like toothpicks, boathouses got wings, and the power was out for a week. I have never heard such strange, scary sounds coming from wood before! That year I didn't have any antennas up, it was before I was really in to Ham radio like I am now. The blow this past trip was not nearly as bad but it was a very similar situation in the way that the wind came. When you hear wood creaking and vibrating like I did in both blows you are remembered REAL quick you are in a LOG cabin! The structural integrity is not the same as in a modern house. After going through the blows it makes me wonder how the original cabin is still standing after nearly 100 years! I hope old man Murphy doesn't read this...
On the good weather side: Set-up day was interrupted by this guy.
Jack tying up the airplane, Mom and Grandpa to the left. Jack is a long-time family friend from over at Northwest Flying. He heard we just got in town and decided to jump over here from another lake and say Hi.
The airplane is an old Piper Supercub, PA18. It was sitting around for about 15 years. Jack refurbished it and rebuilt the engine - now it files!
Aside from the lost time, I didn't mind Jack's visit one bit!
About half-way through the trip we got a real nice sunny day again. I got the sailboat out for a few minutes, but it was too breezy to be comfortable. I went for a swim a few years ago when this little boat went over.
The trip there was an interesting trip. My brother moved to Chicago a couple weeks before. So I pulled a Uhaul trailer with some stuff in it to Chicago the first day. My grandpa lives at the cabin in the Summer time and stopped in Ohio on the way up. So we went up together. My mom and grandpa drove in one car and I drove in the truck - with all the crap. As if my truck wasn't loaded down enough with MY crap, I had a trailer to pull also.
Going back to the wind. I don't mind pulling trailers. I like pulling trailers. There is something about a truck with a bunch of stuff that intrigues me. I like the maneuverability challenge and needing that extra sense to do it right. But in the WIND?!? HOLY SH##! I fought a good stiff 30mph head wind all the way to Chicago. I have NEVER driven in wind like that before! My truck has the 5.3L V8 and I was only pulling a 5x10' single axle trailer. I never would have guessed my truck would be worked so hard before. I have never run in to a horsepower issue and never thought I would. Boy did I learn a lesson! The weight I was carrying was one thing (both in the truck and in the trailer) - I could have managed with that. With the added wind resistance I had an entirely other-worldly driving experience.
I had to add the red strap across the bed/cap (the reason for stopping here) because the latches on my cap vibrate loose and wind got underneath nearly tearing it off the truck. It was quite scary to look back and see the cap up 2' on one side!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it was 90 degrees outside too. Air conditioning to the rescue!! NOT! I tried to drive with the A/C on the first part of the trip. Once I was on the highway it became entirely clear that I had two choices:
1. Enjoy the nice cozy cool ride in A/C AND ride in 3ord gear at about 3500-4000rpm trying to stay at highway speeds or,
2. Scrap the A/C, open the windows, and at least TRY to keep the truck in 4th gear.
Well, I took #2. I still bogged down climbing hills and had a few semi trucks pass me, but I didn't blow my engine or transmission. As for the gas - there was no saving fuel on this leg of the trip! I didn't even bother with calculating my mpg, however later the second day (no trailer) I calculated it between 16-17 mpg - a good 3mpg less than normal. Again - the head wind.
I have an external el-cheapo cell phone antenna I used on the trip. It came stock with a 3" mag, but after it blew off the truck 3 times in one day off went the 3" and on went a 5". When I stopped in Duluth, MN for the night I noticed it had a funny lean to it. It was literally bent back from the force of the wind!
The antenna that goes up next to the name on the hotel is the cell antenna - back right of the truck roof. Note the other two antennas are straight.
Another funny spectacle that happened was my full-size 102" whip on a spring mount wanted to be a horizontally polarized antenna. It usually lays back quite a ways going down the road, but with the added wind it truly went horizontal! After watching the antenna in the mirror it became quite obvious why all the cars behind me either hit their breaks or sped up and passed me with strange looks on their faces.
Nothing worthy of mentioning on the way home, other than the flooding in Wisconsin. I-94 North was closed here for many miles due to a couple of streams that were over-flowing. Here we are stopped in traffic. Dump trucks were hauling some materials and needed to cross over in to our lane to deliver it. That lead to BOTH lanes being closed.
So now I am back from my great adventure. After tearing down the station, loading the truck, an 1100 mile drive home, unloading the truck, and getting an "I need some help" call from a buddy doing construction work the day after I got home that turned in to a 14 hour day... I need some rest!! Then I get to repeat all the work and effort for Field Day next weekend (minus the drive). Yay. Lets just hope we don't get all the WIND again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by Steve at
10:09 PM
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